Ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will (Col 1a)

Ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will

Colossians 1:1-14*

Key Verse: Colossians 1:9 - “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”.

Introduction: The church at Colossae was located in one of the three small cities lying in the Lycus Valley, which connected Antioch in the east and Ephesus in the west. During Paul’s three-year stay in Ephesus, Epaphras, probably a native of this town, was preaching the Gospel to this city and formed a church. While Paul was in prison, Epaphras sent him a message concerning the problems he faced with this church. So, Paul and Timothy wrote this letter from Rome to the believers in Colossae.

The main issues or problems with this church are noted in Colossians 2:11, 18, and 23.

Colossians 2:11 – “In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ”. 

Colossians 2:18 – “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.” 

Colossians 2:23 – “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

We can sort  the problems they faced into three categories: 1) tradition, 2) worldly ideologies, including different philosophies and religions, and 3) Judaic beliefs. Each of these concepts differs from one another in various aspects, but they also share some common elements, such as asceticism and gnostic influence. All of these are grounded on human knowledge and human efforts to seek God. Judaic beliefs are unique in the sense that they are based on God-given knowledge. Circumcision is an expression of an exclusive covenant with God, yet Judaic beliefs failed to acknowledge the final and ultimate revelation of His Son, Jesus. So these limited beliefs are forced to remain the best understanding of humanity and the world, according to human perspective and human efforts. Even with the best of the Jews’ understanding, they were veiled from the truth, the Gospel, the final solution for their lives. In this regard, Judaism is no better than the other two categories.  All three are the source of the confusion that we live in, while simultaneously forming an antithetical force against the Gospel. They appeal to two basic necessities of human nature: a need to be right and holy and a need for security in life. To meet these two needs, men have devoted all their efforts in their strength and knowledge, but the outcome of these human efforts has always been dismal. For example, the Jews failed to make themselves right and holy or to secure their lives, both now and in eternity. Despite their beliefs, they still suffered constantly from the unmet need to be right and holy and gripped with fear and anxiety because they did not have any security in their lives. 

The Gospel is the one and only answer for life. In his letters, Paul concerned himself with discussing two things: 1) how believers could refute the false claims posed by these three areas with sound reason and understanding, and 2) how they could actually live out the truth by attaining to the secure life offered in heaven. He hung his argument on two things: 1) who Jesus is, and 2) what God was doing in and through Christ for His chosen.  

Today’s passage is Paul’s prayer for the Colossians. In it, he lays out how their lives have been and where their lives were going. So, through his prayer, we can picture the entire Christian life, from the beginning of our faith in Christ until we reach God’s kingdom. So, this letter is about how God was working in and through Jesus for the good of the believers. I pray that we may have a solid understanding of our life, in view of the Gospel. I want you to focus on two ideas: God’s will and how it can be implemented in our lives. 

A.    Paul identified himself in light of his relationship with Jesus (Colossians 1:1-2).

A sound and effective interpersonal relationship begins with a clear identification of each party involved. When a professor talks to a student, he should talk as a professor and the student should listen and respond as a student. Likewise, it is very important for us to identify who we are in regards to all of our relationships with others. Here, Paul introduces himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. To him, the fact that he was called by Jesus for this mission was undeniable and solidified his role his relationships with others. So, in writing this letter to the Colossian believers, he put forth his clear identification in Christ.

Paul called the Colossians “holy people”, and “faithful brothers and sisters”. In this way, Paul’s identification, as well as the identification of the Colossians, derived their origin from God. If we put this a different way, Paul saw his relationship with these believers according to God’s perspective. When one looks at his or her relationship with others the way God does, those relationships are unlikely to bear an ungodly outcome. Rather, God’s perspective will not only clarify who we are, but also enable His purpose to live in our lives.

B.    Thank God for what He did in the Colossian church (Colossians 1:3-8).

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people” (Colossians 1:3-4).

Paul thanked God whenever he prayed for the Colossians. He did not often see them personally, but he had heard good reports from Epaphras, one of his associates. The reason for his thankfulness was that he had heard of their faith in Christ Jesus and their love for all the saints. At that time, believers were the minority and were not well off at all, facing the great threat of persecution from the Jews and Romans. Yet even though it was hard and dangerous to be a Christian during this time, the Colossians decidedly showed their love for all believers. This was a genuine expression of their faith in Christ,  expressed in actions, i.e. love, even if their lives were in danger. It is possible that Paul was happy because their love was so good, pure, and godly, but he was even happier because such love reflected the genuine quality of their faith in Christ.

When the spirit of Christ is in us, the ultimate sum of its expression in life is love for others, invariably love for other believers, so when we see such love in a person, the kind of love found in Christ, we should be happy and consider them our fellow citizen in the kingdom of God. We can accept them, pray for them, and support them with arms of love. 

“the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel” (Colossians 1:5).

The quality of the Colossians’ faith and love attested to something far more than what was physically apparent. - their hope in heaven. They knew that the world they were living in was without hope, and firmly believed in the hope that God had laid up for them. If they did not have faith anchored in godly hope, then they could not sustain the kind of  love that excelled over all other human loves. Likewise, the hope that God has laid up in heaven is an integral part of our faith and love today. A life that is anchored in hope is enduring and resilient, but a life that is not anchored in the faith and hope of heaven cannot be sustained and will eventually fade away, especially when we face hard times or the flux between worldly ideas and God’s blessing.

“that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth” (Colossians 1:6).

Before faith, love, or even hope, something happened when the Colossian believers first received the message of the Gospel; they understood God’s grace in all its truth. This understanding signified the beginning of faith, love, and hope in their lives. Jesus’ life, suffering, and death all speak to God’s grace in power. So when we understand the depth, width, and height of this grace, God also creates faith, love, and hope in us. In these three aspects, we are called children of God and a citizen of the kingdom of God. This is an amazing shift from the life of darkness and hopelessness we lived before; this is the same Gospel power that worked in the lives of these Colossians.

Such a remarkable power did not come to just the Colossians, but it also brought about the same result wherever it was preached. So the Gospel represents the power of God and truth for all human life. It has power to bring all lives out of the darkness and hopelessness of this world and into the hope of God. When I heard the good news of the Gospel, it brought a change to my view, my understanding of the world, and my hope. As we look at our lives, we know that, in each of our lives, the Gospel works and yields much fruit. This power of the Gospel is reliable, and it surely yields an outcome, whether now or some time in the future.

C.   Paul’s prayer for the Colossians (Colossians 1:9-14).

“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” (Colossians 1:9).

Through the understanding of God’s grace communicated in the Gospel, the Colossians came to have faith, love, and hope. From here, where were they to go? Paul prayed for the coming years of their new life as children of God.

The primary focus of their lives needed to be working to gain the knowledge of God’s will. What did Paul mean by the knowledge of God’s will?

Before we jump into this, I would like to note that, here, the knowledge of God’s will is not just something we can describe in one sentence. It is a wide range of knowledge, as we can see from looking at the Bible in its entirety. For example, God’s will for Jonah was to go to Nineveh and preach His judgment, but Jonah did not know or understand fully the knowledge of God’s will, in which He was commanding him. Only after going through hardships in his own life, did Jonah become filled with God’s will for the people of Nineveh. Likewise, the knowledge of God’s will is multifaceted,  multidimensional, and multi-staged. When we come to comprehend all of these at the same time, our faith is immovable and unshakable. As another example, Jonah went through the near-death experiences in the sea and in the belly of a fish. He struggled to survive under the sea. Out of these experiences came one moment of truth - “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9b). According to God’s perspective, in order to convey this truth or knowledge of His will, He forced Jonah to pay for his disobedience and subjected him to some of the most horrendous moments of his life. How did Jonah live before this experience? He was so sure of his own goodness and righteousness, that he thought God was wrong! He did not have the knowledge of God’s will.

Every day, God imparts knowledge of His will to us through what we see and experience through the Spirit of Christ. We are to open our spiritual eyes and learn what God’s will is! Also, this learning is to be ongoing throughout our lifetime; thus, Paul prayed ‘continually’ for the Colossians, that their eyes, ears, and minds would remain wide open to the Lord’s teaching through all the events happening around them.

We still have these questions: what is God’s will for the world? What’s God’s will for us as a church? What is God’s will for me, personally? We ought to know God’s will in regards to these three answers. God’s will for me is a part of His will for the church, and His will for the church is a part of His will for the world. If we come to know His will, then we will know all that we want to know or need to know.

The world and all that happens in it is always veiled in secret; these things are hidden from our understanding. Though we cannot know all that God is doing in every part of this world, we can come to have a clear sense of God’s will and direction, along with its final purpose, in the things happening in and around us. God speaks to us about His will through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives us so that we no longer live in uncertainty, anxiety, or fear.

Here, the Spirit plays an important role in helping us to understand God’s will. Paul characterized the Colossians’ love as the love in the Spirit (Colossians 1:8). Paul further describes the Spirit in this way:

“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9).

The Spirit is the Spirit of God as well as the Spirit of Christ. It is the Spirit who worked in and with Christ when he suffered and died for our sins in obedience to the Father God. In order to capture this concept, Paul called it the Spirit of Christ. This Spirit is an essential part of the Christin life. Having the Spirit of Christ distinguishes believers from people of many other different beliefs and religions. He is the source of our wisdom and understanding of the things happening in our lives. The primary or ultimate goal of the Spirit may be to help us know God’s will. Many times in the midst of the hardships and turmoil of life, we may wonder what God’s will might be in those troubles, but when we seek out His will and come to know what it is, we become confident, even in the midst of hardship.  

What is God’s will for the world, for us, and particularly for me, personally? God does not pinpoint exactly what He wants to do in each of our lives, but He has made clear what His ultimate purpose for our lives is. This purpose becomes possible, through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. The Holy Spirit is with us and is eager to give you the kind of wisdom and understanding that leads us to God’s will. We ought to always seek out His guidance and help.

“so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way” (Colossians 1:10).

Why do we need to have the knowledge of God’s will? Where does the knowledge of God’s will lead us to?

Paul did not explicitly say what God’s will ultimately was for the Colossians, yet we know that He has called us to be with Him as His children. This is God’s ultimate purpose. When His will set in the depths of our hearts, we come to know what we have to do: we are to become worthy of Him because we will be with Him. We are to conform to God by embracing His purpose and His way of thinking. In this way, we come to please Him in every way.

But as of now, we are not worthy of Him in our entire beings. We do not please Him in every way now, but, eventually, we will become fully worthy and will please Him! If we put this a different way, God said to Israel: “You must be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 20:26a). God’s ultimate hope is to be with us, but how can we be with Him if we are not worthy of Him? How can we be with Him if our being is not pleasing Him?

God called us to be His children and to inherit His heavenly blessings. We will be with the Lord and He will be with us. God has been with us in His spirit, ever since we believed in His Son, Jesus, but His ultimate goal has always been to be with us, literally. This is described in Revelation 21:

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3).

A glimpse of God’s presence among men was seen when His tabernacle travelled with Israel as they journeyed to the Promised Land. At that time, all men above the age of 20 had died in the desert, because they did not trust God and refused to live holy lives in His presence. This historic event tells us unambiguously that God will not bear with men’s sin forever and that sinful men will surely suffer under God’s holiness. Now God remedied men’s sinfulness and empowered us to be holy and worthy of His holiness, through Christ. One thing we must realize is that God will not compromise His holiness, and, without holiness, no one can be with Him. God is patient, merciful, and full of grace and mercy. Nevertheless, He expects that, eventually, we all must grow to be worthy of Him so that we may fellowship with Him, without shame or guilt. How can this be possible?

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

Jesus suffered and died on the cross. In this way he redeemed all sinners and provided forgiveness for them. By Jesus’ grace, God rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son. He did this and, through His work, we are already brought into the kingdom of the Son, and are no longer under the dominion of darkness. So our understanding of God’s grace is very important and, through this grace, we begin to live as children of God and to carry out our lives, according to His will. How does God’s grace help us live a life worthy of Him?

How can we please Him? Paul listed four ways:

“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” (Colossians 1:10-11 NIV).

The first way we can please God is by bearing fruit, that is through our actions or just the way we live in general. This does not include our ideas or thinking, but it is what we do and how we live - in our words, our decisions, and our activities. Out of these, we are to bear fruit in every good work. What might be the fruits Paul was talking about? Though no one is sure what he meant, two possibilities are: the fruit of a godly life, i.e. the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of bearing witness to the Gospel and yielding a harvest of new souls.

Secondly, we are to grow in our knowledge of God; this means that we are to grow in the depth, width, and height of how we know God. The original verb form of this concept is written in passive form, which means that God gives us this knowledge and we are to receive it. In this regard, we must hear God’s encouraging word to the prophet, Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Jesus said to his disciples:

John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

If our knowledge of God is the same as it has been in past years, then this is worrisome. We must examine ourselves to see if we are growing in our knowledge of God. When we seek Him, He will surely reveal all the knowledge of Himself that we need.

The third thing for us to do is to be strengthened with all power, according to God’s glorious might, so that we may have great endurance and patience. This is also originally written in passive form, meaning we are to receive power from the Lord as we go through life’s hardships. Here, hardships are considered to be an inevitable process in life. What might be the worst one? Surely it is one’s own sickness and death, or the physical loss of loved ones through death. Even in such situations, whereby one’s life is threatened by death, we are to bear godly fruit, no matter what. Also, this is an occasion through which we can come to know God’s will. How is this possible? How can we find God’s will in such tragedies, i.e. death?

When Paul was on a ship heading to Rome, it was struck by a heavy storm. All the people in the ship gave up all hope of being saved (Acts 27:20). But that night, an angel of God gave Paul a message that he had to stand trial before Caesar, assuring him that none of the people on the ship would be lost. It is impossible to stand all the trials we may face in life all by ourselves. We need encouragement from the Lord and He is ready to give such strength to His children. So, such moments of crisis can become moments when we can best taste God’s power and grace. Many cry out, kicking and yelling in times of trouble. They have not known God at all and have yet to know His power. However, we as believers are to seek Him and knock on His door. God will surely come to our aid with His mighty power. He never prescribed a trouble-free life for His followers, but rather lets His followers taste His power through many hardships so that they may come to know His will. Because of this, we can still bear fruit in good works and continue to grow in the knowledge of God.

“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” (Colossians 1:12).

Lastly, we should not focus on what we do within ourselves, but on what we do for God; this brings thanksgiving. It comes out of these three efforts that we have studied: we have born fruit in every good work, we have grown in the knowledge of God, and we have endured hardship through the power given to us through the Spirit. Then we will come to have a full realization of God’s perfect will for us. His utmost will for us is to share in His heavenly blessings, which we cannot exchange for anything in this world. When we give thanks to the Lord, we truly honor him as our Lord and He is glorified in, through, and among us. By giving thanks to Him, we please Him in every way!

When we don’t have a thankful heart, it means that we have failed to know God’s will, failed to fully appreciate what He has done for us, and failed to recognize the  richness of His blessings available to us through His Son.

I pray that, instead of giving ourselves over to discontent, grudging, unhappiness, and bitterness of heart, we have a keen sense of God’s will, praising Him and giving Him thanks for all He has done for us. In this way, God is honored and praised fully in our lives and we are worthy to be called sons of God and please Him in every way.

This year, let’s start anything we do by asking God to fill us with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. Then we will surely give thanks to the Lord in all things. Amen.