Colossians 1:9

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. God blessed to us the reading of His sacred and holy word this morning. Heracles, a fifth century philosopher of Alexander, Egypt, once wrote a humorous storybook. Each story was meant to teach a lesson about something. There was one about a man who made a ridiculous vow. He made this vow that he would never go into the water until he first learned to swim. Of course, he never got anywhere because how can you learn to swim unless you go in the water? In a similar way, you can’t learn how to pray. if you never venture forth and go to the throne of grace to try. At first, your words may be stumbling, they may be halting. Communing with the most high God is not the most natural thing to do. It’s not an easy thing to do. You may be at a loss as to what to request when you go to the throne of grace. You may be self-centered and not think about your… brothers and sisters in Christ and their needs. That’s why it’s always vitally important to study the prayers of the Bible. God inspired prayers because they are certainly pleasing to God. For the church at Colossi, Paul gave hearty thanks to God for their faith, for their love, for their hope. They had embraced the gospel of Christ, which he’s talked about when they heard it from his brother here, Apaphrus, his fellow servant and minister of the gospel. And he felt encouraged about what he heard concerning the people of God here at Colossi. And thus he lists up a prayer to God for the church. Now you can learn something from this text, something about intercessary prayer. And what? to request for your brothers and sisters in Christ. So I want to talk about intercessary prayer here. Let’s look at the motive for your intercessary prayer. This is an invaluable proof of your love. If you pray for someone else. Paul’s heart goes out in love. He burns in love for the people. here of Colossi. He’s never met them, but he’s heard about them, and he’s praying for them. Now, when you pray for others, when you lift up an intercessory prayer, you are loving your neighbor then as yourself, because you’re considering his needs as well as your own. It’s interesting. If you look at the Lord’s prayer, he uses the word we and us, you know, give us, you know, give us this day, our daily bread, you know, forgive us our sins and so forth. So he’s teaching us there, not just to focus on our own personal needs. We don’t go through this world by ourselves. We belong to the body of Christ. We belong to the Church of Christ. Each member of the church, the local church here is expected to certainly contribute to the wealth and the welfare of the entire body, and we ought to seek the wealth and the welfare of the entire body of Christ as the church universal. You may not be able to enrich the church financially, but you certainly can enrich the church through your prayers. But if you fail to bless the church through your prayers, it certainly would demonstrate a lack of love. The Bible says in 1. Corinthians 13, 13, 5, love seeketh not her own. love looks out for the interest of others. Love wants the best for your fellow believer and therefore seeks the Lord’s blessing in their lives. So it’s invaluable proof of your love. Paul loved these people, and therefore he prays for them. It’s an infallible means of obtaining what you seek from others, for others. Intercessory prayer is valuable because it’s effectual. The reason I say it’s effectual is because Christ promised this about prayer. Everyone that asketh, receiveeth, and if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. John 1414 and John Matthew 7.8. It’s not been in vain that we intercede for others, for Christ has told us that he delights to answer such petitions. unselfish devotion, which pleads for the spiritual good of our brother or sister in Christ, is certainly something that’s very pleasing to God. And if you desire any blessing, for those who are in Christ, your best course, of course, is to pray. On the first day of May, in ancient England, they observed an annual custom. many of the inhabitants of London went out into the fields in the early morning and bathed their faces in the spring dew of the grass. Why did they do that? Well, they were under the impression it would make them either beautiful or handsome if they did that. It’s what we call an old wives’ tale today. Certainly a puritan. superstitious custom. And yet many people diligently followed this foolish social custom, and there was never any proof that it had ever worked. One thing I do know, the bathed one’s face every morning in the dew of heaven by prayer and fellowship with the Lord God is the sure way of obtaining the true beauty of spiritual life and character for yourself and for others. Whatever you wisely desire for your brother or sister in Christ, seek it from the throne of grace. And you will never ask amiss if you certainly follow the scriptural teaching or basis for your prayer, such as we have here in verse 9. So here’s the motive for your intercessory prayer. It’s an invaluable proof of your love, and it’s the infallible means of obtaining what you seek for others. Secondly, let’s talk about the manner of your incessary prayer, intercessary prayer. Your intercessory prayer should be immediate. Notice he says here, since the day we heard it, as soon as Paul learns about these believers, as soon as he gets information about them, because he’s never visited him, he didn’t establish this church. But he hears about this church. But he hears about this. faith and their love and their hope, they’re concerned for him and his ministry. He begins, he says, to pray for them. Whenever you perceive the work of the spirit in any heart, pray at once for the person. Whatever you discover, whenever you discover any spiritual lack in a brother or sister in Christ, pray that that lack may be supplied. There’s an all. proverb that says he gives twice, who gives quickly. It’s a double blessing to get it quickly. The gift is more valuable. When you pray quickly, it often pleases God to answer quickly. So that we hear about someone, you immediately pray for them. It’s like having the double blessing. Divine Providence has brought this person into your life. Maybe he’s a needful person that God has brought into your life. and God awaits your prayer that he may be gracious. You know, we read in 1 John and also in the book of James that God frowns on the professed believer who sees his brother in financial straits doesn’t reach out to help him. How much worse must it be if we see our brother or sister in spiritual straits and don’t pray for him for her? Therefore, to him that no way it to do good and doeth it not. It is sin, James says. So your intercessory prayer should be immediate. As soon as I heard about you, I began to pray for you. Your intercessory prayer should be incessant. We do not cease, he says to pray for you. Now, of course, Paul doesn’t mean it every single second of every single day that he’s praying for them, but rather that his prayers were constant, day after day after day. We would say today we put the Colossian church on our prayer list. They’re on that list, so they’re constantly being prayed for, regularly lifted up before the throne of grace. Remembered without fail in the petitions of Paul. You remember Moses when Israel was battling the Amlicites, had to raise his hands, hold the rod of guns. God up in order for Israel to gain the victory. Victory depended upon him constantly holding up his arms. As soon as he let his arms down, Joshua started losing the battle. So he had to, you know, kept him held up. In fact, he needed help to keep him held up. He couldn’t hold his hand up just once or twice and think, well, that’s good enough. He had to keep his hand stretched toward heaven. And there’s a sense in which we have to keep our hands stretched toward heaven in prayer. when we’re praying for others. It’s interesting in Isaiah 62 in verses 6 and 7, God says, actually tells his people, that we’re not to give God any rest until he blesses us. We’re to be like Jacob and just cling to the Lord. Don’t, you know, keep wrestling until he blesses us. Pray and faint not, the scripture tells us. We’re to continue in prayer. We’re to pray with us. not ceasing. Your father once related that during his family devotions, his son said he wanted to pray for his friend at school Eddie. So his son prayed and asked God to help Eddie because he needed to behave better at school. So he said that I, he prayed for Eddie’s behavior. I guess it was quite bad. The next day at family devotions, the father asked the son, are you going to pray for your friend Eddie again? And his son replied, no, I prayed for Eddie and he’s still bad. So as far as the son was concerned, one prayer was enough. If he didn’t get the answer, that was it. Well, that’s not the way it works, and that’s not the way we should approach things when we pray. Your intercessory prayer should be incessant. He continues, I’m going to pray without ceasing for you, he says. Your intercessory prayer should be intense. He says here also, and to desire. Remember how our Lord told the disciples, with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Luke 2215. He had this intense desire. He was highly motivated to eat the Passover with them. He longed to do it. I wish you and I could always say that with desire I have desired to pray for my brother and sister in Christ. That I would be motivated to do that. That I would be longing to do that, move to do it. I wonder if we plead for our fellow believers in Christ as diligently and as intensely as we pray for ourselves and our own needs. Vervency is a great essential in victorious prayer. The prophet Elijah, we have as the example James tells us, and his intensity of prayer. and prevailing with God. Jesus speaks about asking and seeking and knocking, and there seems to be some intensity there in the praying. To ask is one thing. To knock is more intense. And so forth, the conclusion is we ask, we knock in that order in intensity. someone said that prayer pulls the bell rope below and the great bell rings above in the ear of God. And the trouble is that some just scarcely pull the bell at all, barely getting a few dings at the top. They’re indifferent about it. Others come along occasionally and ring the bell. But the one that gets the attention of heaven is the guy that hangs on to the bell and keeps ringing it because he wants an answer. and so your intercessory prayer should be intense with desire. He says, I’m doing this. Your intercessory prayer also should be inclusive. He says, we here, for which cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you. Intercessory prayer is increased in value when it’s not just one person that’s praying. When it’s more than one person that’s praying. Paul says we also, he doesn’t say I only here, for Paul and all his co-workers were praying with one accord now for the church at Clossack. Jesus promised if two of you agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask and it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven, Matthew 1890. If two or more of you agree, if two or more believers are united in requesting anything, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, you shall have the blessings secured for you. Isn’t that what Jesus said here? Isn’t the indication? Is that this is what we should do? You remember how diligently Abraham prayed for the cities of the plains? the plane that God was going to destroy. The two large cities of course were Sodom and Gomorrah. And how diligently he interceded on behalf of those cities to spare them if there were so many righteous that were in it. He got it down to if there’s just ten righteous will you spare? But Abraham’s pleadings alone were not enough to spare the cities of the plain, were they? From God’s fire and brimstone. Until the righteous lot, as backslidden as the guy was, added a prayer that Zohar might be spared. And God spared one of the cities of the plain. Now, Abraham’s intercession may be compared to a ton weight of prayer, because this was certainly intense and heavy. Lott’s intercession was quite light by comparison, a few ounces maybe. compared to what Abraham had prayed. And yet that extra ounce or so was enough for God to spare one city of the plain. So here’s the Apostle Paul. And we know at least with him as young Timothy at the moment. Now, compared with the Apostle Paul and his prayers, Timothy might not have prayers that are of great significance and compared to the apostles here. and yet Paul’s prayer is all the more effectual because Timothy’s intercession is connected with it. I alone is certainly good when it comes to intercessory prayer, but we also is better. So the manner of your intercessory prayer should be immediate, incessant, intense, Thirdly, the matter of your intercessory prayer. You are to pray for your fellow believers to have knowledge that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will. Now these Colossian believers knew the grace of God and truth. They were bringing for spiritual fruit according to verses 5 and 6. They truly were regenerated, it seems. And yet Paul realizes there’s something lacking in their knowledge. It differ considerably from the church at Corinth, which was enriched with all kinds of knowledge. knowledge, but the Clauseians had fewer gifted people among them who could act as teachers and could edify the body of Christ. And so they were somewhat impoverished in this area of knowledge. Paul doesn’t want them to be behind in knowledge, so he prays that God will supply the need. Spiritual ignorance is certainly a constant source of error, instability, and sorrow for the people of God. You may have saving knowledge, but still lack overall basic knowledge relating to the Christian life. More knowledge is always more desirable for those with little knowledge. So the need to prayer, the pray is important here. Young converts, and even, I would say, untaught Christians, regardless of their spiritual age, need to be edified. And so you are to pray for your fellow believers to have knowledge. Notice you are to pray for your fellow believers to be filled with knowledge. I had a relative once tell me that, you know, what do you want to do? You want to have your church members all be theologians? Yes, I do. I want them all to be filled with the knowledge of God, right? He meant it as a point of ridicule, but my point, was, yeah, we ought to all be theologians in that sense. We ought to all know about God. The study of God is the most important thing we can do. Paul would not have a believer ignorant upon any point. You know, when you fill up a bushel, you fill it up with wheat, you don’t want to have any room left for chaff. You just fill it completely up, so there’s no room for any junk. And so we’d rather have the bushel of knowledge filled up with the truth, so there’s no room for any. any error to squeeze in there. We want to exclude error and false doctrine. People who get caught up in false doctrine are usually those who have a little knowledge of the truth. They’re more easily persuaded. Being untaught, you are unstable. You can get blown about with every wind of doctrine, the Bible says. You know, the Catholic Church flourishes by keeping people ignorant. The Christian Church, church flourishes by giving light. More light. The more light the better. You know, a minister once said to C.H. Spurgeon, the famous Baptist ministry, he said to this to Spurgeon, he said, I wish I could feel as you do. You have certain fixed principles about which you are sure. And you have only to state them and enforce them. But I’m in a formative state. I make my theology fresh every week. Think about that. is this, dear me, I thought, what a hopeless state for the progress and establishment of a sound church. If we have to make our theology up every week, and it could be new this different from last week, how’s anyone going to grow in grace in the knowledge of the Lord? Suppose a student of mathematics has no fixed law with regard to the value of numbers. You know, the two times two is four. Well, suppose you made up a new multiplication table every week. You didn’t like last weeks. You made a new one up. Where would you ever go? How would you ever get the answer to anything? You couldn’t ever calculate anything right. Suppose a baker didn’t follow the recipe for making bread decided to make it up as he went along. Would you want to eat it? Friends, there cannot be any experimenting with the bread of life, with the Word of God, These doctrines are fixed doctrines. They’re not things that we can just decide upon week after week, what’s new and what we should add. Knowledge can’t be built if they’re sifting sand underneath. We’ve got to have a foundation of the teaching of scripture. So you’re to pray for your fellow believers to be filled with knowledge. You are to pray for your fellow believers to be filled with knowledge of God’s will. Paul would have the Colossians. in you to know the revealed will of God. In other words, the doctrine, the precepts, the godly principles of living that are found in the Word of God. Your prayer should be, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Lord, what wilt thou have me to believe? And that’s not just for yourself, of course, but it should be for others as well. Your prayer for other believers should be to help them to know about the truths of Scripture, about Christ, about election, about the law of God, about Christian behavior, about prayer, and so forth. Sadly, many people know what their minister teaches. They can tell you what their church teaches. They can tell you what the TV evangelist is teaching. And yet often they are ignorant of the revealed will of God. To the law and to the law and to the God. the testimony if they speak not according to this word, there’s no knowledge at all. The Bible says, there’s no light. Beware of those who teach the doctrines of men in the place of the doctrines of God. So pray for other believers to search the scriptures, to confirm the truth of what they’re being taught. So you are to pray for your fellow believers to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. You are to pray for your fellow believers to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Paul further defines the knowledge that he has in mind here. Now wisdom is better than knowledge because wisdom is what we might say, knowledge rightly used. Knowledge may be the car, but wisdom is the driver. Knowledge is like having a toolbox. When you open that toolbox and maybe you’ve got all kinds of tools, you got a saw, and you got a hammer, and you’ve got a drill, and you got a measuring tape, and you’ve got a level, and so forth. Wisdom is knowing how to use the tools, how to build something with it, how to make something with it. That’s what we’re talking about here. You want your fellow believers not only to know what the Bible teaches, but how to apply it properly. to their lives. Wisdom enables you to bring your knowledge practically to bear upon your life. You need to know how to separate the precious from the vow, how to deal with your fellow believers in their different conditions, how to draw upon scriptural principles to make deductions. Now you need all wisdom. We need wisdom of all sorts here to serve you, at home, at work, in the neighborhood, in the family, in school. Spiritual understanding is similar to wisdom, but speaks of spiritual perception here. Wisdom is use of knowledge, but spiritual understanding is the grasping of knowledge. The disciples were said to be without understanding in Matthew 15, 16, when they could not perceive the doctrine of Christ because he taught it in parables. It couldn’t grasp what he was teaching. It’s not that they didn’t know the parable. They could recite the parable. They could tell you what the parable was. What do you mean by this parable? Well, how, what are we supposed to draw from this parables what they were having trouble with? And he had to explain it to them. We have to be given eyes to see the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Ephesians 118. Deuteronomy 29 4 says, God have not given the eyes to see nor ears to hear, nor a heart to perceive to this day. That’s a sad condition to be in. But if we are praying for the Lord’s help, we want eyes to see and ears to hear and so forth. The truth of the matter is we have a natural blindness. even as believers in Christ, we need spiritual illumination by the Spirit of God. You know, when Jesus said, destroy this temple in three days, I’ll raise it up again. It wasn’t just the scribes and the Pharisees who did not understand what he was talking about. It was the disciples too. They didn’t get it to after his resurrection. Then the lights went on. Oh, now we understand what he’s talking about. He’s talking about his own body. He’s not talking about the building here of the temple. Herod’s temple. Paul’s prayer is the same as the psalmist. Open mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law, Psalm 119, verse 18. What we see is that there are wondrous things in Scripture, but we don’t always see them. We don’t always grasp them. I don’t know about you, but the longer I study Scripture, the less I realize I know. There’s so much there. There’s so much to understand and to pursue. and to apply. There’s a depth and richness to the Word of God so that there’s always something new to be found in Scripture. It’s not that it’s not there that we don’t know what the, we can even quote the verse, perhaps, but it’s how we look at the verse and how that verse may apply to a certain situation that we don’t grasp immediately. So this is a prayer that you would have an illumination of mind to perceive spiritual truth. Your knowledge of God’s word then breaks down to illumination and application. So this is a humbling prayer, a confession, that all the people of God need spiritual light or they cannot properly understand and use the scriptures. You can never vow, you won’t go swimming until you first learn to swim. Never go into the water until first order to swim, well, you’re never going to learn to swim. in a similar way you can’t learn to pray unless you try. But as you are trying, follow the pattern of Scripture, because here you have the Bible teaching you how to pray. Here’s the way to go. Here’s Paul’s prayer, guided by the Spirit. This is what God would have us pray. Here’s an intercessory prayer. The motive should be love. The manner should be immediate, incessant, intense, inclusive, The matter should be with regard to God’s will that people would be given wisdom and spiritual understanding. Let us close with the word.