9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
PRAYER FOR THE NEW COMMUNITY
So often in life we are not sure what we should pray. Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1 provides a helpful insight. Having begun with thanksgiving for the Colossian church, he goes on to pray for it. Interestingly, given his comments about growth (1:6-8) it is surprising that he does not pray for more converts. Rather, he petitions God first for growth in the Colossians’ spiritual maturity.
When we think about it, growth in spiritual maturity is the New Testament pattern. When Jesus concluded his public ministry we find twelve disciples and about one hundred or so others. Jesus invested himself not in quantity, but in quality. It is easy to focus on numbers. But that was not Paul’s dream, nor his prayer. He understood Jesus’ Commission: ‘Go and make disciples’ (Matthew 28:18). Paul wanted to see people growing in the caliber and integrity of their faith and lifestyle.
Two growth components: In 1:9 Paul prays for growth in biblical thinking—so, he prays for knowledge, wisdom, understanding. In 1:10 he prays for growth in Christian lifestyle – living a life …; pleasing…; bearing fruit… Notice the link between thinking and lifestyle. He prays for growth in their minds in order that they might see growth in behavior. These elements are essential if a church wants to see spiritual renewal and growth.
Knowledge of God’s will… When the Bible speaks of knowing God’s will, it is talking about our need to know God, loving him because he first loved us, and finding our joy in him. The more we come to understand the privilege of what it means to have been created in his image and now to be restored in that image, the more we will long to live in love and loyalty to our God. Psalm 143:10 says: Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.
These words help us understand Paul’s point. The psalm writer doesn’t say, Lord, teach me your will…, but rather, teach me to do your will… He knows God’s will, but needs to be taught to do it.
This is why Paul asks that the Colossians may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,…This is how God fills us with the knowledge of his will.
How different this is from the way we often think about the will of God. For most of us, the will of God has more to do with what work we do, whom we marry and where we live. Yes, God is concerned about these matters, but not nearly as much as with the issues of our understanding of him, how we live, how we relate. Paul knows that knowledge and understanding of God don’t come naturally. Some think that what we need is faith. But that is not what Paul is saying. He prays that our minds might be enlightened so that we may live more worthily of God.
FOUR MARKS OF CHRISTIAN GROWTH
Bearing fruit in every good work: God’s people are saved by faith alone, but, as James puts it, faith without works is dead. By their fruits you will know them, Jesus said of his true followers. If there is no discernable difference between our lives and the lives of those around us, we need to ask what kind of Christians we are.
Growing in the knowledge of God: God’s people are growing organisms – they’re not robots that have come off the end of the Christian assembly line. An important element of that growth is growth in the knowledge of God. Paul is praying that the Colossians will be filled with the knowledge of God, so that they might have the ability to discern God’s mind in the diversity and complexity of life’s issues. With the passing of the years all of us have new and greater responsibilities. How will we know how to make decisions and judgments if we don’t increase in our understanding of the mind of God?
Strengthened to display great endurance and patience: Paul speaks here of the kind of mentality that tackles the tough issues of life and the stamina that perseveres. He knows too well that it’s one thing to start, but another to finish.
Joyfully giving thanks to the Father: Thanksgiving pleases God. Not to thank him is to fail to understand the magnitude of his love expressed through Jesus Christ for, as Paul puts it, God has transferred us from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of his beloved Son. We have been brought under the rule of a greater king, a loving king, a king who is committed to our eternal good. Our only true response is one of joy and gratitude. It’s one of the reasons we want to sing!
Paul’s prayer is a rich prayer. As with all relationships, a process is involved. Understanding flows out into a new way of living – a change that is aided by the Holy Spirit of God. But, as with all relationships, the changes take time.
You may want to consider:
the link between thinking and lifestyle;
the implication that we need to see life God’s way if we are to live God’s way;
the compelling power and significance of Paul’s words that God rescues and transfers his people into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
For many, church is an irrelevant institution filled with self-righteous hypocrites. The Letters of Paul the Apostle paint a very different picture of church – a picture of vitality, community and growth. We see this for example in Paul’s thanksgiving for the church in Colossae.
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit (Colossians 1:1-8).
A NEW COMMUNITY
Thanksgiving. Paul doesn’t thank God that the followers of Jesus in Colossae were ‘religious’. Instead he focuses on three features: their faith, love and hope.
Faith. The Colossians did not just have ‘faith in God’. Their faith was in Christ Jesus who, Paul tells us, enjoys a unique relationship with God the Father. People often say they believe in God, but it is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who supremely reveals God to us.
Love for all the saints. Their faith was not just intellectual, simply giving a mental nod to God. Rather, their relationship with God showed itself in their relationship with one another. They were a new community, the people of God. The love of which Paul spoke is one that binds people of different national and cultural backgrounds into a unique community.
Hope. Paul’s words, because of the hope laid up for us in heaven, are unexpected. There is a causal link between hope and faith and love. Hope is not the outcome of faith and love: it is the cause of it. And this hope is not just Christian optimism. It is the certainty of the coming again of Jesus and the new heaven and earth he will bring. The object of our faith is not yet in our full possession. All this opens up a different dimension of our understanding of life now. It suggests we need to learn to live now in the light of the age to come.
And there is something else: the theme of growth bubbles through Paul’s words. The expansion of Christianity is going on all over the world, Paul says. And, notice his emphasis on the truth.The gospel, he says, is the word of the truth. He could have omitted any reference to truth, but he didn’t.
Paul wanted to stress that the gospel message is true, as someone has commented, in a counter-intuitive sense: the statements it makes about God and men and women are beyond human invention and imagination. It is also true in an historical sense: the eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were no fabrication. They are trustworthy. God’s gospel is also true in the experiential sense: when we put our trust in Jesus Christ who is at the center of the gospel message, we discover that our faith is not a hoax but a genuine experience.
Because it was the truth, the church in Colossae had formed and was growing. People there had heard and responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in all its truth, preached by pastor Epaphras. And, consistent with what Jesus taught in John 3: God’s Spirit was doing his work of regeneration.
You may want to consider:
the significance of the expression, faith in Jesus Christ, as the focus and meaning of faith;
that the phrase, love for all the saints, implies that faith is not just intellectual or simply the expression of a relationship with God;
Paul’s meaning of hope: it is not a pious ‘hope’ but confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s original promise; we should see life now in the light of the reality that is to come;
the implications of the way that people hear and respond to the gospel – why don’t we work at ways to introduce others to God’s gospel? Why don’t we pray that the Spirit will be at work opening blind eyes to God’s truth?
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
A NEW COMMUNITY
For many, church is an irrelevant institution filled with self-righteous hypocrites. The Letters of Paul the Apostle paint a very different picture of church – a picture of vitality, community and growth. We see this for example in Paul’s thanksgiving for the church in Colossae.
Thanksgiving. Paul doesn’t thank God that the followers of Jesus in Colossae were ‘religious’. Instead he focuses on three features: their faith, love and hope.
Faith. The Colossians did not just have ‘faith in God’. Their faith was in Christ Jesus who, Paul tells us, enjoys a unique relationship with God the Father. People often say they believe in God, but it is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who supremely reveals God to us.
Love for all the saints. Their faith was not just intellectual, simply giving a mental nod to God. Rather, their relationship with God showed itself in their relationship with one another. They were a new community, the people of God. The love of which Paul spoke is one that binds people of different national and cultural backgrounds into a unique community.
Hope. It is instructive to note Paul’s expression here: because of the hope laid up for us in heaven. His words are unexpected. There is a causal link between hope and faith and love. Hope is not the outcome of faith and love: it is the cause of it. And this hope is not just Christian optimism. It is the certainty of the coming again of Jesus and the new heaven and earth that he will bring in. The object of our faith is not yet in our full possession. All this opens up quite a different dimension of our understanding of life now. It suggests we need to learn to live now in the light of the age to come – to live now with the taste of that reality in our mouth.
The theme of growth bubbles through these verses. The global expansion of Christianity is going on all over the world, Paul says. And, you may have noticed the emphasis Paul puts on the truth.The gospel, he says, is the word of the truth. He could have left out any reference to the word truth, but he didn’t.
As someone has pointed out, Paul wanted to stress that the Christian message is true – in a counter-intuitive sense: the statements it makes about God and men and women are beyond human invention and imagination. It is also true in an historical sense: the eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were no lie: they are trustworthy. The Christian message is also true in the experiential sense: when we put our trust in Jesus Christ who is at the center of the gospel message, we discover that our faith is not a hoax but a genuine experience.
Because it was the truth, the church in Colossae had formed and was growing. People there had heard and responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in all its truth, preached by pastor Epaphras, empowered by the work of God’s Spirit.
You may want to consider:
the significance of the expression, faith in Jesus Christ, as the focus and meaning of faith;
that the phrase, love for all the saints, implies that faith is not just intellectual or simply the expression of a relationship with God;
Paul’s meaning of hope: it is not a pious ‘hope’ but confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s original promise; we should see life now in the light of the reality that is to come;
the implications of the way that people hear and respond to the gospel.
…Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” 37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40 And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
EMPOWERED TO SPEAK
Pentecost. The day Jesus switched on the power and the waves of the impact of his life began to spread. In Acts 2 we read of the Day of Pentecost when God came with fire and wind. This Pentecost God was not imparting the Law, as at the time of Moses. Rather he was sending his Spirit and formalizing his new covenant. As God had promised long ago, and as Jesus had taught, the Spirit would not just bring the commands of God; he would also bring a new inner motivation and enthusiasm to keep them.
In the miracle of the wind and fire that day, God signaled how he would achieve the changes he intended. The sound of a mighty wind symbolized the power of Jesus; the fire symbolized the purifying, cleansing work of Jesus; the speech pointed to the good news of Jesus reaching people from every nation. It is on the element of speech that Luke focuses.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
It is the Spirit who empowered those first followers and who empowers us today. It is the Spirit who fans the witness and testimony of God’s people. Consider what happened to those disciples: one moment they were demoralized and defeated and then Pentecost came. Peter, who had so vehemently denied that he even knew Jesus, was now publicly proclaiming that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah. He turned from being a coward to a courageous preacher.
At Peter’s words that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah, his hearers were cut to the heart. It was as though their eyes had been closed but now they suddenly saw who Jesus was. Whereas they had mocked and jeered when Jesus died, they were now ashamed as they saw the truth about him and about themselves. The Spirit not only enabled Peter to preach; his hearers saw the truth. Three thousand responded to the call to repent and be baptized. That day the church was born.
The challenging and exciting thing is that Jesus wants to involve you and me in his work of touching and transforming lives with God’s good news. This is his plan and passion. He wants to draw failed, flawed men and women to the truth, back to what we were meant to be – people made in his image, made to know him and delight in him forever.
You may want to consider:
the content of Peter’s message and the call to repent;
the way in which Jesus’ prayer on the cross, Father, forgive them, has in part been fulfilled by the positive response of so many that Pentecost;
the place of prayer, thanks, and the Word of God in God’s new community.
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Occasionally there are people who have a great and a lasting impact on human history – people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill. However, the one man who stands heads and shoulders above the rest is Jesus Christ. HG Wells who wrote The Time Machine and War of the Worlds once said: I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.
The impact of the three short years of Jesus’ public life didn’t cease when he was crucified. In fact the reverse has occurred, the ripples expanding with the passing of the years.
The closing chapters of Luke’s gospel speak of Jesus’ death, his victorious resurrection and his glorious return to heaven. But, just when we think we have come to the end of the story, we realize it is just the beginning. In his second volume, The Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that the story of Jesus didn’t end with his physical departure. He continued to have an impact on countless lives, not through the force of arms, but through the proclamation of his Word. He was Abraham’s and David’s successor, through whom the world would be blessed.
How did this happen? In Acts 1 we read that Jesus’ first followers thought the time had come when he would be enthroned as Israel’s king, David’s successor. They interpreted his teaching about God’s kingdom or rule in political categories. They also applied his teaching about his being God’s king in nationalistic terms – Israel as a nation. They also thought that all this would happen very soon: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
We need to remember the comments of the disciples and Jesus’ response to them, when people today make predictions about the end time. ‘That is not your concern,’ Jesus said to the disciples. ‘I have something much more important for you to do with your time and energy.’
The agenda he set them then, and still applies to us now, is found in Acts 1:8, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. ‘Your vision is short-sighted and parochial, limited to the nation of Israel,’ he was telling them. ‘Let me give you the big picture: the waves that my life, death and resurrection have set in motion must expand, first here in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth.’
WITNESSES
Witnesses here is significant. The word signifies that he was commissioning those who had been with him during his years of public ministry to tell the world what they had seen and heard. He wanted the world to know that what his followers went on to announce about him is the truth. This is vital. The Bible makes it plain that Christianity is not a religion involving rules, ritual and regulations. Christianity involves a relationship – a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That’s why it’s so important that we know the truth about him, because meaningful and lasting relationships can only be built on truth. Relationships within families are only meaningful where there is truth and honesty. Without truth there can be no trust.
Now it’s important for us to make a distinction here. Jesus is not expecting that all his followers down through the ages will be witnesses in the way those original disciples were. We can’t be. We weren’t there. But we are called upon to testify to what we believe about Jesus. In 1 Peter 3:15 we read, always be prepared to give an answer for the hope (or the faith) that you have in Jesus Christ. In Colossians 4:6 we read, let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt… As we will explore another day, all of us have a part to play, looking for opportunities and asking questions, stirring others to think seriously about what the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is saying.
Most of us shrivel up with fear at the thought of talking with others about matters of faith. Or we are simply silence by a world of political correctness. Jesus understood how we feel. He encouraged his first disciples by assuring them that they would not be doing this alone, in their own strength. He would send his Spirit to enable and equip them for the task. His promise still applies today – as we will see.
You may want to consider:
the significance of Jesus’ commission to the apostles – they were sent out as witnesses;
the importance of the coming of the Holy Spirit – there was to be divine empowering;
the meaning of the message – it was to touch and transform lives from the inside out.
Love for all the saints. Their faith was not just intellectual, simply giving a mental nod to God. Rather, their relationship with God showed itself in their relationship with one another. They were a new community, the people of God. The love of which Paul spoke is one that binds people of different national and cultural backgrounds into a unique community.
At Peter’s words that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah, his hearers were cut to the heart. It was as though their eyes had been closed but now they suddenly saw who Jesus was. Whereas they had mocked and jeered when Jesus died, they were now ashamed as they saw the truth about him and about themselves. The Spirit not only enabled Peter to preach; his hearers saw the truth. Three thousand responded to the call to repent and be baptized. That day the church was born.
Now it’s important for us to make a distinction here. Jesus is not expecting that all his followers down through the ages will be witnesses in the way those original disciples were. We can’t be. We weren’t there. But we are called upon to testify to what we believe about Jesus. In 1 Peter 3:15 we read, always be prepared to give an answer for the hope (or the faith) that you have in Jesus Christ. In Colossians 4:6 we read, let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt… As we will explore another day, all of us have a part to play, looking for opportunities and asking questions, stirring others to think seriously about what the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is saying.