10th Sunday after Pentecost: Colossians 1:9-14 (Notes)

INTRO
Last week we considered how Paul began developing his purpose of setting out the way to maturity in Christ by thanking God for the fruit of the gospel in their lives. Through the gospel, God is bringing about a new creation, a people marked by lively faith and sacrificial love. As Paul thanks God for the fruitfulness of the gospel, he is led to pray for the fruitfulness of those to whom the gospel comes. In vv. 9-14 Paul prays that they be filled with the knowledge to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. While this is a prayer, it is a prayer that teaches, just like the psalms.
I. The prayer. (9)
Paul picks up and reiterates the statement of prayer in v. 3.
Again he reiterates the constancy and regularity of his prayers for them.
And this is simple point, worth noting: Paul prays for what he works for.
Just as he is going to say in v. 28, “”, even so he prays for their maturation in Christ.
IOW there is a priority placed upon prayer in his writings.
Think how often we undertake various endeavors w/out committing them to the Lord in prayer.
A. Filled with knowledge of God’s will.
Note: Divine passive: IOW “God might fill you…”
1. God’s will.
a. As I noted in v. 1, God’s will is not simply what God…
b. It involves His will to bring about a new creation in Christ.
c. That overarching will of God, then directs our actions.
d. We are to manifest that new creation life in every area of life.
2. Knowledge.
a. Thus an insight into this new creation and its implications for us.
b. Far from the speculative and abstract knowledge promised by the false

teachers, the knowledge Paul prays for is concrete, practical and lived in…
B. In wisdom and spiritual understanding.
These three terms (K, W, U) need to be read in their OT context, where they are the fruit of God's Spirit.
For instance consider Ex. 31:3 where God says that he “filled” Bezalel “with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.”
So Bezalel engaged in his new creation work re: the Tabernacle by being filled with just these traits.
1. In the OT wisdom is the ordering of creation under God.
2. This was the test held out for Adam in TOTKOGAE: Would Adam humbly
receive wisdom from God by ordering creation according to His Word, or would he
arrogantly seize wisdom in violation of His Word?
3. The passage in Ex. 31:3 makes it clear that true knowledge, wisdom, and
understanding come from God by His Spirit.
4. So now when Paul prays that God would raise up a bunch of new Adams
"bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God," he first
prays that they be filled with the gift that will enable them to take up this calling:
the Holy Spirit wrought knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of God’s will to
play their part in this new creation.
II. The purpose. (10a)
Note here the purpose of k/w/u is not to win a theology argument, or sound important, but…
A. To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
1. “Walk” in the OT was a common image depicting the conduct of…Life then was
pictured as a “way,” a journey toward new creation.
2. One’s conduct in this “way,” is to be “worthy,” that is, in keeping with the person
and work of Jesus.
B. Fully pleasing Him.
1. This is what it means to walk worthy of Him.
2. Conducting one’s life so as to bring Jesus joy and delight.
a. We know w/out faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).
b. We know that those in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:8).
c. Walking by faith according to the power of the Spirit is how to
please God.
But what does that look like? Well, Paul goes on in four participial phrases to define, our give the concrete shape of walking in this way.
III. The description. (10b-14)
A. Being fruitful in every good work. (10b)
1. Just as the gospel went throughout the world bearing fruit, even so…
2. The gospel creates new Adam’s, fruitful and productive members of…
3. Here this fruitfulness is said to be good works – those works consistent with
God’s new creation (see Col. 3:12ff: works of kindness and humility; loving your
wives and children, laboring diligently in your employments).
Note what this kind of living leads to:
B. Increasing in the knowledge of God. (10b)
1. Here we begin to see a spiraling movement.
2. As you receive the knowledge of God’s will and begin to apply that knowledge in
the ordering of your life, that leads to greater knowledge.
3. Note the importance of obedience for knowledge!
But Paul knows that this spiraling movement is itself founded upon God’s power:
C. Being strengthened for endurance. (11)
1. Lit. empowered with all power.
2. This power is in keeping with God’s glorious might.
a. The same might and power displayed in the Exodus.
b. The same might and power displayed in the Resurrection. (Eph)
3. God directs this might and power for the endurance needed to not grow weary
in well-doing.
4. This “way” is difficult and we are prone to throwing in the towel.
5. These terms are nearly synonyms.
a. Patience: Resolute endurance under difficult circumstances.
b. Long suffering: Patient endurance that does not retaliate (lit. "the
long breath"). Ex. 34:6 – “slow to anger,” Gal. 5:22 as a fruit of the Spirit.
D. Joyfully giving thanks to the Father for the New Exodus. (12a-14)
This is what sets Paul apart from the Stoics.
They could drum up resolute and patient endurance, but to do so with joy!
Think of Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi in Acts 16:25. (hymns at midnight)
1. He has made us heirs. (12b)
Here Paul uses terminology that reminds of the OC.
a. The notion of inheritance = Acov/Canaan.
b. The saints = God’s priestly people.
c. Light = Heavenly city.
d. Under the NC the promise of Canaan has been transformed into
the promise of the NH/NE to which Canaan pointed (Rom. 4:13).
e. It is for this inheritance that we have been qualified by faith/baptism into
Christ (Gal. 3:27-29).
And just as God acted in the Exodus to bring Israel into their inheritance:
2. He has delivered us from darkness into the kingdom of His Son. (13)
a. Note that power and kingdom are parallel, as are darkness and the Son.
b. In the Exodus that Christ accomplished for us on the cross (lk. 9:31), the
power and dominion of sin over us has been (past tense) broken just as
surely as the power and dominion of Pharaoh over Israel was broken when
he was cast into the sea.
c. And just as Israel was delivered out of Egypt into Canaan, even so God
has conveyed/transferred us into the kingdom of Jesus.
d. This is of course shot through with baptismal associations since Paul
elsewhere refers to the Exodus as Israel’s baptism and it was at Jesus’ own
baptism that God referred to Him as His beloved Son.
And just as God “bought” Israel in the Exodus (15:16), even so…
4. In the Son we have redemption. (14)
a. In the exodus of the cross, Jesus has bought/redeemed us just as God
bought Israel (Gen. 15:16). “You’ve been bought with a price..."
b. This redemption that is ours in union with Jesus consists of the
forgiveness of sins.
c. It was for this reason the Jesus came into the world (Mt. 1:21).
d. And beloved this is your possession (“we are having”) in Christ. e. In the
same way that God hurled Pharaoh and his armies to the bottom of the sea,

He has hurled your sins to the bottom of the sea and He remembers them no more.
f. For Christ has made atone for them and you are now clean in His sight!
CONCLUSION
So then we’ve considered this rich prayer of Paul that they be filled with the knowledge of God’s will to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. You’ve learned something of what this walk consists: being fruitful, increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened by God for endurance, and giving thanks to God for the new exodus He has accomplished in His death. In terms of Paul’s overall purpose in the book, he is saying that the way to maturity for God’s people begins in prayer. Growth to maturity in Christ is not something that you can do on your own, it is something that God gives. It begins with the gift of knowledge given by His Spirit and as this knowledge is put into practice, He gives more! But even the putting it into practice is founded upon God’s power at work in you raising you to walk in newness of life and not grow weary in well-doing. This is the way to walk worthy of the Lord, the way to maturity in Christ!