Colossians 1:9-14: Don’t Just Exist…Effect

Colossians 1:9-14: Don’t Just Exist…Effect

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may 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 joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 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.

Introduction: God Is On The Move
Last week we looked at how the gospel, the good news, of Jesus came to Colossae; a once proud and prosperous trade town lying on the east-west trade route through central Turkey. Paul is so encouraged by their faith and love for each other, so he writes to them saying: you are a part of the worldwide movement of God. What is happening with you is happening throughout the world.

In the movie and book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the four children find that they have stumbled into the middle of a larger story. The White Witch has owned the world for 100 years, stalling the calendar; always Winter, never Christmas. Taken in and hidden by the rebels, Mr. Beaver reassures them that all is not lost: “Aslan is on the move!” (citation) The son of the Emperor across the seas has returned. The time is now. Winter’s grip broken, Spring will come. Aslan is on the move.

God is on the move. Big city and dead-end town; capitalist or communist; developing or industrialized; downtown or uptown; right and wrong side of the tracks; God is on the move, reclaiming the world, one heart at a time.

Then, in this next section in his letter to the Colossians, Paul starts by saying: “For this reason” For what reason? For the reason that God is on the move! He changed your life. He’s changing lives around the world. Now what?

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying
for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all
spiritual wisdom and understanding. –Colossians 1:9

Now what? The most important thing you can do on Planet Earth is find God and do what God wants. Did you catch that? The most important thing you can do while you are on Planet Earth is find God and do what God wants. I am so tired of people whining that God doesn’t meet their expectations, how they couldn’t believe in a God like this or that. We fashion a religion where our faults are virtues and our pet peeves are sins; where God conforms to the opinion page or Oprah’s guest.

But, friends, God is God. He doesn’t sit around fretting because you don’t like the way he governs the universe. A holy God makes us uncomfortable because we come face-to-face with our inadequacy. A loving God satisfies our soul because we know where we stand in his eyes.

The Bible says:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to
him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek
him. – Hebrews 11:6

The most important thing you can do on Planet Earth is find God and do what God wants.
You do have a choice. You can fritter away your existence on the petty baubles and squabbles, living in de-ni-al. You can live on the fringes of what is really going on. You can live at cross purposes with God Almighty. Because God is on the move.

Or you can choose to seek after God, put him first, put everything else last. God rewards those who seek him. And he is on the lookout for people who are sold-out for him; people who are bananas for Jesus; people whose lifestyle radiates the relationship with the divine.

Look at what Paul was praying for, again:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying
for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all
spiritual wisdom and understanding. –Colossians 1:9

God is on the move and now we are praying that God will fill you in on what he is doing. It is going to blow your mind. It’s not mystical. It’s not magical. But it is spiritual. You could take a look around the world and try to explain it in terms of natural causes and economics and genetics and chaos theory (that’s the study of my household some days), but without spiritual understanding it won’t make sense.

Have you ever met someone who can tell you how to do something, but won’t actually do anything? They are full of grandiose plans or detailed complaints, and would be happy if you make the world a better place. But to hold an opinion strongly and do nothing, that is the devil’s game.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may
please him in every way… - Colossians 1:10

That’s why Paul immediately links the info on what God is doing with what you should be doing. He’s not talking about retreating to a monastery; or taking on the job of pastor; or moving your family overseas to Borrioboola-Gha, Africa as a missionary. Those are all worthwhile; even holy pursuits. But just has worthwhile and just as holy is living the life you have under the influence of God. Hairdressers. Computer programmers. Real estate agents. Home-makers. Lawyers. Raley’s checkers. Gas-station attendant. Marketing guru. Take that life and please Him with it.
How? How do we line up with what God wants? In the next few verses, Paul prays for four things. You can find them yourselves by looking at the “-ing” verbs.

1. Bearing Fruit.
2. Growing In Knowledge.
3. Being Strengthened.
4. Giving Thanks.
   

You were meant to do more than just exist…you were meant to


You Were Meant To Bear Fruit For God
Last week, we looked at how God invited us to be a part of a worldwide movement. Paul noted:

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been
doing among you -- Colossians 1:6b.

So the gospel, the good news about Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, the power to live today and the future secured in heaven, was spreading as God scattered his people throughout the known world. The gospel is not some nice-to-have, some abstract concept. The gospel is God’s heartbeat. It is his deepest desire for you and me and the 7,600 people who will die during this hour and a quarter and the 353,000 children who will be born today.[1] How he longs to see a person turn to Him; to be removed from a lost and fruitless destiny and brought into the kingdom of light. It moves the heart of God.

And it should move ours. Paul says we should be:

bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God; - Colossians
1:10

Notice that Paul uses the same words for us that he used for the gospel: bearing fruit. As our heart breaks for the things which break God’s heart; as our hearts rejoice for those things which gladden God’s heart; we become the highway; the pipe; the bandwidth; that God can use to change the world, right where you are.

What God is doing, we do. Jesus said:

I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he
sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. –
John 5:19

What God is doing, we do.

I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he
will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. –John 15:5

Want a recipe for a fruitless life? Want an insignificant life? Want an ineffective life? Then part ways with Jesus. You can be smart, motivated, well-connected, disciplined and lost, because the real mover and shaker: God Almighty. Life is spiritual. Spiritual success comes when you connect with God. Connection with God is through Jesus.

Let me challenge you: Your life is spiritual. School and work and home and vacation are the amphitheatres for the gospel. PTA meetings or board meetings or marketing meetings are not about the written agenda; they are about the people in that room choosing God and his agenda. Yes, you still have to get an education and make a living and change diapers and put food on the table. Put it in perspective: people last forever.

Changing peoples’ lives changes eternity. God loves your neighbor and your boss and your child and your child’s teacher just like he loves you. And the angels will throw a party when they respond to that love.

You Were Meant To Grow In God
Paul continues on his agricultural metaphor, telling us to continue:

…growing in the knowledge of God. – Colossians 1:10b

My step-father Steve was in the seed business for many years as a salesman. In his sales manual were lists and lists of seeds and their various characteristics: time to germinate; time to maturity; time to harvest. Built-in to each seed was a plan, which, if followed, would lead to fruitfulness. Not all seeds were the same!

Tomatoes, beans, corn, broccoli, cauliflower. But each one had a timetable built into it which governed development. It is natural to expect that seed well planted should grow to maturity.

God knows the plans he has for us. When we follow him and do what he wants, we are growing into that plan. The Bible says:

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can
do the good things he planned for us long ago.—Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

When we come to Christ, he recreates us; he alters our spiritual DNA. With that altered DNA comes new choices, new habits and a new destiny.

You Were Meant To Draw Strength From God
Now all of this fruiting and growing is tiring. When a seed sprouts, it does so from an initial supply of stored energy. But soon it must find sustenance elsewhere. We are all tired. I noticed a Starbucks advertisement the other day for coffee drinks with an added energy boost (65 cents).
If you aren’t playing an instrument, speaking five languages fluently, raising Mensa-grade children, jogging marathons or cycling a century, making six+ figures at work, and experiencing marital bliss then you probably are just under-achieving and need to work harder! Churches can be part of the problem, because we’ve got God and the pastor to make you feel guilty if you don’t over-commit.

God has a plan for you. The most important thing you can do in your life is find God and do what he wants. When you do that, God sets up the environment where he has planted you to provide the necessary nutrients for you to grow; not to struggle, but to thrive. Paul says we are:

being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you
may have great endurance and patience. – Colossians 1:11

Did you catch that? There is no limit to the power available for you to do what God destined you to do!

Did you catch that? That strength has a purpose: so you can overcome what life will throw at you.

Every gardener knows that when you plant, you’ve got to water; you have to amend the soil; you have to clear away the weeds; you need to prune and clip; you need to protect from the harsh cold and wind. God knows that.

Here are six ways God provides for you:

• 1. He plants you with others who help you grow. Paul, talking to another church, said:

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are
doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

• 2. He nourishes you with his words. God’s words are deep and they are vibrant and thinking about them carefully is a richly rewarding experience.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and
night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in
season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. – Psalm
1:2-3

• 3. He endows you with a special gift. Nothing stream-lines God’s plan in your life like the gifts he gives for you to serve in the church.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit….Now to each one the
manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. – 1 Corinthians 12:4,7

• 4. He gives renewable energy.

…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on
wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint. – Isaiah 40:31

• 5. He prunes your character.

…while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more
fruitful. –John 15:2b

• 6. He answers prayer. God expends every resource to enable your part in His plan.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it
will be given you. –John 15:7

You Were Meant To Give Thanks To God
Gifts without gratitude are the worst sort of charity. We have been given so much. There is nothing we can say; nothing we can do; no way we can beg, borrow or steal our way into the kingdom of God. We don’t qualify. We are clueless. We failed the spiritual SAT. Our resume was rejected. Our pole vault comes short of the standard: heaven.
But then God did the amazing. The Bible says:

…joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the
inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. –Colossians 1:12

I am qualified! This is Harvard and the high school dropout. This is the 49ers and the Pee-wee quarterback. This is the Presidency and a small-town mayor. There must be some mistake.
But no, there is no mistake. This is you and God. Not because you qualified. You see, the Father had some questions about your fitness for his kingdom, but Jesus said, “I will answer for his behavior.” He qualified for you. So the Father brought us in. As he said in the Bible:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my
name. – John 15:15

Do you remember the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There were five golden tickets hidden in five chocolate bars. As days go by one ticket and then another ticket and then another ticket. Finally, a poor boy, Charlie Bucket, finds the last ticket and gets a tour of the fabulous, amazing world inside of the factory. There are four other kids with him, but they range from the greedy and gluttonous to stubborn and proud. In the end, only Charlie, so incredibly grateful and amazed to be on the tour, inherited the factory. God has given us the golden ticket, qualified us for the inheritance of heaven. But I think some will appreciate the marvels of God better than others. Those are the ones amazed and startled that they got there.
Ok. So we’ve got the golden ticket. We didn’t deserve it, but we got it. But what is it a ticket for?
The CEO of my company is a season ticket holder for the San Jose Sharks hockey team. Every once in a while he can’t go, so his admin sends out an e-mail: the tickets will go to e-mailer number 6. Or if you listen to K-Love you can qualify for the grand prize drawing.

So here’s the grand prize.

• Part 1: God has adopted us into his family.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the
right to become children of God.—John 1:12

• Part 2: Because we are in his family, Jesus is now our older brother.

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of
his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. – Romans 8:29

So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. – Hebrews 2:11b

• Part 3: Because we are in his family, we are entitled to a full share in God’s estate; in his inheritance.

He who overcomes will inherit all this [referring to heaven], and I will be his
God and he will be my son. -- Revelation 21:7

This is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett calling you up to inform you that he has named you in his will as a primary beneficiary.

So here we are: we are family with God Almighty. God who reigns on high among the seraphim, where the hosts sing Holy, Holy, Holy; God who spoke and the universe was; God who is eternal; who was and is and always will be; who knows everything and is everywhere and can do everything. That God has brought me into his family; where I suddenly have His loving attention as his son. Wow!

God did this and we still manage to be ho-hum. Gratitude is not just saying grace before a meal. Gratitude is an action where we remind ourselves of our position with God.

Sometimes I need to practice. Here are five things you can do to cultivate the attitude of gratitude towards God:

1. Pray And Watch. Our small group has a journal that we’ve kept through the years we’ve met together. When we pray we write it down. When we see an answer to prayer, we write it down.
2. Point Things Out To God. Pick out a person or a blessing in your life and write down three ways that person or thing or event has blessed you. Then say “Thank you” to God.
3. Sing. So many of the songs we sing here are overflowing with thanks to God. If you can’t remember one that fits, make up one of your own. Sing a new song of thanks to our God.
4. Share. Be a blessing. Take a blessing you have received and pass it on. When your cup overflows, fill someone else’s cup. Maybe some extra money came your way that you weren’t expecting. Stick it in a God fund and pass it on when God tells you to. Maybe you’ve got some extra time: visit someone, give a ride to an appointment, make a special dish. Every time you bless someone else, it is a reminder how God is good to you.
5. Notice Smaller Blessings. Every thank God for a green light? The smell of the damp grass in the morning after the rain? The wave of a neighbor? The exhilaration when the light bulb goes on in your brain? The energy of a new day? The kind word of a friend? The taste of fresh cookies? The air conditioning?
   

God makes a difference. Our allegiance has switched from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Our family has expanded to include all of those who have listened and responded to the Good News. We give thanks.

Conclusion: Rescued
There are two kingdoms: the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. Paul sees these two kingdoms running side by side in households and towns, cities and countries, lanes on the highway or checkout lanes in Raleys.

…to share …in the kingdom of light. 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 1:12-14

The kingdom of the light is ruled by God’s Son (Jesus) and the dominion of darkness is ruled by Satan (see Acts 26:17-18). And God has rescued us from one and established us in the other as part of the gospel. Using the plant analogy, he has moved us from the shade into full sunlight; from the kingdom of mushrooms and toadstools to the kingdom of trees and flowers.

While these two kingdoms exist side by side, they are radically different.

1. One is in darkness and one is in the light.
2. One is by default and one is by decision.
3. One is a kingdom of shame, and the other of forgiveness.
4. One is rules by Satan and the other by Jesus.
   

Starting in these verses we get an inkling of the problems and the key themes of Colossians.

Remember we said last week that Colossae was in a position to be influenced by the Greek philosophy of the west, the mystery religions of the east and the Jewish ideas from the South? During this time period, a whole series of new mini-religions began sprouting up all over the place. Because there was no instantaneous communication in those days, the ideas were carried by teachers and travelers on foot and by boat along the trade routes. And as these ideas traveled, they morphed and changed so that every city or region had its own variation.
Bible scholars like to call these mini-religions “Gnostic” religions, coming from the Greek word “gnosis” or knowledge. Here are three major ideas which were infecting the church:

1. Spirit and Ideas are good. Matter & flesh are bad. The great Greek thinkers had discovered that we can have ideas which aren’t objects but describe objects. For example, we can have an idea of a circle, all 360 degrees of it and we can see that wheels are circular. Or that square of the hypotenuse is the sum of the squares of the base and height. That is, there is a world of ideas and these ideas are true. Not only are they true, but they actually govern the behavior of the physical world. What they also saw was that things in the physical world seldom perfect expressions of these ideas. Circles are seldom perfectly circular. Gravity pulls at a constant rate, but if I roll this pencil down a slope, the results approximate the ideal, but don’t match the idea.
   Within Greek thought you get this idea that the world of ideas is true and real and beautiful and the world of matter is somehow less real and less true, sort of a degraded form of the ideal. They extended this idea to religion as well: the more spiritual and ideal, the more pure. The more earthly and material, the more sinful. Look at the sins: lust, greed, envy, theft, gluttony. Don’t they result from an unreasonable attachment to the physical, the sensual and the material?
   So hold on to that idea: spirit and ideas are good. Matter & flesh are bad. Because we’ll come back to it.
2. Mysteries are secret ideas given to the chosen. You’ve heard the phrase, “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.” or “You couldn’t handle the truth.” From the mystery religions from Egypt (such as the cult of Isis) and Iraq came the idea that there was special knowledge; special spiritual knowledge, but that the un-prepared or uninitiated couldn’t handle it and that the secret knowledge would be made worthless or be debased if revealed. These religions tended to rank people based on how many of the mysteries they had learned, with only the select one or few knowing all.
   
3. Jewish religion provided structure for these religions. Here is an ancient religion, with a God who is all Spirit and a rigid set of laws and a mystical bent as well.
   

You can see these same three tendencies in mini-religions today: the emphasis of ideas or knowledge, the emphasis on gurus and levels of knowledge and the attempts to hook on to an existing ancient religion to gain respectability and authority.

But just a quick glance at these ideas tells you that the gospel conflicts head on with some of these ideas. And, to a greater and lesser extent, the gospel will always conflict with the ideas of the world because it is the truth and the world is prone to false-hood. What is the core of the gospel? Who is Jesus? What relationship do we have with God? What will Jesus do in the future? In many ways, Judaism was less troublesome.

We will come back to these ideas next week, but there is one key idea in the gospel that really annoyed people: it was the idea that the biggest hurdle in our spiritual lives can’t be passed without help. Notice the words that Paul uses: God “qualified us” (verse 12); he “rescued us” (verse 13) he “redeemed us” (redemption, verse 14). In each case, we are pictured in a helpless position and God intervened to get us over the hump. There was no special knowledge; no secret of the universe; no idea or insight or even revelation could get us into the kingdom of light. God had to do it. That’s because the problem isn’t knowledge, it is choice. We can have the knowledge of salvation and still spit God in the eyes. We make bad choices…we sin…in spite of what we know.

That is where the gospel comes in:

“The Good News doesn’t’ make any sense until you know what the bad news is. The
bad news isn’t that have a few harmless peccadilloes and we screwed up between
high school and college or whatever—It’s deeper than that. It’s unrelenting.” –
Bill Mallonee, cited Christianity Today, October 2008

We are flawed. We are sick by birth and by choice. We don’t miss heaven because of mistakes or uh-ohs or ignorance, but because we have heard the truth and gone the other way. I needed God to intervene, to adopt me as his child; to move me from darkness into light; to buy me from slavery to the dominions of darkness into citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.
[1] The 2008 World Factbook (CIA), as cited on http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/greatc.html