Introduction:
I heard about a story about a man whose wife wanted to buy a pet monkey. The husband protested strongly. He said, "Where will the monkey eat?" She said, "He’ll eat at the table with us." He said, "But what will he eat?" And she said, "He’ll eat the same thing we do." He said, "But where will the monkey sleep?" She said, "He’ll sleep in bed with us." He said, "But what about the smell?" She said, "I got used to you, I reckon he will, too."
So often when we think about the need for change, we are quick to think of ways that somebody else needs to change. We are much more hesitant to recognize that there are problems in our own life that need to be dealt with. But Christianity is a growing process, a process by which we are constantly looking for those things that need to be changed and improved, and then taking steps to do just that.
This morning, I want to share with you some things that I hope to accomplish -- changes that I want to see in the congregation, changes that I want to see brought about in your individual lives, changes I want to see in my own life. In regard to our Christian lives, I think there are three areas that we need to concentrate on developing. We need to know the will of God better, we need to do more of the work of Christ, and we need to become more like Christ.
Knowing, doing and becoming -- I really think those are the three pillars of the Christian life. I really believe that’s what Christianity is all about. This morning, I’d like to expound on those three ideas as we look together at a passage from Colossians 1.
"For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." (Colossians 1:9-12).
This was Paul’s prayer for the Colossians. Keep in mind that Paul was praying for a group of people he had never met before. Everything Paul knew about the Christians at Colossae was what he had heard from their preacher, Epaphras. He begins the letter with a beautiful prayer and, in that prayer, Paul made three requests that relate to these three aspects of Christian living.
I. He Prayed That They Would Know More
"For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." (Colossians 1:9).
Every Christian needs to increase in "the knowledge of his will." The Greek word translated "knowledge" in this verse carries the idea of "full knowledge". There is always something more for us to learn about God and his will for our lives. I hope that no Christian would ever dare to say that he has "arrived" and there is nothing left to learn. A Christian who claims he knows it all would only be showing his ignorance.
God wants us to know his will; he wants us to understand it. We’re to be filled with the knowledge of his will. The word "filled" is a key word here. In the language of the New Testament, to be "filled" means to be "controlled by". When we are filled with anger, we are controlled by anger. To be "filled with the Spirit" means to be "controlled by the Spirit". Paul’s prayer, then, is that these believers might be controlled by the full knowledge of God’s will.
But how does that take place? How do Christians grow in the full knowledge of God’s will? We understand the will of God through the Word of God. The general will of God for all of us is given in the Bible. The specific will of God for any given situation must always agree with what he has already revealed in his Word. So the better we know God’s general will, the easier it is to determine his specific guidance in our daily lives.
So Paul prayed that the Colossians might grow in knowledge, and the way they would do that was by getting deeper into God’s Word. He wanted them to have “all wisdom” -- not that they would know everything, but that they would have all the wisdom necessary for making decisions and living to please God.
One of the things that sets the Lord’s church apart from other churches is our recognition that the Bible is our authority in religion. Not church manuals, not church councils, not personal opinions, not the preacher’s views, but the Bible. It therefore follows that in order for us to be the kind of people God wants us to be, we must be a people of the book.
But that can’t be accomplished just with the sermons. We need daily Bible study. Like the noble Beareans, we need to “receive the word with all readiness of mind, and search the scriptures daily.” (Acts 17:11). It’s not that difficult to come to worship to hear what the preacher has to say on Sunday mornings. It’s much more difficult to get out the Bible and study on your own.
But we need to study this book because it is our spiritual food. The Hebrew writer said, “You need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk, and not solid food.” (Hebrews 5:12). This book is our milk and our meat. It is our food, our spiritual nourishment, and frankly I believe that some Christians are starving themselves to death.
Every now and then, you hear in the news about some radical who goes on a hunger strike and refuses to eat for weeks at a time. Some of them eventually die and others have to be hospitalized. That describes exactly what happens to some Christians who aren’t spending any time with God’s Word. Take a good close look at any Christian who falls away from the Lord and becomes unfaithful, and very seldom will you find a dedicated Bible student. 99% of the time you’ll find a Christian who has neglected to do much personal study. There’s no food and the result is starvation and spiritual death.
Spiritual knowledge is the beginning of a successful, fruitful Christian life. God doesn’t puts a premium on ignorance. I heard about a preacher who once said, "I didn’t never go to school. I’m just a igerant Christian, and I’m glad I is!" It’s true that a man doesn’t have to go to school to gain spiritual knowledge, but neither should he magnify his "igerance".
There are some great men in our brotherhood who never had the privilege of formal Bible training. But they were devoted students of the Word, learning its deeper truths through hours of study, meditation and prayer. The first step toward a mature Christian life is spiritual intelligence -- growing in the will of God by knowing the Word of God.
God told Hosea that "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6). What was the problem? Didn’t they have access to God’s word? Of course they did. They simply didn’t care enough about it to listen to it.
There are a lot of people out there in the world like that, but God’s people can be just as guilty of that as anyone else. We need to study God’s Word not only to find salvation, but to be able to share it with others.
We need to once again become known as a people of the book, a people who study and know and love the Bible, God’s Word.
II. He Prayed That They Might Do More
"That you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:10).
The false teachers at Colossae were like the Gnostics of the first century that are so prominent in John’s first epistle. They talked a lot about "spiritual knowledge", but they didn’t relate that knowledge to daily living. In the Christian life, knowledge and obedience go hand in hand. There is no separation between learning and living. The knowledge about which Paul prayed wasn’t just a head knowledge of deep spiritual truths. True spiritual wisdom must affect the way we live.
Two words here summarize the practicality of the Christian life: walk and work. The sequence is important: first, wisdom; then walking; then working. I can’t work for God unless I’m walking with him, and I can’t walk with him if I’m ignorant of his will. The Christian who spends time daily in the Word and prayer will know God’s will and be able to walk with him and work for him.
After all, our purpose in life is not to please ourselves, but to please the Lord. We ought to walk "worthy of our calling" (Ephesians 4:1). In other words, our lives should be lived solely for the purpose of pleasing God. We don’t just need to know; we need to do.
A group of men were talking about which translation of the Bible they preferred and several of them had expressed their views when one man spoke up and said, "I prefer my mother’s version. She translated it into the language of daily life."
James said, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." (James 1:22). He goes on to describe a man who reads the Bible, but he doesn’t put it into practice. He says he is like a man who looks in the mirror. He sees his hair is messed up, he needs to shave, he has a dirty smudge on his cheek, but he goes his way and does nothing about it. Looking in the mirror has done him no good. So is the man who reads God’s Word, but makes no effort to put what he reads into practice. But, "He who looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." (James 1:25).
In Matthew 25, Jesus described the scene of the Day of Judgment. Here are his words to those who enter into heaven: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me." (Matthew 25:34-36). Christianity is something you do. Christianity is a series of verbs, action words: visit, feed, clothe, go, teach, encourage, give, love.
In Luke 13, Jesus told the parable of a fig tree. The fig tree was an important tree to the people of that day. It bore fruit several times a year. It was dense and provided shade. It was a symbol of peace and prosperity. In this parable, we find a fig tree that was cultivated in a vineyard. It had good soil, it was fertilized, it had everything it needed to grow.
But, this fig tree was going to be cut down. Why? What had it done wrong? Absolutely nothing. The problem was that it had done nothing at all. It was barren, it was useless, much like some members of the church. There are too many people who consider themselves to be pretty good. After all, they don’t drink, they don’t lie, they don’t commit adultery, they don’t swear, they don’t steal. The problem is -- they don’t do anything at all!
We call this the sin of omission, failing to do what we ought to be doing. James said, "To him that knows to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin." (James 4:17).
I heard one preacher describe this as mannequin Christianity. According to some people’s idea of Christianity, the mannequin in the store window would make a great Christian. He doesn’t do anything wrong! But it’s obvious he doesn’t do anything at all.
The real question is -- To what worth are we putting our lives? What are we accomplishing for the Lord? What are we doing? The Lord doesn’t demand the unusual or the sensational, but he does expect something. What are we doing? We’re not truly living Christian lives unless we’re doing the work of Christ.
We need to strive for balance in our spiritual lives. There are some Christians who spend all their time learning God’s will. Constantly studying, learning, getting a handle on every obscure passage and an argument against every false doctrine. But they never get around to doing. And there are others who are busy doing good works, but they haven’t spent enough time with God’s Word to know if they’re really following God’s will.
Paul has prayed that Christians might have spiritual knowledge, and that this knowledge might result in practical obedience. But there is a third request that completes these first two; and without it, the Christian life can’t be mature.
III. He Prayed That They Might Become More Like Christ
"Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." (Colossians 1:11-12).
Wisdom and conduct should always be related to moral character. One of the great problems in the "Christian world" today is an emphasis on "spiritual knowledge" and "Christian service" without connecting these important matters to personal character.
For example, some teachers and preachers claim to have God’s wisdom -- yet they lack love and kindness and the other basic qualities that make the Christian life beautiful and distinctive. Others are busy teaching the lost and doing many good works, but are not morally what they should be.
Knowledge, conduct, and character must always go together. We learn God’s will so that we might obey it; and in obeying it, we serve him and grow in Christian character. While none of us is perfectly balanced in these three areas, we ought to strive for that balance.
You see, simply knowing the facts isn’t enough. Even doing many good works isn’t enough. Our goal as Christians must be to grow closer and closer to the example of Jesus Christ. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (II Corinthians 3:18).
You can bully people to their knees, but you can’t make them pray. You can coerce them into parting with their money, but you can’t force them into the "grace of giving". You can emotionally intimidate people into reading the Bible, but you can’t force them into a love and appreciation for the truth of God. You can browbeat people into using words with Christ and religious phraseology in them, but you can’t make them joyfully talk about what Christ means to them.
Christianity is more than just knowing the right facts. It’s more than going through the right motions. It begins in the heart; it’s what we are. There is a continual process of growing and adding Christ-like virtues to our lives. Peter wrote, "Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." (II Peter 1:5-8).
Paul mentions some the those qualities here in Colossians 1. The point is that we never stop "becoming"; it’s an ongoing process. There’s always something positive to add to our lives, always something negative to try to get rid of.
We have different ways of measuring growth. When Sueanne and I would take our children to see the pediatrician, the nurse would always check their height and weight. Then that information was written onto a chart that gave us a picture of how they were growing. When you get to be adults, we measure our growth by whether or not we can fit into last year’s pants.
But how does a person measure his growth in Christianity? Very simply, I think it’s just a matter of checking to see how much we are becoming like Jesus Christ. Paul writes, "That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro....but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head -- Christ." (Ephesians 4:14-15).
Conclusion:
We need to know the will of Christ, we need to do the work of Christ and we need to become more like Christ. As I consider my task as your preacher, that’s my desire for each of you.
A man was once making fun of a woman for going to church. He said, "I’ll bet you can’t even remember anything the preacher said last week." She thought for a while and said, "You’re right, I can’t. But when I wash clothes and put detergent in, later on I can’t see any of the detergent. But as a result, my clothes are cleaner. Sermons are like that. I may not be able to quote them, but they do make me a better person." I hope that for the past five years, and for the years ahead, that my lessons have been able to accomplish just that -- to bring your life a bit closer to that of Jesus Christ, even if you can’t always remember them.
May God help each of us as we commit our lives to knowing, doing, and becoming.
As you strive to grow in your knowledge, maybe your commitment will be to read your Bible 15 minutes a day or to read through the Bible in a year. Maybe a commitment to do an intensive study of a particular book in the Bible. Maybe a commitment to memorize scripture, a passage every day. But, whatever you decide, plan to grow in your knowledge of God’s Word.
As you strive to do more of the work of Christ, maybe your commitment will be to share the gospel with 3 people before the end of this year or 5 or 10. Maybe a commitment to spend more time visiting the sick and needy. Maybe a commitment to give more or to invite more people to worship. But, whatever you decide, plan to grow in what you do for Christ.
And as you strive to become more like Christ, maybe your commitment will be to get rid of some bad habit or attitude that is un-Christlike. Maybe a commitment to work on adding a particular positive attitude such as patience or thankfulness or humility. Maybe a commitment to develop the servant attitude and love that so characterized the life of Christ. But, whatever you do, plan to grow in your efforts to become more like Christ.
Knowing, doing, becoming -- that’s what it’s all about.
If you’re not a Christian this morning, it may be that you’ve heard many times what you need to do to be saved of your sins -- to believe in Jesus Christ, to repent of your sins and to be buried in the waters of baptism. Perhaps all that remains is your commitment to give your life fully to Christ.
If you are a Christian, but unresolved sin has plagued your life, I hope that some of the things that I’ve said this morning have caused you to reflect on those, so that you may make the steps necessary to restore that right relationship with God.
The sacrifice has been made, the price has been paid, the blood has been shed. All that remains is your faithful obedience to God.
