The Full Life
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bibles turn to Colossians 1, verse 9 - p. 1043
Continuing in a series
Colossians were mashing up OT Jewish mysticism with pagan ideas and philosophy and were being led into error.
In our day there is definitely a revival of mysticism and astrology, and our county is certainly full of quasi-religious folks who have rituals and religious jargon but their lives are not reflecting any true spiritual transformation.
Today we come to a passage that is Paul’s prayer for the Colossian believers in light of what he has has heard reported to him from Epaphras. In it we see the heart of the Apostle shine through. Paul’s prayer for the church in Colossae that is fighting a false doctrine that purports to be true “knowledge,” is that they would have a full knowledge of God’s will resulting in a life of full obedience that includes (among other things) full gratitude of all that God has done in saving us.
Paul wants the Colossians to live “the Full Life.”
Let’s stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word together.
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,
11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
13 He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
14 In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Be seated. May the Lord bless the reading of His Word.
If you haven’t noticed, here at Leonardtown Baptist Church we like to make a big deal about Jesus. We sing about Jesus. We pray in Jesus’ name. We give our money not to a budget or to a missions offering or to a parking lot, but we give from grateful hearts for what Jesus has done in our lives. And we give for the spread of HIS name here and around the world. We praise Jesus for his life, death, resurrection, ascension and intercession for us. We ask for his soon return at the end of every service when we say ‘maranatha.’ Our entire gathering is an eager expectation that we would see Jesus every time we come to open the Bible. And our prayer is that when we leave this place we would please Jesus in everything that we say and do.
This text… THIS prayer… from the Apostle Paul’s lips is our entire playbook around here. We don’t try and get creative or fancy. We simply preach, pray, give, long for, and live for Jesus.
The Philly Special (every play)
The Jesus Special
Colossians is all about simplifying the play-calling of Christian living. It’s about getting away from adding anything to the foundational truth that Christ is all we need. And when Paul prays, his desire is that the Colossians’ faith in Christ that he heard about from Epaphras would flourish into a life that pleases Christ in every way. It is all about Jesus, and this prayer gives us the way Paul sees that all fleshing itself out in the day to day.
This prayer answers the very practical question: How do I live a life of full obedience that pleases the Lord?
Three things to note from this text: Paul says 1st of all that...
1) Full knowledge of God’s will directs us toward full obedience.
1) Full knowledge of God’s will directs us toward full obedience.
Paul says...
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,
Paul prays that the Colossian believers would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will (in all wisdom and spiritual understanding) so that they would live in a way that pleases Jesus.
So the purpose of our knowing God’s will is that we would live worthy lives that please Christ.
We must ask a couple of clarifying questions here:
What does Paul mean by “be filled with the knowledge of his will?”
What does the phrase “in all wisdom and spiritual understanding mean?”
First to the question of knowing God’s will. Let me clarify that for Paul:
Knowing God’s will is not trying to discern a secret plan for your life.
Knowing God’s will is relying on the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and understanding to understand God’s revealed will in His Word.
Let me support that from this text.
The first clue to this understanding is that Paul is going to go right from here into an explanation of God’s will of Christ being the center of everything in the universe. That’s next week. So God’s will was Christ be exalted! But then he proceeds to explain God’s will for the Colossian believers in verses 21-23 - namely that they would be made holy. That is God’s will.
The second clue we have is that this knowledge is designed for and aiming at their obedience by bearing fruit, growing in knowledge of God, being strengthened to endure and be patient, and giving thanks with joy for what God has done for them. None of this comes close to our western post-modern notion of trying to figure out what God wants you specifically to do when you face a decision. Now don’t misunderstand me. If you grow in your knowledge of God, and you’re relying on his word and his promises for endurance, patience and love, the Holy Spirit wrought fruit in your life will inevitably result in wise decisions. It’s just that in this context Paul’s prayer is that the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom and understanding to know specifically who Christ is and the holy life to which they were called. That is what Paul means by knowing God’s will.
And with that last statement I’ve tipped my hand to the answer to our second question, which was:
“What does the phrase ‘in all wisdom and spiritual understanding’ mean?”
The key to this phrase is to see the correlation in this verse to Exodus 31:3 and other related Old Testament texts that talk about the Temple being skillfully crafted by people whose wisdom and understanding was a gift of the Spirit.
2 “Look, I have appointed by name Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.
3 I have filled him with God’s Spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and ability in every craft
Greek - every work
Now re-read Col. 1:9-10 and see the similarities...
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,
The word that is translated “spiritual” can and I believe should be translated as “by the Spirit” so that it reads more like the NIV
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,
The church - the body of Christ Jesus - has replaced the physical temple, and is now being built brick by brick - life by life. Look at 1 Pet. 2:5
5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Paul is alluding to a kind of Spirit-filled craftsmanship in our lives. He prays that just like the Holy Spirit gave wisdom and understanding to the physical builders of the OT temple, that the Holy Spirit would give Colossian believers wisdom and understanding for the building of the spiritual temple - the place where God dwells.
To prove that we’re on to the right understanding herein Paul’s letter to the Colossians - just run your finger down to verse 19 of chapter 1
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and then Col. 2:9-10
9 For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,
10 and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
No longer does the fullness of God dwell in a physical temple - it dwells in Jesus and we are filled with the fullness of God by nature of our union with Christ.
And Paul is telling us that the key to knowing God’s will from Scripture is spiritual wisdom and understanding.
And that spiritual wisdom and understanding is brought about by the Holy Spirit.
So by way of application: as you read God’s word, rely on the holy Spirit you will know God and understand his will for you. The aim of which is a holy life of obedience.
If you think that your increasing knowledge of God and his will is just a bucket or a category you fill up like some sort of intellectual pursuit and then it never changes you, you don’t understand Christianity. The Christian life does not consist of you picking up your “church bag” on Sunday morning and coming to church and filling up your bag with information about God and then going home and putting that bag in a closet and taking your “work bag” to work the next day and your “recreation bag” out on the boat. When the Holy Spirit is your helper and you rely on him to know God and understand his will you will always… hear me… always desire to live a life of full obedience that pleases Jesus.
So what does that life look like? What does full obedience to God consist of? Paul teaches us secondly that...
2) Full obedience among other things includes full gratitude.
2) Full obedience among other things includes full gratitude.
Look at verses 10-12
10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,
11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
Paul actually lists four marks of a worthy walk that pleases Jesus in his prayer.
The three “other things” (besides full gratitude) that full obedience includes are: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, and being strengthened with all (God’s) power.
The three “other things” (besides full gratitude) that full obedience includes are: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, and being strengthened with all (God’s) power.
We talked last week about how the gospel is a fruitful gospel and that its effects fulfill what God intended for humanity since creation - that we would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with God’s image. The glory of God and the knowledge of God that is to increase comes when those around us see God at work in our lives producing the fruit of good works. Paul, is not against good works. While it is true that he preaches that a person does not merit God’s mercy because of good works, he does advocate working and striving for Christ’s sake.
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
We work because God works in us.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
So obedience includes doing the works that God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (walk worthy of the Lord) Colossians says.
The second thing Paul lists is that a worthy walk is growing in the knowledge of God. This is not circular. You’ll remember that Paul prayed that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they’d live a life of obedience and now Paul says that life of obedience includes growing in your knowledge of God.
To understand this concept you have to understand God. He is infinite. You can never reach the end of infinity. God is incomprehensible. You cannot ever fully know God. This is one of the reasons why I believe heaven will never be boring. There will always be more to know about God because he is an infinite being. As we come to know God’s will for our lives through the Holy Spirit, our thirst for more will ever increase and we will want to know him in an even more intimate and greater way.
Paul then goes on to say that our worthy walk that pleases Christ will include tapping into God’s strength. He says in verse 11 we are
11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully
The same infinite God is the source of all of our strength for obedience. We do not rely on our strength to serve him.
11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
The life of obedience that pleases God is one that relies on the strength of God to serve God.
And Colossians teaches us that that strength we receive serves a purpose: so that you may have endurance and patience.
One author put it like this: “Endurance is what faith, hope and love bring to an apparently impossible situation. Patience is what faith hope and love show to an apparently impossible person.”
When you deal with false teaching in a church or small group you most certainly need both.
How about you? What impossible situation are you facing? Are you relying on God’s strength or your own?
What impossible person are you dealing with (don’t look at them right now)! Are you relying on God’s strength for patience or are you relying on your own.
When will we ever learn? How dull and slow are we. We barge right into impossible situations and confront impossible people every day it seems - and Paul says if you want to please Jesus, you’ll rely on God’s strength - that is God’s will for you.
But then lastly, Paul gives a fourth marker of an obedient life. There are many more ways a Christian ought to obey, but you will not be fully pleasing to God if these four are not included. And the last way Paul mentions is full gratitude to God the father for the salvation he has given us. He says we are to be joyfully...
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
13 He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
14 In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
So when Paul prays for a full life for the Colossians, he is not only interested in them being full of the knowledge of God’s will which will lead them to full obedience, but part of that obedience that pleases God is a
3) Full gratitude relishes in full salvation.
3) Full gratitude relishes in full salvation.
In Christianity, it has been well said: Theology is grace and ethics is gratitude.
Ethics - how we live our lives is with full gratitude to God.
The theme of thanksgiving will play a prominent role in the book of Colossians.
6 So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,
7 being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
2 Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving signals the reality of a spiritual experience in Christ. Giving thanks implies that what has been received from God has not been earned but is in fact a gift. Thanksgiving is the other side of the theological coin of Grace. In the Colossian context - where false teachers were insisting on a program of rules and legal demands to reach true spiritual fulfillment, Paul emphasizes thanksgiving so much because true gratitude can only flow from a proper understanding of the grace of God in our lives.
That grace is never more clear than in a full understanding of our salvation. Paul is going to remind us of a few reasons we ought to be grateful to God.
First, he says God has enabled us to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
16 And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.
1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
3 And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
The inheritance is the glory of God - his light shining in our hearts. Don’t miss what Paul says. He says that God has enabled us - God has qualified us. God has gifted us this inheritance. It is all of GRACE - BE THANKFUL.
But secondly, in verse 13 Paul says that
13 He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
The Grace of God was on a rescue mission to deliver us from the ruling power of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
That language: the kingdom of his beloved Son is an allusion to the promises given to David’s seed in 2 Samuel
12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ”
Of course we know that Jesus was without sin, so in part this prophecy points to Solomon, but the ultimate King who reigns forever - the Son whom the Father loves - is Jesus the King of kings and Lord of lords. And Paul is teaching us that the Kingdom of the Son is happening now. The kingdom has been inaugurated and Jesus is reigning on the throne until every enemy is made his footstool. Brothers and sisters, sin will have no dominion over you - you are not under law but under the grace of king Jesus. What formerly controlled your thinking and living is now utterly powerless over you - God the father has rescued you and he has transferred you to live under a new sovereign authority - King Jesus. And he did that by grace and we should be THANKFUL.
Finally, Paul tells us (v14) that in Him (meaning Jesus) we have redemption - that is, the forgiveness of our sins.
Paul says he RESCUED YOU and he REDEEMED you and gave you an INHERITANCE. That language - those three key words - should harken our biblical ears back to our message series from the fall… look at Ex 6
6 “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment.
7 I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.
8 I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.”
Paul sees our salvation as an exodus of sorts - out of the dominion of darkness and into a glorious inheritance of light where God dwells with His redeemed people. And all of this was done by grace. And we should be THANKFUL.
If you are here today, and your heart does not feel gratitude right now - perhaps it feels anxiety about life or fear of God’s judgment, then maybe you have never experienced the grace of God and the forgiveness of your sins. You say, but Jason, you can’t begin to understand the things I’ve done. God could never forgive a person like me. I’d simply say, you may have heard about the cross, but you do not understand it yet. You may have heard about grace, but you haven’t experienced it yet.
When Paul says that redemption is the forgiveness of our sins, he goes on later to explain what forgiveness looks like.
13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
At Calvary, Jesus Christ paid the debt you owe to God - he canceled out any legal obligation you have to make things right with the Father, and he nailed it all to the cross. Some of you here today need to trust the nail-scarred hands of Jesus. Quit trying to pay for your sins yourself - you are never going to be able to get the stain of sin off yourself. Instead - by faith, trust Jesus and his shed blood for you on calvary and receive the gift of grace that is the forgiveness of all your sins.
How will we all know this has taken place in your life? You’ll be thankful because you know you could never have saved yourself. You’ll be strengthened with God’s power to endure difficult times and to be patient with difficult people. You’ll grow in the knowledge of God. You’ll bear the fruit of good works in love toward others. And all of this will be a work of God’s Spirit giving you wisdom and understanding to see what you were blind to see before - God’s will for your life: to bring him Glory and for you to find your fullest satisfaction in pleasing Him.