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Colossians 1:9-10
The human body is a marvel of divine engineering. Every day your heart unceasingly beats nearly 100,000 times pumping 2000 gallons of blood to feed those 37 trillion cells with oxygen and nutrients. What a marvelous demonstration of God’s glory!
Unceasing Prayer
Unceasingly that heart beats, automatically fulfilling its purpose. Never stopping. That’s how Paul prayed for these new believers in Colossae. Paul was never satisfied with new believers staying in the delivery room. He wanted to see them grow spiritually. That’s why he prayed unceasingly.
Col 1:9: For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you.
Paul was so full of love for God’s people and delighted in God’s work in their lives that he continually prayed for them. Before you begin comparing yourself to Paul and thinking, “Well, I’m not the apostle Paul. My prayer life looks like a mouse beside this spiritual mountain of a man,” let me remind you that we are all commanded to pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 contains what I call our RPG weapon to fire against sin and Satan and to draw us close to God: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks always. When should we stop rejoicing? Never. When should we not be praying? Never. When should we not give thanks? Never. Give thanks always for everything in your life because this is God’s will for you.
But pray without ceasing? If you’re anything like me, prayer is not the easiest thing in my Christian life. But Paul believed that God works through prayer. He believed that prayer somehow unites God’s people with God and all His resources. Paul lived daily in the presence of God and like the electricity running in your home, prayer was always in the background of Paul’s heart. Unceasing prayer means you live every day increasingly aware of God.
The old prophet Samuel prayed the same way for God’s people in 1 Samuel 12. Israel had made the big blunder of asking for a king. They had sinned, but Samuel brought a message of encouragement and warning to the people. He assured the people in verse 23, Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you.
Unceasing prayer! How do you pray without ceasing? This is certainly a key discipline of the Christian life. Lord, we need your help. We all need to pray and we all need prayer. We know God is real and hears our prayers. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to our prayers (1 Peter 3:12). If His ears are open, we need to pray. He invites us to pray. Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). We should pray for one another unceasingly – during our morning time in the Word, while driving, walking, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, and sometimes sending up prayer flares (what Nehemiah did). We should pray when entering the worship service and ask God to richly bless the time of singing and hearing God’s Word.
But what do we pray for? What do we need that only God can give us? What are these resources God is waiting to pour out into our lives? This takes us into the body of Paul’s prayer.
Before we look at the details, let’s get an overview of this wonderful prayer in verses 9-12. You’ll notice that there’s nothing here about asking for physical healing or even changing circumstances or getting a raise or making life more comfortable. They are all about spiritual growth. Paul prays that these Colossians would:
- Be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.
- Grow in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
- Walk worthy of the Lord.
- Please the Lord in every respect.
- Bear fruit in every good work.
- Keep increasing in the knowledge of God.
- Be strengthened with all power.
- Attain all steadfastness and patience.
- Joyfully thank God for His great blessings.
Pray that we’ll be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.
Colossians 1:9: that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
There are two aspects to God’s will. The first aspect is His sovereign or decreed will that we don’t really know before it happens. Everything in His creation is working according to His sovereign will (Ephesians 1:11). The second aspect is His revealed will, which we find here in the Bible. This is sometimes called God’s moral will. It is everything that God has clearly told us to do. You see it in Romans 12:2, “Don’t be conformed to this world,” this world being the cultural way of thinking, “but be renewed in your mind, so you can prove what God’s will is.” His revealed will is in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
The main verb for Paul’s entire prayer is “that you may be filled.” Paul prayed that Christians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Filled means filled to the full like a ship all stocked up and ready for the voyage. The fragrance of Mary’s ointment “filled” the house (John 12:3). Remember when you would wake up to your mom making bacon and eggs for breakfast. You could tell because the smell of that bacon filled the entire house. The word filled also means controlled. We are to be filled with the Spirit or controlled by the Spirit. So Paul is saying we need our entire lives to be filled with knowing what God wants us to do.
Knowledge is the Greek word epignosis, an intensified form of knowledge meaning a precise and correct knowledge. God’s knowledge is not a bunch of guesses. God’s precise and correct knowledge begins in Genesis 1 (how we got here) and continues through Revelation 22 (where we’re going) and everything in between! It is all precise and correct, inspired and inerrant knowledge straight from the mouth of God Almighty. No wonder we need to be digging into the Word for knowledge!
Hosea 4:6 says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This is what our world is missing today. We have more knowledge than ever, but we’re more ignorant than ever of what is important. We can put “go-carts” on Mars, but the knowledge of God has been sandblasted right out of every area of our culture. Just this week a school system submitted to a 2019 lawsuit filed by the ACLU charging the Tennessee Smith County School System of engaging in “unconstitutional activities” like a teacher reading a few Bible verses at the beginning of class, teachers praying at school assemblies, praying at sports events, or inviting a Christian organization to distribute Bibles to fifth graders. The ACLU claims these activities would make irreligious children feel like second-class citizens. Our culture is like Hosea’s and people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge of God. Let’s pray like Paul and ask God to fill us full of the precise and correct knowledge of God’s will.
Wisdom and Understanding
Paul modifies the knowledge of God’s will with two great biblical words: spiritual wisdom and understanding. You remember where wisdom comes from, right? Proverbs 9:10, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This wisdom is the opposite of humanistic, man-centered, worldly wisdom. It means the great truths and principles for living that God has revealed in the Bible. Biblical wisdom is seeing all of life from God’s point of view. And then there’s spiritual understanding, which differs from wisdom. Understanding means being able to take God’s wisdom and apply it to your daily life.
How does this work? I think of a physician. He has wisdom about how your body should work. When you visit your doctor, he checks out your body and applies his wisdom of medical principles to your situation and hopefully understands what you need. Spiritual wisdom is God’s principles; spiritual understanding is applying God’s wisdom principles to your daily life. First you learn God’s wisdom principles given in the Bible about how to love your wife, or how to submit to your husband, or how to bring those children up in the Lord, or what God says about the kind of person you should marry. Understanding means you apply those wisdom principles to your daily life, asking God to help you make good and godly decisions.
It is impossible to fulfill God’s will without His wisdom and understanding. Trying to do so will result in a botched up life. A homeless man knocked on the door of a wealthy man offering to work for a meal and clothes. The home owner asked if he’d be willing to paint his porch. The homeless fellow agreed so the owner brought out the paint and a brush and told him to ring the bell when he was finished. Two hours later the bell rang. The fellow assured the homeowner his job was complete. The homeowner looked and the porch wasn’t even touched with paint. “But you haven’t painted the porch yet.” “Oh, did you say porch? I thought you said you wanted me to paint your Porsche.” That is like us without God’s wisdom and understanding; we’ll surely be going after the wrong things in our lives and completing the wrong tasks.
Pray that we’ll walk worthy of the Lord.
Colossians 1:10a: so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
Now Paul gives us the result of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Paul prays “so that” (with the result that) we’d walk worthy of the Lord. Walk means step by step, day by day, every moment. Ephesians 4:1-3 says the same thing. Here Paul charges us to walk in a manner worthy of God’s calling on your life. He includes godly qualities like humility, gentleness, patience, and walking in unity. A worthy walk basically means you deny yourself and honor Christ and His people. Paul gives us three marks of a worthy walk in his prayer.
A worthy walk pleases God.
Colossians 1:10b: to please Him in all respects,
You live to bring joy to your Lord. You don’t live in a legalistic “have to” way, but in a loving, grace-filled, happy, delightful relationship way. In 2 Corinthians 5:9 Paul lays out a great goal for your daily life: “We make it our goal to be pleasing to Him.” This is a great prayer for us every morning, “Lord, let me please You today.” This is such a simple but wonderful goal. We please God by pleasing those around us. You know what it means to please your wife. You fill up the tank of her car. She heads out and notices the fuel gauge on full. She smiles. She is pleased. God is pleased.
So your daily goal as a believer is to do everything to please your heavenly Father. Did you see, “in all respects?” There isn’t one area of your life that should be reserved for self-pleasing. Your life includes your day to day activities, your studies, your finding a life partner, your marriage, parenting, work ethic, personal relationships, your money, your planning, paying your bills, living responsibly before God in every respect. Isn’t that good? Don’t separate the secular from the sacred – you are to please God in all respects.
A worthy walk bears fruit for God.
Colossians 1:10c: bearing fruit in every good work
God has given you His Spirit to fill you and control your life. You used to be mean and hard to live with. Now you are producing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But that’s just part of your fruit bearing. Paul says bear fruit in every good work. The ultimate fruit God is producing through your life and through all your trials and difficulties is to become more and more like Jesus Christ. Every believer is a branch in the vine of Christ Jesus, and He is pumping His character into your life through His Spirit who lives in you (John 15:5).
A worthy walk grows in knowing God.
Colossians 1:10d: and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Sometimes I tell my grandkids, “Okay, I want you to stop growing right now! No more getting older. I like you just the way you are.” Silly, right? Paul was never satisfied with the spiritual delivery room. Paul prays for believers to have vigorous growth in knowing God. I love visiting couples in the hospital who are so proud and thankful for their newborn. But it would be weird if six months later I’d visit again and they would be still there with their newborn. As believers we are to grow more and more, but we often feel like we’re standing still. In order to grow we need to know God better. What does that mean? We need to grow in knowing what God is like and how God works. It isn’t difficult or complicated. The only way to know God better is to spend time with Him. Listen to Him through His Word. There He tells us what He is like and how He operates. If you had to write down ten truths about God, what would you write? Take a Psalm like Psalm 103 and jot down from each verse one thing it teaches you about God. See, it is not complicated; it just requires you do it. God is glorified when we love Him enough to study His Word and see His works. That is how we get to know what He is like. That is how we know what pleases Him. That is how to have a worthy walk.
This is what Paul unceasingly prayed for God’s people. Let’s each of us commit to pray for one another along these lines this week. Pray we’ll all be filled with God’s will and walk every day worthy of Him, pleasing Him in all we do. Maybe pull out A.W. Tozer’s book The Knowledge of the Holy and read a few chapters about God’s eternity or infinity or self-existence or His justice. Or pick up Packer’s Knowing God or Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God and deepen your soul in the knowledge of God. But do remember this. God hasn’t revealed Himself to you to puff up your head. Rather, He has revealed Himself to transform your hearts and change your lives.
God has two challenges for believers from this text. First, pray unceasingly, like your unceasing heart beating. Each of us can improve our prayer life. Second, continue to grow in your knowledge of God and in living with the daily goal of pleasing Him.
But realize this. If you don’t know Christ personally, you can never grow spiritually or be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Having a personal relationship with Christ comes when you acknowledge you have sinned against a holy God. You must recognize that Christ died on a cross 2,000 years ago in your place to pay for your sins and that He rose again in three days and now sits at the right hand of God. Now you come to Christ Jesus and by faith trust that He alone can save you from the punishment you deserve. You accept that payment and call on Him to be your Savior and Lord. “Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.” When you do that, you become God’s child and He places His Spirit in you and you become a new creation in Christ. Now you are able to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will by reading and feeding on His Word. Now you will be able to live every day with the goal of pleasing Him.
May each of us live this week with the goal of pleasing our Lord Jesus.