SPEAKER_01: Thank you, musicians, for leading us in worship.
SPEAKER_01: That was something of a time-traveling worship that we just experienced.
SPEAKER_01: We just sang hymns composed in the 21st, the 19th, the 12th, and the 6th centuries.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm mistaken on the specifics, Bill, I'm sure we'll correct me later.
SPEAKER_01: What a great reality that when you come to Christ and you are baptized into his church, you are joined to an institution that transcends time and culture and language.
SPEAKER_01: When you engage in worship of the eternal God, you engage in an act that transcends time and space.
SPEAKER_01: A great reality that we get to participate in this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let's continue to worship the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Let me invite you to open your Bibles to Colossians in chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: If you're using the Bible from the seat in front of you, this is page 983.
SPEAKER_01: Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 and following is our text for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And as you're turning, let me also invite you back this evening at 5.15, where we will conclude our Lord's day with our evening worship service.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Dan will be taking us into Deuteronomy Deuteronomy and chapter 32.
SPEAKER_01: It's at 5.15 for our evening worship.
SPEAKER_01: This morning our passage of scripture is Colossians chapter 1, beginning in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: So follow with me as I read from the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at your Bibles, and let's read Colossians chapter 1, beginning in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
SPEAKER_01: He has delivered 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.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: In the course of the next twenty-four hours, you will take approximately twenty thousand breaths.
SPEAKER_01: And in the next three hundred and sixty-five days, you will take another seven million more.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing more natural and essential to life than breathing.
SPEAKER_01: And it was the great 19th-century author, the Bishop of Liverpool, J.C.
SPEAKER_01: Ryle, who said, Prayer is to faith what breath is to life.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing more natural and essential to life, spiritual life, that is, than prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So it is only natural that Paul begins this letter to the Colossians with a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We saw last week in verses 3 through 8 that he begins by thanking the Lord for what God is doing in the lives of the Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: And this morning, beginning in verse 9, he begins to tell the Colossians what he's praying on their behalf, what he's praying for them.
SPEAKER_01: This is the pattern of Paul's entire life, not just in the book of Colossians, but in all of his letters to fellow believers, he reveals to us that his life is characterized by prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's the life of a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: If we're spiritually alive, our lives will be characterized by breathing or praying.
SPEAKER_01: There's two things I just want to note before we move on into the rest of the text about Paul's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: If you look at verse 9, he says, From the day we heard, and what is it that he heard?
SPEAKER_01: Well, back up in verse 7 and 8, he just told us that he learned from Epaphras, who was the one who had told the Colossians about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And through that message, these Colossians had become Christians, they'd become united to Christ through faith.
SPEAKER_01: And verse not, excuse me, verse 8, Ephras has made known to Paul and Timothy their love in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So having heard of what God had done in the lives of the Colossians, Paul, verse 9, has not ceased to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing I want you to notice about Paul's prayer is that he prays.
SPEAKER_01: That is, it's the characteristic pattern of his life that Paul prays.
SPEAKER_01: And not just Paul, but as I've said, Paul certainly is characterized by that.
SPEAKER_01: But in the scriptures, all spiritual leaders are characterized by this.
SPEAKER_01: At the conclusion of the prophet Samuel's ministry, he gathers the people of Israel, and in 1 Samuel 12 says, As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: It's a quality in Scripture that those who are in charge of spiritual leadership are charged with the responsibility of praying for their people.
SPEAKER_01: But this responsibility is not something that is entrusted exclusively to those in offices in the church, because prayer is spiritual breath, and pastors are not the only ones who breathe.
SPEAKER_01: So it's incumbent upon every Christian to take our breaths and to pray for one another.
SPEAKER_01: So I think the first thing that we should notice in the letter to the Colossians is that Paul opens with the prayer, and he never explicitly tells us to pray, but isn't he modeling for us what our lives ought to look like too?
SPEAKER_01: We could ask ourselves, for whom are we praying?
SPEAKER_01: If spiritual breath is so characteristic of the apostle's life, shouldn't it also be characteristic of our life?
SPEAKER_01: And what do our prayers look like for those around us?
SPEAKER_01: So first we notice that he prays, and we can ask, do we pray?
SPEAKER_01: And second, then we could ask, what does Paul pray?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the rest of the text, and that's going to be the rest of the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: This morning we're going to look at Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 to 14, and I think a good heading for this would be Paul's Prayer for You.
SPEAKER_01: He's praying for Colossian believers, but through them he's praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: And as you read this text, you can discover two things.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, what Paul wants your life to look like.
SPEAKER_01: What does a mature Christian life look like?
SPEAKER_01: And you can apply the spiritual principles in this text to your life.
SPEAKER_01: But then secondly, Paul's entire prayer becomes a roadmap, a model for our own prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And we can ask, are these the kind of prayers that characterize my life as I struggle on behalf of my brothers and sisters in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: So let's walk through this text.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's prayer for us unfolds in three steps.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing is, what does he pray for us?
SPEAKER_01: He prays that we would walk worthy.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at the text in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, I have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the collocation of all of these intellect words, wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And then again at the end of verse 10, he asks that they'd be increasing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: Intellect words, wisdom and knowledge and understanding, occur 21 times in the letter to the Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: This is a theme.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is at pains.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to know something.
SPEAKER_01: What is it that he wants you to know?
SPEAKER_01: When you walk through the letter and you track what Paul wants you to know consistently, what he wants you to know is he wants you to know God.
SPEAKER_01: Look even in this text.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 9, he wants you to know the will of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Then in verse 10, he wants you to increase in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just look at a couple more in the letter.
SPEAKER_01: Drop down to chapter 1 and verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 1, verse 27, Paul says that to them, that is, people in this generation, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wants you to know Christ, and he wants you to know what union with Christ is all about.
SPEAKER_01: As the worker was leading us in the meditation on Be Thou My Vision, you saw the words on the screen, the bottom two lines.
SPEAKER_01: Thou, my true Father, I thy true Son, thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.
SPEAKER_01: That is a thoroughly biblical line.
SPEAKER_01: There is a oneness, an indissoluble union between you and the living God.
SPEAKER_01: He is in you and you are in him.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul wants you to understand more of the glory of what it is to be one with God through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He says this again in chapter two, where he begins by telling how hard he's working on behalf of the Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 2 of chapter 2, he says, so that your hearts will be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he wants you to know.
SPEAKER_01: And just one more verse in this letter.
SPEAKER_01: Look over in chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapter three, Paul is describing for us what a mature Christian life would look like.
SPEAKER_01: And in the heart of that exposition, in chapter three and verse ten, he says this that having put off the old self with its practices, you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
SPEAKER_01: Characteristic of Christian maturity is this you think God's thoughts after him.
SPEAKER_01: So what does God think about?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we could back this up in order to try to understand very clearly.
SPEAKER_01: Before there was a creation, before there was time and space and matter, there was God.
SPEAKER_01: What was God thinking about?
SPEAKER_01: Was he bored?
SPEAKER_01: For all of eternity, what filled the mind of God was the glory of his son.
SPEAKER_01: For all of eternity, the mind of God is characterized by complete saturation and infatuation with the glory of his son radiating back to him.
SPEAKER_01: And what it means to be a Christian is to be united to that son, and for your mind to increasingly be characterized by God's same thoughts, your mind to be increasingly overcome with, absolutely infatuated, absolutely enthralled with the same thing that's been enthralling the Father for all of eternity, the glory of the Son.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Paul wants you to know.
SPEAKER_01: Paul wants you to know that the glories of Christ are deeper than you can imagine, higher than you can fathom.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't even begun to search out all that is in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now look back at the text that we're studying this morning in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, what does he pray for with regards to knowledge?
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 9 that he's praying that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will, that you'd be filled up with this knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, filling is another motif through the letter of Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: That occurs twelve times, the language of filling.
SPEAKER_01: And characteristic of the message of filling that Paul wants us to understand is in chapter 2 and verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 2, verse 9, this is another one of those kind of thesis statements of the letter to the Colossians.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2, verse 9, Paul says, In Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him.
SPEAKER_01: It's a perfect tense.
SPEAKER_01: You have been filled.
SPEAKER_01: It's a completed act.
SPEAKER_01: You have been filled.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, though you have been filled, he says in verse 9 that he wants you to be filled in an ongoing way.
SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, what is the deal?
SPEAKER_01: Have I been filled, or do I need to continue being filled?
SPEAKER_01: Which is it?
SPEAKER_01: And the way to harmonize these statements is, I think, rather straightforward.
SPEAKER_01: A key theme in the letter to the Colossians is he wants us to understand that all of our spiritual needs have been satisfied in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That is, there is an objective reality that what it means to put your faith in Christ is that you have been divinely united to the Son.
SPEAKER_01: So that all of your sins, past, present, and future, have been atoned for through his death.
SPEAKER_01: All of the righteousness of Christ is clothing you.
SPEAKER_01: You've been adopted into the family of God.
SPEAKER_01: You have the inheritance of God.
SPEAKER_01: All of God's favor is as firmly upon you as it has unswervingly been upon his own son for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: All of your spiritual needs are in Christ, and you're united to him, and you have access to all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But while you are in this world, you've got to go cash the check.
SPEAKER_01: That is, you've been brought into the family.
SPEAKER_01: All the wretches of God are yours.
SPEAKER_01: It's your possession, your birthright because of your new birth into Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But now you need to go cash the check in order to actualize the power and the wisdom and the virtue that you need to live in a way that's worthy of the Lord who redeemed you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is asking you to do.
SPEAKER_01: He's asking you to go to the spiritual bank and cash the check to get what you need to live in a way that's worthy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So, what would that look like?
SPEAKER_01: Well, look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: He's praying that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will.
SPEAKER_01: If you're going to do that, you've got to know what is the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, what is the will of God?
SPEAKER_01: We could, of course, do a long study throughout scripture of the will of God, but here's a very simple way of understanding how you would access the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 2, verse 18, Paul says, You know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law.
SPEAKER_01: The way you know the will of God is through the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And hey, look at this.
SPEAKER_01: There's some scriptures, so why don't we just keep reading?
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, verses 10 all the way through verse 12 are going to define for us very specifically in this instance what God's will is for you.
SPEAKER_01: God wants you to walk worthy according to the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: And specifically in this text, God's will for you, a worthy life would be a life that pleases the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's God's will for you, is that you would live your life in a way that is pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: You're filled with knowledge and spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Fully pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_01: That's the banner over these two verses.
SPEAKER_01: A life that's worthy of the Lord is a life that just pleases the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_01: That's what the following verses are about.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you could break up kind of this outline this way.
SPEAKER_01: This passage is Paul's prayer for you.
SPEAKER_01: What does Paul want for you?
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to walk worthy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_01: You do that by pleasing the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And specifically in this verse, there are four things that Paul tells us we need to do in order to please the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They are given to us in the following.
SPEAKER_01: Look it down at verse 10 again.
SPEAKER_01: Fully pleasing to him, number one, bearing fruit in every good work.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, increasing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, being strengthened with all power.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm reading from the ESV, and many of you have the same phenomenon in your English translation.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 is a new sentence in my English translation.
SPEAKER_01: And that is makes sense naturally, stylistically.
SPEAKER_01: The message still comes across in English, but it's been broken up.
SPEAKER_01: And the original Greek, it's one long sentence.
SPEAKER_01: But we are English-speaking modern Americans who have been on the internet, and our attention spans have been shrunk to the level of squirrels, so that now.
SPEAKER_01: What are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01: So we don't do long sentences, but other cultures do.
SPEAKER_01: And Greek literary culture loved a long sentence, and so Paul has written a really good one here.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 11 just continues the thought.
SPEAKER_01: This is the third thing that pleases the Lord, bearing fruit, growing in knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, being empowered with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with with joy.
SPEAKER_01: Number four here, giving thanks.
SPEAKER_01: So these are the four things that you would bear fruit in every good work, grow in the knowledge of God, be empowered with divine power for endurance and patience, and joyfully give thanks.
SPEAKER_01: Bearing fruit, growing in knowledge, being empowered, and giving thanks.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the four things.
SPEAKER_01: So let's just walk through these quickly.
SPEAKER_01: But even before we get there, I think I want to back up for one second and say a word about the nature of pleasing the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: When we say, it's a very religious language, isn't it, let's please the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But when we say that, what do we mean by it?
SPEAKER_01: There are two kind of equal but opposite airs that we can fall into very naturally.
SPEAKER_01: One air would be a notion of pleasing the Lord that falls into kind of servile obsequiousness.
SPEAKER_01: That is, oh, I would just want God to get my I want to get God's attention.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm bending over backwards, oh please, please, please, groveling, groveling, groveling if I can just get his attention.
SPEAKER_01: Like some kind of butler serving a particularly prideful 19th-century aristocrat.
SPEAKER_01: Is that the way we're to conceptualize pleasing the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, emphatically, no.
SPEAKER_01: What Paul has just taught us is that this God sought you out, this God redeemed you, this God made you a member of his family, this God has fixed his favor firmly upon you.
SPEAKER_01: Your desire to please him flows out of the reality that he has put his pleasure upon you.
SPEAKER_01: But there's another air that we can fall into, and that is this kind of like begrudging duty.
SPEAKER_01: Ah, this is the right thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, depending on your relationship to the person you are trying to please, your duty can either interrupt your delight, or your duty can actualize your delight.
SPEAKER_01: So if you are doing your duty, trying to please an unreasonable boss who every weekend is calling you and saying, I need you to come in on Saturday, then you're gonna begrudgingly do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: But it's interrupting your delight, which is over here.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're doing your duty to, let's say, for instance, a spouse whom you love, and there's some duty you need to perform for your spouse, but you love your spouse, and you know that doing this duty is going to bring joy to your spouse's heart, and you look at him or her and think, when they are happy, that gives me deep joy.
SPEAKER_01: Then your duty doesn't interrupt your delight, it actualizes it.
SPEAKER_01: In the act of serving your spouse, you are experiencing your greatest delight.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of idea that Paul wants us to have when we conceptualize pleasing the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You've been redeemed by this great God.
SPEAKER_01: He has firmly called you his child.
SPEAKER_01: Now you get to please him.
SPEAKER_01: That is, you get to make your duty your delight.
SPEAKER_01: So, what Paul is going to explain in the next couple verses, in these four little verbs where he tells us how we please the Lord, is really he's giving us a roadmap for how we experience delight in Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe another way, a final way to say this is when we are pleasing the Lord, are we seeking God's pleasure or ours?
SPEAKER_01: And if you are really pleasing the Lord, the answer must be yes.
SPEAKER_01: Because I delight in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So pleasing the Lord is my highest pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: How then do you do that?
SPEAKER_01: How do you please the Lord and walk in and actualize in your Christian life your deepest pleasure?
SPEAKER_01: Through these four steps.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, bearing fruit in every good work.
SPEAKER_01: We saw in verse 6 that the way that the gospel advances is that it opens the eyes of those who hear it so that they behold the glory of Christ, they take hold of Christ, and it bears fruit in their life.
SPEAKER_01: And here it's specified that the fruit it bears in our life is now we do good works.
SPEAKER_01: We do good works that please the Lord because we delight in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And reciprocally, look at the end of verse 10, we're simultaneously increasing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: A theme that we've already traced out just for a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: God wants you to know him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how are these two activities related to one another?
SPEAKER_01: Bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: They're mutually enhancing, aren't they?
SPEAKER_01: The more you know God, the more you're motivated to perform good works for him.
SPEAKER_01: And the more you perform good works for him, the more it works up an appetite to know this God more.
SPEAKER_01: So they're mutually reinforcing.
SPEAKER_01: So the Christian life becomes this cycle of great delight as you know God and serve God and know him more and serve him more.
SPEAKER_01: And that continues and continues and continues, which means you need a third reality in your life to please the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Being empowered with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance with patience and joy.
SPEAKER_01: That little expression, being empowered with all power, according to his glorious might, according to his glorious might, sounds so Old Testament, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, it is an Old Testament expression.
SPEAKER_01: And when you walk through the Old Testament, it's speaking of a particular aspect of God's power.
SPEAKER_01: And I think this is well captured in this verse from Isaiah, verse 20, chapter 40, verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: This is the voice of the Lord who says, Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these.
SPEAKER_01: It's referring to the stars.
SPEAKER_01: Who made the stars in the sky?
SPEAKER_01: He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name.
SPEAKER_01: By the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one of them is missing.
SPEAKER_01: What Paul's appealing to here in Colossians is the divine creative power that made the universe, that brought the stars into existence, that calls them by name.
SPEAKER_01: God's divine creative power is now at work in you to enable you to live a life of endurance and patience.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does endurance and patience mean?
SPEAKER_01: Frequently, we will use the word patience in the context of a quick prayer request.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, please pray, give me patience.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone is so annoying.
SPEAKER_01: I just need patience with all these annoying people.
SPEAKER_01: And certainly you need patience for everyday experiences.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul has something even bigger in mind here, something more all-encompassing.
SPEAKER_01: This concept of being strengthened with endurance and patience.
SPEAKER_01: Endurance and patience aren't two different things.
SPEAKER_01: They're just a way of enhancing this kind of global idea.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you need in life.
SPEAKER_01: There's a good text to kind of explain this to us in Hebrews in chapter 10, where the author of Hebrews says, What you need, you need endurance.
SPEAKER_01: So that when you have done the will of God, the same thing Paul wants us to do in Colossians, you will receive what has been promised.
SPEAKER_01: The same thing that Paul's going to end this prayer with in chapter 13 and 14, verses 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you need.
SPEAKER_01: You need endurance and patience to pass through all of the circumstances of life on earth and lay hold of the promised inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what is going to enable you to do that, to continue bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, and doing that with endurance and patience all the way until you see the Lord of glory, do you know what will enable you to do that?
SPEAKER_01: The same divine power that brought the stars into existence.
SPEAKER_01: That is really good news.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's praying.
SPEAKER_01: Is trusting that God, who called you to Himself, who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it at the day of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Or as he says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 4, he who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.
SPEAKER_01: You pray that for yourself and you pray that for other people.
SPEAKER_01: It will increase your confidence that you can work and labor, and through your work and labor, God's divine power will be working through you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul says in Colossians chapter 1, verse 29.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 29.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, This is what characterizes my life.
SPEAKER_01: I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.
SPEAKER_01: You ask the question if God is working powerfully within you, do you work or does God work?
SPEAKER_01: The answer, like many things in Christian life, is yes.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know that the divine creative power will work in you to enable you to endure through life, you can have confidence to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You can have confidence to walk worthy, pleasing the Lord, growing in your knowledge, bearing fruit for every good work.
SPEAKER_01: And as you work with all of the energy that He powerfully works within you, as Paul says, you will lay hold of the reward.
SPEAKER_01: When you know that, it will enable you to do this fourth thing.
SPEAKER_01: The fourth thing that enables you to please the Lord is in verse 11 again, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, one other note on grammar here.
SPEAKER_01: The ESV splits joy from giving thanks and puts joy with what came before.
SPEAKER_01: But most English translations, so if you're reading from the NIV or any number of other English translations, puts joy with giving thanks.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the right way to understand the text.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's talking about joyfully giving thanks.
SPEAKER_01: As you are bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, experiencing God's divine power, enabling you to persevere with patience, it will cause you to joyfully give thanks to God.
SPEAKER_01: And I think joy and thanks go together, as we've seen through Scripture, I mentioned this last week.
SPEAKER_01: They're in a sense synonyms, they're at least interchangeable.
SPEAKER_01: A thankful person is a joyful, happy person.
SPEAKER_01: An unthankful person is an unhappy person.
SPEAKER_01: Period.
SPEAKER_01: Or I could say, two kids sat down at the dinner table, one was thankful, one was unthankful.
SPEAKER_01: I could have also said, two kids sat down at the dinner table, one was happy, one was unhappy.
SPEAKER_01: Because thankfulness and joy are inextricably linked.
SPEAKER_01: They always go together.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot be a joyful, unhappy person.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, a joyful, unthankful person.
SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving generates joy.
SPEAKER_01: And what Paul is calling our attention to is that as you understand these divine realities of what God has done in your life, as you repented of your sins and fell upon Christ, it will generate in you thanks that God the Father called you out of darkness into his glorious kingdom, which is where he's going next.
SPEAKER_01: So first, Paul has prayed what?
SPEAKER_01: That we would walk worthy of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: By pleasing the Lord in good works, growing in our knowledge, being empowered, and giving thanks joyfully.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, he prays that we would understand the why.
SPEAKER_01: That we would grow in our understanding of why we do these things, because this God has delivered us.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at the end of verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says that this God who we're giving thanks to has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light.
SPEAKER_01: The word qualify is a it's an amazing word, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Just note two things about this word.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, it is a past tense.
SPEAKER_01: That is, whatever God did to qualify you has been done.
SPEAKER_01: And notice also that it's who the subject of this action is.
SPEAKER_01: Just I know you know this, but for emphasis sake, who qualified you?
SPEAKER_01: What's the text say?
SPEAKER_01: The Father! He qualified you.
SPEAKER_01: You did not participate, you didn't do this, you did not contribute, he has done it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's so many ways we could think about this.
SPEAKER_01: One simple way is there are any number of government institutions that I am not qualified to enter.
SPEAKER_01: And if I show up on the premises, I will be very quickly shown out.
SPEAKER_01: But I have discovered as a high school pastor that I'm not even qualified to get into high schools around here.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking at, I see a couple high school kids, and I know I've experienced this.
SPEAKER_01: If I show up at your school, I will be shown the door.
SPEAKER_01: But if you show up with me and you put your arm around me and you say he's with me, suddenly I'm qualified.
SPEAKER_01: Because you've shared your qualifications with me, you've granted them to me.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is talking about.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing in you that qualifies you to become a member of the kingdom of God, but God has qualified you.
SPEAKER_01: Christ has the qualifications to enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Christ has the qualifications to be an inheritor of all that is God's.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ hasn't just put his arm around you, but he's grafted your life into him so that he shows up before the Father and says, He's in me.
SPEAKER_01: This is why you are qualified to become a member of the kingdom of God, because you're in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He has done this.
SPEAKER_01: So then Paul goes on to say this another way in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: He says, He has delivered 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.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the word delivered, another very interesting verb that he uses, it's a word that could be translated as saved or redeemed or any number of ways, which are all good translations, but in this particular context, I think delivered is the perfect choice for this reason.
SPEAKER_01: When someone makes a delivery, you deliver it from somewhere to somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Paul is referring to in these verses.
SPEAKER_01: He has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: He brought you out of something, and he finished the job by bringing you into something.
SPEAKER_01: So what is the domain of darkness?
SPEAKER_01: The word that's translated domain here is a word that normally in the New Testament would be translated just power.
SPEAKER_01: So the idea is we're under the power of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: Sin has a grip on us.
SPEAKER_01: When we come into this world, we come into this world just naturally gifted at blame shifting and self-justifying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at some of you, and the people with biggest smiles, I've noticing that they're parents.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think if I came to your house, I would find you giving lessons on how to blame your brother.
SPEAKER_01: But man kids do that good, don't they?
SPEAKER_01: We are captivated by what we want.
SPEAKER_01: And we are gifted at blaming others because we're under the power of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture says that we're born into the world dead in sin.
SPEAKER_01: The scripture says that those who are in the world are blinded by the God of this world to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of God, who is the image, glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: That is, you come into the world and you cannot see spiritual realities rightly.
SPEAKER_01: You have a misperception of everything, and sin grips your mind and prevents you from beholding who God is and who you are.
SPEAKER_01: But when God comes into your life, he transfers you from that darkness.
SPEAKER_01: That is, he breaks the power of sin, he breaks the blindness, he rips off the crusts off your eyes, and you behold the glory of Christ, and you see your sin, and there's no more blame shifting, and you take hold of Christ, and he transfers you out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: There's one other thing I want to say about this word transfer here or deliver, is I think it's helpful for us to notice the contrast between being in the power of sin and the kingdom of the beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: Power isn't organized.
SPEAKER_01: Power is just sin has a kind of chaotic power over people in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And it had a chaotic power in our life.
SPEAKER_01: But when Christ when God delivers you into the kingdom of Christ, now you're in a kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Now you are an organized sphere where there is a king with sovereign power to look at you and say, You're mine.
SPEAKER_01: You belong to me.
SPEAKER_01: No one's taking you from me.
SPEAKER_01: This is very different from the way a lot of deliveries happen.
SPEAKER_01: So I love to order things from Amazon, probably too much.
SPEAKER_01: And the nature of these Amazon deliveries is a guy shows up and he drops a package in your apartment complex or your front porch, takes a picture of it, his job is done.
SPEAKER_01: He has delivered the package.
SPEAKER_01: What happens to that box from the moment he takes that picture is anybody's guess.
SPEAKER_01: That is not the way God delivers his people.
SPEAKER_01: He takes you out of the power of darkness and brings you all the way into the kingdom of his beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: And he puts both arms around you and says, You are mine.
SPEAKER_01: Hands off.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, when you recognize that, as he says over and over in this book, in a growing and increasing way, when you're growing in the knowledge of that God who set his affection on you, it's going to have an effect in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at this last little phrase here in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and just use that as a launching point to kind of just very quickly walk back up backwards through this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Where Paul ends in his prayer for the Colossians is we have redemption in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In him we have forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_01: So think about this for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Before there was a you, before you had an inkling of affection for God, because you hadn't even been born, God set his affection on you.
SPEAKER_01: He elected you, the Son chose you, and the Son chose to come into the world to live a flawless life, tempted in every way that you are, yet without sin, and at the culmination to bear the very judgment that you deserve for your sins against a holy God.
SPEAKER_01: He accomplished all that was necessary to qualify you for redemption.
SPEAKER_01: Then you're born into this world under the power of darkness without interest in God.
SPEAKER_01: You find him offensive or uninteresting at best.
SPEAKER_01: And he sends his spirit into the world who hunts you down and breaks into your life and rips off the blinders, tears off the curtains to show you the glory of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ receives you and brings you into himself and says, You're in me, and I in you, and the Father says, You're in the Son, and all of my affection, all the love that I have for the Son is now on you.
SPEAKER_01: Even with the same radiant, effulgent power that I have been enjoying the Son for all of eternity, I now place that on you.
SPEAKER_01: You are mine.
SPEAKER_01: All that is mine is yours because you are in my son.
SPEAKER_01: The more you understand that, you're going to be a person who's characterized by joyously giving thanks to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be more characterized by pleasing the Lord, by bearing fruit and every good work, and growing in the knowledge of this great God, trusting that the same God who redeemed you, who's delivered you into his kingdom, will continue to work his divine creative power into you to enable you to endure with patience.
SPEAKER_01: And as that reality is working in you, won't you pray that for others?
SPEAKER_01: Won't you look around at your brothers and sisters and say, I want the same great realities that God is so graciously working in my life to work out in the lives of those around you.
SPEAKER_01: What an incredible privilege it is to belong to this God who has delivered us.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: God, we do worship you for who you are and what you have done for us, and we ask that you would, by your gracious divine power, work in us so that we would bear fruit in every good work, so that we would grow in the knowledge of you, our great God and Father.
SPEAKER_01: Father, empower us by your Spirit to continue with endurance so that we might take hold of what you've promised us.
SPEAKER_01: We ask that you would awaken in our hearts deeper affection so that we would be able to joyfully give you thanks in all of the circumstances of life.
SPEAKER_01: And we trust you that you who called us are faithful, you will surely do it.
SPEAKER_01: We bless you for who you are and what you've done for us.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Christ we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.