Gooding, David: 3 - Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians

Let's begin, shall we, our third session by reading from the first chapter to the Colossians. The words that begin in verse nine. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and make requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory, unto all endurance and long suffering with joy, giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Now, anybody that knows anything at all about Colossians will be getting impatient by this stage and saying to themselves, if not to their friends, when will this perverse lecturer get round to talking about the interesting things in this chapter one of the Epistle to the Colossians? Namely, those great and glorious things that are said about Jesus our Lord from verse 60, is verse fifteen onwards. If you feel impatient, I must increase your impatience. I'm sorry for that. But we must spend one more session looking at what might appear to be the preliminary things that Paul says. And if we take the trouble so to do, when we come to those delightful things that are said about the Lord Jesus in verse fifteen onwards, we shall lose nothing, we shall in fact gain, as we see some at least of the context in which they are placed, some of the imprecations for us that otherwise we might miss. So now we start with the prayer of the Apostle Paul, and I don't know how you find it, but sometimes I have found it a little difficult to follow exactly what he is saying and praying about. So let's first of all try to analyze the various clauses, uh, that we find in his prayer. We might have thought, of course, being an inspired apostle, that when Paul got down to pray, he didn't just repeat a lot of phrases over and over. Presumably, every clause that he now conveys to us about his praying is meaningful and makes sense in its own context. And I would like to try and demonstrate that, if I may, first of, uh, first of all, by running quickly through the clauses. His main request is that we shall be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. That the first and major request in his prayer. It raises the question, of course, what would be the purpose of our being thus filled with knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And the answer to that question is immediately told us. We are to be filled, he prays that we be filled so as to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well pleasing. All right, if we grant him that, then perhaps we next should ask, and what pray might be involved in walking worthily, as Paul puts it, unto all pleasing? And he tells us this, for he's not using just vague phraseology in his prayers that he would be hard put to to explain if you stopped him in in the middle of his prayer and said, old chap, what did you mean by that? He has a very definite thing in his mind, what is involved in walking worthily unto all pleasing. Two things, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in or by the knowledge of God. Well, if that is the, uh, what is involved, if we are to walk worthily and to please the Lord, we have got to bear fruit, and then we've got to make growth and increase. We might well ask ourselves what conditions are necessary for such fruit bearing and growth. And the answer to that, as any ga- gardener, amateur or otherwise, would tell you, that if you're going to get fruit bearing and growth, you must have all endurance and perseverance, not to speak of long suffering. Any gardener will tell you that. Why, even the pansies in the garden won't grow if they expect they're going to grow, uh, five minutes after the seed's been put in, and that's all there is to it. No plant can possibly bring forth fruit unless it perseveres. Haven't we all had those pots of beautiful things that we got from the garden marketplace, brought them home, a week and a half, they all went dead on us, you'll see. Ha. What conditions, therefore, are necessary to be fulfilled if we're going to bear fruit and increase? Well, that will have to be all perseverance and long suffering. And Paul adds, long suffering with joy. And we say to ourselves, well, dear me, i- i- i- if that is what is involved in the prayer of Paul and in the Christian life, and endurance and perseverance are so all important, where would we get the strength and resource from for such perseverance and endurance? And here in Paul's prayer is the answer to that question as well. Strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory. That's where you'll get the strength for endurance from that is so absolutely essential for fruit bearing and growth. And of course, if you begin to say, well, what do those words mean? It's easy for the preacher to indulge in phrases like that, strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory. What does it mean, pray? Well, then we're going to get the answer to that question in those delightful verses that you're all so impatient to hear about from verse fifteen onwards. And when we get the answer to what the might of his glory is, what a spectacular answer that is going to be. The might of his glory. Yes, but you say, if all those illimitable resources, uh, at our disposal for perseverance and growth, how do we lay hold of those resources? And one way, of course, not the only way maybe, but one way is to cooperate with God by doing what we are next told to do, giving thanks to the Father. I don't know how you get on when you see your bank balance coming through, uh, whenever it is quarterly, whenever these things arrive, you'll see. But I dare say some of you, you've been wondering, can I afford the new car or the new dress or the new spade for the garden? And you've been going very carefully when the bank statement arrives, and there it is in all its glory, it's as black as black could be, and a nice round figure in it. You say, thank my good bank manager for that. Now I can get ahead. Ah, yes. While if you thought there wasn't much in the bank, you were afraid to go and face the man. Now you've found there's a very big bank balance, how grateful you are, and of course you go and plunder the bank. Oh, that we spent a little bit more time thanking the Father, for in that very process, we become more and more actually aware of the enormous resources that God has put at our disposal. Giving thanks to the Father, who has already made us adequate, has already made us sufficient for the inheritance of the saints in light. And should you next ask, how has he made us adequate? Oh, look at that lovely cavalcade of things that God has done. Not only chosen us and given us an inheritance, but if you're going to rise to the opportunity and use it and enjoy it, you'll need to be educated and provided and trained and prepared, and God has made us adequate. He's qualified us by these various things that are told us here, delivered us from the power of darkness, transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of His love. He has done it. He has redeemed us. He has forgiven us. He has reconciled us in order that one day he must may present us holy without blemish, and without charge before God, provided only we remain in the faith and are not removed from the hope of the gospel. This, or something very near like this, is what I take is involved now in the prayer of Paul for these Colossians. So let's now patiently, it'll be hard work, but let's patiently go through that prayer and think of a thing or two in connection with the main items in it. What does it mean, we may ask, by being, to be filled with the knowledge of his will? And to what purpose are we to be filled with the knowledge of that will? It will not escape us if we pay close attention to Paul's letter to the Colossians, that everywhere and at every turn, Paul is exhorting us to lay hold of knowledge. Now, it is not always a virtue that is extolled in Christian circles. Sometimes knowledge gets itself a very bad name, but not in the Epistle to the Colossians. Everywhere and at every turn, our believers are exhorted to make sure that they got a- not only get knowledge, but get filled with knowledge, with the knowledge of God's will. Why do we need the knowledge of his will? Well, as the next phrases tell us, that we may walk worthily of the Lord, unto all will pleasing. Obviously and simply, if we are to please the Lord, we better take the trouble first of all to find out what pleases him. I remember once being at a, uh, at a missionary breakfast in my student days when the great and famous Dr. Laubach came to address us. He was the great expert. He had devised means of teaching people hitherto illiterate to read, and he had been so successful with his methods. Uh, this is the, uh, late forties, I might tell you, uh, nineteen forties, not eighteen forties, nineteen forties, and, uh, I was there. But anyway, he'd been so, um, uh, successful with his method that sundry governments had, uh, asked him, invited him to come to their countries and apply his techniques to the teaching of their population. On one occasion, he was in a very, to us, primitive part of the world, you'll see, and he taught this leading man of the tribe how to read. The man was a tremendous, a big, terrible, uh, strong fellow, of course. And when at last he read, I was able to read a few simple sentences, he was so delighted. And putting his arm around the doctor's neck, he drew out a big long knife. He said, Doctor Laubach, I'm so grateful to you. Who would you like me to kill to show my gratitude to you? And he meant it well, didn't he? But of course, if he ever were going to please Doctor Laubach, that was the very thing he wouldn't have to do. We shouldn't suppose, should we, just like that, that we know what pleases God. You married gentlemen didn't just suppose what your wife would like for a birthday present, did you? You did your very best to find out, lest you waste a lot of money on things that weren't appreciated. Filled with the knowledge of his will, that we might walk worthily of the Lord, uh, to all pleasing. Well, you say his will about what? Well, of course, I suppose in one sense the will of God covers every aspect and detail of our lives. Very often when people are converted, one of their first concerns is to know what the Lord's will would be in this and that particular of life. Young people are necessarily much given to it, aren't they? What career shall I follow? Uh, what beautiful lady amongst all the very many, uh, exceptionally beautiful ladies shall I marry, and so forth and so on. What husband shall I take? And doubtless the Lord is concerned for guiding us at that level. But of course, the major areas, according to this epistle, where we are to know his will, as you will have seen from the final chapters, his will in the great moral questions of life, how we should behave morally as we learn to put off the old man and all his corruption and put on the new man. His will in all the great relationships of life, the basic relationships of life, husbands and wives and children and parents, employees and employers. What is the will of God in that area? And we live in a day when we do really need to consider seriously what the will of God is, do we not? It's a sad day when men in high religious place, being called upon by the Prime Minister to state outspokenly to the nation what the will of God is for moral behavior, are not prepared to call sin, sin. Sin. But I'm only content to say it is a falling short of an ideal. We are so much people of our own day and generation, that we do need to give ourselves rigorously, do we not, to the study of God's holy word, that we might know what is the will of God in these areas that are so vastly important? Morality in the home, in society, and in business. But if we're concerned about the will of God in these areas, surely another area in which we must be concerned about the will of God is in the question of the methods by which we propose to attain to holiness. You say, but surely that's obvious for a believer, isn't it? Well, Paul didn't think it was all too obvious to the Colossians, did he? For, as we said this morning, there had come to that part of the world teachers with all their kinds of recipes for the deepening and advancing of spiritual life, but when examined in the light of God's revelation in Christ, they were seen to be bogus. And they were seriously wrong for this reason, that they went against God's declared will. Look, if you will, again at what Paul says in Colossians chapter one and nineteen. For it was the good pleasure of the Father, faced with the task of reconciling and redeeming mankind, of justifying the believer and sanctifying him and bringing him at last to glory. How should it be done? Well, God didn't leave that to my say so or your say so. There came the divine decree. It was decreed of the Lord. That is what is involved in the word, it pleased the Father, or it was the good pleasure of the Father. It is not merely that it gave him pleasure in our modern sense. It is a Greek word that indicates a decree passed by him or or they by those who have the authority to pass it. It was the divine decision. What was? Well, how the great work of redemption should be done and through whom the great work of redemption should be done. It was the divine pleasure that through him, in him all the fullness should dwell, and through him to reconcile all things unto himself. The process of salvation, of justification, of sanctification, and God's glorification of the believer is a process that God has determined. And when it comes to making progress in the spiritual life, we do need to give heed to the revealed word, that we might know what is the will of God in these matters, and so walk worthily unto all well pleasing. Suppose then we know the will of God and we're going to walk worthily to all well pleasing. Well now, uh, uh, what do the phrases mean? To walk worthily of the Lord. Oh, what a marvelous dignity it puts upon the child of God. To walk worthily of the Lord, that presupposes we have some sense of the worth of God. The verses that we soon shall be reading in our last session about him who is the image of God, will, by God's grace, have this effect upon our minds and hearts to increase the sense of the worthiness of the Lord. If your little child walking through, uh, Woolworths or Supermac were to steal a Mars bar, well, uh, nobody would take it too seriously, would they? I mean, a child of one and a half, I mean, a Marsbard hasn't understood yet the laws of private property and all that, ha ha, uh, and you wouldn't make a great farce. And if some poor miserable drug addict, tortured, tormented with pangs, stole five pounds to satisfy his urges, you would say it's wrong, but you might be moved to mercy, mind you. And if Prince Charles and Di came to your sir- shop, sir, and stole a shirt, would be a very different thing, and I think Charles would have to visit the Her Majesty, and as he always does, walk out backwards from her presence. Uh, you'll see. For Charles to do such a thing. Steal a shirt. Ho! Haven't they got enough shirts in Buckingham Palace? Is the Queen so hard up? Yes. And for an unregenerate man or woman to do certain things and to show attitudes, well, you could understand it, if not excuse it. For a believer to do certain things. Bring disgrace on the worthiness of the Lord. What a sad business that would be. And how often we've done it anyway. To walk worthily of the Lord then, unto all pleasing. We shall need to get to know the Lord, of course. And not just grumblingly doing his commandments because we have to, with that minty old attitude that says, do I have to do this thing? But so to know him and to live near him, that we do it unto all pleasing just because it pleases. There is an immortal story recorded in the pages of scripture of three noble warriors that belong to King David. They heard him one night, tired after the battle and the exigencies of camp life, sighing to himself. He wasn't speaking to anybody. Sighing to himself all that somebody would give me to drink of the water of Bethlehem. Those three men didn't wait to be commanded. They simply got the hint from a sigh in the heart of David that he'd like some water from Bethlehem. And though they did it at the cost of their lives, they went and got it and brought it back. It was so sacred in David's eyes that in the end he didn't drink it, but gave it, uh, as a offering to God. God alone, says David, is worth that kind of devotion. But it is a devotion that we should be showing, isn't it? Not do I have to do it, but does it please the Lord? Has he given the slightest sigh of an information that this would refresh his heart. Then if I'm living near enough to hear the sighs of God, I will give myself to all well-pleasing. What we say is involved in walking worthily and pleasing the Lord. Well, two things are said, bearing fruit in every good work. God wants our lives to be fruitful. That is the delightful imagery that our Lord himself used, did he not, in the upper room? Or was it when they were just leaving the upper room, about to come out into this dark, dark world with all its hostility breathing in the night air that surrounded Jerusalem on the eve of Calvary and on their way to Gethsemane. If our Lord didn't start talking to his apostles about growing grapes, what a lovely kind of mind he brought, didn't he? In this horrible, cruel, dark world, as he went to Calvary, I repeat, he talked to his apostles about God's scheme for growing grapes. I am the vine, he said. My Father is the husbandman. You are the branches, and abiding in me will bring forth fruit. Lovely, isn't it? Ha. The Old Testament people were branches in the vine, weren't they? They produced some decent grapes, to be sure they did. To see, when you come across a vine, it's got some luscious grapes, you know, and you're thirsty, and you go up and you pick three or four beautiful grapes and munch them, oh, they're gorgeous, aren't they? Do you know what? You're getting some idea of God's mind, aren't you? That was his idea, grapes. He made them. As the verses are about to tell us, made everything. In saying that his people are branches in a vine meant to bring forth grapes, what he's saying is this, that you ought to be able to come to his people, watch their lives, listen to their talk, read their writings, benefit from their work, and you find it like a delicious bunch of grapes, and through them discover what God himself is like. Oh, I've done it myself. David is a branch in the vine that I've habitually frequent, you know. Oh, the blessedness, he says, of the man whose sins are forgiven. I say, that's a lovely grape, David, my boy. How did you manage to grow that? Delightful. And sometimes when I'm a shaving in the morning and at my most unspiritual, I have recourse to, um, David, you'll see. Sometimes, not you, you wouldn't know about that. Sometimes the old sap dries up a bit, doesn't it? You know, feeling down in the dumps and low of a gray Monday morning and shaving isn't going too well. And then I have recourse to a few grapes from David. Delightful. I will bless the Lord at all times, says David. I think, goodness me, how'd you get round to that, old chap? Juicy. Well, he says, forget not all his benefits, uh, count them up. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases. Oh, what a delightful bunch of grapes would King David. The nation as a whole eventually became a sour, wild vine, didn't it? And when men came to Israel, Israel gave the impression that God was some horribly bitter thing, and they spat it out. We are to bear fruit. Through us, men and women might enjoy what God is really like. And not only bear fruit, but increase. Growth in general. How shall we do this then, that we not only bear fruit as of now, but grow larger in our spiritual capacities so that we may bear more fruit later on? How shall we do it? And here the answer is, what conditions? Why, of course, we are to endure all endurance. That word reminds me, first of all, of what our Lord himself taught us in the parable of the sower, and you may care to look at it. It comes in Luke chapter eight. Of the four different kinds of results that followed the sowing of the seed, I want to suggest to you that the only result that was any good whatsoever was those that are described in chapter eight of Luke and verse fifteen. and that in the good ground these are such as in an honest heart, an honest and a good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast and bring forth fruit with endurance, perseverance. In the older translations, the word is given as patience, but we shouldn't understand it as patience as distinct from impatience, but patience in its older sense of endurance and perseverance. And I say again, the only chance a plant has ever got of bringing forth fruit. Take a, a, a bit of wheat sown as a seed, it grows up as a blade, but, but if it's ever going to bear fruit, it must develop roots downwards and grow and grow. By perseverance comes sun, wind, rain, or storm, and by perseverance eventually it brings forth its fruit. Those who believe for a little while and in time of temptation and testing fall away, what use is it? And what use those that fall among thorns and bring no fruit to maturity? What use is it? The only kind that's any use whatsoever is those that with perseverance bring forth fruit. You say, well then, um, what, uh, resources have we got for bearing fruit by this means of perseverance? And Paul gives us the answer, doesn't he, in that same context. Says he, our resources are these, strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory. Let's anticipate our next study. All think what the might of his glory is. He made everything. In him all was made. At this very moment, he sustains this gigantic universe. There isn't a galaxy that whirls in space, but what he upholds it. If he can uphold a vast universe, my dear fellow Christian, to think he couldn't hold up you and me. Strengthened with all might, according to the power of his glory. And the verses tell us that as being, as well as being firstborn of all creation, he's firstborn of resurrection, he's head of the church. This is the blessed Lord that upheld Saul and upheld Peter and James and John and all the vast uncountable numbers of the redeemed throughout all ages. He upheld every one of them. And he who can uphold the whole church, shall he not uphold you and me? You'll say, but yes, but I'm a little bit frightened by that verse lower down the chapter. Mm, uh, Mr. Preacher, sir, you'll say, doesn't it say there if he will present us, if we continue in the faith, be not moved away from the hope of the gospel? Yes, sure it says that. But we shall need to read it in its context, can't we? For the verses are going to tell us that it was the decree of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell, and having, uh, reconciled you, he should present you. All the resources of the Godhead are behind him in this glorious task of first reconciliation and then presenting you. You notice how they follow immediately in the text, reconciled in order to present you. But Paul is not here thinking, surely, of what he talks about in Philippians chapter three, the ongoing sanctification of the believer. He's talking here as he talks in Romans five and in Romans eight. uh We're called according to God's purpose. Whom he foreknew, he called, whom he called, he justified, whom he justified, he glorified. Who then shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Why, nobody. It is that very word charge that Paul uses here when he tells us that it is God's decree that Christ shall present his people without charge, without accusation. On the basis of his great atoning work and reconciliation at Calvary. You will say finally, but you still leave me a little bit, um, dithery. I mean, the if is an if, isn't it? Suppose all his power is available to uphold me, but it depends on whether I continue in the faith and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Yes. Well, it might be a good idea to consult our brethren who are knowledgeable, surely, on these things. What about consulting Paul? Chapter five of his epistle, he says that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We've access into grace, and not only so, but we are joyfully confident that in the face of tribulation. How could you possibly be, Paul, you say? Why, knowing this, that tribulation, where there's true faith to start with, tribulation works endurance. Oh, thank God for that. The very endurance we're talking about. And if you should happen to consult James, well, this is how James speaks, as usual, in accord with Saint Paul. Count it all joy, my brothers, he says, when you fall into divers testings. Now, now we say, James, don't get carried away with apostolic fervor. If you're talking about the testings that come my way, you know, the testings like the Lord mentioned in the parable of the sour, the testings that come and test the seed and test the young plant as to whether it really has roots, whether it's the genuine thing or not, or whether in the time of testing it's going to wither away and only believe for a while and perish because it has no root. James, we say, politely. But, I mean, if we're going to face testings like that, that are going to test the basic reality, whether we are believers, have root, and are going to endure. Well, James, how could you possibly face a test like that and count it all joy? Goodness me, I faced students in examination halls by the hundreds in the course of my time, and when it came to finals, there were some that walked in exultantly joyful all over their faces, but very few. So much was at stake. James, how can we possibly count it all joy if we face testings like that? Ah, he says, I'll tell you how to do it, knowing that the trying of your faith works endurance. Thank God for James. Thank God for Paul. Thank God for our blessed Lord. And his secret is this, charged with the task not only of reconciling us, but presenting us faultless before the throne of his Father with exceeding joy. He looks after the intervening bit for the great Christ that upholds the vast universe in his priestly ministry, prays for you and me that our faith shall not fail. Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him. And so to our discussion groups.