Christocentric 2 – Life in Focus

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We all know what it's like to have something be out of focus or out of balance. Our lives can sometimes be out of focus and out of balance, so today we're going to be talking about our life coming into focus as we fix our attention and focus upon Jesus.

Open to the book of Colossians and follow along with us. Does it amaze anybody else that it's already November? Doesn't it seem like the year just goes by faster and faster? Every year seems to pick up more speed, and it's a little unsettling. As things start to pick up speed, you figure it can't go on like that forever. There will come a time when it will stop, and that thought can be unsettling.

My dad was an iron worker for over 45 years, and back in 1971, he fell eight stories, which is more than 100 feet. It's a miracle that he lived through that, totally unhurt—absolutely a miracle. Every time he's told me that story, he always says, "The fall's not that bad. It's the sudden stop that'll kill you." So yes, it's the sudden stop that we need to be mindful of as things go faster and faster.

Today is November 1st, Halloween is behind us, and there are 54 days until Christmas. I know, everybody says, "Don't tell me that." But guys, take note: 54 days! Don't wait 53 days; it's officially the holiday season. Before Christmas comes one of my favorite holidays of the year, the holiday that November...

Thanksgiving is known for being a time of gratitude. How many of you like Thanksgiving? I love Thanksgiving; it is such a great holiday. Thanksgiving serves as an important reminder for us to be thankful. The awesome thing about Thanksgiving is that it is rooted in religious tradition. Thankfully, we are not the only nation that celebrates a day of national Thanksgiving; there are other nations that do so as well. However, it is a holiday deeply rooted in religious tradition, especially the Christian tradition, and it acknowledges that there is one to whom we are to be thankful.

It recognizes that all the things we have—life, family, friends, a place to live, and food to eat—come from someone who has given them to us. Therefore, it is an opportunity to express our gratitude to God for His divine providence in our lives. This is such an important practice that we need to embrace. Thanksgiving, not just as a holiday but as an attitude and an act, is essential. These are vital ingredients to living a fulfilling life.

A few years ago, in 2011, I shared a sermon series called "The Key to Unlocking Joy." One of the messages I delivered discussed gratitude as one of the keys to unlocking a life of joy. When you find someone whose life is animated by joy, you discover someone whose life is characterized by gratitude. You cannot experience continual joy in your life without being a person who gives thanks. Thus, it is crucial for us to be thankful people.

A couple of weeks ago, we started a new series here at Cross Connection called "Christocentric." We are studying through the book of Colossians in the New Testament. If you have your Bible, you can open it to Colossians. If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. Colossians is very near the end of your Bible, right after the book of Philippians and just before the books of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. It is a small book called Colossians, written nearly 2,000 years ago by an early Christian apostle named Paul. Paul the Apostle began this letter, which we refer to as the book of Colossians.

When he wrote this letter to a group of Christians living in the city of Colossae, he was in a difficult situation and found himself in some pressing circumstances. He was in the city of Rome, not for a sightseeing tour, but as a prisoner of the empire of Rome, awaiting the day of his trial before the highest court of the land, before Caesar Nero. This trial had a very uncertain future for the Apostle Paul. He didn't know what was going to come for him. Although he hoped that he would be released and able to continue the work of preaching the gospel in places where it had not been preached before, he still didn't know what was going to happen. Ultimately, he would, through that trial and his appearance before Caesar Nero, suffer a martyr's death. He would be put to death for his faith in Christ.

Here he was, waiting for the time of that trial under house arrest in the city of Rome. As I've shared with you before, he wrote four different letters during this time. We've studied these letters this year: the letters to the church at Ephesus, the book of Ephesians, the book of Philippians, the book of Philemon, and now we are studying through the book of Colossians. The awesome thing is that the book to the church in Philippi, the letter to the Philippian Christians, has been called by many Christian teachers the New Testament letter of joy. In it, Paul talks about his overflowing joy. He speaks of having no lack, and yet the circumstance he was in at that moment, with an uncertain future under house arrest awaiting a trial, seems like a place where one would not experience joy, especially an overflow of joy.

It doesn't seem like you would be using words like "I have no lack" and "I am full." There are many people in our own nation, where we have so much, who couldn't say those words. So, you wonder, what was it in the Apostle Paul's life that could cause him or enable him to have joy and to say, "I have no lack, I am full," while being in dire circumstances and difficult trials? One of the answers to that question, I believe, is found in the passage we are looking at today.

So, Colossians chapter one, would you stand with me? Colossians one, verse three, is where we're going to be today. If you would pardon my voice, my dear little Evangeline is learning how to share; she shared her cold with me.

Anybody else have a cold right now? God bless you.

All right, Colossians chapter one, verse three. Paul writes, "We give thanks to God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you as it has also in all the world. And it is bringing forth fruit as it also is among you since the day that you heard it and knew the grace of God in truth. As you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit."

For this reason, we also, since the day that we heard it, do not cease to pray for you. We ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. We pray that you be strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Father, this powerful passage before us, I ask that You would give us insight, that You'd use Your word to transform us by the renewing of our minds, that we would be able to show forth in our lives this week what is Your good and perfect will. Lord, Your word is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and I pray that You would cause it to go deep into my heart and the hearts of my brothers and sisters here. May Your word reveal the thoughts and intents of our hearts, but also transform us, Lord, that we would show forth Your glory in a world that is in such desperate need of light and truth.

So God, use Your word today. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. The Apostle Paul, if you've ever read through the New Testament, was a prolific writer. He wrote 13 of the 27 books that are found in the New Testament. In eight of those, nearly two-thirds of Paul's books, they all begin with these very similar words: "I give thanks to God."

In Romans chapter 1, verse 8, he says, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all." Then again in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 4, he writes, "I thank my God always concerning you." In Philippians chapter 1, verse 3, he states, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you." Colossians chapter 1, verse 3, which we just read, says, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He expresses this sentiment again in 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, and Philemon. All of those letters begin in the same way: "I give thanks to God."

He also mentions, "I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience as my forefathers did; without ceasing, I remember you always in my prayers," as he said to Timothy. I think this reflects a pattern of life. It's not just words that Paul would write, but a pattern that he lived. This pattern is so important for you and me to be able to come into the fullness of life.

If you look down at your outline, your sermon guide is in your bulletin. A centered life maintains balance by thanksgiving to God. How many of you, when you were a kid, at some point in your life, played with a spinning top? Raise your hand. For some reason, spinning tops are interesting to me. In saying this, don't go buy me a spinning top, please.

They are so interesting, and my wife knows I'm a bit eccentric. I stumbled upon a Kickstarter campaign a few months ago where they were making these little tops that were CNC milled out of metal. I had to buy one, even though it was like $30 for a top, and I know that's crazy. But it's okay because Terry spent far more money on his tops than I did.

But the thing about a top is that if it's done right, centered right, and balanced right, you can spin it with your fingers, and this top spins for what, Terry? Over a minute? No, four minutes. He's got his spinning for four minutes, and that's impressive. It just looks like it's standing still, and oh, to have a life that has that kind of balance! People are looking for a life like that.

I think there's a sense here in our own nation that we are a people out of balance. People are always trying to find balance and equilibrium; they are trying to prioritize their lives. How many of you feel like your priorities are just out of whack sometimes? I do, constantly. You kind of feel like you're wobbling, like you're not centered.

One of the things I think we find as we go through the Scriptures is that God wants to bring us into a place where our lives are centered and balanced. That's why I've titled this series "Christocentric." The only way you can maintain balance and have a truly centered life is to have a life that is centered upon Christ.

That centered life maintains its balance through giving thanks to God. The proper orientation and the proper attitude in that giving of thanks are important. Notice here the attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving that Paul expresses. We need to be those who are giving thanks, but the focus is more important. It's giving thanks to God. In every one of those passages, those eight passages that I read, Paul's thanksgiving was always directed to God.

I was talking with someone not too long ago about gratitude, and they made the comment that they are just thankful to the universe. You have to kind of scratch your head when someone says something like that. I get it; it's 21st-century America, a postmodern world where people say all kinds of funny things. But I'm just thankful to the universe, and I think to myself, the universe is, but it doesn't really do anything; it just is. It didn't do anything for you; it just is. But God created the universe.

So, if you're going to be thankful, if you're going to have the right attitude of giving thanks, the focus needs to be correct. For our lives to maintain that centered balance, it has to be a thanksgiving that is directed to God.

And here, Paul patterns that for us. I thank God, making mention of you always in my prayers. Why was Paul thankful? Why did he pray for this group of believers who lived in a city a thousand miles away from him, whom he had never met? He says, "I pray always for you."

Have any of you ever had this experience? Someone says to you, "Hey, would you pray for me this week? I've got something going on. I've got this thing that I have to do at work. I have to give this presentation; I've got this interview coming up." They ask, "Would you just pray for me this week?" You say, "Yes, I'll pray for you," and then next week they come back and say, "Thank you so much for praying for me." You kind of feel that moment of guilt, like, "Oh, goodness."

Honestly, I feel that way every single week. I say I'll pray for people we know and love, and then I forget. Have you ever forgotten to pray for someone? Come on, be honest; I do all the time. Paul says, "I pray for you continually." He didn't even know these people; he had never had any personal interaction with them. Yet, he says, "I give thanks to God for you."

Why was he praying continually for them? He gives us insight as he continues in verse four: "Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, your love for all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven." We thank God continually for you because of your faith, your love, and your hope. These things have been called by Christian teachers for many years the essential Christian virtues: faith, hope, and love. These should be evident in my life. If I'm a follower of Jesus, these should begin to be expressed: faith, hope, and love.

Paul speaks of them in one of the most famous passages of Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He says, "Now abide these three: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." So, Paul's thanksgiving and his prayer for the Christians in the city of Colossae were based upon the fact that they and their lives were showing forth these Christian virtues. Someone had come and shared with Paul about the work, the church that was growing there in the city of Colossae. In fact, we will be introduced to the person in just a moment who shared with Paul about what was going on there.

But this individual came to Paul and said, "Listen, there's a church that's been planted. I know you've never been there, but it's a fruit of your ministry because this individual is a fruit of Paul's ministry." He continued, "It's a fruit of your ministry."

There, in the city of Colossae, a thousand miles away, this little city in the middle of Central Asia Minor, there is a group of people who are following Jesus, and their lives are beginning to manifest faith, hope, and love. Paul was filled with joy; his heart was lifted up, and he began to pray for them because they had faith, hope, and love. These three are absolutely essential for us to experience a fulfilling life—the abundant life that Jesus spoke of when he said in John chapter 10, verse 10, "I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly" or to its fullest.

These three components—faith, hope, and love—are essential to a life that is abundant and fulfilling. However, the sad reality is that oftentimes our faith is lacking, our love is misplaced, and many people would be characterized more by hopelessness than hope. People want hope; they long for it. That's why it was so hugely championed in the 2008 presidential election—hope. People gravitate toward that desire for hope.

Yet, many people find their faith lacking, their love misplaced, and their hope more hopeless than hopeful. Even in saying that, I may be describing some who are here in this room today. Hopefully not many, but it may be the reality that you are in a place where your faith is lacking, your love is misplaced, and your hope is more hopeless than hopeful.

I would say that core to this—us moving in the direction of becoming those who lack faith and have misplaced love—is having the wrong focus to our faith. Oftentimes, our faith, our confidence, especially in 21st century America, is in ourselves. We are taught from a very young age in this culture, which serves as a cultural waypoint, to come to a place where we trust in ourselves. "Number one, I gotta believe in me." Have you ever heard anybody say something like that? Have you ever said something like that? "I gotta believe in me; I can trust only in myself."

I'm the only one I really trust. We hear people say these kinds of things in our culture today constantly. But the fact is, every single one of us falls short of our own expectations. We fall short, and we realize that the ability wasn't quite there. The steadfastness of character that we thought we had wasn't there. The older we get, the more fragile we realize we are; the more we realize that we let ourselves down and we let other people down.

So, if your faith is misplaced, if the focus of your faith is yourself, then there's a reason why you might feel hopeless over time. Even if your faith, your confidence, your trust is not in yourself, if your faith is in your spouse, you don't have to be married for 24 hours to realize that that's misplaced faith. My poor wife trusted me. If your faith, your confidence, is in your spouse, they will let you down. If you're a newlywed today and this is the first time you heard it, I'm sorry, but they'll let you down. We normally tell people in marriage counseling and premarital counseling that they are going to let you down. It's so cute sometimes; they'll look at you and say, "No, never," or "No, really." We call that dumb love.

Wrongly focused faith will leave you in a place of broken faith. If your faith is in your career path, if your faith is in your 401(k), if your faith is in your health, if your faith is in whatever it may be, it will let you down if it's not in Christ. Notice what Paul commended these Christians for and what he praised God for: they had faith in Christ. Their faith had the right focus. He says, "We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus."

Point number two on your outline: a balanced life begins with focused faith. You will not have a centered or balanced life if your faith is not focused on Christ. A balanced life begins with focused faith. Having wrongly focused faith affects things. Paul praised and commended the Christians of Colossae because not only did they have faith in Christ, but they also had love—a certain focus of love, a love for all the saints.

You see, if your faith is in yourself, then you'll have a misplaced love, an inordinate self-love. Now, self-love is not abnormal. All of us love ourselves. In fact, if you hated yourself, you wouldn't take care of yourself. So, there's a certain measure of self-love that is actually important for us to thrive in life. However, there is an inordinate or excessive self-love. Oftentimes, when people put all their trust and confidence in themselves, they manifest a self-love that is excessive and can ultimately be harmful.

That self-love grows to such a place that they become overly protective of themselves, never stepping out into any new thing. They are afraid of how they might be perceived by others. They worry that they might injure their character, their reputation, or who they are by doing or saying something, by stepping out and sharing the gospel. The question, "What will people think of me?" is a clue that there is excessive self-love at play.

Having the wrong focus of your faith will lead to a misplaced love, which will leave you feeling helpless or hopeless. Paul here says to the Colossians, "You have faith in Christ Jesus and you have love for all the saints." When your faith is focused on Christ, it will bring these other things into alignment. It will bring them into center, if you will, into balance.

So much so, a Christ-focused faith will shift the focus of your love. When your faith is in Christ, centered upon Him, it will shift the focus of your love from self-focused to saint-focused. That is a good move; it is a good transition that takes place. This will lead us into the experience of fulfillment and joy.

I know that it's an odd thing to say. It's sad that it is, but this is kind of the outgrowth of the middle part of the 20th century of Christianity in America. It has moved us to a place where we feel weird hearing this or saying it, but God wants us to experience happiness. There are some of you right now who are thinking, "Well, no, there's a difference between..."

Joy and happiness are amazing things that can take place in our lives. However, there has been a guttural reaction in 20th-century Christianity in America that suggests it is wrong to be happy. This is not true. God desires that we experience happiness, but here's the point: happiness is only found in Him. Happiness apart from Him leads to idolatry, which ultimately results in unhappiness. It may provide temporary joy, but it will lead you to unhappiness in the long run.

God wants us to experience joy, happiness, and fulfillment, but this cannot happen without focusing on Christ as the centerpiece of our trust and confidence. He brings our love into alignment, moving us from self-focused love to saint-focused love, which directs us toward joy.

Not only does having a Christ-centered focus of our faith affect our love, but it also changes our hope. In verse 5, it is stated that you have faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. We cannot have hope for heaven without Christ-focused faith. The Colossians had put their faith in Christ Jesus, which changed the way they loved people. This change was evident and made them a hopeful people.

There are many things in this world that can affect our hopefulness. We are bombarded by challenges every single week that can diminish our hope. If your faith, confidence, and trust are not centered upon Christ, you will lose your hope, which will lead to a loss of peace. Proverbs says that hope deferred makes the heart sick, and there are many people in our nation who are heart sick. We may be one of the most heart sick nations in the world, which is perplexing given our abundance. It raises the question: how is this possible? The answer lies in the fact that the focus of our confidence and trust is on the wrong things, which has affected our overall well-being.

The way that we love has led to a loss of hope. Jesus, as He was getting ready to go into the most pressing circumstance that anyone could ever imagine, had His disciples with Him. They were watching this unfold, and it was affecting them as well; their hearts were troubled. He says to them, as recorded in John chapter 14, "Let not your heart be troubled."

This is a really terrible situation we are going through right now. Jesus, what do You mean, "Let not your heart be troubled"? He continues, "You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also." That is hope.

However, if your confidence and trust today are upon yourself and your good works to get you to be with the Lord in heaven, then you have very little hope. In fact, I have talked with people for years and asked them, "If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?" They often respond, "Well, I hope so." But their statement sounds more like, "Well, I really hope I win the lottery." It’s kind of like wishful thinking; it’s not a steadfast, absolute assurance.

I ask, "What are you basing that hope on?" They reply, "Well, I’m a pretty good person." That is where their hope lies. No wonder they feel hopeless. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust in anything else. If I am trusting and putting my confidence, my faith, in any other thing, it’s no wonder I would be hopeless.

But the Christian's confidence and trust are in the finished work of Jesus. What He accomplished on the cross 2,000 years ago, when He took your sin and my sin upon Himself, and all the punishment for our sin came upon Him, is what gives us hope. There on the cross, He said, "It is finished." It is paid in full. My confidence is in Him; what He did is sufficient. Therefore, I have absolute assurance that when He said, "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also," it has nothing to do with my good works. He has done it.

"For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." There is no boasting; it’s all about His grace. The believers in Colossae had faith in Christ. Their confidence was in Him, and it had altered the way that they loved one another, which in turn gave them hope.

Personally, I have a hope for heaven, which makes up an interesting equation. Some of you, especially if you've ever served in children's ministry, may have seen that little acronym we teach third graders about joy. Joy is Jesus, others, and you. What do we have here? Faith in Jesus, love for others, and you receive hope for heaven. That's a joyful place to be. This is what God wants to bring us into with this Christocentric focus.

However, you cannot have this hope for heaven without Christ as the central focus of your faith. Having Christ as the focal point of your faith, with your confidence in Him, will shift the focus of your love from self-focused to saint-focused. This brings us into a life that is in focus, a life that is balanced, a life that has a center. All of it is upon Him, Jesus. We all orbit, if you will, around Him. He is the gravitational pull that keeps my life where it needs to be.

How come the Earth doesn't just go off somewhere into the universe and careen through space like a shooting star or an asteroid? It is because it has something strong at its center that keeps it in gravitational alignment. That needs to be Christ for my life and for your life.

When Paul rejoiced in the church at Colossae, he gave thanks to God because that is where they were. They had God at the center. The Colossians had put their faith in Christ, they had love for one another, and they had hope for heaven. Where did all this come from? In verse 5, Paul says, "of which you heard before in the word of truth of the gospel, the good news, the gospel which has come to you as it has also in all the world, and it is bringing forth fruit." Where the gospel goes, it produces fruit.

As it is also among you since the day that you heard and knew the grace of God in truth, it wasn't about your good works; it wasn't about your confidence and trust in yourself or in something else in this world, but on Christ alone. You learned this from Epaphras, the person who shared the gospel with those people there.

In the city of Colossae, there was a man by the name of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. It is very likely that Epaphras was the one who heard Paul teach and became a disciple of Jesus under Paul's ministry while Paul was teaching in a city called Ephesus. This is recorded in Acts chapter 19 in the New Testament.

Epaphras became a follower of Jesus and a disciple of Christ through Paul's ministry. He then returned to the city of Colossae and shared the gospel with the people there, leading to the establishment of a church. As that church began to grow and manifest faith in Christ, love for all the saints, and hope for heaven, Epaphras went to Rome. He shared with Paul, saying, "Hey Paul, I want to tell you about what's happening in Colossae. There's a group of people there I went and shared the gospel with, and now they're manifesting faith, hope, and love." Paul was overjoyed. Having never met them before, he heard their testimony through Epaphras.

In verse 8, it is noted that he declared to us your love in the Spirit. What was the identifying characteristic that showed they were followers of Jesus? It was their love in the Spirit. Paul responded with prayer. He said, "I heard about you through Epaphras. He told us what was going on there in the city of Colossae, and you know what I did immediately after that? I prayed for you."

Here is his beautiful prayer in verse 9: "For this reason, we also, whoever Paul was with—Timothy and Luke—we all, since the day that we heard from Epaphras about your faith in Christ and about love and hope manifesting in your midst, do not cease to pray for you and to ask four things: that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; that you would be strengthened with all might according to His glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy; and that you would give thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light."

Now, just as a side note, Paul is the master of the run-on sentence. I love Paul. If you are an English major and you correct students' grammar all the time, you might find it drives you crazy, and you want to break out your red pen. I know Sierra is thinking about it, wanting to point out wrong syntax and improper placement. Paul is indeed the master of the run-on sentence, which probably all of us would resemble if we had a transcriber writing down our prayers.

And we could spend weeks going through what Paul prays for these believers in Colossae. He offers four prayers or four things that he prays for them. First, he prays that they would be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. This is my prayer for you as well—that you would know God's will.

Probably the number one question I receive from people is about decisions they face. People email me, call me, or come by the church during the week, asking, "I have this decision to make; I don't know what to do. What do you think God wants me to do?" I look at them and say, "I don't know." They often give me a blank stare, as if to ask what I do around here all week. I'm not your guru; sorry. I want to make a shirt that says, "Jesus is my guru."

But I do pray that you would have the knowledge of God's will, that you would know what God wants you to do. It's admirable and good that you want to know God's will. However, I want you to know what God wants you to do. Sure, I have all kinds of things I would like for you to do, but what does God want you to do?

Paul emphasizes that he prays for you to have knowledge of God's will in all wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are different. Knowledge is knowing things, knowing information, and knowing truths. Wisdom, on the other hand, is knowing what to do with what you know; it's putting it into practice. My good friend Randy Broberg, from whom I borrowed this idea, puts it well: knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, while wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad. It's simple but helpful.

There is a significant difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. The scary thing is that you can come to church week in and week out, or even read your Bible five, six, or seven days a week. You can read through the Scriptures and know many truths about God and the Bible, understanding what God would want you to do, and yet never act on it.

So, Paul says, "I pray that you would have the knowledge of God's will with all wisdom and spiritual understanding." This leads right into the next part of his prayer. He says that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work. Paul prays to God that you would know what God wants you to do and how to do it.

Apply that, and then that you'd do it. You'd walk it out. It's a sad reality, but it's a reality nonetheless. I have had so many conversations with people over the years who know the Bible really well. They could argue all day long about Reformed theology. They could argue all day long about the end times and eschatology. They could argue all day long about the person and work of the Holy Spirit and pneumatology, and yet their life is in shambles. They could argue with me about superlapsarianism, and to most of you, you might wonder, what in the world is that? Don't look it up; it'll totally freak you out. It's a biblical theological term. They can come argue with me about superlapsarianism, and yet they're living in an adulterous relationship. Wow, this really is not helping you at all.

You know what? They're the worst kind of witness for Jesus. All the non-Christians that they know say, "Yeah, it's so great that you know that and you go to church, but your life is crap." Paul says, "I pray for you, that you'd know God's will and you'd know how to put it into practice, and then that you'd do it, that you'd live it out, that you'd be fully pleasing to Him." Bearing fruit was Paul's prayer. He goes on, "I pray that you'd be strengthened with all might by His power."

Now, how do you say that sounds good? I want some of that might and power from God. God, would you pour out your strength and power and might upon the church in Colossae or the church in North County? Would you pour out your power and might upon them? In our minds, we're envisioning casting demons out of people, healing the sick, and walking on water. That's the kind of thing that we're seeing.

But notice the application of power that he's praying for here. God, would you give them strength with all might by His power for all patience? That was not where I was thinking that was going. And long-suffering with joy. God, I pray for the church at Colossae that they would know your will, that they would put it into practice, and that they would be patient with joy in the midst of trying circumstances. Now that's a witness for Jesus. You could know all the ins and outs of the five points, but if you don't have that, what good is it?

Finally, he prays that they'd give thanks to the Father for qualifying them to receive.

The inheritance of the saints. God, I pray for the church at Colossae that they would be a thankful people. They would recognize that their position today is not because of anything that they have done, but their position today is because You qualified them to be partakers of the inheritance. For no other reason than that, You, by Your grace, made them saints.

Point number five on your outline: Christ-focused faith compels prayer. I kind of wrote on the edge of this for others; I thought of it later on. Christ-focused faith compels prayer for others. Paul prayed for the Colossian Christians that they would know God's will, that they would live God's will, and that in living God's will, they would show forth patience and long-suffering with joy in the midst of trying circumstances. They would give thanks to God in whatever situation they were in.

Then Paul wraps it up by saying this: He, God, has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Do you want something to be thankful for today? He has saved you, taken you out of darkness, and put you in light, making you a son of the kingdom of His love. In Him, Jesus, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

You may say, "I don't have anything to be thankful for today." That's something to be thankful for. You have twenty-five days to get ready for Thanksgiving to thank God for that. If for nothing else, that's worthy of Thanksgiving. Amen?

Let's stand together as we close in prayer. Father God, I pray for my brothers and sisters here today that You would fill us with all knowledge and wisdom of Your will. God, that You would enable us, because, Lord, we are not sufficient of ourselves, and we have...

No power or strength exists within us, but we ask that you enable us by your power to walk worthy, to walk in a way that shows that you are glorious, true, and awesome in our lives. Lord, help us to be pleasing to you, not only in our actions and words but also in our thought life. Help us to bear fruit as we increase in the knowledge of you.

Lord, would you strengthen us this week? Every single one of us will face difficulties that may tempt us to be impatient and unkind. Would you give us the ability, by your Holy Spirit, to be those who have patience and long-suffering with joy? These are all fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Lord, work these things into our lives. We cannot make this happen on our own.

Lord, help us to be a thankful people. You spoke words of judgment upon the nation of Israel in the Old Testament because they were unthankful. You said that in the last days, there will come a group of people who are unthankful. May it not be said of us that we are unthankful. Help us to acknowledge that every good and perfect gift comes from you, and to live lives that glorify you through our gratitude.

Lord, bring our lives into focus. Help us to have a balanced and focused faith, a love for others, and an absolute certainty that we will be with you forever. We pray this in Jesus' name, for all those who are listening.