Grace Fellowship    2/22/09    Strength for Today, Hope for Tomorrow    Colossians 1:11-14

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Once again, we look to the word of God for our encouragement and edification as strangers and pilgrims in a world that is hostile toward everything holy.  This book, and the reading and studying of it, is one of the greatest means by which God gives us the grace we need as Christians.  As we read it, and as we understand it better, we begin to recognize the supernatural nature of these words.  There was a time when I wondered how such an old book, written to people with whom I have nothing in common, could benefit me in any way.  Then the Lord opened my eyes and my mind, and He enabled me to understand things that had previously been foolish to me.  Suddenly, this book became a source of strength and wisdom, when before, it was just an old book that old women read.

If we want to know how we ought to live as Christians today, we can read what Paul wrote to the Christians of his day.  The fundamentals have not changed.  The basic needs (not to be confused with felt needs) of the believer today are all addressed in these pages written nearly 2000 years ago.  The book of Colossians is a concise, abbreviated statement of nearly everything fundamentally Christian.  It tells us of the nature of the grace of God.  It provides us with a marvelous snapshot of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus.  It gives us practical instruction regarding holy living.  It teaches us about prayer and how to pray and what to pray for.

We have been looking at Paul’s prayer for the Colossian Christians in verses 9-14.  It is a wonderful model upon which we can base our prayers for ourselves and each other.  Let’s look at it together.  Lord, teach us how to pray, and teach us to pray.

9 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 in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might - Three words in that phrase, (strengthened, power, and might) make the point that the Christian needs empowerment.  That is a word that has been thrown around for years, mostly among women, in an attempt to raise them from their presumed nearly powerless state, to a standing equal to that of presumed, somehow superior men.  “Empowerment” has been hijacked by the feminist movement to such a degree that when some of us, particularly men, hear it, little red warning flags start to wave inside our brains.

But there is such a thing as Christian empowerment.  I realize I’m running the risk of disappointing some of you by saying this, but on occasion, Sharon and I play cards.  In the particular deck of cards we use, there are two cards designated as Jokers.  On those cards, there are pictures of Roman soldiers.  They look like this:

Now if all Roman soldiers had really looked like this, (short, fat, and ugly) I think Rome would have fallen a lot sooner.  These little guys don’t look very fearsome, in spite of the fact that they are armed with their little swords and spears and helmets.  But if the truth were known, we are just like them.  In the spiritual world, you and I have as much power as these little soldiers drawn on these cards.  In other words, we have no inherent spiritual power.  We are helpless, even though we may think we are armed and dangerous, and a force to be reckoned with.

Of all the things Paul could have prayed on behalf of the new believers in Colossae, he prayed that they would be strengthened with all power, according to [God’s] glorious might.  The Christian needs spiritual strength.  We need power from on high in order to stand and fight against the forces that wage war against us.  Paul explains this in more detail in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 6, verses 10-18.

  10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.  11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.  12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.  14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,  15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.  16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;  17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,  18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

How is it that we’re empowered from on high?  How does God grant us strength according to His glorious might?  One way He does so is in direct answer to prayer.  We just get it.  Because He is gracious, God just transmits to us the spiritual strength we need in order to stand against “the schemes of the devil”.  So, as Paul prays for the Colossians, we also should pray for ourselves for God to grant us this enabling power so that we might not sin.  

But another way by which we are empowered is simply to take advantage of what is ours.  Here in Ephesians, Paul tells us to “be strong”.  He does say in verse 18 that we should pray “at all times, with all perseverance, for all the saints”.  But he also says (and this is the main point of this passage) that we have a responsibility to avail ourselves of those things which are already available to us.  What are they?  

Look at verse 14:  
Truth (v14a)
Righteousness (v14b),
The gospel of peace (v15),
Faith (v16),
The knowledge of salvation (v17a), and
The word of God (17b).  

Don’t lose sight of those truths, those spiritual principles for the sake of examining the armor and trying to figure out why you wear a helmet of salvation and not shoes of salvation.  The point is that regardless of where you might wear this stuff, you have it all!  All these things which Paul speaks of serve to empower and protect us against every spiritual enemy, and they are especially effective against an enemy we cannot see.  We wage war against an enemy that does not have flesh and blood.  He is the Father of Lies, he convinces people with his lies, he leads people into false beliefs and philosophies.  He leads men away from everything that is true. Therefore, this battle with the Deceiver is won or lost depending upon whether or not we hold to what is true.  Look again at verse 14:

Jesus is the Truth (v14a).  
We have been granted His righteousness (14b).  
Through Him, we have peace with God (15).  
He has even granted us the faith to trust in Him (16).  
We possess eternal life (17a),
and we have been granted understanding of the Scriptures (17b).  

These truths, these gifts we’ve been granted, the doctrines which we as believers in the Lord Jesus know and understand to be true; we are to take them up as the means by which we are empowered to fight every spiritual battle we face.  God not only grants us strength when we pray for it, but He has also given us these means by which we make ourselves strong, by which we can be strong in the fight.

Do you ever find yourself feeling like you just cannot go on?  Do you ever feel more like the soldier in the deck of cards than the spiritual soldier we’re called to be like here in Ephesians?  The reason for that is two-fold: because of a lack of prayer (Colossians 1), and a lack of reliance upon these truths (Ephesians 6).  We have to meditate upon the things we know to be true which we read here, we need to encourage one another in the truth of these things, and we need to meditate upon the greatness of the Gospel and of Christ Himself, in order to be strong in the fight.

You say, “What fight?  I didn’t know there was a fight going on!”  The reason we don’t recognize the battle is because we’re often looking for the wrong kind of fight.  Notice what Paul says here: We do not wrestle against flesh and blood.  People are not the enemy.  The war is not waged against a human enemy.  Rather, we fight against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (v12).  The battle rages against spiritual forces in the unseen world.  We see the effects of that warfare primarily in the mind and the heart.  We fight against unbiblical and ungodly and untrue ideas.  What Paul says here to the Ephesians, he says also to the Colossians.  Look at Colossians 2.

4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.  
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.   
16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism [NKJV - Taking delight in false humility; NASB - delighting in self-abasement; ] and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,

The battleground for spiritual warfare is the mind.  What is affected is how we think and what we believe.  How we think and what we believe determines what we do and how we live.  That is why truth is of utmost importance.  The spiritual strength we need in order to stand firm against the wiles of the devil, the philosophies of fallen men, the thinking of sensuous minds, and the elemental spirits of the world, is found in the truth of the Word of God.  What has God said?  What has Christ done? What do the Scriptures say?  What is the truth?  “God’s word is truth.”

So we are to pray for God to strengthen us.  Look at the text once again in Colossians 1:

9 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 in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy,

“Filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and knowledge.”  When we study the Scriptures together, we are filling ourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit, with wisdom and understanding that comes only from God.  But the purpose of that spiritual wisdom and understanding is so that we may please our wonderful God and Savior by how we live for Him in every area of our lives.  As we pray for this wisdom and understanding, He also strengthens us with power that comes from Him for all endurance and patience.  Strength for endurance and patience.

The ESV translates those two Greek words “endurance and patience”.  The KJV translates them “patience and longsuffering”.  The first word we understand to mean patience like the patience we need when we’re sitting in the airport waiting for an overdue flight.  “Hupomone”, a patient enduring, sustaining, perseverance.

The second word there is a compound word, “macrothumia”.  Macro (meaning long), and thumos (which sounds a lot like thermos, thermal), meaning “passion, angry, heat, anger forthwith boiling up and soon subsiding again”.  

Longsuffering means, in our vernacular, “a slow boil”.  A constant simmer.  This is about our hope for future justice, for the future vengeance of God, the avenging of His people against those who abuse and persecute them.  It is also about the justice of God in judgment upon His enemies.  He will repay.  We will be patient.

When do we need patience?  What kinds of things cause us to need to exercise this kind of patience?  I’m not talking about sitting at the airport waiting for a late plane.  I’m talking about those things that happen against us and against God that cause us to be rightfully angry.  Jesus displayed this kind of patience by not exploding with indignation :

13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.  15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.  16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.  17 His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house will consume me. (John 2:13-17)

This was the kind of patience that marked His entire life.  Certainly, a holy God longs for the day when sin and death are done!  If we eagerly anticipate the new heavens and the new earth, if we are impatient for new bodies and the end of temptation and strife, if we who actually have to struggle with sin long for the day when the struggle is over, HOW MUCH MORE does God Himself desire to put an end to all this insurrection and rebellion, and be done with everything and everyone that is not holy!  If God is angry with the wicked every single day, what kind of patience must He exercise in withholding the final judgment and the day of His fierce wrath?  THAT is the kind of patience we’re talking about.

But then notice the next two words in verse 11: May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.  With joy?  This kind of patience, with joy?  Aren’t these two things mutually exclusive?  Righteous indignation under control, and joy?  A slow boil, and joy?  How can we have joy while eagerly waiting for the end of the world as we know it?  Simply because it WILL be the end of the world as we have known it!  

We will be like Him!  (Octavius Winslow, "Eternal Glorification")
"We know that when He comes we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is." 1 John 3:2

“Perfect holiness is the eternal glory of the saints! The very utterance of the thought seems to awaken music in the soul. Seeing Christ as He is, and knowing Him as we are known--we also shall be like Him.  Oh, what a conception! What a thought!  No more elements of evil working like leaven in the soul. No more traces and fetters of corruption.  No more evil heart of unbelief, perpetually departing from God.  No more desperate depravity.  No more sin warring within.  No more temptation assailing from without.  All is perfect holiness now!  The outline of the Divine image is complete, for the believer has awakened in the finished likeness of his Lord!  Extirpate all sin--and you have erased all sorrow!  Complete the grace--and you have perfected the glory!  You then have chased all sadness from the heart, and have dried all tears from the eye.  That glory will be the glory of unsullied purity.  Nothing of sin remains but its recollection; and that recollection but heightens our conception of the preciousness of the blood--that shall have effaced every stain, and of the greatness and sovereignty of that grace--which shall have brought us there.”

It is the sovereign grace of God that saves us.  It is the sovereign grace of God that strengthens us in the journey.  It is the sovereign grace of God that keeps us to the end.  It is the sovereign grace of God that transforms us into the likeness of the Lord Jesus.  It is the sovereign grace of God that comes for us and finally, FINALLY! takes us home.  The realization of this great, sovereign grace, beloved, is cause for great joy as we wait, strengthened by His power for all endurance and patience with joy.