A Heartfelt Prayer

A Pastor’s Prayer

In addition to Preaching and Teaching from the Word of God, the pastor is called to pray with and for the church. So often the prayers are for healing, for peace, for general things; we bring every need before the Lord. But as a pastor gets to know the congregation, he prays for those things and for deeper needs.

In Paul’s opening prayer in Colossians the thanksgiving turns to supplication. This is a pastor’s heartfelt prayer for the church: That you may be filled with the knowledge of God, living lives that are pleasing to the Lord.

Knowing the Gospel

We have been qualified

Qualified - you were once “disqualified” because of your sin, had forsaken your inheritance, and were cut off from the promises of God. Now you are qualified, made to fit, counted in good standing, regarded as sons and daughters in the Father’s house, the inheritance, that hope of promised blessing stored up and kept for you in heaven (vs 5).

We have been delivered from the domain of darkness

Domain of darkness, the domination of Satan’s power

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

We have been transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son

Ephesians 2:5 ESV

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Philippians 3:20 ESV

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

This is through the redemption Christ has secured through his cross, the forgiveness of our sins

Our qualification is granted, never earned. Our deliverance is achieved for us, not by us. Our citizenship in His kingdom is a gift of grace.

Our response - Paul’s prayer - and my plea to you is this: Knowing what God has done for you, live a life pleasing to Him, honor Christ in worthy living.

Pleasing God

Knowing the Will of God

Luring the church through worldly philosophy - knowing God’s will through ritual, philosophy, diet, etc… It was a guarded secret only a few could know. Even today - you must discover your own truth, you don’t need the Bible to experience God, and you are the only one to determine what is right and wrong.

How can we know the will of God?

The Decretive and Preceptive Will of God

The Decretive Will is God’s secret counsel, that which God has ordained from the very beginning all that will come to pass. Often we cannot know this will until after it has worked itself out.

The Preceptive will is that which God has made known through precepts (teaching, commands, etc), things God has clearly revealed.

Deuteronomy 29:29 ESV

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

God makes known in His Word His will for our lives

1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 John 3:23 ESV

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

This is Spiritual wisdom and understanding

1 Corinthians 2:12–14 ESV

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Walking in a Manner worthy of the Lord

What is pleasing to God?

A life of faith and obedience

Bearing Fruit and Increasing in Knowledge

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

What is the fruit we are to bear:

The Fruit of Repentance - Turning from Sin and To God

The Fruit of the Spirit - Love, joy, peace, patience...

The Fruit of Good Works - those things that adorn the gospel and give glory to God.

These are all the same, the outgrowth of the life of Christ being lived within us. God is pleased when He sees His Son in us.

A wake up call

If you are not bearing fruit, you are not connected to the root

If you are not growing in knowledge, you don’t know him

Being Strengthened with all power...

We are to work and rest in his strength. We do what God has called us to, witness, pray, teach, and we leave the rest to God’s hands

The reason the Church seems anemic is that we often remove the real strength from our ministry. We do our part, and when we think God isn’t going to work, we try to do his part, and mess it up royally.

We employ worldly strategies, marketing, and metrics that take the need for God out of the picture. If you do this, people will come…

Preach the gospel, live faithfully, love sacrificially, and trust God to do the saving

According to His glorious might…

God’s glory is his revealed excellence. Here it is the greatness of his revealed power. The supply of spiritual strength, then, upon which we depend as Christians, is measured only by the limitless power that God has shown in saving us in Christ. This is the power upon which we rely.

To have endurance and patience with joy

The Christian life is full of trials, temptations, and struggle. There is a required endurance and patience - a long-suffering.

But it is not begrudging, it is filled with joy You can find joy in the suffering, joy in the waiting, because every experience is an opportunity for God to show his goodness and mercy fresh and new.

Why is joy essential in endurance and patience?

A life of gratitude

If we are to please him, we will praise him and give Him thanks

Conclusion

Know God - as He is revealed in His Word, as He has shown himself in the Gospel - the One who, out of His grace, has qualified you for the inheritance, delivered you from darkness, and transferred you to Christ’s kingdom.

But this knowledge can’t just stick in your head. Once you know this, if you know this, it will transform how you live. Everything you do will be to the praise of His grace.

Praying this Passage for the Church and for Ourselves

Where are you lacking in the things that Paul was praying for... where is the church lacking…?

Pray that God would fill us with such a knowledge of Him, that our lives and the church would bear fruit and increase, being strengthened in His glorious might, and giving thanks in all things for God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.