07.21.2013 Colossians 1 - May You Be Filled with the Knowledge of God's Will

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COLOSSIANS 1:9-14

Today we’re going to continue with the series Mike just started. Isn’t that just like Mike to start something good then take off. Last week Mike looked at verses 1-8 and we will be looking at Colossians 1:9-12 today. I will throw in verses 13 and 14 as a bonus, extra credit. By my calculations at this pace we will be finished sometime in November.

Paul wrote to the Colossians to address some specific issues. As Mike said there was some misleading teaching going on and Paul wanted to address that. He wrote while he was imprisoned in Rome probably around 62 AD. Paul may never have seen the Colossians face to face not least not before he wrote this letter. I was able to find a photograph sent to Paul by the Colossian church.

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Pretty young and handsome looking group. I was also able to find a follow-up photo they must have sent showing their leadership team.

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I think these are authentic, I found them on the internet. Because Paul couldn’t see them physically face to face he had to write his thoughts and desires and instructions out for them, which is a good thing for us. And that is what we are looking at today. Let’s pray

OPENING PRAYER:
Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to look at your word together. We ask that you teach us and we ask that You fill us with the knowledge Your will, we do want to walk in a manner worthy of You, and to be pleasing to You, and to bear fruit for You in every good work, and we truly desire to grow in our knowledge of You. We ask that you’d strengthen us so that we can be steadfast and patient. And Lord we thank You for having qualified us to share together in Your inheritance. And we thank you for your love and that you have forgiven our sins. AMEN

You may remember from last week Paul said to the Colossians

SLIDE 4
COL 1:3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

Paul started out in verse 3 saying he has not ceased to pray for the Colossians. This section today is Paul was praying. We are going to look at these few verses and what they may mean and when we are done today I think we may just answer all those major questions that have stumped theologians for thousands and thousands of years. This is going to be a Colossians 101 type message kind of fundamental because that is what I do. I’ll leave it to Mike and Jeff to do the grad courses. But I think you are really going to get your moneys worth today. Can we take the offering, O we already did. Good. Can we do it again, never mind

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(NASB) Colossians 1:
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

SLIDE 6 PRAYER:
we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask

We can learn a lot about Paul from these few verses. First, Paul never learned the proper use of periods. This whole thing, verses 9-12, is all one run on sentence. And we learn he practiced what he preached. He told us via the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing and he told the Colossians “we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask…”

I used to think when Paul said to pray without ceasing he meant I couldn’t even stop to sleep or eat or take a breath or even to watch White Collar. I know this is not what Paul meant because even Paul couldn’t pull that off. And keep in mind He starts several epistles off be telling the readers he prays for them without ceasing like the Colossians and the Romans and the Thessalonians and Philippians and Ephesians and Timothy all at the same time? So he does a lot of praying without ceasing.

So, not without breathing but I think he means to pray in a continuously ongoing manner. Remember the old cartoon characters from the 70’s? Wait a minute. Who here even remembers the 70’s?

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These guys were all about truckin’, and truck drivers never stop. They stand for persevering, stick-to-it-iveness, hanging tough, never say die, doing the long haul. Pray and Keep on Prayin’ and don’t lose heart. Paul says in

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Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

This applies to prayer as well. We need to make sure we don’t lose heart.

Prayer is an act of communicating with God; a God who wants a personal intimate relationship with each of us. I enjoy taking time and communicating with Sue. I am not one of many words, but even after 40 years we haven’t run out of things to talk about. Similarly, prayer should be something we do with joy but I often find myself thinking that prayer is when I ask God to do something for me because that is sometimes the only time I pray. You know, Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz. And when it isn’t answered just the way I want and just when I want, I can find myself thinking “God doesn’t listen to me. God doesn’t answer my prayers and even when He does His answer is often no.” It can be easy to lose heart with that attitude. But I am becoming more convinced that God always answers and seldom answers no. God is not compelled to bless us just because we prayed. But He is compelled to bless us because He loves us. His answers are what is best for the whole. God blesses what is best for the whole thing while we typically only pray for what is best for our little sphere. And since we can’t see the whole picture and benefit God has planned we may miss the whole point.

I have found that it is during times that I continue to pray that God reveals his answers to me. Years ago when Emily was born, 35 years ago in fact, there was a good example of this. I will not to get into too many details now because it’s too long of a story for today. We were convinced that God revealed to us that we would have a son. Of course Emily is not a son. After SHE was born we had friends come to us to comfort us in what they must have thought was our time of doubt and disappointment. Actually we were just really excited to have Emily around and the whole thing just slipped my mind. Except people kept coming to me to make sure I wasn’t doubting and losing faith. A couple months after Emily was born I decided to pray about that whole thing and God popped an idea into my head. That idea graphically illustrated God’s unfailing love for me and complete His forgiveness to me and that changed my life. That has been a major element in my life for all these 35 years and will continue to be so. God filled me with an understanding of His will. So, though we looked for a boy, God gave us a wonderful child with a message that would alter our lives for the rest of our lives. God does answer prayers we just need to learn to see those answers. And that was just how the situation affected Sue and I. Emily has her own story learning all this years later, and all the other children have stories, and there have been numerous other people who have been affected. I will never know the whole scope of Gods “answer”.

Prayer is a funny thing. There have been thousands and thousands of books written on how to pray effectively. There really isn’t any instruction in the Bible on how to pray other than without ceasing (1 thess 5:17) and pray then in this way. (matt 6:9-13) But there is a lot it doesn’t address clearly. So if you want to learn to pray more effectively I strongly urge you to read those 1000s of books.

I think we all need to find what helps us remember to communicate with our God who loves us and wants to talk with us. There’s nothing better than to dialogue with our father who loves us. So prayer 101.

So what exactly does Paul pray? He prays that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will with all wisdom and understanding, walk in a manner worthy, please him in all respects, bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God. He didn’t pray for his Mercedes Benz. Let’s look at these individually.

SLIDE 9 KNOWLEDGE OF HIS WILL:
may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding

The mere fact that he prayed that they be filled with the knowledge of gods will is encouraging because it means this must be attainable. He’s is not asking that they will know all mysteries and have all knowledge. Quite different. I think he is talking about living our lives in such a way that the knowledge of God’s will permeates our whole being, affects our thoughts and actions, controls us, guides us, directs us, motivates us, consumes us. Much like the knowledge God revealed to me with Emily filled my life and has affected how I live ever since.

So what exactly is God’s will. I’m glad you asked. First off I think we need to see that there is God’s will and there is myself will. God’s will is what God desires. In a sense Paul summarizes God’s will in verses 13 and 14, our bonus / extra credit verses. He continues throughout Colossians to elaborate on this but the essence is:

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13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

If we could somehow brand these verses into our thoughts we will become transformed people.

The church used to do a lecture series on “What is God’s will for you” Or “How to know gods will for your life” or such. We would explain God’s desire for everyone’s salvation – Jesus death as payment for our sins, our redemption and forgiveness. We would go on to explain God wants each believer to grow in knowing God and this can be best achieved by reading, memorizing and meditating on the Bible, praying and getting involved with other believers. We are, after all, relational beings. We need community. We cannot operate solo. Some think they can but they only limit themselves. We will only truly grow and mature in community. We need the corporate knowledge of others to challenge us and enlighten us. Remember the story of the tower in Babel. The people were united in building a tower to God. God said “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. There is great strength in unity and community.

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So we know that God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim 2:4.

Even here in Colossians 1 in a few verses that Mike will probably get to in the next 3-4 weeks,

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Col 1:27 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

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Romans 12:1 says 12 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

As our minds are renewed we will understand that God’s will is good, acceptable and perfect and our lives will begin to reflect that.

So as we are filled with the knowledge of Gods will we will be worthy and pleasing and fruitful and increasing in knowledge.

A lets look at these items.

SLIDE 14 WORTHY:
you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord

When I read this passage at first it sounds like he is saying that we need to live our lives by doing all the right things, to earn the status of being worthy. And maybe if we mess up we could lose our worthiness status. Then I realized it says as we are filled with the knowledge of Gods will we WILL walk worthy. This is a natural outworking of filling our mind with God’s will, not our own will, not like we need to earn the worthy status but as we are filled with the knowledge of God’s will, our lives will reflect these desires.

Years ago I worked in an engineering capacity helping an individual design some sewage treatment equipment. (That’s right, I did not always work as an architect – God’s chosen profession. We all know that as we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. Sweet!) I got this job through an introduction my dad made for me since he was in the sewage treatment business. The concept was amazing and we just needed to market it.

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I built a model of the equipment and we took this to a huge convention in New Orleans. All through this week long time people would stop to watch our model which was really quite impressive, they would chat about our product and when they see my name they would ask “Any chance you are related to Tom Cooper?” This happened all week long. These people were from all over the country and all over the world and they all new my dad. I was very proud of my dad at that point. I never knew he was so important in that industry. I was proud to carry his name and it showed in how I acted. I was far more confident in my role selling the equipment and that people would listen to me. Jim Croce sang a song called “I’ve Got a Name” He says

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“Ive got a name …and I carry it with me like my daddy did…if it gets me nowhere, I go there proud”.

I think sometimes just realizing whose name we carry with us will help us act in a worthy manner. I know Jesus is proud to be linked with us…

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Hebrews2:11…for which reason He is not ashamed to call them or us His brethren,

SLIDE 18 PLEASING:
to please Him in all respects

One of my favorite movies is Chariots of Fire. Mike talked about this a couple weeks ago. A movie about two men. One,

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Eric Liddell, was a missionary from Scotland who happened to play soccer and he was good. One of the best wing men to play. Probably because he was fast. He and his sister were scheduled to go to China on a missionary journey. He happened to get involved with some races and did well and eventually qualified for the Scottish Olympic team. In the movie he and Jenny have a talk. She was portrayed as thinking he was giving up on the mission work and seeing it as second best. He told her he fully intended to go to China mission field. But he thought he should run the Olympic race first. He told Jenny that God made me fast Jenny. And I can feel Gods pleasure when I run. He went to the Olympics and caused a stir when he refused to run his 100 meter race because it was on a Sunday and he willl no ROON on a Soonday, they found a different race, a 400 meter, for him to run and he won gold for Scotland. He went home and directly off to the mission field where he served around 20 years and eventually died. He was Scotlands most popular sports figure ever but somehow I think his stand at the Olympics was what really won the worlds heart. His life has affected many. I think a large part is because he knew how God had made him special and followed Gods will for his life. And I am sure God was pleased. Eric was born in China to missionary parents. He was born to be a missionary and he knew that. But he also knew that God made him fast, and this was a special gift. When he ran he could feel the pleasure both his and Gods in his running. And because he ran God blessed the world. We all need to find that niche God has made especially for us. Then we will be able to feel God’s pleasure.

SLIDE 20 BEARING FRUIT:
bearing fruit in every good work

In our “Gods will for your lives” sessions we made it clear that seeing others come to know God was bearing fruit. We often would talk about people in terms of their fruit-ness. How many fruit did you gather? One who is willing to hear may be ripe for the picking. One who absolutely ready was a black banana. God doesn’t just want people to become new believers. He wants them to grow to full maturity.

Another aspect of bearing fruit that I wanted to look at today is in Galatians 5:22 I want to start a bit before this verse where Paul compares walking according to the flesh and walking according to the spirit.

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GAL 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit (As we walk our lives filled with the knowledge of God’s will) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

As we grow in Christ these fruit will become evident in our lives.

An apple tree doesn’t strategize and agonize on how it will make good apples. It just stays plugged into the nourishing ground soaking sun and water and the fruit grows. Similarly we can’t try to make our lives show fruit. That will come as we continue to be filled with God’s knowledge.

SLIDE 23 CHIQUITA

SLIDE 24 KNOWING GOD:
increasing in the knowledge of God

I think it is important to remember that we can be filled with the knowledge of Gods will but that doesn’t mean we are filled with all knowledge. But unfortunately we can never know all.

PETE SEEGER ELEPHANT STORY:
Seek and you shall find
Knock and the door shall be opened
Ask and it shall be given
When the love comes tumbling down

That’s the song Pete wrote from the scriptures. Those words are present continuous tense, meaning you truck and keep on truckin”

SLIDE 25 Legs
SLIDE 26 Ears
SLIDE 27 Side
SLIDE 28 Tusk
SLIDE 29 Trunk
SLIDE 30 Tail
SLIDE 31 Elephant

As smart as we are our finite minds can really only grasp a very small bit of what is really going on in this world and universe. God sees the whole picture. We may think we have the whole picture but really we are just seeing an ear or a tusk. God sees the elephant. Each of us is important because we each see a bit more of the picture and as more becomes clear we understand better. The problem arises when we think we “know” the answer. We are only working with a small part of the facts. So we need to be constantly growing in Knowing God and his workings. Because once we “know” the answers we effectively stop our ability to learn.

Sometimes when we pray, God answers and we may not see it clearly. We are expecting our answer and we get Gods whose answer is suited for serving all. God sees the whole big picture. We only see a tail. Our part of the picture is important but not necessarily the only point of view. God works ALL things together for the good of ALL. It will be our good as well but it may not be what we envisioned.

We remember when we heard that Mike Keator was imprisoned in India. It all seemed so pointless and wrong. I’m sure the early church felt the same when Paul was imprisoned. Some tried to change his mind and direction. When Paul was imprisoned and couldn’t see the Colossians face to face he had to write. His writings have helped people for thousands of years since. And they are what we are learning from today. Paul wasn’t imprisoned just so we could study his words today, but we are part of the reason. We can’t always see why God has done what he has done. We only have a small portion of the facts. Sometimes we get more facts and get a better idea of why things happen. But I still think we should NEVER say we “know” why something happened.

We can see how God has worked in our understanding of His will but that may not be the lesson He is working for someone else.

SLIDE 32 STRENGHTHENED
strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience

There was a movie in the early 80s called Masada. It is about a small band of Jews, maybe less than 1000, who stood up against the entire Roman army – the greatest army on earth that had been dominating earth for over a century.

SLIDE 33 Masada

Peter O’Toole is the Roman army leader. He wasn’t always just a good actor. Masada is a city or fortress built on the top of a mountain. The plains below the mountain were covered with Roman soldiers and implements of war. The jews in the city had very little weaponry. The two leaders were pitted against each other and it appeared the battle would be concluded by whichever leader won. At one point Peter commanding 1000s and 10000s of troups against a handful of untrained men and women confides in his cohort that he is afraid of the Jewish leader because he was so much stronger than Peter, because he new how to be patient.

Waiting and trusting and being patient takes an enormous strength. God gives us that strength. Our fears begin to arise when we take things into our own hands.

Sue tells a story of a time when Aaron our two year old grandson was visiting. Our older children were blowing up balloons and making them squeak and letting them fly around. Aaron was scared. At one point Sue and Aaron were standing next to each other when she feels his hand grip her finger. With that, Aaron was fine. As long as someone he trusted was there he was fine.

CONCLUSION:
So again Paul is praying that we be filled with the Knowledge of God's will. As we are filled we will walk in a manner worthy of God, Please Him in all respects, Bear fruit in every good work and increase in the Knowledge of God. As these occur God will strengthen us with His power to be steadfast and patient.

And through this all we can

SLIDE 34
Col 1:12-14
joyously give thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.