Walking Worthy as God’s People

Introduction

We are 101 days until 2025 - that’s hard to believe, isn’t it? As one year is coming to an end and a new one is getting ready to begin, people often make a list of sorts of things that they want to improve upon in the coming year. We know these things as “New Years Resolutions” - how many of you have ever made a new years resolution? How many of you have kept said new years resolution all year? Easier said than done! The 5 most common new years resolutions are to lose weight, save money, change a career, quit a bad habit, and to spend more time with family. These are good goals, by and large! But the vast majority of people who set out to fulfill one of these resolutions comes up short, in fact the majority will stop by the time that February rolls around as they only last 30-40 days. The outside world does not have a monopoly on New Years resolutions either - Christians have tried to grow in various areas for years and years either by coming to church more, reading our Bible, or doing a better job of submitting to God’s plan instead of our own one.

What is our hope as believers to accomplish these goals? We know that God wants His people to look more like His Son, but how does this happen?

God’s Work in our Lives

Philippians 1:6 CSB

6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Our Responsibility as Believers

Dying to self and following our Savior

One of the greatest problems to our spiritual growth is the fact that we want to get on the Jesus plane but bring sin in our carry-on bag. We want to be in Christ, but we also want to have a foot still in the world. We struggle with being all in on team Jesus because we question the sufficiency of Jesus, much like people in the Colossian church did as well. They wanted to add to Jesus - I need Jesus plus my good works. I need Jesus plus extra secret knowledge. This morning as we continue our study through Colossians in Colossians 1:9-14, we’re going to see how exactly we can grow in our spiritual lives and it starts by understanding God’s will for each one of us. God has a plan, God knows best, God wants us to grow! Let’s read from His Word today

Colossians 1:9–14 CSB

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.

This is what our God has done - rescued us from death and given us life in abundance! Is anyone else thankful for Jesus? Let’s give Him praise together, let’s pray

Walk Worthy by Knowing God’s Will (9-10a)

Remember from last week in the first part of Paul’s prayer for this church, we see that these are new believers who heard the Gospel preached from a man named Epaphras and they have been born again! Isn’t it a blessing whenever someone is saved by grace through faith in Christ? Do you remember the fire that you had whenever you were first saved? That boldness that made it to where you wanted to tell everyone about what Jesus Christ had done in your life! What a joy that season is… but we all know that this season is also a season where we are very vulnerable. See, salvation isn’t the end of our spiritual journey on this planet, it’s the beginning of the second chapter. You have your life before Christ, then you met Jesus, and now you are raised to walk in a brand new life as a new person! This means that you go back to being a baby - I don’t mean that physically, but spiritually speaking the Bible tells us that it’s like we’re back on a milk diet as we learn more about God’s grace and love and plan. This is why it’s so important for new believers to get plugged into a local church, this is why membership matters instead of leaving new converts out in the void as free agents who many times never plug in. This is why discipleship matters!

In our New Members class, I’ll be sharing this graphic and maybe it’s one that you have seen before. Think about our spiritual life as a baseball diamond. A good baseball player will get on base maybe 30-40% of the time - if you get to first base, that’s something to celebrate because it doesn’t happen often! Spiritually, first base is salvation. We celebrate whenever someone is saved by grace through faith in Christ, but you don’t stop at first base, your goal is to advance. Second base is called scoring position, spiritually, second base is whenever someone begins to serve in the local church and grow in their walk with the Lord. This is good, but it’s not where we stop! Next comes third base, and this is when you’re a real threat to score a run in baseball, spiritually, this is when we share the Gospel with others and invite others to join us at church as we take ownership in our faith and our local church. But this isn’t where we stop. Finally, we come home and score the run - this is the process of making disciple making disciples throughout our lives. Not making disciples… but disciple making disciples. Investing in others so that they can eventually go out and invest in others - the goal is multiplication the rest of our lives until Christ calls us home. This is how we “walk worthy of the Lord” as Colossians 1:10 commands us to do. So, how can we grow in this process?

We understand the will of God (verse 9) by diving into God’s Word! In order to understand what God wants, we have to understand what God is like and this requires us to spend time getting to know Him better in His Word, and yielding to His Spirit. As we do this, as we study Scripture, we see that there is wisdom and spiritual understanding. So many people seek wisdom and understanding in our world and believe that if they work hard enough, they can earn it or discover it. This filling is an aorist passive verb in the Greek, which might not mean anything to you, but that specific type of verb is often called the Divine Passive and it indicates that God is the agent at work. So Paul is saying that he is praying that God Himself would fill them with the knowledge of His will with wisdom and spiritual understanding - church, God continues to provide His people with wisdom and understanding today!

1 Corinthians 2:10 CSB

10 Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit, since the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Have you ever prayed this prayer for someone else? That they would have wisdom and understanding that can only come from God? There’s a song that has been so encouraging to me the last few months called Christ Our Wisdom by a group called Sovereign Grace Music, and it reminds us that God is God and we are not, but that even in the difficult moments of life we can trust in God because of what Christ has done and what He continues to do in our lives as He provides us with wisdom, perspective, purpose, and salvation. The purpose of this knowledge is not to boast about our intelligence or our actions, but to bring about transformation in the life of the believer! This transformation is what Paul calls “Walking worthy of the Lord.” Does that sound like an impossible task to anyone else? Imagine standing before someone powerful or famous, you’re on your best behavior, you’re probably wearing your best clothes, you’re trying your best to fit in, make an impression, or… walk worthy. This carries with it a picture of a scale. You’re on one side, and something or someone else is on the other, and you’re trying to balance the scale, or be worthy. Now, with another person that might be possible by trying really hard, earning enough money, or having enough power… but on the other side of this scale is God. God is the standard. How on earth can we walk worthy before God? The only way this is possible is WITH God - which is why Colossians is all about Christ and being found in Him because when you have Jesus, you never walk alone!

So we have Jesus, and through faith in Jesus, we have the ability to please God because Hebrews 11:6 says

Hebrews 11:6 CSB

6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

But how can we please God? How can we know God’s will? What does the Bible tell us about God’s will for our lives? Aren’t you thankful that the Bible gives us general answers to this question of what to expect and what God expects of us? Let’s look at 5 times the New Testament talks about God’s will for God’s people

To be Saved

To be Sanctified

To be Spirit-Filled

To Stand

To Suffer

As we read Scripture, we see these 5 truths explicitly stated in the New Testament and this is God’s plan for His people. Now, some of these come more naturally than others, don’t they? We feel good about God’s will for us is to saved and filled with His Spirit! But what about standing out in a world that doesn’t like it when people stand out? That’s hard to do. What about suffering for God? Jesus promised that in this life there will be trouble - let’s look at Scripture to demonstrate these 5 truths

1 Timothy 2:3–4 CSB

3 This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 CSB

3 For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you keep away from sexual immorality,

Ephesians 5:17–18 CSB

17 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:

1 Peter 2:15 CSB

15 For it is God’s will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.

1 Peter 4:19 CSB

19 So then, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.

These are all general principles for Christians concerning God’s will - and it’s helpful for us to look to Scripture because so many times we approach God’s Word with our preconceived notions of what God’s plan is for our lives… It’s kind of like we read the Bible with our mind made up and our purpose is to find ammunition to support our view. This isn’t always a helpful approach, in fact, it’s rarely fruitful to approach the Bible this way. We come to Scripture and maybe we’re asking these questions regarding what exactly is God’s plan for us or for a specific situation in our lives and often we want God to answer the question our way, right away… this rarely happens how we expect. But by knowing these 5 truths concerning God’s will in God’s Word, we can better understand how to walk worthy in our lives. Maybe we’re in a situation that requires us to stand out from another group or another person… maybe we’re in a situation that we know will bring about suffering in a situation if we do the Godly thing. We all have PhD’s in justifying our own actions, but whenever we pause and look at God’s Word and see what His will is for us, we can better move forward in a way that honors God and is for our ultimate good as we seek to please Him most of all! First, we have to know God’s will and we find the will of God in the Word of God.

Walk Worthy by Doing God’s Will (10b-12)

We’ve all heard someone in our life tell us to be mindful of our actions and to act a certain way. Possibly for you this was a coach who told you that on game day you needed to straighten up and get your mind ready for your game or match. Maybe this was a parent who told you that you needed to behave when you were on the way to a family get together or meeting. Maybe this is what you heard from a youth pastor when you were growing up! When I was in high school, my dad went from the Children’s Pastor to the Youth Pastor at FBC Ozark and one of the things that he would routinely tell us whenever we were getting ready to go on a mission trip was that his expectation was for us to be the most well behaved group wherever we were going because we were representing our families, our church, and most importantly, our Savior! This was usually followed with a warning that if someone misbehaved, he’d make their parent come and pick them up. Our actions matter, especially as Christians, because of who we represent. We are called to walk worthy of the Lord in Colossians 1:10, and we see a similar message show up in Ephesians 4:1

Ephesians 4:1 CSB

1 Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received,

See, whenever you become a Christian, you become a part of God’s forever family… and I don’t know how your family operates, but in my family every person has responsibilities and obligations. It’s the same way in the local church, called the body of Christ. We all have important roles to play as we seek to walk worthy of the Lord and to walk worthy of the calling that we have received. We have to remember that we aren’t saved to sit on our blessed assurance, we are saved to share the Gospel! This requires us to be people of action. Do you remember what Jesus said about action in the Sermon on the Mount?

Matthew 5:13–16 CSB

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Lindsey and I love Mexican food, anyone else? If you go to a Mexican restaurant, you usually get some chips and salsa and we have a running list of the places with the best chips and salsa. There are some places we go to where we really have to salt the chips, and there are other places where we dive in as soon as the waitress brings them to our table. Salt is a wonderful thing! Salt used to be more valuable than gold in the ancient world. Salt must be pure in order to purify things. Salt was often used to preserve things and fight off decay and death. If salt isn’t pure, if salt isn’t tasty, then it becomes useless. See, we are to be agents of purification and preservation in a world that is dying in darkness!

This is what Christ calls His followers to be. Salt and Light. To fight off decay. To shine into the darkness. To walk worthy as His blood-bought, born-again people! How can we do this in our text?

We see 4 ways in these verses:

Bearing Fruit

Growing

Being Strengthened

Giving Thanks

Do you see that each of these things require us as God’s people to actively participate in His work? There are sometimes in life where God immediately and completely changes us - we can think of stories of people who were once living in unrepentant relationships and sinfulness and then they met Jesus and Jesus completely changed them! It’s like they saw the light and those things just stopped and those temptations ceased… Praise God for this! But it seems to be more common that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, and we face those same temptations and we have to daily choose this day who we will serve. Will we glorify self or our Savior? Will we indulge in sin or will we walk worthy of our calling? Each day we have to choose to live for Jesus and to actually do God’s will, not just know what His will is and refuse to obey it as James 1 tells us

James 1:21–22 CSB

21 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Receive the Word… and be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only. This is a summons to act! Think about a speed limit sign. That sign is there for your safety and the safety of other drivers and passengers on the highway. But you are not safe whenever you read that sign if you’re going 100 in a 60… you’re safe when you obey the sign and go 60 in the 60. Hearing is not enough. Reading is not enough. We are called to obey… not to be saved, but because we are saved!

How do we act?

First, by bearing fruit. This has been a repetitive theme in Colossians, but it’s repetitive in Scripture and that’s for our benefit. Godly things grow and produce godly fruit. If you have your bible, turn with me quickly to Matthew 7. We see America’s Gospel in verse 1 - judge not… this is where most stop! Look at the chapter in context, especially verses 16-20. Matthew 7:17 tells us that good trees produce good fruit. How do we recognize fruits? By inspecting them… or by evaluating them against God’s Word, which some call Judging. We are not the judges of someone’s soul, but we are commanded to be fruit inspectors and this requires us to make judgments based on scripture. The next time someone tries to justify sin by saying judge not lest you be judged, say twist not lest you be like Satan. Remember from verse 6, the Gospel produces fruit and if the Gospel has changed us, we will also produce fruit with our actions as we live for Christ and serve Him. A fruitless Christian is an oxymoron!

Second, we grow in the knowledge of God. Those who are married, you know that the longer you’re married, the more you know your spouse. You know their likes, and dislikes. You know what they love to do and what they want you to do. In a Christ-Centered marriage centered around Jesus, the more that you grow in your knowledge of your spouse, the more you want to honor them and serve them and please them - not in a bad way, but in a sacrificial way because you love them! The more we grow in our understanding of God, the more we should long to honor Him. Please Him. Serve Him. Worship Him.

Third, we are being strengthened with endurance and patience. This is God acting in our lives and providing us with the strength, endurance, and patience necessary to do His will. Billy Graham once shared, "The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.” He empowers us! But even in doing this, our walk is not an easy one. It requires endurance and patience. It’s not a downhill stroll, it’s an uphill climb. Yet, even in the difficulties, there is joy because God provides everything we need. We simply must follow Him.

Fourth, verse 12, we give thanks to our Father. The Christian attitude is not one of complaining, but thanksgiving. There are 7 billion complainers on this planet, we don’t need 300 more! Yes, life is hard. Yes, we suffer along the way. Yes, people disappoint us. Yes, we are thrown curveballs often. But in the midst of the suffering, we can always choose joy in Jesus

James 1:2–3 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

Friends, we walk worthy by doing the will of God. Whether that’s suffering or standing or growing in sanctification, it is not always easy, but it is what we are saved in order to do!

Walk Worthy by Remembering God’s Work (13-14)

Is anyone else a history nerd? I love world history, especially ancient history and WWII. About 10 years a movie came out called Hacksaw Ridge and it contains the things that you might expect a war movie to contain… but if you’ve watched the movie or if you’ve heard the story before, you know that it follows the work of a medic named Desmond Doss who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service on the island of Okinawa. Soldiers climbed a near 400 foot tall plateau and as soon as they reached the top, they were met with enemy fire. Many US troops immediately lost their lives and the army retreated back down the cliff, leaving many wounded soldiers stranded, left for dead. Doss stayed on the plateau and embarked on a rescue mission as he, one by one, dragged wounded soldiers to the cliff’s edge and safely lowered them down the 400 foot drop. Over the span of hours, Doss saved 75 lives and transferred these soldiers, genuinely, from the doors of death to safety and life!

Into a world of death, we know that God sent His Son Jesus on a rescue mission to seek and save lost sinners just like you and me. Just like these wounded soldiers were on death’s door and powerless to save themselves, the Bible tells us that we too were dead in our sins and walking in darkness - powerless to save ourselves, powerless to walk worthy before God based on our own actions and works. Even if we decided to try as hard as we could for the rest of our lives to stop sinning and to be a genuinely good person, we know that we all have a past that is marked by mistakes, regret, and sin… We can’t change the past. But because of Jesus, you don’t have to be a slave to your past anymore. Jesus Christ brings about transformation and He does this by transferring us from this world of darkness into His forever Kingdom of Light and Life.

Verse 12 tells us that we are given this inheritance in the light, and we have been rescued from this domain of darkness - darkness and light cannot co-exist. This is why Christ calls on His followers to be light and to let their light shine so that God is glorified and people are saved. Sadly, we know so many in our world who are continually walking in darkness. We wonder why and Scripture tells us why

2 Corinthians 4:4 CSB

4 In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

This isn’t just the case for some people - don’t you know that this used to be true for every single person?

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 CSB

9 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

That’s who I used to be. That’s who you used to be. But friend, that’s not who are. We aren’t just taken to a different location with a different temptation, no, we have arrived in Christ and are adopted members of God’s forever family. Yes, we still live in this world marked by sin… but we are no longer slaves to sin - we are children of the King. Do you remember what Jesus said on the cross just before His death? IT IS FINISHED - Paid In Full - Forgiveness is Accomplished. This is the work of God that we must daily remember. We have to remember the truth of the Gospel which can be reduced into 4 words based on this passage: God Has Rescued Us. Is anyone else thankful for this reality? Our past no longer defines us - we are free and it’s all because of Jesus Christ!

So, what do we do with this newfound freedom and status as a son instead of a slave? We realize that as new people, we have a new position and a new purpose that is to glorify our God who has saved us, sealed us, and secured us forever through the work of Jesus. What must our response be? To live as adopted children. To walk worthy of the Gospel. To realize that as rescued people, we are saved in order to share this message of redemption and salvation with a lost and dying world. As we live in this world we know that as believers we still have hardships, but we are able to have joy in the midst of problems on earth because of our permanent status as citizens of heaven! Aren’t you thankful for that hope, church? Even if things don’t go our way. Even if the breakthrough doesn’t come. Even if we suffer. Even if… He is good. He is able. He is faithful. He has rescued us, redeemed us, and restored us.

Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re still trying to double dip in the world and in the Word. You want this transformation that Jesus alone can provide, but you also want to keep a foot in the world because you really like this thing that you know is wrong. Friend, lay it down… Jesus is better. As John Owen once said, “Until sin becomes bitter, Christ will never be sweet.”

God’s will isn’t an impossible thing for us to understand or grasp. Our passage calls on us to understand that discipleship and spiritual growth isn’t a linear path, but often filled with hills and valleys that require patience and endurance. The way that we grow is by daily dying to self, putting one foot in front of the other, and doing the next thing that Christ calls us to do in His Word. To move from first base to second base, from second base to third base, and to run through the finish line of our life with perseverance and into our forever home with Jesus who sought us and bought us with His redeeming blood. As we grow in our understanding of God’s Word, we can live a life that brings Him glory and honor. South Gate, let’s read Scripture, let’s submit to God’s plan, and let’s share the Gospel message with those still in the domain of darkness. If you’re there today, friend, there’s not only light but there is life unlike anything you’ve experienced before. Come to Jesus Christ today!