Colossians 1:10-11

Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, our focus is on verses 10 and 11. For this cause, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruit, fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Strengthen with all might, according to his glorious power, under all patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this morning. When I was growing up, and even still to this day, my mother, at a China cabinet in which there was this choice set of China in it. Now, we never used the good China for everyday meals. For everyday meals, we used restaurant supply dishes that we bought it. My father bought at a restaurant supply store. They were durable and functional. Having four kids in the house, I guess he figured he didn’t want to have a broken plates. They got the more durable things. So why have China when it was of little service? Only on special occasions on holidays or some special situation where maybe the minister came over or a missionary ate with us or for Thanksgiving or whenever guests were present, then we used the China. It was a nice set of China, but too good for children to break, so it was reserved for special occasions. Now, some professing. Christians are sort of like that China. They are hardly ever in use for the kingdom of God. They sit in the China cabinet of the church pew, and they know little about everyday Christianity. Like eggshell China, they may look nice, but they’re not very functional when it comes to practical everyday Christian living. Paul’s theology, if it’s anything, it’s practical. It’s practical. He’s always focused on the Christian life. Everything is geared to how you live. He doesn’t want you to have knowledge so that you’ll just be puffed up with knowledge. You want you to have knowledge so that you can live the Christian life. And so he prays that the Colossians here may have God’s blessing upon them. They may be granted this knowledge that they may walk worthy of the Lord and be sure. spiritually fruitful. Now, it’s not wrong for us to pray for earthly or material things for other Christians, but remember, as Paul told the Corinthians, covet earnestly the best gifts. Remember what’s the most important thing, and that is the spiritual life within your brother, our sister, and Christ. When we’re praying for them, as we talked about last week, praying for our brothers and sisters. When we do that, according to verse 9, mind, remember the best things for them. Not that we should neglect the material and the earthly things that they may need, but remember the most essential matters. Let me begin by talking about your duty to walk worthy of the Lord, as we read here in verse 10, that you might walk worthy of the Lord. You are to seek wisdom and knowledge in order. order to walk worthy of the Lord. We read in verse 9 here about wisdom and knowledge and understanding, and it’s because, verse 10, you need to put that into practice. In other words, you’re to take this knowledge and use it in a practical way and how you live your life. In hundreds of ways, ignorance will make you run risk, lose opportunity, to honor your Savior, lose opportunities for usefulness, and may indeed cause you to fall into dangerous mistakes in this life. Knowledge strengthens your heart for the Lord’s work. It is the springboard for action. You have to know what God requires of you in order to do what he requires of you. In 1st Thessalonians 4-1, Paul writes, you have received of us, how you ought to walk and please God. I told you how to do it. We’re told in Ephesians 5-8, walk as children of light. Walk as those who have been given spiritual understanding. You remember the heath and philistines. In the Old Testament, we studied it in the book of Samuel. 1st Samuel, when they may place the ark of God on a cart that’s pulled by oxen because they’re ignorant of God’s law. What David does so and gets into trouble, he quickly learns to follow God’s commandments and have the Levites carry it. He needed spiritual knowledge. He needed to know what he was supposed to do and how God wanted him to do it. You are to grow in knowledge of God’s way so that he can walk according to the light that has been provided. When it comes to worship, we should recognize the regulative principle governs worship, that whatever God commands is to be done and nothing else. When it comes to work, we find in scripture you’re to do it as unto the Lord. Whatever you, if you’re a housewife, you do it under the Lord. If you’re working in a factory, you do it as unto the Lord. Whatever, if you’re sweeping dirt off the sidewalk, you’re to do it as unto the Lord. Whatever we do is to be done unto the Lord. When it comes to Mary, marriage. We’re to marry only in the Lord, only another believer in Christ. When it comes to your neighbor, you’re to love your neighbor as yourself. When it comes to debt, Scripture says, oh, no man, anything. So we have the idea of paying you debt. Don’t get yourself overwhelmed with debt. That pay your debts. Pay what you owe. When it comes to the government, we recognize the powers. to be ordained of God. When it comes to finances, realize that you are just a steward of the Lord, as the scripture says. When it comes to children, bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. When it comes to parents, children obey your parents in the Lord. When it comes to husbands, well, wives submit yourselves as unto the Lord to them. When it comes to wives, you will love them as Christ loved the church. We can go on on. We get these little catchphrases for every little situation. There’s a scriptural truth, a nugget, some type of golden truth that we can relate to everything in life. And when we have those things put all together, now we have a way to live our lives in a way that’s pleasing to God. So you are to seek wisdom and knowledge in order to walk worthy of the Lord. Now what it means for you to walk worthy of the Lord? The word walk is really a, he phrase, it’s taken from the Hebrew. It’s often found in Scripture. It means for, it means the beginning and keeping to a course of life. Start walking and you continue on that course. Now, scripture talks about walking with slanders. Talks about walking uprightly. Talks about walking in the ways and statutes of God. It talks about walking according to the flesh. Talks about walking according to the flesh. according to the spirit. It talks about walking in the light. It talks about walking in darkness. It talks about walking in love. These are ways of walking. By this form of speech, Paul admonishes you and I to continue our perpetual journey toward the celestial city by doing what God has commanded. We’re like Mr. Christian. We’re not to halt halfway, get sidetracked. We’re to go forward in the Christian life. and we’re to walk worthy, it says here, of the Lord. Ephesians 4.1, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Philippians 127. Only let your conversation, your behavior, be as it becomeeth the gospel of Jesus Christ. So walk worthy of the Lord, you’re to live like someone who has been saved by God, who is a son of God. a child of God who has an inheritance in heaven. Now, Paul here is not talking here of earning your way to heaven. He’s saying, live up to who you actually are. If you are truly a Christian, if you truly know the Lord, then walk as a child of God. As we read in Matthew 3, 8, bring forth fruits, meat for, worthy of repentance. You repented, well then, walk like someone who has repented. If you’ve turned from your sinful ways, then you’ll be different than you were before. If you have a change of mind about what you were before, then it affects how you live. So you’re to carry you as someone who loves God, who keeps Christ’s commandments, who is a new creature in Christ. And that, of course, means you’re walking contrary to the world. And in a different way than the world walks. now you and I we go outside we see people walking around on the ground all the time there’s nothing exciting about that it’s pretty common you see it everywhere but you do take notice of someone who walks a loft upon a slender tightrope 200 feet in the air maybe between two skyscrapers or something everybody’s looking up in amazement at the guy it’s doing that you’re saying boy that’s that’s pretty amazing walking down here on the ground that’s that’s that’s calm that’s different to walk up on that tightrope like that that’s a feet of skill friends there’s nothing special about walking like the people in this world there’s nothing special or unique about that it doesn’t stand out it’s a common sight people walk according to the flesh the desires of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the mind and so forth however to walk spiritually to walk on a higher plane than that to practice godliness is an amazing thing and people will take notice it’s like walking on a tight rope 200 feet in the air there’s something different about that kind of person so what it means for you to walk worthy of the Lord what is required for you to walk worthy of the Lord well a right desire he says here onto all pleasing now unto all pleasing means in all things pleasing meaning unto God we’re to please God in all things for scripture teaches if I pleased men I should not be the servant of God Galatians 1 10th 10 so he’s not talking about pleasing men here it’s not that you should seek to please men in all things if you did that you certainly couldn’t be living Christian life could you because the world doesn’t like the way you and I live rather in all things seek to please your Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at chapter 3 and verse 17. We’ll get to this Lord willing in the future. Whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Whatever you do, you are to be seeking to please Christ your Savior. Therefore the focus of your whole life ought to be to please and glorify your master the Lord Jesus Christ. Now your good intentions may get undermined. The good that I would I do not, the evil that I would not, the evil that I would not that I do, Paul says in Romans chapter 7. The question is do you have a desire to please Christ in all things? Is that your purpose? Your efforts may be imperfect, but are your intentions right? You know, you see a little child, mom maybe gives the child a glass of and milk to carry out from the kitchen to put it on the table for dinner. So this little kid grabs that milk and you know, the kids walking a little slowly but carefully and the milk’s jostling back and forth like this. Now, the child’s trying, but of course your best efforts may result in it’s spilling over the side and there may be some coming down the side of the glass. Even though the child is trying to get it out to the table, he spills some of it. it sloshes out. Now, doesn’t the mother take into consideration the capabilities of the child? Isn’t the mother pleased with the effort and good intentions of her child, even when some milk is spilled? She expects the child would prove, but knows perfection is unrealistic. And in the same manner, God takes note of our infirmities. He remembers that we’re still in the first. flesh. Now, we’re not given a pass because we spill the milk a little bit, but certainly God is pleased with right desires. He’s pleased that we’re trying to do the right thing. Even when we spill the milk, is our heart in the right place? Is we actually trying to do the right thing? Because sometimes, as Paul said, the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not that I do. We falter, even though our intentions are right. So a right desire is important, and that’s to please God in all things. A practical goal we see here also. And the practical goal here is to be fruitful in every good work. Now, good working ought to follow good intentions. If we have the right desire to please the Lord, and it follows that we should do the right thing. fruitful here is sort of a metaphor that’s taken from a fruitful, a tree, apple tree, or a peach tree or whatever. We produce, we bear something. The godly are compared to trees that are planted by rivers of water which bring forth fruit in their season, according to Psalm 1-3. no tree bears fruit unless there’s life within it. And so the first thing is we certainly have to be regenerated to bear fruit. But God expects fruit in the lives of his professing people. He’s not going to be pleased with the tree that occupies the ground and doesn’t produce anything. As Jesus talked about the parable in Luke 13, cut that tree down, why cumbereth the ground? The master says that who owns the fruit tree, the orchard. Now, the fruit refers to every good work. It’s very broad range of good deeds would be covered by this terminology. When we have trees, you know, we have an apple tree, it produces apples. But we have to be more like the tree of life that produces 12 manner of fruit, you know, one each month or whatever the case may be. The fruit of the spirit is abundant. Whether we talk about love or joy or peace or long-suffering or gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, all those things are the fruit of the spirit. A good work is one which conforms to the will of God, is done with the right motive to please God, and is done in faith with a clear conscience. Now, many who profess to be Christians possess no vital godliness of light. They don’t produce any fruit. If you’ve ever gone down to Carnegie Museum, you see all the display cases there. There’s all kinds of animals in those display cases. Now, these creatures are interestingly posed. They appear to be quite lifelike. Yet, let’s say the rhinoceros quietly retains its position and it never moves. The perched eagle never stirs, never soars through the air. The lion doesn’t roar. It doesn’t stalk its prey. Every man remains frozen in position in that glass display case. There’s no life within them. Therefore, they do nothing. They’re all just stuffed animals with glass eyes. They’re lifeless. They’re actionless. Sadly, there are many in the professing church who are like, them. They’re stuffed Christians. Because they wish to be seen as Christians, but then when you get down to it, there’s no spiritual fruit that ever comes out of their life. They’re not fruitful in every good work. You are to be different. You are to abound in good works proving that you are alive spiritually. That there’s life within. That is what Paul is talking about here, a practical goal. You do good works. You have the right attitude, the right heart, you want to please the Lord, it produces good fruit, and a theoretical goal here is you want to increase in the knowledge of God. It would seem that holiness is the road to knowledge, it enables you your knowledge to grow. If any man will know his will, he shall know of the doctrine. John 717. As you begin living the Christian life, and you put into practice what God has taught you already, he will teach you more. You will increase in knowledge. So this is a prayer for the capacity of your knowledge to grow, to increase. You have to have some knowledge to begin to do the things that God has commanded you. And as you do those, he gives you more knowledge. He gives you more depth. And you know more of God in his way. His truth. We should recognize that we never can reach the point where we get our education, get a diploma, and say, oh, you’re done. This is a continual process that we go through all through this life. So your duty to walk worthy of the Lord is laid out before you here. Secondly, tonight or this morning, you need your need of spiritual power to walk worthy of the Lord is pointed out. Now notice verse 11. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. You must seek spiritual strengthening. Strengthened with all might, he says. Now notice this. You may have knowledge of what God wants you to do. You may even have the right desire to carry it out. But you are weak and infirm to understand. take any spiritual good on your own. Paul confesses to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. Romans 718. So the regenerate person is incapable of doing any good unless empowered by God to do it. As Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. Hence the prayer of Paul here. You need to be strengthened with all might. For you are opposed by strong enemies, by the world, by the flesh, by the devil. Here you are utterly dependent upon the Lord to enable. To enable you to do what he’s command. Prayer is the means by which we obtain this strength. For here’s Paul praying for strength for these people. There was a young boy who was doing his best to lift a rock that was way too heavy. for him to lift. And he’s little boys, you know, he’s trying to get his arms around, he’s trying to get his fingers underneath it, he’s trying to roll it and push it, and he can’t, everything he tries, you can’t move it. So he’s grunting and he’s puffing, and he’s attempting various ways to lift and move this rock and he can’t work, get it to do go anywhere. Now, in spite of all his efforts and not being able to budge the rock, he just continues to work at it. Eventually his father walked by, and he’s watching his son struggling along with this rock, and he asked him, you’re having trouble moving that rock? And the boy answered, yes, I’ve tried everything, and I can’t get at the budge. His father said, are you sure you tried everything? And the boy getting a little perturbs, says, yes, I’ve tried everything, and it won’t move. To which the father said, no, my son, you haven’t. You haven’t asked for my help. How often we’re like that little boy, we’re struggling with our problems. Don here, we’re trying to budget and move it, we can’t do it, we can’t solve the problem, and yet, we don’t ask our heavenly father for help. He’s the one who can help us because our problems are too big for us to handle on our own. Have we asked for God’s help? To do every good work, you need to be strengthened with all might, as the text tells us. So you need, you must seek spiritual strength. You need that. Notice your spiritual strengthening comes from the power of God. Strengthen with might according to his glorious power. Now, the strengthening power, of course, is the Holy Spirit himself, who grants us the gifts that we need. Ephesians 316, we read that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit. in your inner man. So how is it that we’re strengthened with might? We’re strengthened with might by the Spirit of God. On the day of Pentecost, remember Jesus told the disciples the way to Jerusalem until what? Until you be endued with power from on high, and he was talking about the Holy Spirit. You remember how Samson was caught by the Philistines and they blinded him and shackled him and he’s grinding. at the mill and they pull them out at their special holy day and they’re worshipping their God and their huge temple and they bring them out for sport to make fun of them, maybe to do a few lifts or something for them. And what does he do? Lord, give you my strength back one more time. And every time we read about Samson and his strength, what do we read? The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. And he was strengthened. Now, spiritually, we need to be strengthened in a similar man, but it’s by the Spirit of God. Now, notice it’s called a glorious power. A power that wasn’t successful or victorious wouldn’t be a glorious power, would it? But the idea is is to give us confidence that we go and seek God’s power, we’re going to overcome the enemy. God’s power is more mighty than any other power that exists, and therefore it guarantees victory that we overcome sin and Satan. and all these things that we may be more than conquerers through him that loved us, Romans 837. Remember what Christ said. As weak as you are, my strength is made perfect and weakness. It’s not how strong we are. It’s how powerful God is. So you have every reason to believe there’s no enemy, no sin, no demonic force which can stand in your way and defeat you when you are strengthened by the power of God. So your spiritual strengthening comes from the power of God. Notice your spiritual strengthening is best evidenced under sufferings and hardships. Now when he talks about being spiritually strengthened and he immediately talks about here, patience and long-suffering, these two virtues are inseparable companions of the strength and fortitude that the Holy Spirit grants. Now these things, patience and long-suffering are sort of similar terms, and maybe we could even swap them for one another at times. But because he uses both words here, I would suggest to you perhaps that patience relates to the heaviness or the weight of the affliction. Now, there’s or the greatness of it. Whereas the long-suffering here would relate to the length and duration of the struggle or the suffering that you’re undergo. Slightly different, but both of those ideas, I think, would be included here with these two terms. Perhaps you undergo a very difficult time. But if God gives you patience, no matter how severe severe it is, we hear about the patience of Joe. Look when he went through. God gave him patience to endure that. The weight of it was so great. Living Godly in Christ, Jesus, you will suffer persecution, and patience allows you to endure it believing that Christ will right all wrong. It’s also not easy to suffer for a long period of time. You know, if you knew that you’re only going to suffer for a week or even one day. You sort of muscle your way through it. You just say, oh, I just get through this day. But when you don’t know when it’s ever going to end, and it continues day after day after day after, that’s when you need the long suffering, you see. The granting of long suffering enables you to endure regardless of the length of the testing that you undergo or the suffering. It’s interesting that those who show this patience and this long suffering when they are suffering dumbfound their enemies. They cannot figure this out. They don’t understand you. Your patience and long suffering can confound them. It confounded the devil when Job wouldn’t crack under all his attacks. You let me get at him. He’ll curse you to his face. To your face. Satan told God. And yet Job did not do that, did he? Because God gave him patience and long-suffering. Joyfulness. Now, you wouldn’t even think, isn’t this interesting. When you talk about long-suffering and you talk about patience, you wouldn’t think that joyfulness would be thrown in there. It’s sort of like the odd word thrown in with this situation. How is it that one would suffer and undergo this for a heavy burden and maybe a long-time burden and yet be joyful in it? Only God can grant that. Only God can give you this kind of attitude in spirit. It’s true that the believer alone has this in-redub rejoicing. Regardless of what he is suffering. Paul talks about the light affliction he’s going through in this life. Oh, yeah, yeah, we were shipwrecked. Yeah, I was stoned. Yeah, I was beaten. I don’t know how many times. I, you know, I was in the pearl robbers and, you know, I have all the weight of the church upon me. He talks about all the stuff he goes through. This is a light affliction. Compared to what I have coming. The glorious future that I have. So what is he? If anything, he’s still joyful, even though he’s going through all this stuff. The joy of the Lord is our strength, the Bible says. And so even in the midst of all the bad things that happen, how can I be joyful because you know that all things work for your good if you’re one of God’s chosen people, those who love God. When you are persecuted, what? Be sad and mourn? Rejoice for great as your reward and heaven. So you see how suffering can still not take away the joy. You can be given joy in the midst of all that you’re undergoing. And that’s what he prays for them. The Holy Spirit can grant you a cheerful spirit so that you esteem the reproach of Christ of greater riches than what you’re going through. So we see here you need of spiritual power to walk worthy Lord. Your Christian life should not be like the old China that’s sitting in the closet. That’s not the way we’re to live our Christian life. We can’t be unfunctional in everyday life. We are to walk worthy of the Lord. We’re to seek to please God in all things. And to that end, we certainly need knowledge and we need to do good works as unto the Lord and seek spiritual power to enable us to do this. And so here is the prayer that he prays for the people of God. Let us close with a word of about it.