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Jun 26, 2016

3-H Prayerful Living

Passage: Colossians 1:9-14

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Anatomy of a Savior

Category: Prayer

Keywords: constant prayer, faith, gospel transformation, reputation for love, power of hope

Summary:

This text deals with Paul's prayer for the Colossians, that they would essentially be filled up with both faith-understanding and experiential understanding of the will of God for them--body, soul and spirit. This passage challenges us to pray for the miraculous work of God in people's lives that will conform every part of them and their lives to His will and desire.

Detail:

This 3-H Prayerful Living

Colossians 1:9-14

Series: The Anatomy of a Savior

June 26, 2016

 

REVIEW: Last week we started this short series in Colossians 1 looking at how Paul’s famous triad of faith, hope and love was being experienced in this church in Colossae through the Gospel. That Gospel was affecting another triad of the human condition: their minds, their hearts and their bodies. 

            We ended last week talking about how the Gospel affects our MINDS:  the critical nature of embracing absolute truth found in God’s word and the catastrophic danger of adopting our cultures belief about truth that it is individualistic and relative.  For our culture, there is no “true north” when it comes to morality or truth or religion which leaves us in a sea of relativity and meaninglessness. 

            We talked briefly about the importance of having absolute truth that is rooted in the nature of our unchanging God and upon which we can build life.  Without that, we are left guessing about how life is to be lived and failing miserable and frequently.

            But once our minds choose to embrace both God and His absolute Truth, then something happens to our hearts.  While the Gospel fills our minds with faith in God (partly because faith is the most reasonable response to true truth), the Gospel fills our hearts with HOPE.  We recognize what amazingly true good news the Gospel is (vs. 5) for the entire world (vs. 6).  We come to experience how that Gospel actually grows and increases in our lives.  We’re not left stuck where we’ve always been. 

ILL:  Yesterday at Farregot we got to hang out with our Celebrate Recovery group that was joining 3 other similar recovery groups from Real Life and Valley Nazarine.  Talk about hope! (Relate the testimony of “Shannon”—parents’ divorce at 12, molested by a pastor/counselor at 13, multiple young male sexual abusers and rapists, pregnant at 16, forced to have an abortion…self-destructive behaviors, attempted suicide and a string of bad, abusive relationships, homelessness, several children, addiction…and finally back to Christ through recovery ministry.  

Fact is, we’re all like an old, dry seed that sat on the shelf in the dark of the garage for years and has finally been plunged into the warm earth of God’s grace, been given the water of the Word and illuminating light that starts faith germinating in our souls.  As God’s Spirit begins to grow us, we begin to take a shape and form we’ve never known, becoming amazingly productive, fruit-producing people who bring life and nourishment to others. 

Here’s how Paul says this faith and love grow out of hope.  Read 1:3-5.

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. 

There is an inseparable union between the truth of the Gospel about Christ and the hope that Christ is and has for us “in heaven.”  It’s interesting how much the focus of the Gospel has changed in our lifetime.  When I was young, it seemed to be more about being made right with God so that we could spend forever with God in heaven.  Now there seems to be little talk about eternity and everything about how embracing Christ by faith NOW changes our life here on earth. BOTH are true!

The “true message of the gospel” isn’t just about how Jesus changes life here and now for the better, true as that is.  It’s also about how eternal life will be forever amazing because it holds the assurance of being with our Savior Jesus forever.  It isn’t just “pie in the sky by and by”.  It’s SO much more!  It’s the whole banquet of life eternal with Christ forever, the whole enchilada of God and the fullness of His presence uninterrupted.

Without the eternal dimension of the Gospel, great as being made new in Jesus is now, we lose something very important.  We lose what the Bible calls “hope in Christ” that anchors us in an amazing future with God.  That future is both immediate and long-range. 

So much of the battle for hope in life comes from knowing, believing and embracing truth.  When we believe lies about life or God or people, it robs us of right choices, of positive emotions and of hope for a better future. 

ILL:  I learned this personally and especially powerfully when recovering from about 4 years of depression in my late 20s.  I had seen depression modeled in my home as a normal emotional response to a perceived unchangeable or hopeless situation.  The result was, as an adult who began to encounter discouraging or disappointing experiences in life, I began to believe some lies.  a.) I was trapped in a life I couldn’t change, and b.) that depression was the proper response to that belief.  I needed to come to grips personally with the fact that both those beliefs were wrong.

            On our first furlough, a wise, godly Christian counselor in Oregon simply helped me begin to recognize truth I could bring to bear on both those false beliefs.  To the lie a.) that I was trapped in a life I couldn’t change, he helped me see that all of life has choices…usually a bunch of choices for any given decision or situation.  I may not like many or even any of the choices. They may all have some perceived negatives.  But there are always different steps I can take to change life itself and my response to it.

And to the lie that depression was the right response to negative experiences, he would always run me to the “worst case result scenario”.  The worst result from making some decisions always ran me smack dab back into God himself. 

For instance, what if I made a choice that led my family into poverty for the rest of our lives?  As much as no man wants that for his family, would God be there in poverty?  Sure.  Poverty hasn’t stopped God from working with people.  In fact, He seems to step into our experience more directly when we’re poor than when we’re rich. 

What about if I ended up in a mental institution?  Would God be there?  Sure.  God meets people in mental confusion and anguish in ways He doesn’t with supposedly “normal/sane” people. 

What if one of my decisions resulted in my unintentional death?  Talk about where God will be!  The presence of God is what I’m longing for in all eternity!  Even a “worst case scenario” of starving to death will result in the best-case outcome for the child of God—heaven! 

I needed to embrace that if Jesus was ALL I had left in life, He was far more than enough!  I really didn’t need anything else that I was so desperately wishing would happen in my life.  I just needed HIM!

            Hope is amazingly powerful, especially when it is grounded in something you know is going to happen some day.

ILL:  Winter of 2000 when I was promised the “hope” of a sabbatical for 4 months that summer.  It was still future but very certain…and that anticipation lit up the next 6 months of my life with amazing energy, joy about what was coming and ability to persevere through the junk of the present.

APP:  The “hope laid up for us in heaven” outstrips that measly “hope” of sabbatical millions of times over.  If the temporary “hopes” of things like vacations and camping trips or pay raises and family reunions—if stuff like that lifts our hearts and prompts us to make plans and live differently—how much more will the “hope of glory”, “the hope stored up for us [by God] in heaven” give faith to our minds and love to our actions?

Which brings us to the final piece of spiritual anatomy Paul talks about--our HANDS…our actions.  When we choose to believe and embrace God and His Truth, that changes our HEARTS to such a degree that our ACTIONS/ HANDS will live love towards those around us be they believers or God-rejecters. 

            Though Paul had never met any of the Colossian church believers, he had heard about “love [they had] for all the saints” (vs. 4).  According to vs. 8, Epaphras had been telling on them to Paul.  He was telling Paul about the “love in the Spirit.”  He doesn’t describe exactly how that looked in their case, but from the list of attributes of the fruit of the Spirit, which includes love as part of that fruit, I’m guessing it looked like a church full of the Holy Spirit that was constantly loving each other in meaningful ways. 

            That doesn’t mean that we’re always going to get what we want or think we need from each other.  What we think we need or want isn’t always the best thing for us.  In fact, what we really need might not even look or feel like our concepts of cheap love. 

  • I may need a word of correction from someone in order to grow in some area of my life. I’ve never found that correction felt really good in the moment.  But when I’ve been humble enough to receive it, it has always born good fruit. 
  • Loving someone in need may mean that I actually become more needy myself. We feel that all the time when we try to love others, don’t we?  We get more tired, more emotionally involved, have less money and lose more sleep! J

But when this Gospel of Christ genuinely grips us, it will lead us into “love in the Spirit.” 

APP:  So let me just go straight to the application for us. 

Is Spokane hearing about the love we have for one another and for people in general around us? If we have embraced the true Gospel, we will be loving each other in ways that could actually be reported to other believers in other cities. 

            This is the action side of our faith in Jesus. I see it virtually every day of the week as I interact with you and see you interact with each other.  So let’s ask the question, “What does our love for all the saints” look like at Mosaic?  How has that love been visible, say, in the last month?  [Share examples.]

  • When I pull in to park and see Doug and Jason and Tobin helping people at the bike shop.
  • When I pull up Sunday morning and this place is a beehive of people preparing to serve all of us every Sunday morning before I get here.
  • When I go to one of the prayer meetings and hear people crying out to God for our city and each other!
  • When I see what our Mosaic tithe and benevolent funds are doing for people and ministries in Spokane.
  • When I go to Pioneer Pathways and see the food many of you prepare week after week and watch the genuine personal interest and love that team has for people.
  • When I sit in a home group or Bible study and see the genuine love and concern flowing between people.
  • When I see our children and youth teachers faithfully ministering (and having lots of fun) week after week.
  • When I see people delivering furniture or picking up people to take them to groups or fixing dinners or…a million things.

Paul says in Colossians 1:9, “9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.”

One of THE BEST responses you and I can have to being blessed by the love of Christ at work among us is to PRAY for each other.  One of the BEST things we can do when we hear of something good and God-honoring going on by another church or other believers somewhere in the world is to PRAY for them. 

            Head-Heart-& Hands living out of the life of Christ in us will involve praying for each other. 

I’d really planned for this series to me mostly about the person and work of Jesus.  But as God and this chapter would have it, we’re still talking about praying!  We’re still stuck on prayer!  God must not be finished with rearranging some things in our lives, with redoing some of our experience in Jesus, so that we REALLY pray differently.  So let’s spend this last part of this morning discovering HOW and WHAT we should be praying for each other…and doing a little of that praying. 

Notice what vs. 9 stresses about the frequency and persistence of loving prayer for each other. 

Prayer for the people of God is to be non-stop praying.

“ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to…” and Paul goes on to give the content of his prayer. 

In I Thessalonians 5:17, Paul exhorts another N.T. church to “…pray continually…” or “…pray without ceasing…”, depending on your translation version.  Prayer is apparently one of those experiences that can be as ongoing and continuous as thinking itself. 

            Now I know that continual thinking for men can be pretty hard. But women, you’re always thinking, right?  Usually about 5 or 6 things at the same time, right?  J

Paul nonetheless encourages everyone…men, women and kids…to make praying as much a part of our lives as thinking.  Just how might we do that?

Listen to this practical illustration of praying constantly about a woman named Aunt Vertie.  Aunt Vertie was once asked the meaning of ‘praying without ceasing.’ She replied: ‘Well, it means what it says:

  • “When I put on my clothes in the morning, I thank God for clothing me in the righteousness of Christ.
  • When I wash in the morning, I ask God to cleanse me from my sin.
  • When I eat breakfast, I thank Christ for being the bread of life.
  • When I clean house, I ask God to be merciful and cleanse the houses of the world from sin.
  • When I talk with people throughout the day, I ask God to save and grow them in Christ and to meet their particular needs.
  • When I see strangers or crowds of people on the streets, I pray for the salvation of the people of the world.”

[Found at https://bible.org/seriespage/2-spirit-led-prayer-colossians-19-14#_ftn2  on 6.23.16]

Every action, every thought, every scene, virtually everything in life can be a propter for prayer.  When someone is on your heart, prayers for them will not be far from your mind. What we need to learn to do is make everything we’re doing a prayer for someone.

ILL: 

  • Out in the garden pulling weeds one morning last week, thinking of Jesse. Start praying that God will pull the weeds of cancer out of his body.
  • Walking down the street, waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change: “Lord, I’m waiting for you to give the “walk” signal in my life about….  Where are we with that? 
  • Washing my hands throughout the day reminds me that I need continual cleansing from the this world and my flesh. It reminds me to ask God if there is some unseen spiritual bacteria in my soul that needs scrubbing…or to recognize the dirt in my soul that has accumulated and ask God to wash it away.
  • Seeing kids playing in the street moves me to pray for my children and grandchildren, for your children, for the kids of this city.

But Paul’s prayer shows us more than HOW OFTEN to pray.  It shows us WHAT kinds of focus consumed Paul’s prayers for others and should probably consume most of our time praying for others.

The simple answer is just ONE THING need consume our praying for others:  pray that people will be filled up with God’s wisdom to KNOW, BE & DO His will.  Let me show you where that comes from here and what it should mean for our praying for people.

Colossians 1:9 & 10 say this:  9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way:

            Paul gives us insight into what he likes to pray for whole churches of people. Paul prayed that God would do something people couldn’t do:  “God…fill you with the knowledge of his will….”  It may seem rather self-evident but our prayers should focus on what is humanly impossible…what God alone can do. 

But so often our praying is way too small.  It’s about things we can remedy if we just…work harder, give more of our resources to, had different priorities, etc.  Too often we ask God to do what He may be asking us to do first. 

  • “Show me which car to buy.” He may be wanting you to go out and use the brain He gave you to do the necessary research to find the best car for you, in this climate, this price range, etc.
  • “Please help me pay my bills.” God may be wanting you to start living by a budget so you’re a better steward of the money he’s already entrusted to you.  He may want you to stop spending it the way you have been and learn to manage what little you have better so when he gives you more, you’re a more trustworthy steward with it.

Now back to Paul’s specific prayer—“…fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives….” 

            Very simply, notice the 3 words:  knowledge…wisdom… understanding.  All three of these words refer to both head and heart “knowledge.”  Real “head” knowledge would be knowing the truth, as we talked about last week.  It’s different from knowledge the world calls “knowledge.”  They think a lot of things God calls evil, wrong, stupid, foolish are knowledge.  God’s knowledge is true in that it corresponds with reality as God knows it to be (not just what it may wrongly appear to be to us).  It corresponds with God himself, i.e. is in agreement with his nature.  And it corresponds to what is truly best for people. 

            But it is a “knowledge” with a relational component.  It isn’t just lists of facts or truths that now enable me to say with my mind alone, “I know what God’s will is!”  Biblical “knowing” also includes knowing the God who has given us that truth. It involves being personally, rightly related to God’s will for my life. 

            That comes through “wisdom and understanding.”  Both those terms emphasize the ability to apply truth to life.  It’s about living the truth of God out in a crazy, confused world.  It’s about being able to “understand” life from God’s perspective and viewpoint…and put it to good use in your life.  It’s about what we THINK, what we FEEL, what we VALUE, what we are PASSIONATE about and what we DO/SAY.  It’s all about knowing and doing God’s best for every part of our being—body, soul and spirit; head, heart and hands.

Vs. 10 give us the 2-fold REASON WHY Paul makes that his prayer.

10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way:

Those two reasons are, in one way, the same thing.  If you live a life worth of the Lord, your life will be pleasing to Christ in every way…and visa versa. 

            To live a life worthy of someone is to live in a way that fits the value they have.  It means to live at a level comparable to the object of your affection.  It’s living up to the reputation of what that name, person or organization stands for.

ILL:  We may speak critically of someone who doesn’t “live up to” their family name…or the dignity due their office as a high governmental official…or the respect and honor we give to, say, Marines who die for their nation. 

            If I have the right understanding and knowledge of Jesus Christ, I’m going to have a very high, very honorable and very respectful view of how I should conduct myself as one “worthy of the name of Christ-one…Christian.” 

ILL:  I actually felt that as a kid growing up in this town where my father was pretty well known as being very ethical, compassionate, honest, etc.  I wanted to live worthy of the name of being Nelson Repsold’s son.  It helped me rise to a level of personal honesty and integrity that didn’t shame my father or the name Repsold. And when I did, it “pleased him” in “every way”…just like this verse says Christ-like living pleases Jesus in every way.  When you love someone, you don’t need to be convinced about all the reasons why you should live well as they do.  You really want to because you know that will make life and your relationship with them as full as it can be. 

So we have the WHAT to pray for: that people will be filled up with God’s wisdom…God’s truth and view of all life.

We have the WHY for praying that: love for Jesus compels us to live up to/live worthy of His name and please Him.

Now Paul gives us the HOW to be filled with this knowledge, wisdom and understanding of God’s will for us.  We have that in vss. 10-12.

“…bearing fruit in every good work,

growing in the knowledge of God, 

11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,

12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

            For you grammar lovers, each of these statements you notice begins with a participle (ends in –ing). 

IF we want to really know experientially what is the very best God has for us…His will…we need to be engaging in these four means of real growth.  And IF we want to be seeing those we love becoming people filled up with and living by God’s wisdom, then we should be praying about these four means of growth in their lives. 

Let me illustrate.

  1. “Bearing fruit in every good work…”

Is it possible to be doing something good, some “good work,” and NOT actually bear spiritual fruit? Well, I think it actually is.  I can do the right thing for totally the wrong reason and with the wrong attitude.  

  • Hoopfest: some of our folks are volunteering today as court monitors, security, etc. I’d say that is a “good” work, a good thing to do to serve our city and people today.  But will it “bear fruit”…fruit, as Jesus said, “that will remain”, fruit that will have spiritual consequence in their lives and the lives of the people they help? 

If they are doing it to feel good about themselves…or get kudos for volunteering from their friends…or get free stuff volunteers get…or any host of other reasons, no, there won’t be real “fruit” in the biblical sense of the word.  But if they are doing it to be the presence of Christ on the courts, to help people be safe, to be attentive to any divine conversation God might want them to have, etc…, then, yes, I think that good work can bear fruit.  

God knows that when we get involved doing good things for other people, that opens our lives up to being used by God to bear spiritual fruit. It should also show us how much we need to be directed by the Spirit in doing everything.

APP:  What are you going to DO today for someone else that can “bear fruit” for God’s kingdom? This week?  How can you bring Jesus into that? 

APP:  Thinking of God’s people, who do you know among us who you think would really grow in Christ by being involved engaging more in some “good works” for other people in the love of Jesus?

STOP and pray for them silently right now to “bear fruit in every good work.” 

  1. “…growing in the knowledge of God….” This is about both right thinking about God (theology) and experiential knowledge that comes from spending TIME with God.

APP:  Who in your family, your life, your church really needs to experience God more both through studying His word and through just spending more time hanging out with God in prayerful, quiet moments?  Pray for them right now about that. 

  1. “…being strengthened with all poweraccording to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience….”  Endurance and patience are almost synonymous but they have slightly different shades of meaning.

“Endurance” = the quality of steadfast perseverance in life.

“Patience” = patient endurance of suffering and evil. 

The former is needed in every important and good thing in life.  The latter is particularly needed when you are suffering in any way, particularly for doing the right things in an evil world.

ILL:  Iron Man race today in CDA last year with Cpt. Scott Smiley

APP:  What brother or sister in Christ do you know needs to experience God’s strengthening in order to endure or persevere through this present period in their life?  Who’s is God bringing to mind who is in danger of just getting tired and dropping out of doing what you know is God’s will for them?  Maybe it’s a marriage.  Maybe it’s a temptation.  Maybe it’s a calling God put on their lives years ago. 

Take 30 seconds to PRAY that God will strengthen them with all His power so they will grow in endurance and patience. 

Lastly….

  1. Vs. 12-- “…and giving joyful thanks to the Father,who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”

APP: 

  • Are WE in the habit of giving joyful thanks to our Heavenly Father for the inheritance He has prepared for us in Hid Kingdom of light? Before we’ll pray passionately for this in other’s lives, maybe we need more of it in our own life?
  • Who do you know that needs to develop a heart of gratitude for simply what God has done to make them His kids, heirs of His indescribable “kingdom of light”?

PRAY for that person, that God will develop that attitude of gratitude in them about just being God’s child.  

INVITATION to follow Christ by faith.