Collossians 1:9-14-Paul's Prayer Part 1

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Transcript

Slow Walk Through Colossians

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Colossus chapter one is where we'll be. Colossians chapter one. We're not going fast at our uh at all, are we? We need some more water. Give me some more water. One, two, three, go. All right, Colossians chapter one. We'll be in verse nine today. And we're looking at a letter. And you realize that we have taken off the binoculars and put on the microscope. I think that's obvious, right? We're going a lot slower, a lot to look at, but we're not in any rush. If we're not going through this, we'd go through another part of God's word. So uh Colossians chapter one, it's a letter written from Paul and Timothy. Don't forget Timothy, he's there too. Uh, to a group of believers who lived in the town of Colossi. They met in a similar way that we meet. Nothing official, no sound system, no smoke, no lights, uh, just people who loved the Lord and loved each other. Um, and Paul had heard, probably from a man named Epaphras, of their faith, their love, and their hope. And Paul was excited to hear about what God was doing there in Colossae. He had never met them personally, but he loved them, right? They were family.

The Trap Of Jesus Plus

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Now, Paul also understood, this is a big part of the book, that there was a struggle. As God was doing these good things, false teachers were coming into the church and trying to entice people away to other things. It always happened, it was always that way. Um, there was a group known as the Judaizers, and Paul spoke of these people often, who would come in and say to the new Gentile believers, Jesus is great and all, he's our Messiah. But if you're really gonna understand what it means to be a Christian, you need to become a Jew. You need to start observing the traditions and the dietary laws and all these things. You need this plus Jesus. Now, we're gonna deal with this all the way through the book, so I don't want to be a broken record, but Jesus plus anything negates the power of Jesus in our life. If we trust in anything else and Jesus, it makes what God has done for us of nothing. It's nothing if we do that. And Paul understood this and he gets rather aggressive. If we add anything else to our faith with Jesus, oh you're a better, you're a better believer if you uh become a vegetarian, you worship like we worship, you use the version of the Bible that we use. It doesn't matter what it is, if you add that to Jesus, you negate the power of Jesus in your life. And Paul is passionate about this. Now, the other thing that was coming into the church was Greek philosophy. It was coming slowly, but some were coming in and saying, you know what? Jesus is good. It was always Jesus is good. There's no arguing there. But we have this secret knowledge, this deeper knowledge. Uh, they would later be known as the Gnostics, Gnostic with a G, right? Uh, came from this word to know. And they would come in and they'd say, We know the secret stuff. We know stuff you don't know. And if you knew this, then you'd really be a super Christian. And the answer is the same. Jesus plus anything negates the power of Jesus to save us. It's not just faith anymore. Now, we've been considering this in chapter one, and chapter one is mostly an introduction to the letter.

Reading Paul’s Prayer In Colossians

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It's important, but it's an introduction. Last week we saw Paul uh use what's known as the exordium. He would encourage the people by saying, This is what I've heard about you. Now, in in Greek uh philosophy, it was to butter them up, right? And and yet Paul kind of flips it on its head and says, You know what? I've heard some great things that God's been doing in your life. God has done some wonderful things, God's reputation there is amazing. So he encourages the people, but it's kind of uh off to the side there. It's encouraging them in what God had done in their life. And it was producing fruit in their life. Now, today we'll consider Paul's work to uh encourage them to keep what they had. Um, Paul was very militant that people would understand you can't let these things creep into your life and take away your simple faith in Jesus. And he's gonna encourage them, but we're gonna find that he he has a deeper tactic than just arguing with them. He knows the power to change their hearts and to keep them safe is through prayer. So, in an offhand kind of way, this is about prayer today. Uh notice verse 9, Paul continues. For this reason, since the day we heard it, we did not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. We'll stop there.

Paul Prays Before He Acts

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So Paul starts by saying, Since we heard of you, we do not cease to pray for you. So picture this Paul's in house arrest there in Rome. It's like prison. He's in chains, but he has a little bit of freedom. And he gets a message from Epaphras who comes to him. Epaphras uh was involved in the church in Colossae, and he comes and he says, Paul, I just want to tell you about what's going on in Colossae. Good stuff. The people are growing, they're hearing the word, people are getting saved, but false teachers are coming in. Paul receives the account and he's excited. He hears, though, that false teaching is creeping in. And I just picture this is just me, as he hears about those who came in and said, Oh, Jesus is good, but you just need the works of Rabbi so-and-so. You just need this little thing to become a Jew first, you Gentiles. I picture Paul's eyes just rolling a little bit. I think Paul wasn't above rolling eyes, you know, because everywhere he went, these Judaizers would follow him, and this is what would happen. Paul's jealous for their faith. And what does he do? Well, he determines to write a letter. That's important. He wants to tell them the truth. Um, but think about it, it's gonna take months for it to be delivered, months for it to get to Colossae, over sea and uh land and everything. It's gonna take months. He might determine to send Timothy to the people in Colossae. I know what I'll do. I'll send my friend Timothy, I'll send Epaphras back with this message, but it's gonna take months for it to reach them. And so, what does Paul do first? He prays, he closes his eyes, maybe he opened his eyes, he bows his head, maybe he looked up, as is often the case in the Bible. Perhaps he fell down and worshiped God and prayed. It didn't matter so much what he did, but he prayed. He talked to God about the people in Colossae. Um, maybe it was silently, maybe it was out loud. He brings God into the situation through prayer. The simplest definition of prayer, probably the best. You know it from Sunday school, talking to God. It's communication with God. If we hear God speak mainly through his word, we speak back to God mainly through prayer. Um, now it's the most effective thing that can be done. And Paul understands um probably a few things about prayer, and we'll look at those today. But when we think of prayer, two things I think we say most when we mentioned, what do you think about prayer? Number one, I don't do it enough. We would all sheepishly say, I probably don't pray like I should. I don't pray enough. Everybody across the board probably can say that. The second thing about prayer that probably we would say is I don't get it. I don't understand it. I feel like I'm talking to the ceiling. I mean, what does prayer do? I don't understand how it's really getting to God. Now, we want to understand that, but that's probably the way we think. And it's the most effective thing that any of us can ever do is talk to God, give him our concerns, and trust him with the situation, but we don't understand it. Now, Paul, again, understood some things that we should understand about prayer.

Why God Works Through Prayer

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That number one, prayer um is the only thing that can change a person's heart, I think. Now, Paul had some great words that he was gonna share with the people in Colossae, sorry, Colossae, but I bet he understood, you know, I could say a whole mess of words, but unless God changes the heart, nothing's gonna happen. Prayer is the only way that we see that a heart can change by the power of God. Um and but how does prayer work? Well, how about this? Why does prayer work? Let's get back to the notes. Why does prayer work? We don't know, but it's the way that God's determined to work in the world more than anything else is through prayer. Abraham is the first real example of prayer in the Bible. It's Genesis chapter 18. Abraham gets a visit from three individuals. Two seem to be angelic, and one most obviously is said to be the Lord. Talk about having visitors, right? God comes to Abraham and he shares some things about Abraham's future. You're gonna have a baby. You and you and your wife Sarah are gonna have a baby, and there's all that, and but but also um that I'm gonna destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. I've seen the evil, I've heard the cries, I'm gonna destroy uh Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, Abraham has a nephew there in Sodom named Lot. And Abraham now begins to talk to the Lord in flesh, we would say that's Jesus, uh, begins to talk to the Lord about, well, would you destroy it if there were righteous people there? And there's a bargaining that goes on, but he basically says, God, if there's righteous people in Sodom, would you destroy the city? No, I would not do that, I would take them out. And and and Abraham prays to the Lord. A little later, Genesis chapter 20, Abraham prays on behalf of a man named Abimelech for him and his whole household to be healed. Uh now there's lots of examples of prayer in the Old Testament, from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Moses to King David, the prophets, Nehemiah prayed a ton. Um, there's lots of examples, but it seems to be the way that God has established to get things done more than anything else. Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. So straight out, God says, You want your land to be healed. You got to turn from your sin and turn from your wicked ways, but pray. If my people would just pray. Now, the New Testament is more specific. On the sermon on in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, Jesus talks about prayer, and he starts it by saying, When you pray, not if you pray, but when you'd pray. Don't be like the hypocrites and pray like this. Paul encourages it distinctly in to the people in Thessalonica. He says, Pray without ceasing. Philippians 4, 6, he says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, in prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God. 1 Timothy 2, 8. I desire that men everywhere pray with holy hands lifted up. 1 Peter 5, verse 7, Peter says, Cast your cares on him because he cares for you. And that's what prayer does. It's the way that God's decided to get things done. Why? Well, I think it's personal and it's intimate. It's a way that we tell God that we trust him. God, here's all the concerns of my life. You're gonna have to take care of them. And we trust those things to God. I'm gonna need you, God, to work in my life because I'm powerless without you. It teaches us to trust God. It takes it out of our hands. And we say, God, your kingdom come, your will be done. God, I don't know what the right answer in this is, but here it is. Would you take care of it? There's so much that happens and it involves trust. What does prayer do? What does prayer do? There's a lot of things we can consider, but these are pretty specific things I want to point out here

Open Eyes And Win Battles

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today. You can write it down and look it up later, but 2 Kings chapter 6, verse 13, very uh visual thing here. Elisha is in a town called Dothan. He's sleeping in a house. His servant wakes up in the morning and he sees that the house is surrounded by the enemy. That's no way to wake up, right? And he creaks out and says, Master, master, they're surrounding us. We're toast. That's not the King James, but that's kind of what it says. And and and um Elijah says this. Check this out, 2 Kings 6, verse 16. So he answered. Elijah said, Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray. Open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So the first thing that prayer does is it opens eyes. Something that we can't do through arguing or anything like that, even explaining, opening spiritual eyes. Elisha prays very simply, God, open this guy's eyes that he can see what's really going on. And there's these angelic hosts all around the enemy army. And he understands that. But so many times we want to argue people into believing and you know, argue somebody into understanding. It's good to have a reason for the hope that lies within you. It's good to be able to know what you believe, but nothing will change the heart and open the eyes like prayer. That's the way God's established it. And Paul understands for the Colossians, they needed their spiritual eyes open. So I'm going to pray for them, help them to see the truth. Um, the next thing, and we don't have time to turn because I've taken too long, but Daniel chapter 10. Daniel chapter 10, there is an account of Daniel fasting and praying. Now he's fasting, and prayer always seems to go with fasting because there's no point in fasting if you're not going to pray. And and as Daniel is fasting and praying for three weeks, on the 24th day, he looks up and he sees a man. He's awesome. He has this gold belt and he just shines um like the appearance of lightning. And Daniel chapter 10, verse 12. You can always turn. Daniel chapter 10, verse 12. They said to me, Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. So we get from this, this weird behind the scenes kind of thing, that as Daniel starts to fast and Daniel starts to pray, an angel is sent to him when he started praying. Now, this is what it says in verse 13. If you're there, you can look at it in Daniel 10, 13. The angel says this, but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days. And behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me. And I'd been left alone with the kings of Persia. Now I've come to make you understand what happened to your people in the latter days. And so Daniel's gonna get this crazy um prediction about the Messiah. It's amazing in Daniel chapter 10. But what we see here is as Daniel starts to pray, help ascent. I don't know how that works. I don't know what the speed differentiation of an angel is. I don't know. But in some kind of real way, this angel finds resistance with a fallen angel known as the Prince of Persia. And and there they fight. I don't know how that looked. I don't know what that looked like, what their swords looked like. I don't know how it worked. But it seems to be that as Daniel was praying, there was a battle going on. And prayer is the only thing that really wins that battle. Now, ultimately it's God, but prayer brings God into it. Ephesians chapter 6, Paul talks about the armor of God and the battle, spiritual battle that we are in. In verse 12, he says, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers, darkness of the age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. And Paul later mentions two main weapons that we have prayer and the word of God. And so this battle can only really be won with prayer and the word. 2 Corinthians, I got a lot of great verses I wanted to share today. 2 Corinthians 10, 4 says this the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not fleshly, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. So, some way prayer battles the enemy. Now, also, it changes hearts. A little bit like the first one, but it changes hearts. Read the account of Nehemiah in the book of Nehemiah. It's not a long account, you could do it this week. Nehemiah chapter one. Nehemiah prays all over the place. And it says this. He says, Let your servant prosper. He's talking to God. Let your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cupbearer. Nehemiah is talking about favor from the king. And he prays to God, give me mercy in front of this guy. I'm the cupbearer. I see the king. And and God, I just need you to change his heart and give me favor in these things. Um this is something crazy that happens when we pray. Hearts can be changed, eyes can be opened, battles can be won.

Prayer Shrinks Distance And Fear

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Now, another thing I want to point out, and we're gonna have to like split this in two today, but another thing I want to point out is that prayer closes distance. You ever feel far away from this situation? Uh, you know, as a parent, it's always our kids, right? And this last year or so, uh praying for our kids. Um, the girls are at school, that's not so bad. They're down the street, you could go visit them, but you know, they're at school. We pray for them as they go through things. Um, Braden, he's he's a pilot now, I'm sure you know that. And and and you know, he's 10,000 feet above the planet. And you see on Life 360 that, you know, he's going a little fast. His little car is going 130 miles an hour. And and you go, God, be with Braden there, up uh up in the sky, be with him. And God hears that, I believe. Jeremiah has been on the other side of the planet in in Poland. And and so many times I'd wake up in the middle of the night and say, God, just be with him over there in Poland. Now, something crazy happens in prayer that can't happen any other way. In prayer, we can go to the situation, and distance is not a problem. God's with Jeremiah, God's with Braden, God's with my girls, he's with you. And and and you look, that's what prayer does. It closes the gap of distance. Paul thought about the people in Colossae. He said, Oh, I wish I could just be there right now to tell him. God, you go. We haven't stopped praying for you. And and we see that that's the case. Um, since I'm gonna split this in in half. Um a great example of this, I think, is in the book of Acts, chapter 12. Uh, Acts chapter 12, you're always welcome to turn. Um verse 5, constant prayer is being brought up for Peter. Peter is put in jail, and Herod is so excited that the people like him for the decisions he'd made that he wants to have Peter executed the next morning. Peter's in jail and he's sleeping. It's great. Perfect peace, even in the midst of all that. And and the church is back at John Mark's house, and they're praying for Peter day and night. Oh, God, just deliver him. God, watch over him, get him out of this. And and all at once, where Peter's at, an angel appears and knocks Peter on the side and wakes him up and says, Get up, get your stuff, let's go. The chains fall off, and and he walks out and he kind of comes to his senses there on the outside. And he goes to the house of John Mark and he knocks on the door. You can hear him praying inside. Oh, God, help Peter, just help him. And a girl named Rhoda, the servant girl, comes to the door and opens it, and she's so freaked out that it's Peter that she slams the door in his face and runs back inside and says, Peter's at the door. Now, listen to this. They say, No, he's not. Peter's in jail. It's his ghost. This is the church, right? This is it's Peter's ghost. And and finally, thank God they go back and they open the door to Peter, a little embarrassed, you know. Uh, something to really realize in that distance. Well, first off, faith is only so important to prayer because they didn't have any faith, right? It was maybe a mustard seed, right? It was maybe like so small. They're like, we're praying for Peter, you know. But they didn't even believe that it was gonna happen, even when it happened. I've been there, right? And yet it didn't matter. Even when our faith is weak, God is strong in prayer, but distance is not a thing. Peter was locked up in prison, and and God delivered him. Um, it's so encouraging to understand these things.

Simple Practice And Closing Prayer

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As Paul here says, we can get back to the verse. For this reason, since the day I heard it, I do not cease to pray for you. And I guess next week we'll figure out what Paul prayed for them. But um, but he prays for them. And from a distance, he puts his hand on him, so to speak, and says, Guys, I want God to open your eyes in this situation. I want God to strengthen you and praise all sorts of good things. I want him to give you joy and endurance in these things. Um, and he does it from a distance, and hearts are changed. Hearts can be changed through prayer, and spiritual eyes can be opened through prayer, and battles can be won through prayer. And here's the big problem. We still come back and we go, but I don't really pray like I should. I say that all the time. I don't really pray like I should. I don't really think about it, I don't really spend time with God casting my cares on him, and yet the resource is amazing. Nothing is more powerful than prayer. And that's just the way God set it up a connection with him and a trust with him. But we have to do it, not legalistically. You guys spend an hour of prayer a day, okay? That's what we're gonna do this week. Like that, just talk to God, realize that the resource is there. God, my kid is across the world. Will you be with him? God, this situation is bigger than I can handle. Will you, will you, will you? I need you to work. Uh, God, open their eyes. They would understand that you love them, that there's so much more than the stuff they're turning to. And and and just to do it, just to talk to God and cast all of our cares on him because he does care for us. So, not as much as I wanted to cover today, but that's that's all right. God, uh, here we are, and we're praying. God, we're we're saying words, and our brain tells us that they're not going anywhere. And yet, our spirit, we know that you're really there, and that you do love us, that you care about everything to care for us. God help us to take this wonderful privilege of prayer seriously this week. That we would just spend time in the car, uh, at work, just in a quiet spot of our hearts. We would find ourselves praying for those people that we love and we love. God, we would find ourselves praying for those situations that we don't know what the end result is gonna be or how it's gonna happen. God, we would just cast our cares on you. God, you make up the distance in the situations. God, you make up our weakness in the situations. It's all based on who you are. Yeah, you really do care about us. So God help us uh not just to know these things, but to apply them to our lives. Thank you for being a part of our life. Thank you for really caring in Jesus' name.