NOTE: This is an unedited transcript and, therefore, contains imperfections and is not for publication or quotation in whole or in part by anyone without the express written consent of Pastor Conley. The audio tape of this message delivered September 21, 1997, is available and may be purchased from the Church.  Brackets    "[ ]" are used for parenthetical words and phrases spoken. Parentheses "( )" are used for words inserted by transcriber.

Walking Worthy In His Will

Colossians 1:9-11

Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor

Kennerly Road Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina

        When you pray, what do you pray for? When you pray, what would God have you pray for? It has been said that in the epistles in which Paul’s prayers occur, they are the high water mark. They reveal to us what really mattered to the apostle whose life was devoted to bringing the gospel and all its power to people enslaved and ignorant of God. The things that rejoiced his heart, and for which he earnestly prayed and longed, could not be measured merely by some sort of superficial means. He didn’t give back a report on how many conversions, or how many baptisms, although those things certainly mattered to him. He was looking for something more fundamental than that. He was looking for the living qualities that God infuses into those that belong to Him. Lives purified. Character established. Spiritual strength displayed. How often it is when we come to God in prayer, if we offer prayers at all, we center on what is trivial, compared with lives free from corruptions of sin and sweet with the spiritual fruit of godly character and conduct. In Colossians 1,and verse 9, Paul says: “For this cause we also, from the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire [or to request or to ask] that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;”

         Second he prays: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”

        Related to that, but thirdly, he’s praying that we might be “Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;”

        The apostle Paul, and all who labor for souls as he did, are like tenant farmers tending the vast estate of their landlord. They plant, they water, they serve with faithful and often sacrificial diligence. But what they pray for is not to be found in those human endeavors. It is centered on the increase that God’s vital power produces, and it is that for which they labor and long. Look at what prompted these prayer requests for Paul. For he offers them up to the Lord not without foundation. You’ll notice he says: “For this cause,” verse 9. “For this cause, we also since the day we heard it do not cease to pray for you.” What cause is he talking about? Well, he’s talking about what he’s laid out already thus far in chapter 1. He rejoices in the fact that these saints show faith in Christ Jesus, and love for all believers by the power of the spirit. They show those kinds of hallmarks of being born again, because of the hope that is laid up for them. It’s reserved, it’s assured for them in heaven. A hope that’s founded on the truth of the gospel. This gospel, Paul has explained is bringing forth fruit in their lives. And that’s not an unusual thing. Wherever the true gospel goes, and wherever it’s truly received, where the grace of God is poured into a life, he says whether it be in Colosse, or whether it be around the world, there will be fruit. And in this Paul rejoices. And it is on the basis of these hallmarks of being born again that Paul has any right or any foundation to pray what he has prayed in verses 9-11.

         To hope for such things. To hope for those walking worthy in the will of the Lord who have no connection with God, and in whom is no grace of God brought to bear, is a futile thing. You don’t expect these qualities from a man who doesn’t know the Lord. And in fact, in the letters where Paul mentions praying for those who do not know the Lord, we find a wholly different emphasis. In their case, Paul prays that God will help them be bold, that God will help them be clear, that God will lift the scales of blindness, that the god of this world has put there in the hearts of those men and women lest they should see the light of the glorious gospel. Those are the prayers Paul offers for unbelievers. This is a prayer for believers. Now we make a great mistake when we expect to see that which is essentially the fruit of grace brought to bear in people’s lives. When we expect that from people who don’t even know the Lord. It is a mistake that is constantly made by all who attempt to cure man’s ills apart from the transformation that only the gospel can bring. Now there are certainly worthy things to give our life to. None of us would disparage education. And yet education will not do what God does in the heart. We all need money to live on. We’ve got to pay our bills, we’ve got to buy our food, and yet the more money a person has does not mean that he will have these qualities, or that his quality of life in the inner man is going to be any different. You say, well, if we gave him better health care, then of course we would solve their problems, and we wouldn’t have the crime ridden streets. But, no that won’t give it. Self awareness, self confidence, political peace, morality. None of these things will do what the life of God implanted in the heart can do. I think we make a mistake sometimes when we pour so many efforts on what are the outgrowth and the symptom of a life that’s been purified, a life that’s been born again, and we seek to make a society that merely reflects what is going on in the individuals without first leading them to Christ. It’s a sad thing how you can get many people rallied round the cause and Christians upset about abortion, or even the Confederate flag, or other kinds of issues, that are considered important, and yet there’s very little interest in doing what will essentially change our county. If our country does better economically, if your community does better economically, if they’ve got better health, if there’s better morality, that will only mask the problem that really exists in the heart. We’ve got to get to the heart of things. And that’s where we need to pour our efforts. Mankind you recall, willfully fell to the domination of sin in a perfect environment – the garden of Eden. He was endowed, Adam was and Eve, with extraordinary mental and spiritual abilities and benefits. And yet, once Adam and Eve had sinned, even the garden of Eden planted by God himself became a fearful place of woe. A place to hide from God. A place to sulk in ones own corruption of heart. And unless a person can escape sin, and the awful hold it has on him, the beauty of every manmade garden only mocks the grotesque disease of his heart. What a terrible disfigurement sin has brought to God’s glorious creation. It is still glorious and man is still in the image of God, though that image is marred, and we can see what it must have been like before sin corrupted everything. But it’s only through being created anew – the new creation through Jesus Christ that a man escapes the corruption that is in the world through lust.

         So this divine life has been implanted. It has sprouted in the life of these Colossian believers. And Paul is rejoicing that it’s already bearing fruit, but there is yet more for them. You see when you connect with an infinite God, when He begins to work in your life, there is no limit but the limit that God Himself is – and there is no limit to His power, and His love, and everything else – there’s no limit to how far God wants to take you. You know, sometimes we come to the Lord, and we talk about how the new believer has a great zeal for the Lord, and is excited about all that’s going on, then about 10 years later we see that same believer sitting back in the pew and he’s pretty bored with everything. Well, that’s not the way it should be. If you think that only the beginning is exciting, you don’t understand what Christ has done for you, and you don’t understand what He intends to do through you and in you. And that is what Paul is praying about. You see, these folk have been taught by an able pastor. They knew the truth, they had fruit in their lives, perhaps surpassing what most Christian churches in our country would have today, and yet, Paul said there’s more. There’s more that I desire for you to have. What are those things?

         Well in verse 9, we might sum up what he says there. He prays that they might be prudent. I’m going to give you three “p’s”. “That you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” That you might have a full, complete, knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom. Now wisdom in the secular Greek, basically pointed to mental excellence. But perhaps here we have more of the influence of the Old Testament scriptures since these are believers. Where wisdom is the application of divine revelation to the affairs of one’s life. We might very well sum it up as practical skill. He prays that these Christians would have practical skill according to their knowledge of God’s will. We’re told in the Proverbs, a book devoted to this kind of skillful living, that the beginning of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom, the application of that knowledge, is the fear of the Lord. Before I can really live wisely, before I can really take was is true and live it out in a way that is intensely practical, and changes me and changes my environment, and changes the people that are around me, I must understand that my relationship to God has to be right. I must be in that place of reverent worship. A Christian’s life is a life centered on worship. There is a God-centeredness to everything he does. And wherever he leaves the sanctuary, you’ll find that corruption grows there. You’ll find that stinted is the fruit of his life and stunted is his growth.

         And then he says: I pray that you have not only wisdom, but spiritual understanding. This is insight. And while they are synonyms, there is a slightly different focus. This word quite literally means to put together, and so this points to that great ability to put together facts and information and to draw conclusions from them. To see the relationships. You know there are lots of people today – the modern man is great on priding himself on his great education. He knows all these facts, and we’re so much more advanced, and we know all these new things, we have this technology – but the question is can you put it all together. Can you look at all that information in this information age, and can you put it together in a way that it fits? Can you draw conclusions that are right conclusions from what you see, or are you just awash with a lot of facts that make you none the wiser? I’m afraid that today there are a lot of very educated people that are not wise, and do not have spiritual understanding.

         Note that adjective – it’s spiritual understanding. When we say spiritual, we normally think of a kind of mystical, long-drawn face expression, or some kind of ecstatic experience. But what he means here is that this is an insight that the spirit produces. In other words we’re not talking about wisdom, practical skill and insight, the ability to put things together that is merely what man can do. Or even what the best of man can do. Rather it is a supernatural level of this kind of prudence. The fuller you are in the knowledge of God, and by the way, that’s not knowledge about God. A lot of people think, well, I’m going to study about God, I’m can list His attributes, I can give the verses that I’ve memorized. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you know God. And when Paul talks about a full knowledge of God – and I’m not disparaging in any way the teaching of the scripture – what I’m saying is the teaching of the scripture is meant to take us right into the presence of God. It’s a revealing of God. And what Paul is praying for these people, is that they have this full knowledge, this experience, this personal communion with God Himself. And it is this, in this soil that wisdom and insight grows. There’s a great deal of confusion today, and you hear many voices vying for your trust. There are many philosophies, perhaps the chief of which today is the one that says it doesn’t really matter what you believe, because truth is relevant anyway. It’s kind of like row boaters out in the middle of the ocean paddling away helter-skelter having adopted the idea that it really doesn’t matter which direction they go, as long as they paddle with gusto and have a good time on their way to nowhere. That’s not the way God wants us to live our lives. The purpose of this wisdom and insight is not some mystical truth to be jealously guarded by some ivory tower amidst a privileged few. That’s not the kind of wisdom and insight he’s referring to. It’s going to be very practical. You know the mark of the cults is that they have this teaching that’s very private and secret. You need to avoid that kind of attitude. There are Christians that are involved in groups where they have these secret ceremonies, and secret things. That’s old monasticism. That’s old “I’m better than you are because I know something you don’t know.” That’s not Christian.

             No, this is a wisdom, and an insight, a prudence that translates secondly into a productive life. A prudent life then a productive life. “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” The scripture writers like to use that word “walk”. Quite literally it means to walk about. When he talks about walking worthy of the Lord, it means the way you conduct your life, the way you walk about. Your everyday living. The test of your spirituality is not found here in the sanctuary. It’s not found by whether or not you can lift up a beautiful song to the Lord. Or the size necessarily of your offering in the offering plate, because you could have a lot of motives for that. Whether you walk with the Lord, and whether you are really touched by Him and changed by Him will be found in your daily living, in your walking about.

         And he says, I want you to walk about in a way that’s worthy of the Lord. You say, how can a man be worthy of the Lord? That’s a goal that’s so impossible, we could never be worthy of the Lord. Well, it’s not worthy, certainly, in the sense of earning your salvation. There are folk trying to be worthy before the Lord without Christ, and there’s no way to do that. We can’t be worthy in the sense of earning our way, but worthy of the Lord, in the sense that we have received His salvation. We’re going to be living in a way that’s in keeping with the costly love Christ has lavished on us with the example He has left for us, and in demonstration of the power he has given to us through the spirit that indwells us. Christ poured out His life in costly love. I owe Him something for that. More than that, Christ lived a perfect life, He left a pattern for us to walk. And we can look at Jesus Christ, and see how we ought to live in a very practical day to day manner. But more than that, because Christ is more than just an example, Christ is more than just a martyr for the cause that showed His great devotion to us by dying. He did something real and radical for us in our lives, and that is, He did something that changes us. Now real Christianity is not merely the Christianity that follows Christ’s example. Real Christianity is not just the Christianity that responds to Christ’s wonderful love and says yes, I believe Christ did that. Real Christianity is that Christianity that having believed, experiences the saving effect of Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus Christ didn’t die just to save you from hell. He died to save you from sin. You look it up. I go to hell because sin dominates my life, and I’m guilty before God. The only way I’m saved from hell, is because I’m saved from sin. And I mock the name of my Lord when I say that I have accepted him as my Savior, for he’s the Savior from sin, and my life shows no marks, no mark of being removed in my daily walk from that sin that had damned me to hell. As Moses approached his death, he took Israel to task for their repeated disloyalty to the Lord who had marvelously worked among them and for them. He says: “do you thus requite [or repay] the Lord oh foolish people and unwise?” How he could say that to believers today. Oh, the Lord has loved us to the death with an everlasting love, and we need to pray, Lord help me to love thee with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. Help me to live my life consistent with the character and conduct and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

         Why? Unto all pleasing. We’re to live worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. That word is usually used in a negative sense. Of a fawning, cringing sort of trying to please an overbearing master. Here it’s obviously not negative, but it still carries that idea of a superior, inferior relationship. Jesus Christ has humbled himself, yes. He has taken upon him the form of a servant, and became conformed to the likeness of man, and died for us, but Jesus Christ is risen again, and is exalted, and He is not only Savior, He is Lord. And my daily walk is affected not just by the fact that He’s my Savior, but by the fact that He is my Lord. I am accountable to Him in everything that I do, and thus I need to ask, I’m obligated to ask – does the Lord look kindly and pleasingly on what I’m doing? There is nothing, there is absolutely nothing in my life that should fall outside of the umbrella of whether it pleases God. You say that’s legalistic. That’s something that I like to do, and don’t preach to me about it. The question also is not whether the preacher is pleased, it’s whether God is pleased. When God saved you, He saved everything about you. And one day he’s going to totally free you from sin and death, and you’re on that track now. His salvation’s a powerful salvation, and He’s a powerful Lord, and I have no right to tell God “butt out I don’t want you in this part of my life.” And many of us will have areas in our life, that we know – I mean we could argue it in a Sunday School class, or we could argue it on the street corner, whether the Scripture really says you can’t do this or you can do that, or you should be a certain way. But we know in our heart of hearts that there are some things that we need to take care of; that we need to work on; that we need to give up to the Lord. We say, well, I can be a Christian anyway, and hold onto that. Well, yes you can be, but you’ll never be a fruitful Christian. As long as you hold onto those things, that you know that God has put His finger on, and said look, that doesn’t belong. That’s not consistent, that’s not worthy of the Lord. Not worthy of the school you went to, not worthy of the church you attend, not worthy of the particular culture you’re a part of, no, worthy of the Lord. It’s to the Lord that we will give an account. All of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, how great other people think you are. You know who you are, and God knows even better who you are. And all I do must be to His pleasing. You know ultimately that is what frees you from the fear of man? There is great great pressure, the more you minister to people, to please men. To do what you know people want to hear, to couch things in the way that you know won’t ruffle any feathers. To take the easy route when it comes to my own personal devotion. The question is not whether everybody’s doing it. The question is not “What do the guru’s of Christian life say.” The question is “Does this please God? Period. Does this really please God? Is this really promoting His purposes in my life?” Let’s cut all the sophestry and all the arguments that really amount to saying how many angels can stand on a pin - that’s a lot of our argument about Christian liberty - and let’s just talk about being slaves of the Lord. Let’s get real, let’s quit fooling ourselves. A lot of our arguments in Christianity are dishonest. “Unto all pleasing”. That’s the ultimate goal for the believer. God doesn’t reveal Himself in full knowledge just for our information, it is for our transformation.

        There are two dangers that we need to avoid, and that’s what Paul is looking at here. One is knowledge without practice. I love the way Alexander Maclarin describes it: “A rattling skeleton of abstract dogmas.” You may know your doctrines verses, you may have associated with a particular right kind of church, you may know things that other people don’t know, but look, knowledge without practice puffs up. Knowledge without love is actually a bad thing. We are to adorn the doctrine of God. We are to put flesh on that skeleton. We are to be living letters before the world that they can read. What we know of God, and our communion with Him should change what we do, and thereby change what we are. The purpose of the light of divine knowledge is not just so that we can see, it is so we can see the path that we are to walk.

         It helps us avoid the danger of knowledge without practice, but is also helps us avoid the other danger of practice without knowledge. Paul referd to the Jewish folk, his brethren in the flesh, Romans 10:2, he says, “I bear them record that they have a zeal of God.” They’re zealous about their religion, they’re zealous about God, but it’s not according to knowledge. And that knowledge is an important thing. The way I walk needs to be consistent with what God has revealed. You recall in Romans 1:28, “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.” And it says that they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They disapproved of the God as He was revealed. And they made up their own kind of God. That’s what man always does. He may not make it a bird or a four footed beast, but he’ll make a god that doesn’t exist, because he doesn’t like the God who does. They didn’t like to retain God in their knowledge, “so God gave them over to a reprobate [a disapproved] mind. To do those things that are not convenient, [that are not proper].” And then we have a whole catalog of horrible sins. Just as forcing out of your life that full knowledge of God brings corruption to your life, in the same manner, when you bring the full knowledge of God into your life, as He’s revealed, it brings purity to your life. It reverses the process. It’s a re-creation.

        Now the church today, I believe, has cast herself adrift from the truth of God’s Word in large measure. This whole century, has been one in our country of abandoning the Word of God, and we are reaping a sorry harvest. You wouldn’t recognize the America of a hundred years ago, compared to the America we see today. And there’s reason for it, and it’s not found rooted in the 1960’s. It’s found rooted in the 1920’s, when preachers, and churches began to abandon the authority of God’s Word and began to have zeal without knowledge, and it has corrupted the church to the point that we’re in such confusion now, nobody knows which way is up. Is it any wonder that the church cannot figure out who she is or what she’s doing? The church reflects the bogged down state of a huge number of individual professing Christians who swell her ranks. You talk to the average person professing Christ, they have not a clue as to what we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to do. What God’s Word says about how we’re supposed to live. You ask a person what a Baptist is, and it used to mean they can’t dance and drink. Now those two are gone, I don’t know what a Baptist is today. But you know, even then, that shouldn’t define what a Baptist is, or what a Christian is. That can be a part of it, but there’s much more to this life, than we’re getting into. The problem is that those that make up the church don’t glory in the life that Christ has won for them. That’s why they’re hankering after the world. The world doesn’t have anything to give you but husks. Everything you find appealing out there, it’s a mirage, it’s a fake. They don’t glory in the life Christ has given to them. And is it any wonder then that they cannot even give away the gospel that cost the very lifeblood of Jesus Christ? They don’t value it themselves. You know most people’s definition of Christianity is that they joined a church. Or they say, well, I’m going with that group now. These people give me what I like in a service. Do you have worship songs? Do you have programs for my kids? What version of the Bible do you use. All these things. Wait a minute, what about what is happening in the lives of the people that are in your church? You say, well that’s kind of hard to define. Exactly! And it’s also impossible to produce except by God. The problem with the church is that they are so starved for the real power of God that they’ve decided they’re tired of waiting for it, they’re just going to create something that looks like it. And they try to make the gospel palatable to a contrary world. Change it to sound like what the world already has. Is it any wonder that the world sniffs at it as irrelevant? You have to keep topping – you have a concert, you have to have a better concert next week. Have a drama, it’s got to be a more elaborate drama, and this time we’re going to add lights and camera, and it’s going to be great – it’s going to be just as good as what Hollywood would produce. Well, why would I want to produce anything that Hollywood would produce? Besides, they do it better anyway, they’re the masters at all that fake stuff. We’re into the real stuff. We’re into what makes you live right Monday morning, and Saturday night. So fine, then we have a frustrated church. In an effort to evangelize–and that’s spelled popularize–Christianity, they offer something that’s essentially pagan, and they call you to attend a church that is anything but. We’ll have concerts and we’ll have sports. We’ll have dramas, and we might even have crowds for a while if we’re good enough, but the question is, will we have God? And will we have what only God can produce?

         Now notice, we are to be fruitful in every good work. The image of a fruit tree. Not a grain field – a grain field is destroyed when it’s harvested. A fruit tree is not. A fruit tree is not depleted when its fruit turns ripe and it’s picked. Fruit bearing is part of its identity and its purpose. And a tree that’s healthy will keep on producing fruit and as Christians we are to continuously bear fruit. Now you don’t judge the health of a fruit tree by the cost of the fence around it. You don’t judge the health of that tree by how high that tree may be growing. It may have needed to be pruned last season. You don’t judge it by whether there are ornaments hung on the branches. Because ornaments aren’t fruit. - they may be beautiful, but they are not fruit. No, fruit grows from what the tree is. It is organically connected to that. It is produced by life, and nothing else. So much of the success we value in our personal lives and in the lives of the church can’t really properly be called fruit. Buildings, attendance, monies, programs, bank accounts, education, position. Now these things may be related to fruit bearing, but they will not suffice for the fruit itself. Where is the fruit? Just as fruit is sweet and nourishing and beneficial to others, so a Christian’s fruitfulness is to be in every variety of good works. And notice, it’s also increasing in the knowledge of God. It’s rooted in the knowledge of God, but it increases in the knowledge of God. When I do according to what I know of God, I increase my capacity to know.

         Third, our walk is to be prudent, it’s to be productive, and finally it’s to be powerful. “Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.” Quite literally: “in all power, [being empowered, the dynamite of the Lord] according to the might of His glory.” Now that word is an interesting word - translated might. It’s a word that we find at the end of a word like autocrat – self rule. Cratas. And it has the idea of inherent strength displayed by rule over others. So we could very well say instead of the might of His glory, the “ruling of His glory.” That gives us sort of a mystery to solve. The glory is the self-revealing splendor or radiance of God. In what sense can Paul say that God’s glory rules? Perhaps if we describe glory we can understand. The glory of God is the productive energy of God. It’s unstoppable, it’s overwhelming, it floods the universe, it embraces the soul, it fills the mind with a healing light, it energizes the life with divine quality, it overarches every form of evil or despair. And it reaches to every affliction or weariness. It’s like the sunlight of God. And look, if you have that empowering you, and notice it says it’s according to His “might of glory.” It’s just not tapping into it by means of it, but it’s in like measure to. God wants us to experience this glory, this ruling of glory in our lives that takes in every facet of our lives and changes it for good. He wants us to experience that not just because it’s there for us, but in the same measure as it’s there – according to. Now there is no measure to the glory of God, and that’s why I say there is no limit to how far you can go with Christ. If you’ve known Him for 35 years, you have heights to scale yet. You have things to look forward to. You have a knowledge of God that you have not yet plumbed. You have the experience of His spiritual power flowing through your life to other people that you have not yet grabbed hold of.

        Now notice, this is unto all patience and longsuffering. Patient and longsuffering. Patience refers to that ability to bear up under. It’s carrying a burden and keeping on keeping on. I want you to see that these are qualities that are not spectacular. You see the manifestation of God’s power, the kind of power Paul desires for these believers is not to be found in spectacular miracles. The church could just say, we want see God’s power, let’s go see people shake, let’s go see a healing, let’s go see something that’s really exciting. That may not be, and very likely isn’t, the power of God. Because Biblically that is not the hallmark of whether God is at work. The hallmark is are you patient and are you longsuffering? It’s good and strong character. It’s endurance. It’s being long tempered. You don’t have a short fuse. It’s self restraint. It’s not hasty to retaliate for the wrongs that are done it. It’s putting up with mistreatment for others. You know patience and endurance goes with the circumstances. Are you going through tough circumstances? Well the power of God in your life helps you bear up under them. Are you living with tough people to live with? The power of God helps you live with them without retaliating. How a believer handles adversity and how he handles hostility reveals the measure of God’s work in him, and notice those final two words, with joyfulness. Now some put it with the next phrase, but I believe it belongs here, because giving thanks has inherently the idea of joy in it. It’s not just that I bear up under it, it’s not just that I don’t retaliate, but I do it with joy. Why? Because I am filled with the sunlight of God’s glory. I know that He’s working all things for good because I love Him. I know that even the worst of circumstances and the most intolerable of people God will use in my life to take me on to higher ground. That all encompassing, all subjecting glory of God makes it possible for me to endure and to practice longsuffering with joy. It gives songs in the night, it provides light in the shadows, it provides peace in the storm.

         You think about it, you say, “Paul what bold broad prayers you prayed.” Who would not be envious of a people who were experiencing lives that were prudent, that are productive that are powerful as described here? Well these are the glories that God gives only to those that are His. They are rooted in the realities of heaven. They cannot be stolen by thieves, they cannot be ruined by rust. They grow greater with their years, and they shine more and more unto the perfect day. And they can be yours if you will walk worthy in His will.  

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