Listen for God’s word to you from Colossians 1:3-14…
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
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, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
There is a lot in this passage. But notice, Paul basically does two simple things here: he gives thanks, and he prays. You could say that Paul does one simple thing, because thanksgiving is a part of prayer.
Paul follows the traditional form of a first century Roman letter. The opening of a letter in Paul’s time was usually followed by wishes or prayers for health. Paul milks this traditional form for all he can get out of it. Paul’s prayer is not just a nicety. It is a fulsome Christian prayer that announces some of the themes we will see throughout this letter. And as I have already mentioned, what Paul has to say here breaks down into two parts…
PAUL GIVES THANKS
Next, Paul identifies the God whom he is thanking. It is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not just any generic god to whom Paul is speaking. It is not any of the gods of the Greek or Roman pantheon. It is the God who has revealed himself to Paul in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some people say, “I don’t believe in God,” to which I respond, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in, I may not believe in that God either.” Many people talk about God, but are their notions of who God is shaped by Jesus Christ? When we really get to know Jesus, I believe he changes everything about how we perceive God.
So, Paul says, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you…”
Now, let’s be honest. We all have people we know who, when we think of them, we are strongly tempted not to give thanks. There are people who irritate us. There are people we simply do not like. There are people who have hurt us in some way. Or there are people who we simply don’t care about. They don’t matter to us. How are we to give thanks for them?
I think Paul had come to the realization that everyone matters to God. Think about this… we never lock eyes with someone for whom Christ did not die. Every single human being on planet earth, past, present, or future, mattered enough to God for God to give his Son for them.
Not only is that true, but it is also true to say that every single person we meet is created by God and created in God’s image. It is true that the image of God in each of us is marred by sin. But so long as we have breath in our lungs, none of us have yet completely lost the image of God. That image is still in us. And if that is true, then there is something in every human being for which we can thank God. Even the seemingly most evil human beings, we can thank God that they are not beyond his salvation. God can change them. God can turn them around. God can make them like his Son Jesus Christ. And that is worthy of our thanks and praise.
Faith
In the case of Paul’s thanksgiving, he has some very specific things about the Colossians for which he gives thanks. He mentions three defining characteristics of the Colossians which are true of every Christian. First, he gives thanks for the Colossians’ faith in Christ Jesus.
Faith is the defining characteristic of the Christian. But it is not a vague faith. It is faith in the person of Jesus Christ. Are you trusting in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? The answer to that question determines whether you are a Christian or not. The question is not: were you brought up in a Christian home? Or are you a member of a church? The key question is: are you trusting in Jesus?
That little preposition “in” is so important. What we believe about Jesus is important. But even more important is our relationship with Jesus. Do we believe in him? Are we trusting in him? Sometimes when the Bible talks about faith in Jesus, it talks about believing into him.
Have you ever done a trust fall? It is hard to do. We all have the instinct of self-preservation. I have done the trust fall with many people. I have only ever had one person who trusted me so unreservedly that he remained stiff and straight as a board as he fell into my arms. That is a picture of how Jesus wants us to trust him. He wants us to put our lives unreservedly into his hands.
Love
Paul makes it clear throughout his writings that we are saved by faith alone, but we are not saved by a faith that remains alone. And so, Paul doesn’t stop by merely giving thanks for the Colossians’ faith. He also gives thanks for their love for all God’s people. The moment we put our faith in Jesus Christ we become part of a family, God’s family, the church. And the word that should most characterize God’s family is love.
Paul gave thanks because he heard of the Colossians’ faith and love. Faith and love are both dynamic virtues that can be seen in action. There is always a story that can be told of how Christians live out their faith and love.
One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, who lived from 160 to 240, once wrote, “The heathen were wont to exclaim with astonishment: ‘Behold how these Christians love one another, and how they are ready to die for one another.’”
Can you imagine non-Christians saying this about Christians today: “Behold how they love one another?” Would that this would be our reputation today, not just that we love each other, but that we as Christians would be known for our love for everyone! Grace attracts. Judgmentalism repels. Are we known as people of grace and love, or people of judgment?
Hope
Even faith and love do not stand alone. They are part of a famous triptych for Paul. Where do faith and love come from? Paul says they spring from the hope stored up in heaven.
What does Paul mean by “the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.”?
Hal Lindsey once wrote, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air... but only for one second without hope.”
I believe that is true. But people hope for all sorts of things. What hope is Paul talking about?
Paul says it is a hope about which the Colossians have already heard in the true message of the gospel. He says it again in verse 23 where he talks about “the hope held out in the gospel”. Then, in verse 27, he talks about “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.
Paul has a marvelous passage in Romans 8 where he writes of this hope of glory…
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
When you put all this together, it becomes clear that the hope Paul is talking about is the hope of the resurrection. The writer to the Hebrews also talks about this…
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. (Hebrews 6:19)
So, hope is like an anchor that ties us firmly to heaven. It is the resurrection of Jesus that gives us hope of our own future resurrection, and this hope animates our faith and love even in this life. Again, the writer to the Hebrews says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
So, Paul gives thanks for these three theological virtues, as they have sometimes been called, virtues of which he sees evidence in the Colossians, the virtues of faith, love, and hope. And we cannot forget Paul’s wonderful words in 1 Corinthians 13… “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” When all else fails, faith, hope, and love remain.
PAUL PRAYS
But Paul does not stop with thanksgiving. He goes on to tell the Colossians what he is praying for them in verses 9 through 14.
As with Paul’s thanksgiving, so also with his prayers in general…they are continual. “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.”
Elsewhere, Paul urges us to: “Pray continually.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
How do we do that? How do we pray continually like Paul?
I think I have told you before about the four years I spent receiving spiritual direction from a Catholic priest. Father Mario and I would meet once per month for a couple of hours. And Father Mario’s first question to me would invariably be: “How is your prayer life?”
Now, when Father Mario would ask me that question, I would inevitably think of the few minutes I would spend, hopefully every day, in what I would call “personal devotions”. I had been taught from a young age to have a daily “quiet time” of reading the Bible and praying. So, when Father Mario asked me that question that is what I would tell him about.
It was months later that I finally realized that when Father Mario asked me about my “prayer life” he was asking me about my whole life as a Christian. You see, the few moments that we set aside for concentrated prayer every day can become a springboard for an ongoing conversation with God.
I am not saying that I have arrived at doing that. But that is my goal… to have a running conversation with God every day, all the time. That’s what I think Paul is talking about when he writes about continual prayer.
Now, there is a lot in this prayer of the Apostle Paul, more than we have time to talk about today. So, in the few moments we have left, I would like to focus on just three things. Paul prays for the Colossians that they might … know their destination, receive power for their journey, and walk the path. Let us look at each of these in turn…
Know Your Destination
Paul asks God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that they may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.
It has been said that this passage teaches us more about the essence of prayer’s request than almost any other passage in the New Testament. And here we see that prayer begins by asking that we may be filled with an ever-growing knowledge of the will of God. That is the main object of prayer.
In prayer we are not so much trying to get God to listen to us, but rather, we are trying to listen to God and get to know his will. We are not trying to bend God’s will to ours but rather find out what he wants us to do. Some people say to God, in essence, “Thy will be changed.” But Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done.”
Prayer should be practical. Paul teaches us to pray for wisdom and understanding. The Greek word for wisdom is “Sophia” and it involves knowledge of first principles. Understanding is “sunesis” and it means the ability to apply first principles to any given situation. So, Paul is praying for the Colossians that they may understand the great truths of Christianity and that they may be able to apply these truths to everyday living. It is possible for a person to be an expert in theology but a failure in living. God doesn’t want that for us. He wants us to have wisdom and understanding.
Receive Power for your Journey
Now, this is all well and good. I think we all would say that we want wisdom and understanding. But let’s be honest. I don’t know about you, but my problem in life is not so much knowing what to do… but doing it. It is a scary thing, but I know far more about the Bible than what I implement in my daily living. And so much of the time I find myself powerless in and of myself to do what I know God wants me to do.
But this is where prayer becomes so valuable. Through prayer we can receive two of the greatest gifts in the world: knowledge and power. Paul prays for the Colossians that they may be strengthened with all power according to the glorious might of God. And it is that power that transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the Son whom God loves.
Walk the Path
Then, once we have wisdom, understanding, and power, those three things should issue in right conduct. Paul wants the Colossians to live in a way that pleases God. The goal of Paul’s prayer is “so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way”. A more literal translation would be: “to walk worthily of the Lord in all pleasing, in every good work”. Once we have wisdom, knowledge, and power, then we can begin to walk the path that God has for us.
One of the great blessings of my life was the opportunity to get to know a man named Walter Hooper. Walter was C. S. Lewis’s secretary at the end of his life. In Walter’s flat in Oxford where I met with him many times, Walter had a photo taken with Pope John Paul II. Walter was invited to meet with the Pope because the Pope was a fan of C. S. Lewis. Can you imagine that? A lot of people seek the opportunity to meet with the Pope, but not many people are asked by the Pope to meet with him. The Pope had some questions he wanted to ask Walter about C. S. Lewis. But then, at the end of their conversation, the Pope made this statement to Walter… “C. S. Lewis knew what his apostolate was … and he did it!”
What a great statement that is! It is one thing to know what our calling is in life. It is another thing to do it. May God grant us the wisdom, understanding, and power, to do what he wants us to do, to walk the walk, and not just talk the talk.
Let us pray…
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