COLOSSIANS (4) Paul’s Prayer (1) (Col. 1:9-12)

​“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” (Col 1:9-12)
 
Review
Last Sunday, we talked about how Paul describes the gospel. Paul said that the faith and love the recipients had sprang from their hope stored up in heaven and that they had all heard the message of the gospel from Epaphras. That was what Paul was really thankful for.
 
What we focused on were three specific ways Paul described the gospel. First, Paul called the gospel “the true message” (Col 1:5)
 
The gospel being the true message of God means that it is the only truth and is the way that God allowed humankind to have salvation from sin and death. In the Bible, we find many rules and standards. Some of them are not absolute and were only applicable to certain eras.
 
But, there are things that we can call the ‘absolute truth’ which never changes but can be applied to all people through all generations throughout the whole world. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
So, Christianity is essentially both very inclusive and exclusive. It is inclusive because the gospel is for everyone in the world without discrimination. But, at the same time, Christianity is very exclusive because it maintains that the way to true salvation is only found in Jesus, the Son of God.
 
The second characteristic of the gospel is that it has the power to completely change people’s lives. Paul said that “the gospel is bearing fruit… among you since the day you heard it” (Col 1:6)
 
The gospel of Jesus Christ is often described as the power of God. It may seem foolish from the point of view of this world, but it does indeed contain true power and life because it’s the way God chose to save us.
 
All those who have truly accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ have experienced its transformative power in their lives without exception. It is a universal phenomenon that was also shown in the lives of the Colossians. That was how Paul knew that they truly understood and accepted the gospel.
 
Third, Paul said that after they heard the gospel, they “truly understood God’s grace” (Col 1:6)  . The grace of God is at the center of the gospel because it is how God graciously forgives sinners without requiring them to pay anything for their sins.
 
One of the best passages that describes the gospel of Jesus Christ is Romans 3:23-24, which says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Rm 3:23-24)
 
The gospel tells us what God sacrificed to give us salvation and forgiveness of sins: “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement” (Rom 3:25) to justify all those who believe in Him.
 
These are the important aspects of the gospel that we should keep in mind. The gospel is the only true message of God in regard to our salvation. The gospel must bear fruit in our lives if we really accept it. And the gospel lets us understand the depth of God’s grace, which was given to us freely, but was very costly to God.
 
Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians
Now, let’s move on to the next paragraph. In the third paragraph of Colossians chapter 1, we read how Paul prayed for the believers in the church in Colossae.
 
Paul was a man of prayer. Like Jesus, he never stopped praying regardless of his situation. In his letters, we find many of his prayers and most of them focused on his fellow Christians all over the world.
 
And just as he had prayed for other believers, he also started praying for the Colossians right after he had heard about their faith from Epaphras. Paul said,
 
“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.” (Col 1:9)
 
So, we know that Paul’s prayer was very closely related to the Colossians’ situation, which he had heard about from Epaphras. Paul didn’t just pray for random things. He prayed for what he thought the believers in Colossae really needed right at that moment. From Paul’s prayer, we can infer the kind of situation the Colossian Christians were in at that time.
 
There are two specific things Paul asked God to give them. One is knowledge and the other one is power. First, Paul prayed that the Colossian Christians’ lives would be filled with “with the knowledge of his will” so that they might grow in it. Then Paul prayed that they would be “strengthened with all power” (Col 1:11)
 
1. The Knowledge of God
Let’s first discuss the knowledge part. Let’s read verses 9-10 together.
 
“We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:9-10)
 
Here, we see how we can be filled with the knowledge of God and the purpose behind it. Paul reveals that the way God reveals ‘the knowledge of His will’ is through ‘the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.”
 
Paul clarifies that the wisdom and understanding that help us know God’s will are the results of the work of the Holy Spirit. Our human knowledge and reason have their own clear limits. Because we’ve lost the image of God, we can’t truly know who God is on our own unless He reveals Himself to us through His Spirit.
 
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians,
“As it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” - the things God has prepared for those who love him -  these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (1 Co 2:9-12)
 
It is always important for us to keep in mind that our understanding of God must come from the One who knows Him best, including ‘even the deep things of God.’
 
Paul said that the Bible, which is also called the special revelation of God, was “God-breathed,” which means that every word and phrase the authors wrote and that we read were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
 
The apostle Peter also said, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2Pt 1:21)
 
The source of true wisdom and understanding that allows us to realize God’s will is the Holy Spirit..
 
The Holy Spirit is crucial in understanding the knowledge of God. The Holy Spirit is also called ‘the Spirit of truth’ because one of His main roles is to guide us to the truth. As Jesus said,
 
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (Jn 16:13)
 
So when we read the Bible, we must first humbly go before God, asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be guided to the truth revealed in the Scriptures, while acknowledging our limits.
 
Then, God will fill us with the Holy Spirit as He promised and we’ll be guided to His truth through the heavenly wisdom and knowledge that His Spirit gives us. That’s the main thing we must keep in mind when reading the Bible.
 
The Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge
Paul was not the first to use these two important words—wisdom and knowledge—in reference to understanding God's will. They were often used in the Old Testament as the means of knowing God’s will and applying it in the Israelites’ lives.
 
When commanding the Israelites to build the tabernacle, Exodus says “God has filled him [Bezalel] with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills” (Ex 35:31)
 
When David prayed for his son, Solomon, the next king of Israel, he prayed,
 
“May the Lord give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God.” (1Ch 22:12)
 
And when Solomon asked God to give him “a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong” (1Kg 3:9), “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.” (1Kg 4:29)
 
These verses along with other many verses in the both Old and New Testaments testify that true wisdom and understanding belong to God.
 
Bezalel was able to build the tabernacle not because he was skilled, but because God filled him with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge through the Spirit of God. Solomon was able to rule over Israel with wisdom not because he was wise, but because God gave him wisdom and understanding.
 
And the reason God gave them wisdom and knowledge through the Holy Spirit wasn’t for their own good. They were given these things so that they could do what God wanted to achieve through them according to His will.
 
It means that all people who believe in God and thus want to live according to His will need this wisdom and knowledge from heaven. They weren’t given only to special Christians, but to every Christian who seeks to follow God’s will in their lives.
 
Just as God gave His people wisdom and understanding to enable them to follow His will, the purpose of God filling us up “with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” (Col 1:9) is to empower us and equip us for His good work.
 
That’s what Paul prayed for for the Colossian Christians. Paul prayed that God would fill the believers there with wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of God “so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:10)
 
So we all need to have the knowledge of God. Every Christian needs to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of God He gives because we all are called to live a life that pleases God in every way.
 
Living a Life Worthy of the Lord
"Living a life worthy of the Lord" was a common expression that was widely used in many churches at that time. We can find many passages in which Paul used these words. He said,
 
“I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” (Eph 4:1)
 
“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (Php 1:27)
 
“[We urge] you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” (1 Th 2:12)
 
For us to live a life worthy of God’s will means that we try and make every effort to live out what we know as God’s will in our daily lives. In Christianity, to have a proper knowledge of God is very important. But, the knowledge itself is not the goal.
 
Knowing God’s will must always be accompanied by the desire to obey and follow it. If the knowledge of God isn’t lived out in our lives but just remains ‘knowledge,’ that kind of knowledge will never change us but be used to condemn others as the Pharisees did in Jesus’ time.
 
In that sense, true knowledge of God is obtained only through obedience to His will. David was able to truly profess, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing” not only because he had knowledge of who God was, but also because he had ‘experienced’ God’s rod and staff comforting him and protecting him even when he felt like he was walking through the darkest valley.
 
So, the knowledge of God becomes a true blessing when it is really experienced in our lives, and that experience is given only when we try to apply the knowledge in our actual lives through obedience.
 
That’s why we always need the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit not only to understand God’s will better with the wisdom and understanding He gives us, but also to have the power to live it out.
 
When we’re truly devoted to knowing and living according to God’s will, we will naturally “[bear] fruit in every good work” and “[grow] in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:10)
 
Even though it may seem that having knowledge of God and growing in the knowledge of God are the same thing, they are not. Even though they are closely related to each other, simply having the knowledge of God doesn’t always lead to spiritual growth.
 
Only when we continuously ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, surrender our will to His, and keep trying to live a life worthy of the knowledge of God, will we experience the knowledge transforming our lives and allowing us to grow spiritually.
 
What Pleases the Lord
One of the important changes of our mindsets we experience in the Lord is that in Christ we come to have a new desire that we didn’t have before.
 
Before we met Jesus, the driving force and motivation of our lives was what pleased us. Our interests, pleasures, and comforts took precedence over everything else when making decisions.
 
However, after believing in Jesus, we find another much stronger desire. Now, we don’t seek what pleases us anymore but what pleases our Lord,’ and do it. It’s not to earn something from it because to please the Lord and to worship Him itself becomes the purpose of our lives.
 
That desire comes from the knowledge of God. When we truly know who God is and what He has done to save us we’ll be captured by the desire to know Him, love Him, and worship Him more. We come to realize that what pleases the Lord the most pleases us the most.
 
The satisfaction that comes from following God’s will and worshiping Him is the biggest joy we can ever have on earth because that’s the God-given purpose of our lives.
 
So, to live this life, we must continue to be interested in what God is interested in. Paul urges every believer to “find out what pleases the Lord.” (Eph 5:10) and to “test all things; hold fast what is good.” (1 Th 5:21, NKJV)
 
When you really love someone, you will try to find out what pleases them the most because you want to make them happy.
 
Likewise, as Christians, we need to find out what pleases the Lord the most. And to find it, we need to have the knowledge of God. Then we’ll truly learn how to live a life worthy of God’s will and please the Lord, while enjoying its fruit and becoming more conformed to the image of the Son of God.
 
Let’s pray.
 
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us this precious opportunity to learn about the importance of having the knowledge of God and living it out.
 
We want to know You and surrender to You more. Please fill us with the Holy Spirit and guide us to Your truth so that we may be filled with the wisdom and understanding that He gives us.
 
Lord, let us not deceive ourselves by just knowing Your will, but give us the desire to seek it. Please help us to discern and prioritize what pleases You the most and live a life worthy of Your holy name, bearing good fruit and growing in knowing You. May we know the joy of carrying out Your will.
 
We thank You for revealing who You are and letting us grow closer to You through Your word. Let us draw near to You day by day.
 
We thank You Lord. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
 
Sharing Questions
Today we talked about the importance of having the knowledge of God by studying Paul’s prayer for the Colossian Christians. Here are the questions I want us to think about.  
 
1) Have you ever experienced the Holy Spirit guiding you to the knowledge of God by helping you understand it? Have you ever experienced what you knew from the Bible become real and come to have personal meaning in your life? When was it?
 
2) What do you think is God’s will or special plan for you in your life now? What are some ways to please the Lord now?