[Read Colossians 1:9-14]
I think there is often a faulty assumption that people who know a lot of things are necessarily prideful, arrogant people. People immediately begin to picture the person who walks around with their nose a little higher in the air, looking down upon all of the ignorant people around them—or the person who doesn’t have time for the frivolous, pointless conversations of the common-folk. Yet, I don’t believe that is the reality of the situation.
I’ve mentioned this before, so I will only briefly mention it here, that I noticed a massive difference between two types of dock customers that I served. There was the customer that had massive amounts of money and there was the customer who wanted everyone to think they had massive amounts of money. The customers that had a lot of money and didn’t feel the need to flaunt it, were some of the greatest, most down-to-earth people I dealt with on a regular basis. My worst customers were the ones who didn’t actually have that much money but wanted everyone else to think they did. They were so insecure that they always felt like they had to prove something.
I think the same applies in regard to knowledge. There are people who know a lot and don’t feel the need to prove how much they know and there are people who want everyone to consider them an intellectual, and are very insecure about it, and as a result come across as very arrogant. You can see this in a well-known statement from Albert Einstein, where he said, "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” That doesn’t sound like a prideful man, does it? It actually sounds like the more he learned, the more he knew about the world, the more he was humbled. In contrast to that, I came across this quote by John Calvin a while back, ”It is a common fault, that ignorance is closely followed by obstinacy.” (Calvin, Commentary on John, 57). I realize pride and obstinacy are different things, but they often come off in similar ways—and maybe pride is always hiding beneath obstinacy.
I begin this way because some of this faulty thinking has bled into the church in various ways. I’ve heard people say that they don’t want to study the bible too much because they are worried that it will stifle their faith and love for God. A little less aggressively, some have said that if we study the bible too much, we begin to over-intellectualize the faith, and move everything away from our heart and into our minds. There is also a that goes around in some pastoral circles that say things like “Seminaries are cemeteries.”
And yet, when we come to this passage, and the Apostle Paul is informing the church about his constant prayer for them, what is he praying for? “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will…” (Colossians 1:9, ESV). That should get our attention. The Apostle Paul thought it was so important to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, that he continuously, ceaselessly prayed that it would happen in the church of Colossae.
Notice that it’s connected to last week’s passage as well. This passage begins with “And so…” which points backwards. Last week Paul was thanking and praising God for the report that the Colossians had believed in God and were growing in their faith. As a result of that, Paul has been ceaselessly praying that they would be filled with a knowledge of God’s will from the day he heard.
What does it mean to be filled with something? I think people typically imagine an empty cup being “filled” with water, but that’s not exactly what is being talked about here. GK Beale says, “The word "be filled" does not refer to some kind of spatial filling of the Christian, but it figuratively indicates that by which one is characterized.” (Beale, 54). You could almost say that this is talking about being filled to the point where you are overcome and every part of your life is now characterized by a knowledge of God’s will. It’s who you are.
I do think it’s important to take a minute to talk about God’s will—what is it and what does it mean? People talk about this all of the time. How do I know what God’s will is for my life? Is it God’s will for me to marry this person, go to this college, take this job? So, most people think of God’s will in terms of his daily leading and guiding us. However, the Bible uses the term differently. Throughout history, pastors and theologians have often talked about two different ways the Bible talks about the will of God. I call them God’s will of decree and his will of desire. God’s will of decree is what he decided and planned before the foundations of the earth—those things that will happen because God wills that it will happen. God’s will of desire are those things he wants us to do—think Ten Commandments. These are also spoken of as God’s will for our life.
When you understand these distinctions, it becomes clear that the Apostle Paul is not praying that God’s people will be filled with an understanding of what God has decreed from before the foundations of the earth BUT that they would be filled with a knowledge of what God desires for their life—that their lives would be characterized by what God desires for their life. And how do we know what God desires for our life? How do we learn the will of God in this way? Calvin says this, ”The knowledge of the divine will, by which expression he sets aside all inventions of men, and all speculations that are at variance with the word of God. For his will is not to be sought anywhere else than in his word.” (Calvin, 142). We’ll come back to this later.
As he prays that the Colossians would be filled with a knowledge of what God desires for their life, he adds one important clarification. He says, “…asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” (Colossians 1:9, ESV). I’m not going to say a lot here, but to point out that he mentions that this is spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding. It’s Paul’s way of pointing out that it is the Holy Spirit who works with the word of God to bring about this knowledge of God’s will in us. We can’t do it on our own. We need the Holy Spirit to do it in us as we come to the Word of God.
Why is this such a big deal to Paul? Why has he been continuously praying this for the Colossians since he heard about their faith? He tells us, “…so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him…” (Colossians 1:10, ESV). The result of being filled with a knowledge of what God desires for you is that you live a life—walk in a manner—that is worthy of the Lord. Now, this is NOT saying that you are earning your salvation or living in a way that makes you worthy of your salvation. The “worthy” in this instance means something more like appropriately or suitably. It should make sense to us that if you have been filled with a knowledge of what God desires for your life to the point that your life is characterized by what God desires, then you will naturally be living a life that is in line with what God desires. Then, when you’re living a life that God desires, he will obviously be pleased with that life.
Here’s what this is telling us. If you are studying God’s Word so that you can increase in knowledge and prove to everyone around you how smart you are—you are doing it wrong. This is the “knowledge that puffs up” that Paul talks about elsewhere in scripture. That is not the goal of studying God’s Word. The goal is that we would live a life that pleases and glorifies God. The goal is that we would be so filled with the knowledge of God’s Word that it would completely overtake our lives and shape everything we say and do—that it would overflow out of us wherever we go. That means when you’re coming to God’s Word to study it, you are constantly seeking to understand more deeply and more effectively who God is and how God desires you to live in the world because you want to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21, ESV).
Then Paul goes on to describe what that life looks like. Some people break it into 5 categories, some break it into 4 categories, I’m going to break it into 3 categories. The first one is, “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work…” (Colossians 1:10, ESV). So, if we’re going to be walking in a manner worthy of the Lord—living a life fully pleasing to God—then we need to be increasingly bearing fruit in every good work. Now, we talked about this a lot last week, so I’m going to spend a lot of time here now, but I do want to point out one small thing here. Each of the three aspects I’m going to talk about have the essence of continually connected with them. So, this is continually bearing fruit. It points out a couple realities: 1) this is something that grows and increases over time. It starts as a bud, that grows into an unripe fruit, that turns into a ripe fruit. Often, it’s a long slow process, but it needs to be continually happening. 2) That means it requires patience. I’ve grown fond of the term “plod” lately—not sure why. But I think we could say that we are to keep “patiently plodding” in a manner worthy of the Lord, just putting one foot in front of the other.
After this, Paul seems to repeat himself by saying, “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him…increasing in the knowledge of God…” (Colossians 1:10, ESV). Didn’t he already say that he was praying for this to happen? Kinda. He prayed that they would know God’s will. Now, he’s praying that they would know God. Of course, these are connected with each other. The more you know God, the more you know what God desires, the more you know how God would have you live. And many of the commentators pointed out that is one of those upward spiral situations, where the more you know God and his will, the faithfully you walk in a way that pleases him, and the more faithfully you walk in a way that pleases him, the more you begin to know about who God is and what He desires for you. And the spiral keeps going round and round in a way that draws you closer and closer to God and builds you up.
I want to take a brief moment to show you how scripture connects these two realities. Here’s a passage I mention all the time. It says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17, ESV). Notice all of the connections to what we’ve been talking about. If we want to live a life pleasing to God we will be bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. That all comes through God’s Word. It teaches us and trains us so that we can increasingly grow in knowledge of God and what he desires. It corrects us and trains us for every good work—so that we continually bear fruit in every good work.
The third aspect of patiently plodding in a manner worthy to God and living a life pleasing to him is much longer, but I believe it’s all connected. We read, “so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him…being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father…” (Colossians 1:10–12, ESV). This only adds to the concept of patiently plodding because part of this is about enduring with patience—keeping on keeping on. And, don’t miss the fact that we don’t do this in our own strength. Actually, the only way we can keep on patiently plodding is as we are strengthened according to God’s glorious might. The only way we endure is by the power of God. If we rely on our own strength we will fail. So a central aspect of living a life pleasing to God is living a life that is patiently plodding in the strength that God supplies all the way to the end of the race.
Notice, though, that we’re told the way in which we are to patiently plod. We are called to patiently plod—to endure—with JOY and Giving Thanks. This is an important clarification because there are different ways to endure—and different ways to plod. Even the terminology of plodding probably brings up an Eeyore type of an image—of the sad donkey slowly making his way down the road with his head hung low. That’s not what we’re saying. There’s also a type of endurance that isn’t joyful and isn’t giving thanks. The image I get here is those Christmas drives on icy roads and blizzards, where every part of your body is tense, you’re holding on for dear life, you’re hating every moment of it, but by-golly you are going to endure—you are going to make it to grandma’s house. That’s not what we’re talking about either. The image is more like a little girl walking down a treacherous path, but singing and smiling as she goes, seeing the beauty around her, thankful for the chance to walk the path, sometimes she’s tripping and falling and skinning her knees up, but she simply gets back up and keeps joyfully walking down the path. That’s more like what we’re talking about—enduring to the end with joy and thanks to God.
What’s beautiful about this passage is that all of this is grounded in the reality of our salvation. We read, “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:12–14, ESV).
First off, I want you to notice who has been acting throughout this passage. God is the one acting. At the beginning Paul prayed that they would “be filled” (Colossians 1:9, ESV) with the knowledge of God's will, not that they would fill themselves. Who is doing the filling then? God is. When Paul talked about them about endure he said they were “being strengthened” (Colossians 1:11, ESV), not that they were strengthening themselves. Who was strengthening them? God. Now, he even points out another reality from earlier. Remember when he talked about living a life worthy of God? Well now he says, “…the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” (Colossians 1:12, ESV), not that you qualify yourself or make yourself worthy. God is the one who does that. He goes on and says it all outright, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…” (Colossians 1:13, ESV). God is the one who does all these things. He delivers you. He transfers you from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. He qualifies you. He fills you. He strengthens you so that you will endure to the end. God is the one at work in your life. You do not save yourself. God does—from beginning to end.
Now, some begin to misunderstand and misinterpret this and say things like, “Well, if God is the one doing all these things, I guess I don’t have to do anything.” That’s a statement by someone who does not desire to live a life pleasing to God, or to walk in a manner worthy. Rather, scripture tells us to have a completely different view, saying, “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13, ESV). Work out your salvation because God is working in you. So, the logic isn’t, “Great, since God is doing the work, I don’t have to” but “Great, since God is doing the work, I can do the work.”
Like I mentioned earlier, this is the ground and foundation for everything we’ve talked about in this passage. It all flows from the reality that God has saved us. That is the reason why we desire to walk in a manner worthy of him and to live a life pleasing to him.
Think about it for a moment. God came into your life and saved you from all of the foolish mistakes you were making and forgave you for the sin in your life. He rescued you from death and destruction, and brought you out from the kingdom of Satan, and placed you in his kingdom. Would any one in their right mind say, “Awesome, now I can long to go back into the death and destruction as often as I want!” Not a chance. Rather, you say, “Thank you God! You delivered me from that mess and saved me. I don’t want to go back there. I want to live in the light. I want to follow you all the days of my life. I want to live the life you’ve created me to life—a life that pleases you.”
Then, because you want to live the life that pleases him, and because you grew up learning how to live in the kingdom of Satan, you need to relearn how to live. You need to better understand who God is and what he desires for your life. You need to read his word and study it. You need to hear it preached from the pulpit. You need to hear his word spoken to you from the lips of faithful friends. You’re not doing this so that you can appear smarter than everyone else but because you want to live a life that God has saved you to live.
It’s also why we can confidently endure with joy and thanksgiving. God is the one who has delivered us. He has overcome the world. Nobody will snatch us from his hand. So, we can have confidence in the midst of every trial and difficulty that we will make it through because God has already delivered us and will bring us to the end. We will finish the race. And because we know we will finish the race, we’re not running it all tense and worried, but we’re free to enjoy it and thank God for the opportunity to run the race, knowing that we will finish and spend eternity with him.
This week was so good!!!