Colossians 1:9-14 –

⁹And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. ¹³He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Introduction

What is the hardest thing someone has told you to do? I know some of you have been told to do really hard things in the military, by a boss, by your doctor, and by a family member.

More to the point, have any of you been told to do something you didn’t think was even possible? If so, how did you respond? Did you even try? What made you think it was impossible?

Well, it’s important for you all to know that Christianity is filled with “impossible” commands. It’s a command to dead people to be born again and believe the gospel (John 3:3). It’s a command to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). It’s a command to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). It’s a command to count all trials as joy (James 1:2). It’s a command to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44). It’s a command to lose your life so you can find it (Matthew 10:39). It’s a command to give everything you have to the poor (Matthew 19:21). It’s a command to love God with all you have (Matthew 22:37). It’s a command to hate your father and mother (Luke 14:26). It’s a command to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink His blood (John 6:54). It’s a command to fit through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24). It’s a command to follow Jesus wherever He leads and whatever it costs (Luke 14:33). And, as we see in our passage for this morning, it’s a command to change kingdoms (Colossians 1:12-14) and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him (1:10).

The question is, of course: How is it possible to do the impossible? And the answer, as I mean to help you see, is that what is impossible for man is possible with God. Graciously, mercifully, miraculously, God provides for us what He requires of us. That’s the big idea of this passage: from the beginning to the end of the Christian life, God gives His people all we need to live lives worthy of and fully pleasing to Him. And the main takeaway is to work hard at all that God has commanded us to do in the faith and strength He provides.

Before I pray, I invite you to be humbled and amazed by that good news. You do not rightly understand what Jesus calls you to if it does not seem impossible. But you do not understand the grace of God if you do not recognize that He provides what He requires.

God Provides What He Requires to Live the Christian Life (9-12)

As we wrap up this section of Paul’s letter, I want to give you a brief recap of what we’ve already covered in it. As I do, I hope you’ll be able to clearly see that God truly does provide all that He requires to live as He intends no matter our circumstances. And I hope you’ll be able to see that it’s just as true for us today as it was for the Colossians then.

You may have noticed that Colossians 1:3-14 is all one big prayer. In the first half, in vs.3-8, Paul prays, thanking God for the work He’d already done in the Colossians. More specifically, he thanks God for the faith, hope, and love He’d established and preserved in them through their hope in the gospel and through significant trial. Paul continually thanked God that His grace was more than enough to allow the Colossian Christians to see that Jesus is a treasure worth far more than all the inevitable and remarkable difficulties they faced for trusting in Him.

Then, beginning in v.9, Paul moves from a prayer of thanksgiving to a prayer of supplication. He moves from thanking God for the grace He’d already given them, to asking God to grant the Colossians a new and fuller measure of grace. In that, we find one of the clearest explanations of how God means and empowers us to live lives worthy of and fully pleasing to Him. That is, a right reading of Paul’s prayer for the Colossians in 9-12 helps us make sense both of the rest of this letter and of our own lives in Christ in a profound way.

God Provides Knowledge of His Will for the Christian Life (9)

The gist of this portion of His prayer is: Living in a manner worthy of and pleasing to God in any circumstance (which is the very purpose of our existence) begins by knowing God’s will for our lives. We cannot live as God intends if we do not know what He intends. But we cannot know what God intends unless God graciously reveals it. So Paul asked God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of His will.

If you don’t want to know God’s will and aren’t willing to seek it where it is found, you cannot live the Christian life. And so, pray that prayer, Grace. It is impossible for any of us to know what God wants from us apart from God revealing it to us, both in content and meaning. Ask God for both and He will grant both—He has granted them!

God Provides All Spiritual Wisdom and Understanding for the Christian Life (9)

More than merely knowing His will, though, Paul knew that the Colossians also needed to know how to apply it to their present circumstances. In other words, knowing that it’s God’s will that you love your enemy is not the same as knowing what exactly it looks like to love the actual people who are tempting you to believe heresy (as was the case for the Colossians). Knowing how to do so—knowing how to apply God’s will once you have it—is what Paul calls “spiritual wisdom and understanding”.

Paul knew that the Colossians needed this, that it was impossible for them to get on their own, and that God provides what He requires, and so he asked God for it on their behalf.

Pray that prayer, Grace. It is as impossible for any of us to translate knowledge of God’s will into knowledge of God-worthy, God-pleasing specific actions apart from God’s help as it was for the Colossians. Ask God, therefore, to provide what He requires of you—spiritual wisdom and understanding—and He will grant them.

God Provides All Power and His Glorious Might for the Christian Life (10)

Paul knew, of course, that all of this was impossible for the Colossians or anyone else. He knew it was impossible for them to even want any of it in their own strength. That is why this is a prayer before it is a set of instructions. And it’s also why He asks God to accomplish all of that in the Colossians by granting them His power and glorious might. Paul knew that God would empower them to understand, desire, and do what He’d called them to or they would never be able to do it.

Pray that prayer, Grace. Ask God to strengthen you for the specific aspects of His will that you must obey today.

God Provides Endurance for the Christian Life (11)

Even more, though, he also knew that this was not a one-time charge. It’d be impossible for the Colossians to live as God called them to even once, but the actual call was to keep doing it continually. They were to discern God’s will, apply it to their circumstances in a God-honoring way, even as their circumstances became more difficult and the cost to do so grew, over and over and over. Paul knew that God would provide what He requires or the Colossians would fail. And so, He prayed that God would grant them (not just some, but) “all endurance and patience”.

Pray that prayer, Grace. Ask God for the grace to faithfully live the Christian life continually, with all necessary endurance and patience, and He will grant it. He will sustain you through whatever He has for you.

God Provides Joy for the Christian Life (11)

That’s a lot, isn’t it? Any of that is impossible. All of that is even moreso. But Paul wasn’t done. He knew that God required even more from His people. If the Colossians were going to truly live in a manner worthy of God, they needed to know God’s will, how to apply His will, how to persevere in His will through every trial, and how to do so in joy!

It’s one thing to imagine summoning all your self-control and discipline to begrudgingly love your enemy—to seek what’s best for them even though they are actively working for your harm—but it’s something entirely different, something entirely more impossible, to do so “with joy”. How do you delight in doing good, continually to those who mean to do evil against you? It is impossible for man, but not for ...