Walk the Worthy Walk

Walk the Worthy Walk

Col 1:9-12

Topic: Worthy life

Theme: to walk the life worthy of our Lord

Intro

Thank you for inviting me to share with you this morning.

I thought it might be appropriate since you are a new church that I would share from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. He was concerned for the health and safety of the church. I think we will see as we go through the text that Paul could be writing to us today.

In a time of massive religious confusion

many seek to exclude belief in God from every corner of modern life.

Others flaunt "New Age" ideas about God and Christ which collide with the Scriptures.

Doesn’t that sound like the problems today?

Actually it describes

the first-century city of Colosse

Quick background of the letter.

The church in Colosse was a new and thriving church in the area we would today call Turkey.

Paul fond out that there was something happening in the city that concerned him so he wrote this letter to them

One of the problems that concerned Paul was

false teachers who were teaching what is called Gnosticism.

The very word for Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means “to know.” The Gnostics, “people in the know,” the spiritual elite with all the answers,

Basic belief

is that anything that is created or physical

is evil

only the spirit is good

This reasoning led to the belief that Jesus Christ, if he really was the Son of God, could not have taken on a human body because matter is evil.

the Gnostics built this system (gnosis) consisted of disciplines which were borrowed from Jewish legalism, secret passwords borrowed from Eastern mysticism, the parts of astrology, and elements of Christianity.

It was all very complex and proudly intellectual. The Gnostics, those “in the know,” looked down upon the simple Colossian believers, brow beat them, and led some astray.

Read scripture

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. VS 9

Why was Paul praying for knowlwdge and spiritual wisdom?

They were being surrounded by people who claimed to have the special knowledge

The Gnostics were teaching that Christ was a good place to begin, but that there was so much more they could know and experience if only they would incorporate the Gnostic system of passwords, rites, and initiations

Paul’s prayer that the Colossians be “fill[ed] … with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding” hit the problem head-on.

You may wonder what makes Paul’s knowledge different?

This knowledge for which Paul prayed was set in bold contrast with that of the Gnostics because Paul used a word for knowledge which “is almost a technical term for the decisive knowledge of God which is involved in conversion to the Christian faith The Gnostics’ characteristic word for knowledge was gnosis. But Paul used the word epignosis as a reference to full knowledge for the Colossians.

From the apostle’s perspective, a deep, growing knowledge of Christ and his will is of the greatest importance to the spiritual life of all Christians.

Typically when we pray for ourselves or for others, we pray for physical health, well-being, social relationships, and spiritual growth.

But part of our intercessory prayers ought to be for “the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

Have you prayed like this for others? It is an important prayer for your pastor, for new believers, for your family members.

And we ought to be part of the answer to our own prayers! Every believer should be reading and meditating on God’s Word.

Every believer should be able to filter his culture’s seductive gnosis through the grid of God’s epignosis.

And we pray this in order that you may live [literally, “walk”] a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way Vs. 10

The Hebrews saw an absolute connection between knowledge and conduct. From their perspective, a person did not know something unless he or she did it. thi is where

authentic Christianity springs. True spiritual knowledge means action!

But today we find that this is not true

who knows only a rabbit track through Scriptures and has no thought-through answers of his own

on the other hand you have the contemplative scholar filled with knowledge who has never led a soul to Christ

knowledge A profound knowledge should profoundly affect one’s walk

bearing fruit in every good work

Bearing fruit

a fruit tree

expect to be getting fruit

God has planted us. He expects us to produce decent fruit in our lives.

What good fruit is not

Chap. 3

God expects us to produce some decent fruit in our life.

we ought to want to produce a life that “bears good fruit.”

difficult

Listen to prescription of Jesus is: "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch

can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you

remain in me."

We don’t go out to bear more fruit . . .

we seek to draw closer to Him

and the fruit will come naturally.

Increasing in the knowledge of God

continually seeking to know God better.

First, growing in the knowledge of God is not the same as seeking to learn how to get