Colossians 1:10 - Walk In a Manner Worthy of the Lord

INTRODUCTION

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

We will be looking at verse 10 today, but I will read verses 9-14 to remind us all of the context.

[READ COLOSSIANS 1:9-14]

Let’s remember that last week we began looking at this paragraph, and it is a continuation of the prayers Paul and Timothy had been making for this congregation;

A congregation Paul had never visited and had no direct part in establishing.

Looking back up to verse 9, we see the beginning of this intercessory prayer for these believers, known mostly through the testimony of Epaphras.

The prayer begins that these believers would “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

There are a lot of people in the world who would ask, “What good is that?”

Maybe you’ve felt that way sometimes.

You look at your Bible you haven’t touched all week and think, “I’m doing ok.”

After all, reading and understanding the Bible doesn’t put food on the table for you.

It doesn’t get the chores done.

It doesn’t change diapers or make meals.

For many Christians, we look at the message of the Scriptures like we consider the fire extinguisher in our kitchen or the first aid kit in our cabinet:

Really important when we need them, but not something we use every day.

For some who are listening this morning, if we go searching in the Bible, it’s because something has gone haywire in your life, and you need help.

Some great question or burden is weighing on you, and you need serious help.

And it’s not just the Bible: when are you more likely to pray?

Is it regular for you, dedicated?

Or is it just something you do while you do something else:

Drive to work?

Watch a screen?

Is prayer simply another emergency measure you use when you can’t handle something any more by yourself?

What characterizes the things you give away to others?

We Americans are typically reasonably generous people.

But often our giving to others is not found in giving our best, but in giving our cast-offs.

Clothes that are worn out or no longer fit;

Things we no longer need;

Toys our kids have outgrown;

A small offering to our church when we have bought every other thing we want?

Are we believers generous with the first-fruits of what God has given us?

Or do we have a line, an amount, that if God will provide above that amount, THEN we will start to offer out of that surplus?

Knowing God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding has a purpose:

Verse 10: so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him...

I asked these questions at the beginning not just to make you feel bad;

But to help us all begin to understand the truth of the gospel:

The gospel is given to us to make holy people!

The gospel isn’t here to baptize your life as you have lived it;

The gospel is given to CHANGE your life from its very core.

To change your greatest desires;

To change your loves;

To change your habits;

To change what you live for.

I just chose three common things to think about:

Scripture reading and study

Prayer

And generosity.

But I could have, just as easily asked about:

How you spend your leisure time

Or how much time is squandered in vain pursuits

Or how much time you spend fretting

Or gossiping

Or arguing

Or showing off?

One of the reasons we practice complete immersion in baptism is because

Regeneration isn’t limited to the crown of your head,

Your entire LIFE is raised up with Christ in salvation.

Your LIFE is new in Christ.

When Paul dives even further into this question in a couple of chapters, he says it this way:

Colossians 3:1–3 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Romans 6:4 “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

The reason they were praying for the Colossians to have a full knowledge of God’s will in spiritual wisdom and understanding is so that believers would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him.

Worthy of the LORD...

It’s no accident that Paul and Timothy use that phrase rather than “worthy of God”.

Their prayer is specifically to “God the Father” (v. 3),

But here the purpose of their prayer is that the church walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Now you may be thinking, “What’s the difference?”

After all, God is Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Wouldn’t Paul be simply using both words - God and Lord - to mean the same thing?

No.

We might do that (wrongly), but Paul wouldn’t.

Remember our confession reminds us that the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are all the same God in essence, but eternally distinct as well.

That’s what Paul teaches consistently with every single word of Scripture - one God in three eternal Persons.

To understand it, you have only to look a few verses beyond the text I read earlier - to verse 15:

Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

That verse leads off possibly the greatest paragraph on the Person of the Son, Jesus Christ.

We will, if God wills, be looking at that great doctrine in the near future.

So if he’s going to provide such great teaching on the Son in this very epistle, he would not be so careless as to use the title he uses for Jesus, “Lord”, to refer in our verse today to the Father.

That would be REALLY confusing to his readers, and to the church to follow.

So if it’s not accidental that he is praying to the Father that we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ, what does he mean by it?

1. It sets us apart from any thought of righteousness based on the Law.

We are not brought to God by natural birth, family descent, or any other fleshly means:

We are brought to God by His grace through faith He provides in the Propitiation He gave - the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

Not many believers were born descendents in the flesh from Abraham;

But anyone who is in Christ has been brought in.

John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees:

Matthew 3:9 “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

In Christ, the Father has done that very thing:

Out of the nations, the Gentiles, He has called to Himself a people for His own possession, His own glory.

How different the meaning would have been if the apostles had said here to “walk in a manner worthy of God the Father...”

Because that points directly to the Law of God as a MEANS of worthiness.

It would be the same thing as saying, “Do everything that is written in the Law, and you will be acceptable before God.”

And we know that is a DEATH SENTENCE.

We couldn’t obey before;

We will not perfectly obey now.

And to our dying day, we will, at best, strive and struggle against sin in our hearts and lives.

Please don’t misunderstand me, though.

I am NOT saying that walking in a manner worthy of Christ is EASIER than obeying the Law of God.

It is NOT, emphatically NOT, the case that the Son came to make the Law achievable.

That He somehow makes the Law less stringent, less deadly in its judgments.

Our hope for salvation doesn’t lie in our enhanced ability to obey;

It lies in the perfect obedience that the Son, Jesus Christ, accomplished on behalf of His people.

Earlier, I read Colossians 3:1–3 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

So to live WORTHY of the Lord is to live this life He has graciously given you to the glory of God RIGHT NOW.

Not just after you die, when you stand in worship before Him because you find your greatest joy in Him;

You WERE dead - unable to obey the simplest command of God;

But you have been raised with Christ, made alive by the Spirit of God;

And THAT is the life you have been given to use to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

Romans 8:8 “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

If He saved you to be His holy people -

BE HIS HOLY PEOPLE.

Your job, your family, your relationships - all those are yours to sanctify, set apart to the Lord.

The gifts He has given - yours to accomplish His purpose in gathering His sheep from the tribes of the world.

You may be a carpenter, teacher, student, dancer, engineer, or anything else in your vocation,

But your CALLING is to make disciples and gather His people into His church.

2. The second thing it means to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ is that it grounds our knowledge and obedience in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel IS the message of the church.

The Law is just a teacher, a guide, to instruct us HOW to please God with the life we have been given.

The Law reveals to sinners (and struggling saints) how much we NEED the Savior.

But for the believer, the main use of the Law of God is to give us something to joyfully agree with as we walk with our eyes on our Lord, Jesus Christ.

As a believer - do you love the Law of God?

Or do you kick against it, seeing how close you can get to sinning without actually stepping over the line?

A big part of my Bible studies in the past has been trying to figure out where the line is drawn between obedience and sin.

For example, one of the most difficult commandments for the church today is the fourth commandment:

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

How many THOUSANDS of pages have been written proposing and refuting EXACTLY what that means?

At what point does the commandment break?

Does simply having a devotional count toward keeping the day set apart?

Does it mean the WHOLE day?

Do I have to attend church? How much church? Is the worship service enough, or does God require more?

Are these the questions of someone who LOVES the Law?

Are they the questions of someone who cannot WAIT to meet with God’s people to worship Him?

Would you ask the same thing about your fiancé?

If you knew you should spend a full day focused on him or her, would you be asking these same questions?

How much time do I REALLY have to spend?

The WHOLE day?

Do I need to be in the same BUILDING with him or her?

Do I need to talk with him or her? How much?

Walking in a manner worthy of the Lord is fundamentally different than simply ticking a box on a checklist.

That’s why this walk BEGINS with filling with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

It BEGINS with a sharper and sharper understanding of what Jesus Christ has done to save you.

What He has paid for;

How rotten and stinking you were to Him;

How useless you were to Him;

And how much He loved you in SPITE of your unattractiveness.

You weren’t a “Sleeping Beauty” that Jesus came along and kissed because He saw you and thought you were beautiful;

You were a maggot-riddled corpse He came, embraced, and gave life to, clothing you in His beautiful, perfect life to keep you for all eternity.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

And that leads us to the third thing it means to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ:

3. It points us to a worthiness, not before the judgment seat of God (which is already ours), but a worthiness before the Lord, our Beloved.

Our worthiness before the Father was secured the INSTANT He made us alive in Jesus Christ.

Because it is OUR worthiness only in the fact that Jesus Christ is worthy, and we are in Him.

So the fiancé example is apt;

You are betrothed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You are His bride, the one He came to set apart, sanctify, to Himself.

Ephesians 4:1 “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,”

Philippians 1:27 “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel,”

2 Thessalonians 1:11 “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power,”

Revelation 3:4 “Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me [Jesus Christ] in white, for they are worthy.”

2 Corinthians 5:14–15 “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

Only a bride who has prepared herself will anticipate the day of her Beloved’s return.

The day when He will come and take her to be with Himself forever.

Our worthiness before our Beloved Savior means more to us than anything else we could desire.

The love that is Christ’s, that BELONGS to Him alone, controls us.

And being found beautiful, pure, and prepared for Him in the day He comes will drive our obedience and devotion with far more intensity and zeal than EVERY Law that could be given.