Take your Bibles with me again and go back to the book of Colossians. We are going to be reading the first fourteen verses of chapter 1 this morning.
We have a church covenant. It's a list of promises that we make to each other as members of Bible Baptist Church. I preached a whole series on that church covenant as part of our evening services last year.
In that church covenant is this line:
We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember each other in prayer;
We encourage the church members to be praying for each other. I keep a list on my tablet here of every one of you and I try to regularly go through it and pray for each of you. I encourage everyone in the church to get a church directory and spend time praying for your fellow church members.
But what do we pray? What should our prayer requests be for one another? You know, if you have a specific need - like we know you have a health need, or you've asked prayer for some specific struggle, or, like the Longmires, you recently lost a loved one - then what to pray is pretty obvious. But what about when you don't have a specific prayer request for someone?
Remember the old song?
[! song] It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, Standing in the need of prayer. Not my father, not my mother but its me O Lord Standing in the need of prayer.
We all need prayer. But what should people pray?
In our text today, Paul is telling this Colossian church that he is praying for them, that he prays for them regularly, but he goes further than that - he tells them what he is praying, what his prayer request for them is.
Let's read verses 1-14 in Colossians 1 together.
[!Bible] Colossians 1:1-14 - KJV
- Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,
- To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
- Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,
- For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
- Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:
- As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
- Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
- For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
- That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
- Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
- Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
- Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
- In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Now remember, Colosse was a little town about 100 miles east of Ephesus in modern day Turkey. Paul had never been there, but while he was in Ephesus a guy named Epaphras got saved and went back to his hometown of Colosse and started a church.
That was years ago. Now Paul is in prison and Epaphras is paying him a visit and Epaphras told Paul about some of the problems in the church back at Colosse - so Paul is addressing those problems with this letter.
The biggest problems that the church in Colosse had were a group of false teachers in the church that were pushing false doctrines. They were coming in and saying "The gospel is fine, Jesus is fine, it's a fine foundation - but you really need more - you need this special knowledge to be a good Christian." And that "special knowledge" seemed to be a weird mix of jewish traditions, weird teaching about the world and worshipping angels.
A bunch of rubbish.
But it was attractive to some people in this church and it was causing problems in their lives. These people came in and they seemed smart - they seemed to have it all together - they seemed to know things that others didn't. But it was garbage. It was trash. It was poison.
So that is the problem that Paul was writing to try to fix. False doctrine. False teachers. Specifically, false teachers trying to sell this fake spiritual knowledge.
Now, knowing that problem - false teachers peddling fake knowledge - what do you think Paul would have prayed for these church members? What did they need more than anything else?
So what was Paul's prayer request for these Christians who were in trouble? Look again at verse 9:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:9 - KJV 9. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Paul's prayer request was that they would be "filled with knowledge and spiritual understanding."
Now, that's interesting - because "knowledge" seems to be the problem. Remember, Paul was writing this book to combat a bunch of high-brow false teachers. These guys were tempting them with knowledge and leading people astray. So you would think that Paul would say "forget all that knowledge nonsense and just stick to the basics." But that isn't what Paul prayed for. He prayed that they would get real knowledge.
Do you know what people need? They need spiritual knowledge. They need to know the truth and they need to grow in their knowledge of the truth.
Christians need to grow in the right kind of knowledge that leads to the right kind of living.
That's what Paul was praying for for the Colossians and that is what we should pray for each other.
Now, I want to give you four points this morning about spiritual knowledge and by the time I'm done, I hope you understand what I am saying and understand how important this is.
Let's pray and we'll jump into that.
The first thing I want you to understand about spiritual knowledge from these verses is...
There are a lot of anti-knowledge Christians. Anti-intellectual Christians. There are a lot of Christians who think that doctrine and knowledge is a problem, instead, we need to focus on doing, focus on action. Those people are wrong.
You cannot live the Christian life well without (as verse 10 says) increasing in the knowledge of God. Spiritual knowledge is necessary.
It's necessary because it comes from God. God is the source of all true knowledge and intelligence.
Think about this for a minute. Think about yourself. Your body. You have a heart that has been beating at least once a second, every second of your entire life. It beat when you were 2 days old and if you keep living it will beat when you are 100 years old. It beats when you sleep. It beats when you are awake. It is an engine that never stops, it never gets a break.
Now, Ford, Chevy, and Toyota could not possibly make an engine that never stops for a hundred years. But God did. And that is just one part of one of the intricate systems in your body.
Think about your skin. Your skin covers you. It moderates your internal temperature. It has nerve receptors that let you feel pain and cold and heat and pleasure. It grows and shrinks. (grows more than shrinks for most of us). It repairs itself when it tears. We don't have any synthetic invention that comes close to mirroring what our skin does.
Everything around us shows the knowledge and intelligence of God. You just have to open your eyes to it.
God is not anti knowledge, He is the creator and wellspring of knowledge. And when God wanted to reveal himself to man, what did He give us? He gave us a BOOK. He gave us a book of knowledge. Not a book of incantations. Not a movie for us to watch. Not a feeling to be experienced. But a book, a book of truth.
How can you claim to worship God, the God of such infinite intelligence and wisdom and design and be anti knowledge? They don't go together.
Knowledge is needed because it comes from God.
Knowledge is necessary because it keeps us from error. There are counterfeit gospels out there that will mess you up. The best way to spot a counterfeit is to know the real thing. If you really know the gospel, you aren't going to be susceptible to nonsense.
Hosea said in Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Jesus said Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. (John 8:32)
[!Bible] Psalms 119:11 - KJV 11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Do you know why people get sucked up into cults? Because they don't know the truth. If we did a better job teaching people the truth, the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses would all close their doors - because the truth is an inoculation against nonsense.
Knowledge is necessary keeps us from error.
One more thing, knowledge is necessary because God prescribed it.
Again, Paul's main prayer request for these believers was that they would grow in knowledge.
That is not unique. That was Paul's prayer request over and over again.
Listen, Philippians 1:9:
[!Bible] Philippians 1:9 - KJV 9. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more ==in knowledge== and in all judgment;
Paul's regular prayer is that people would grow in knowledge. Last Sunday Night, I preached from 2 Peter 1 about how we get everything we need for the Christian life by growing in our knowledge of God.
The very fact that we have these letters before us show us the importance of knowledge.
So Spiritual knowledge is absolutely necessary. You can't live the Christian life without it. That is my first point.
The second point I want to make from these verses is:
In other words, the foundation of our spiritual knowledge is what Christ did for us at the cross. Without the gospel - all knowledge is pointless. It is all futile. If we know everything else in the whole world and we miss the gospel - we are suffering from the worst kind of ignorance.
You can see this point right in our text. Right after Paul prays for people to grow in knowledge, he says this:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:13-14 - KJV 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
So Paul is making it clear that the foundation of our knowledge is this truth - we have been delivered from darkness by Christ and we have been been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
There are three things you absolutely must know about as the foundation of true knowledge.
First, you must know who Christ is. We didn't read it, but starting in verse 15 it tells us that Christ is:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:15 - KJV 15. ...the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Jesus is God. In verse 16 it tells us that Jesus created the world.
Almost every cult and false teacher has one thing in common, do you know what it is? They deny the deity of Christ. They deny that Jesus is God. The Mormons do it. The Jehovah's Witnesses do it. They all do it.
A few months ago, I had a Jehovah's Witness evangelist call me on the phone and he spent about fifteen minutes trying to convince me that Christ is not God. I told him he was a heretic and went to several places in the Bible that showed Jesus is God.
You have to know who Christ is, and secondly, you have to know what Christ did.
Again, verse 14 says:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:14 - KJV 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Jesus, the God man, came to this earth and lived the perfect life that we could not live and then died on the cross, and His blood is the offering for our sins. He has bought us (or redeemed us) through His blood and bought for us forgiveness from God.
This is the center of all of the truth in the Bible. This is the key to understanding all of it. It's all about Jesus. It's all about what He has done for us.
Do you believe in Christ? Do you believe that He is the son of God? Do you understand the gospel? Do you understand what He did for you?
You have know know who Christ is and know what Christ has done, and a third thing you must know is you must know that you are saved.
In verse 12-13 it says:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:12-13 - KJV 12. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
Paul was talking about how God has changed us - He has made us meet, or fit, to get an inheritance in heaven. He has changed us from being His enemies to being His children and part of His kingdom.
Have you been born again? Have you been converted? Has God changed your life?
These three things are the foundation on which we have to build our spiritual knowledge. You could build up a massive tower of knowledge, but if at the base you haven't been saved and you don't know the gospel - then it will all come crumbling down.
So we've seen that spiritual knowledge is absolutely necessary, we've seen that spiritual knowledge is based on the gospel. The third thing I want you to understand about spiritual knowledge is:
Look again at verse 10:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:10 - KJV 10. 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 purpose of our knowledge isn't just to know stuff. It's not for us to get a big head. True spiritual knowledge results in walking worthy of the Lord and being fruitful in every good work.
So there are two things there that your knowledge should do:
First, your knowledge of Christ should change the way you live. If you are learning and learning and learning, but never learning to walk worthy of the Lord than what you are learning is worth much.
There should be a connection between your head and your shoes. Between what you know and what you do. If there isn't, then what you know is useless.
I was watching a TV program once and they had on a man who is supposed to be one of the smartest men in the world. This guy had an IQ that was through the roof. Do you know what he was doing with it? Collecting unemployment. Living in his mother's basement.
All of us know people who can talk about infralapsarianism and supralapsariansm and parse the finer differences of eschatology between amillenialism and postmillenialsm but who don't even go to church and who have never shared their faith with anyone.
We need to increase in knowledge, but if that is good knowledge, it will result in us walking worthy of the Lord. What you know should change the way you live.
A second thing we see here about knowledge is Your knowledge of Christ should lead to a fruitful life of good works. In other words, you don't gain knowledge just for yourself. It's not all just selfish consumption. When you truly learn what God has for you, it should result in service for other people.
Are you fruitful in every good work? Are you active in taking every opportunity to serve other people? Listen, when you really know the truth, it makes you generous. When you really know the truth, it turns into serving others.
Don't look for big opportunities. Take advantage of every good work that you can. Maybe it's praying for someone. Maybe it's being an encouragement. Maybe it's sharing the gospel. Maybe it's sending a note to a missionary.
But your knowledge shouldn't just be knowledge for knowledge sake - it should definitely change the way you live and more specifically, it should result in you helping other people.
So, we are almost done. We've learned that spiritual knowledge is essential. We've learned that spiritual knowledge is built on the foundation of the gospel. We've learned that spiritual knowledge changes how we live.
One more point:
Look at the end of verse 10:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:11 - KJV increasing in the knowledge of God; 11. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
Do you know how you get through the hard times? You know God. You trust Him. The more you know Him, the better you will do when you are faced with life's inevitable difficulties.
I was talking to someone the other day and the subject of financial difficulty came up and he said "I'm not worried about it, God has all the money."
That person had learned to trust God for His provision. I've been with people at funerals who had no hope of heaven and I've done funerals for the faithful and the difference is severe. I've been by the bedside in the hospital with sick people who don't know Christ and I've been by the bedside of the faithful and the difference is stark.
What makes the difference? The knowledge of God.
The knowledge of God gives us strength to get through. You know, I'm reminded of the story of David, when he thought all was lost, when he was on the run from Saul and his family had been kidnapped and his men were turning against him. Do you know what David did? He strengthened himself in God. He turned to the knowledge of God for strength.
Your circumstances may stink. But God is still good. God is still in control. God is still winning. God is still looking out for you. That gives you strength.
The knowledge of God also gives us endurance. That's what patience and longsuffering mean in verse 11. When we know God and we know He is watching out for us, when we are trusting in His promises - it helps us endure the hard seasons of life.
Jesus could sleep through the storm because Jesus knew who was in charge of the storm. You do too. So you can get through this storm. You know that God will bring you through to the other side and if He doesn't you know the very worst that can be done to you is heaven.
Lastly, the knowledge of God lets us go through life with joy. It says longsuffering with joyfulness. Only Christ can give joy that can't be taken away. Peace that passes all understanding.
Only the knowledge of Christ can help you sing in the prison at midnight when you've been beaten and left in stocks. True spiritual knowledge helps you have joy.
So what do people need? They need to know God. What do Christian's need? They need to know God more.
I was reading this week about John G. Patton. John G. Patton went to be a missionary in the late 1800s to the New Hebrides islands.
When he got there they were cannibals. They were savages. They were constantly warring with one another. His wife died in childbirth and then his baby died a few days later and John G. Pattton had to sleep for days on his wife and child's graves to keep the cannibals from eating their corpses.
Can you imagine. But he stayed. And he preached the gospel. One by one people trusted Christ. The more they learned about God the more their lives changed. They went from acts of aggression to acts of love.
By the time Patton died there every single person on the island claimed faith in Christ and it looked nothing at all like it was when he got there.
The knowledge of God changes things.
Has it changed you? Have you trusted Christ? Do you know you are saved?
If you have been saved, do you value the true knowledge of God? Do you see how important this is?
One more question, if you know how valuable the knowledge of God is - and you have it - why not share it with others?
Let's stand for prayer and invitation.