Colossians 1:9-14 - Praying for Brothers

INTRODUCTION

Let’s open our Bibles together to the first chapter of the epistle to the Colossians.

We will be looking at verses 9-14 this morning.

[READ COLOSSIANS 1:9-14]

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at the prayer of thanksgiving Paul and Timothy have been offering for the Colossian believers.

That prayer begins in verse 3 and runs through verse 8.

Today we will move to the petitions these apostles have been making on behalf of this small church.

These, for the most part, take up the paragraph we just read.

I would remind you that Paul himself had never been to Colossae, and knew few people in that congregation.

Most of what these writers knew of Colossae had come though the insistence of Epaphras, their beloved fellow-slave to Christ and fellow-prisoner on His behalf.

I remind you of that because this frames the things Paul and Timothy have been asking God for on the Colossians’ behalf into as generic an appeal as we might have.

Put another way, the things they have been praying for the Colossian church are the very things they would be praying for ANY church, including this one.

For the most part, Paul isn’t obviously trying to correct any error or heresy in Colossae;

The tone and theme of the epistle is to clarify and to encourage, not to correct things like Paul had done in the Corinthian and Galatian letters.

It’s also not as deeply personal as the Philippian or Thessalonian letters, so the things addressed in this letter are not meant to single out strengths of the congregation either.

It stands with the epistles to the Romans and the Ephesians in being some of the deepest general theology we have from the apostle’s pen.

So that means that the things Paul and Timothy are asking God for on the Colossians’ behalf are the very things they would petition God for on behalf of ACRBC.

We don’t have to interpret these things, for the most part, with an eye to understanding the local controversies or dangers:

The teaching throughout this epistle is instructive without knowing any history of Colossae at all.

Without knowing any of the people, or anything about the town.

Because this letter is what it is, we have an even greater treasure here than you may have realized.

Have you ever been asked to pray for someone, a believer, you don’t know really well?

Or perhaps you want to pray for brothers and sisters in another congregation across town or across the globe?

Have you ever wondered WHAT you should pray for them?

What do we most often default to?

Personal safety,

Healing from disease,

Protection from disasters or persecution,

Or comfort in their distress?

Now please hear me: there is NOTHING wrong with praying for these things.

But is that ALL we should be praying for?

All these things are things that afflict those who live here on earth.

What do we pray for them that has ETERNAL significance?

I confess - it’s easier to come up with things on the spur of the moment that relate to our bodies or our comfort,

So that is what we most often pray for.

It’s completely legitimate to pray for your daily bread,

For healing of afflictions,

For perseverance through trials,

And for the blessing of God for ourselves and others.

But if that’s all we pray for them, have we missed the largest part of our opportunity to petition God on their behalf?

In the model prayer of our Lord, the petition for daily bread is a single mention,

While the proper adoration of God and the petition against our sin make the remainder of the prayer:

Matthew 6:9–13 “Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Pray for your daily bread, and for that of others - but man doesn’t live by bread alone.

That brings us to another problem, I think, with only praying for the things of this life, these temporal things:

It traps our prayers in the realm of the things that are do-able.

Things that, given the right circumstances or the right friends or the right doctors, we have some expectation that the prayer will be fulfilled.

It’s like we don’t want to ask God to do God-only things.

We want to ask Him to do what the right doctors with the right medicines can do in His creation.

Or to make the person feel better about their circumstances - something a dear friend listening could provide.

Have you ever held back on a prayer because you didn’t want to set God up to fail?

I don’t want to presume on God, but it makes me think about a powerful homerun hitter in the major leagues (you can fill in a name if you like);

And this hitter is at an exhibition to show how well he can hit the best pitchers in the league.

But every pitcher who comes up on the mound tosses only gentle pitches, underhanded.

Are you tossing softballs to God in your prayers for others?

Do you think that batter might cry out to the pitchers, “Throw me your BEST pitches!”?

That’s what Paul and Timothy (and probably Epaphras) have been besieging the throne of grace for:

They have been praying for God to do things that ONLY God can do.

The summary petition is given to us in verse 9 - everything else they ask flows from this.

Everything else in this paragraph is a result of this petition - they are the fruits of this request:

Colossians 1:9 “ asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,”

Let’s take a look at this request:

First, like we looked at in the previous passage, and we must never forget: the gospel is THE message of the church.

These petitions are what the gospel of Jesus Christ IS FOR:

It is to make for Himself a holy people, a people set apart for Himself.

A people who are pure,

A people who walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,

A people who are not an embarrassment to the Name of God,

A people who will chare, by His grace, the inheritance of the saints.

1 Peter 2:10–12 “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

Asking that YOU

The “you” there is plural.

You all.

You every.

But in the context of this prayer, also you EACH.

Paul and Timothy may not have known the name of every believer in Colossae, but God does.

And this petition is for every single believer.

And why would it not be?

It’s not like Paul was praying that “you all” would receive a new horse and chariot,

They are praying to God, not Oprah.

We pray to God, not Kickstarter.

Nor is Timothy praying that “you each” would have a comfortable, easy life in Christ.

I don’t find that recorded as a prayer about ANYONE in the Bible.

What they are asking for, what they would easily ask for ANY and EVERY church is that each person would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will...

BE filled.

That word is passive, meaning that WE aren’t the ones doing the filling, even of ourselves.

They are praying that GOD fills US with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

And their prayer isn’t some weakened prayer that God would make them “willing” to be filled,

Or that He would “help” them be filled with the knowledge of His will...

They are praying that God DO it - completely, totally.

There are perhaps some who hear that and ask, “But doesn’t that VIOLATE the will of the individual?”

2 possible answers:

1. Yes? So what if it does?

When did the will of the creature become more important than the glory of the Creator?

2. Paul and Timothy make the correct assumption that someone who KNOWS and LOVES God will WANT the same thing -

To be filled with the knowledge of God’s will...

There is no assumption in Scripture at all that someone who comes to Christ in faith wants anything less than Him FULLY.

WE may try to hedge and say, “I want Jesus, I want to be saved from hell, AND I want to practice this little sin as well.”

The Bible just calls one who persists in that desire an UNBELIEVER and IDOLATER.

Hosea 2:8 “And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.”

Hosea 4:12–13 “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your brides commit adultery.”

Hosea 8:11–13 “Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.”

1 Corinthians 10:6–7 “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.””

But we need to move on:

Be filled with the KNOWLEDGE of God’s will...

What would we ask that God fill us with? The knowledge of His will.

The knowledge they are begging for the church to be filled with is not some simple FACT;

It is a higher knowledge;

A greater knowledge;

A fuller knowledge.

The new Legacy Standard Bible, based on the New American Standard translation, did a good thing, I think, in translating this word as “full knowledge” to set it apart from the more common word for knowledge.

This paragraph uses this intensified word exclusively in the prayers for the church and her members.

You can simply KNOW Jesus and be saved,

But the full knowledge they are asking for is an overbrimming, overflowing knowledge of God and the will He has for His people.

It is an increasing supply of spiritual wisdom and understanding applied by the Holy Spirit to the believer.

What is God’s will for YOU?

What’s God’s will for the brother or sister sitting beside you, or sitting in a church 5000 miles away?

When we ask that question, we most often are looking at the temporal things again:

Where does God want me to go to school?

Where is God’s will for me to work?

Who does God want me to marry?

(Hint: if you’re married, it’s the person you are married to and none other)

When Paul and Timothy are praying for the believers, they are looking at what God’s will is in a stronger, more eternal way:

That God continually fill you with the full knowledge of His will in all SPIRITUAL wisdom and understanding.

I think that the decisions of this life are important ONLY in how they affect THIS truth:

You will more rarely go wrong if you are seeking first the kingdom of God and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

You will make better decisions if they result in God’s glory and your humility.

It is the SPIRITUAL that matters most in your life, Christian.

Not where you earn a paycheck or even where you live.

They are important, but really ONLY in how they affect your life of faith and obedience to God.

You can make enough to meet your needs here or in many other areas of the globe;

But there are men and women, boys and girls everywhere who need to know the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Who need to not just be called by us, but sought out by us - seeking the lost sheep of our Great Shepherd to bring them in.

As God fills you with the knowledge of His will, the bursting fruit of the gospel, He gives you spiritual wisdom to use what He has filled you with.

He gives understanding to engraft that knowledge into your mind and heart.

To assemble the truth of your new nature and new allegiance into love-driven good works.

And that is the work of the gospel that transforms you from a citizen of darkness into a subject of His beloved Son.