A Prayer to Be Pleasing
Colossians 1:9–12
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Well, we return again to our series in the Book of Colossians, so please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. How do you identify a true Christian? That’s an important question to answer—especially since, as Jesus says in Matthew 7, that there are many people who call themselves Christians but are no such thing. I imagine some would say, “Well, a Christian goes to church on Sundays.” “A Christian reads his Bible regularly.” “A Christian prays and devotes himself to fellowship with other believers.” “A Christian gives to the church and sacrifices his time and resources to meet the needs of the saints.”
Now, all of those answers can be true. Christians do join themselves in meaningful membership to Bible-believing churches. But of course, there are members of Bible-believing churches who are not genuine Christians. Christians do read their Bibles, and pray, and have fellowship with other Christians. And yet, not everyone who reads, and prays, and spends time with believers is necessarily saved. Christians do live and give sacrificially to meet the needs of their fellow-church members. But even that kind of generosity can be counterfeited by those who desire the approval of men—who would rather have a reputation as a Christian than actually be a genuine follower of Jesus.
I think one of the best answers to that question—How do you identify a true Christian? What characteristic is a genuine believer marked by that can’t be counterfeited by phonies?—I think one of the best answers is: a true believer genuinely desires to be pleasing to the Lord. A true believer has an ache in his soul to be pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ in all things. This very concept has been at the heart of the worship of God from the very beginning. Beginning with Noah in Genesis 8, with the Tabernacle in Exodus 29, and then with the entire sacrificial system in Leviticus and Numbers, you read that same phrase, over and over again: “a soothing aroma to the Lord.” The worshiper desired that their sacrifices would be a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.
We see it in that great prayer from the heart of David that is the capstone of Psalm 19, verse 14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.” “I want my words and my thoughts to be pleasing to You!” In the Book of Romans, after laying out all that glorious Gospel-theology in the first 11 chapters, Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you…to present your bodies to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable [or pleasing] to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul says that the goal of apostolic instruction is to teach them “how you ought to walk and please God.” In Ephesians 5:8–10, he says that what characterizes the “children of Light” is that they “try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” Pleasing the Lord Jesus is the sum and substance of the Christian life, and so the true Christian’s deepest desire is that he be pleasing to the Lord.
This is the One who has given His all for us—the One who, though He was rich yet for our sakes became poor, so that we through His poverty might be made rich. His unfathomable miseries under the wrath of His Father secured our unspeakable joys under the smiles of our Father. As those who have been freely credited with all righteousness in Christ—even by His being made sin for us—our supreme ambition is to bless the heart of our beloved Savior, to bring a smile to the face of Christ, to bring joy to that heart that was pierced with the sword of God’s wrath for us, to bring joy to the heart of the One who has filled our hearts with “joy inexpressible and full of glory.” The identifying mark of a true Christian is that he longs to delight the heart of Christ by doing the things that are pleasing to Him, by bringing forth the fruit of His grace in our lives, so that He might see what His grace has accomplished in His people, and be satisfied with the work of His hands.
Now, let me ask you another question. If the mark of a true Christian is that his deepest desire is to please the Lord, what is the mark of a true pastor? Well, one answer that has to be at the top of the list is he is diligent to pray that the people entrusted into his care would be pleasing to the Lord. This is the pastor’s duty to his flock. In that famous passage in Acts chapter 6, we see how central a priority prayer is in the Apostles’ own understanding of the ministry Christ had called them to. The practical demands of ministry were so great that they recognized the need to delegate to others the necessary oversight of the distribution of food. And so they directed that seven men be chosen to tend to that. “But,” they said, Acts 6:4, “we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Prayer was absolutely essential! It was the first responsibility they would devote themselves to.
Why? Because the Father has ordained that His children receive the good gifts of His grace by means of our asking for them. Prayer is the means by which we lay hold of the blessings of God—both for ourselves and for others. As Paul suffers great affliction in Asia, he is confident that God will deliver him, 2 Corinthians 1:11, “you also joining in helping us through your prayers.” Deliverance will come by means of the Corinthians’ prayers for Paul! Or in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 19, as Paul waits to stand trial before Nero—right around this same time that he’s writing to the Colossians—he tells the Philippians, “I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” The provision of the Spirit’s help and protection will come as an answer to the faithful prayers of the saints.
So also: the sanctification and maturity of the people of God will come, in part, as an answer to the faithful prayers of their pastors. And so the faithful pastor knows his sheep. He knows what their needs are, and he prays to the Lord to give grace according to those needs, that they would grow in grace and holiness, so that those believers in Jesus who are called by His name would be pleasing to Him. And in our text this evening, that is precisely what the Apostle Paul is doing on behalf of the Colossians. Paul is a good pastor. And so he has been praying to the Lord that the believers in Colossae would be pleasing to Him.
Last week, we worked through Paul’s thanksgiving in verses 3 through 8. You remember, in that text, Paul begins by giving thanks to God for His grace in the lives of the Colossians. He has received report from Epaphras—who has traveled 1100 miles from Colossae to Rome to warn him of the threat of false teaching, but who has also told Paul that there is reason to rejoice because of what God has worked in the Colossians’ hearts. Verse 4: “…since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Well, Paul picks up on that again in verse 9, and he says, “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you.”
And so, while verses 3 to 8 formed Paul’s thanksgiving for what God has already accomplished in them, verses 9 to 14 constitute Paul’s petition, or his supplication, for what he wants God to go on working in them. One commentator said, “He heard [that] they were good, and he prayed that they might be better” (Henry). Especially in view of the threat of these false teachers, peddling their mix of Jewish ceremonialism and pagan mysticism, the Colossians need “to continue in the course that they’ve begun” (Moo, 92), and even excel still more. And so that is what Paul prays for. It’s a pastor’s prayer that his people would be pleasing to the Lord.
Let’s read our text. Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 to 12. Paul writes: “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.”
And as we meditate on the faithful pastoral prayer of the Apostle Paul for the Colossians to be pleasing to the Lord, we’ll observe both (a) how each of us should pray for one another, as well as (b) how we all, as believers, should strive to live by God’s grace. And to reap that benefit from this text, we’ll examine four features of Paul’s prayer.
I. The Constancy of Prayer (v. 9a)
And that first feature we find at the beginning of verse 9. It’s what I’m calling the constancy of prayer. Paul says, “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you.”
Now, of course, this does not mean that Paul did nothing else in his life than sleep and wake up and pray for the Colossians. But it does emphasize that, as a faithful pastor, Paul devoted himself to this most vital ministry of taking the needs of the saints of the Lord before the throne of grace. Paul exhorted the church in Thessalonica, in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, to “pray without ceasing.” Here, he practiced what he preached. Or in Ephesians 6 verse 18, he says, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit.” And later on in Colossians, in chapter 4 verse 2, he urges them: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” Paul tells them in Colossians 1:9 that he has practiced the very thing that he has so often called all the saints to do: to be devoted to regular, daily, constantprayer.
Paul didn’t even know these believers, but since the day he heard that they had received the Gospel from Epaphras, he hasn’t stopped praying for their spiritual growth, for God’s grace in their lives, for them to know God’s blessings and to be protected from sin and temptation.
And his example admonishes us to the same constant prayer for one another. Genuine, earnest, faith-filled, fervent prayer to God on behalf of one another’s spiritual needs is among the most loving and beneficial things we can do for one another. So often, we hear about the needs of fellow believers—whether there’s been health issues, relational conflict, battles with sin, maybe a death in the family—we hear of these needs and our heart drops. And we feel the pain of that need in the pit of our stomach, and we wish so badly that we could do something about it. And we feel so helpless, because we know we can’t do anything about it.
But oh, friends: we know Someone who can do something about it, don’t we! We know the sovereign King of the universe, who governs every molecule of the cosmos according to His wise and holy purposes. And that King has bidden us to call upon His name in the hour of need, to come before His throne of grace and present our petitions to Him—a kind and loving Father who delights to give good gifts to His children. Jesus Christ our Savior has purchased for us every blessing in the heavenly places, and he beckons us to pray those blessings from His heavenly storehouse down into the possession of our brothers and sisters. We will be put into possession of the spiritual blessings Christ has purchased for us by the means of praying for them.
And so one pastor wrote, “The best method of declaring our love and affection consists in this, that we pray for those whom we love, and desire these spiritual and salutary blessings for them from God” (Davenant, 110). If we love our brethren enough that we would improve their situation if we could, let us love them enough to be constantly praying to the One who can, and who promises to do so, if only we ask Him.
And I love what Pastor John said about this. He said that the secret to imitating Paul’s constancy in prayer is to love God and to love people. If we love God, we will seek unbroken, daily, constant communion with Him in prayer. And when good things happen, our instinct will be to praise Him for His grace; and when bad things happen, our instinct will be to pray for His help. And then, if we love people, we will be aware of their needs, and will bring them to God as we pursue communion with Him.
Let us be a people, Grace Church—truly—who constantly seek the face of our God. Let us be a people who can say with integrity to one another what Paul said to the Colossians: I “have not ceased to pray for you.” Let us love one another in that way.
II. The Content of Prayer (v. 9b)
Well then, in the second place, let us consider, not only the constancy of prayer, but, number two, the content of prayer. What is it that Paul actually prays for the Colossians? Verse 9: “We have not ceased to pray for you and to askthat you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
And right away, you can see that the content of Paul’s prayer for the believers was transcendent. Knowledge of the will of God! All spiritual wisdom and understanding! This constant prayer in which Paul engages on behalf of the Colossians wasn’t primarily focused on their next doctor appointment, or for their next home repair. And I don’t mean to discourage prayer for those practical matters: we ought to pray for one another about everything. But I would love it if at a Bible study prayer time, or at some other prayer meeting, the content of the prayers we ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us sounded more like this. “Brothers, I feel a dryness in my soul that I can’t seem to shake; would you pray that the Lord makes His face to shine on me and shows me the light of His countenance?” Or, “I sense a laziness and even a backwardness in my spirit toward the things of the Lord. Would you pray that God would stir up my zeal for Him?” Or, “I confess that I am perplexed at how to apply the Word of God to this very complicated situation. Please pray that the Lord will fill me with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” You see, Paul didn’t just pray for changed circumstances—a good doctor’s report or conflict resolution. He prayed for changed people. He prayed for sanctification: the application of more grace so that they could live through their circumstances in a manner that was honoring to Jesus.
And so he prays, first, that they would be filled with knowledge. And it would have been impossible for the original readers not to detect a polemical edge in those words. You might remember from our introductory sermon two weeks ago that the pagan side of this eclectic false teaching had its roots in an early form of Gnosticism. And Gnosticism—from the Greek word gnosis, which means “knowledge”—taught that the highest form of spiritual attainment was in gaining access to an exalted, superior knowledge that was only ever achieved by an elite few.
And besides this, the Gnostics were polytheistic. They conceived “God” to be “a descending series of emanations from [an ultimate] divine being” (MacArthur, 7)—like sparks flying off from a greater source of light. And they called the full complement of those divine emanations “the pleroma,”—which is translated “fullness”—a term that Paul will use at several key points in this epistle to counter the false teachers’ heresy. So, the Gnostics taught that the fullness would yield to them a transcendent knowledge, and immediately Paul tells the Colossians that he prays that they would be filled with all knowledge. In chapter 1 verse 28, he’ll say that he admonishes every man with all wisdom. In chapter 2 verse 3, he says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. And in chapter 3 verse 10, he says they are being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created them. He’s telling them: “Fullness of knowledge doesn’t come from pagan mysticism! It comes in Christ alone! And I haven’t stopped praying that you would lay hold of it in Him!”
This certainly teaches us about the centrality of knowledge in the Christian life! In every age of the church, there always seems to be a subset of professing believers who balk at the intellectual aspect of Christianity—people who are suspicious of theology, who seem unable to be bothered with deep thinking and rational argumentation, as if the use of the mind somehow corrupts true worship or the plain meaning of Scripture.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus Himself teaches that knowledge is the foundation of worship, when He tells the woman at the well, “We worship what we know,” and that true worship is offered “in spirit and truth.” And in 2 Timothy 2:7, Paul says—about the Scripture he is writing—“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (ESV). Understanding the Scripture comes by thinking it over! Pastor John goes so far as to say that “Careful thinking is the distinctive mark of the Christian faith” (Philippians, 286).
And he’s right. In Hosea 4:6, God famously says of Israel, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” In 1 Corinthians 4:20, Paul says, “Do not be children in your thinking; … in your thinking be mature.” And in Ephesians 4:12–16, he says, “We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine; … but…we are to grow up” in Christ, until we all attain to the “knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man.” Any kind of anti-intellectualism, any kind of celebrated ignorance, is contrary to Christianity. The Christian faith is an intelligent faith, a thinking faith, for we are to love the Lord our God with all our mind.
But notice: this is not just knowledge for knowledge’s sake. This is not just any knowledge. It’s certainly not the esoteric knowledge of Gnostic mysticism. It is—look at it—“the knowledge of God’s will.” The knowledge that we’re after is a knowledge of what God wants from us. And where is that to be found? Again, not in contemplative experiences of mystical enlightenment, but in the Scriptures. God’s will is revealed to us in God’s Word. And what does God’s Word say God’s will is? I can’t ask the question without thinking of Pastor John’s five-point outline: God’s will is that you be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, and suffering.
John 6:40: Jesus says, “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life.” God’s will is for you to be saved through faith in His Son. Ephesians 5:17 says, “Understand what the will of the Lord is,” and verse 18 says, “Do not get drunk with wine, … but be filled with the Spirit.” God’s will is for you to be under the complete control of the Holy Spirit. First Thessalonians 4:3: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” God’s will is for you to be increasing in holiness and obedience and likeness to Christ. First Peter 2:13 and 15 says, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,” whether kings or governors. “For such is the will of God.” God’s will is for you to be submissive to all forms of God-ordained authority. And then 1 Peter 4:19 says, “Those who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.” God’s will is for you to do the right thing even if you suffer for doing so.
That’s the will of God. Paul says, “I want you filled with the knowledge of God’s will!” And then he adds, “…in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” Sophia and sunesis were two of the three “intellectual virtues” of classical philosophy (the other was phronesis, which appears in Ephesians 1:8 and refers to “insight” or “prudence”). And these virtues speak to the ability to translate the knowledge that they have into skillful, wise, practical living. Paul doesn’t want them merely to increase in knowing the facts of God’s will. He wants them to be so acquainted with God’s revelation that the Spirit of God is able to infuse them with the understanding and the wisdom that applies knowledge to a godly life in every circumstance.
III. The Purpose of Prayer (v. 10a)
And that leads us, quite naturally, into the third feature of Paul’s prayer. Not only the constancy of prayer and the content of prayer, but now, number three, the purpose of prayer. And we see that in verse 10: We ask the Lord “that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects.” And this picks up the theme that I began in the introduction. The purpose for which we pray, the purpose of being filled with Holy-Spirit-wrought insight into the will of God (cf. Moo, 94), is that we may live a godly life that pleases the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul frequently uses the verb “walk” as a metaphor for the Christian’s lifestyle. The way you live is how you “walk.” Romans 6:4 tells us we have been raised from our spiritual death to walk in newness of life. Ephesians 2:10 says that God has created us in Christ Jesus for good works, that we would walk in them. Our way of life is pictured as a road that we travel, as pilgrims on a journey to the celestial city (to borrow from John Bunyan).
And Paul says we must walk—we must live, we must conduct ourselves—“in a manner worthy of the Lord.” Now, right away that’s jarring language, because we know that the foundation of the entire Gospel of Christ is that we sinners can’t walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Nothing we ever do is truly worthy of the God of perfect and pure holiness. I mentioned Bunyan a moment ago. He famously said, “The best prayer I ever prayed had enough sin [in it] to damn the whole world.” And I know exactly what he means. And so you and me, walking worthy of the Lord, at first blush sounds contrary to the Gospel itself, which teaches us to look outside of ourselves to Christ for our worthiness before God.
But walking in a manner worthy of the Lord does not mean that we earn God’s favor in any way. It means that we should live a life of spiritual integrity—a life that corresponds with the glory and worthiness of the Lord we claim to follow. In Ephesians 4:1, after Paul has just spent three chapters celebrating the high calling of salvation, Paul implores the church to the holy conduct that befits that high calling. He says, “I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” He speaks similarly in 1 Thessalonians 2:12, where he urges the believers there to “walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” And then in Philippians 1:27, he says, “Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Live in a way that is consistent with the Gospel by which you’re saved! The Gospel saves you from sin, so you cannot go on living in sin! God has called you out of the domain of darkness (Paul will say in verses 13 and 14), and He has transferred you to the kingdom of His beloved Son. If you were formerly darkness but are now Light in the Lord, well then, Ephesians 5:8, “walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasingto the Lord.”
If the Father has made you His sons and daughters by faith in Jesus, well then live like obedient children. That’s only fitting. If all of your hope is fixed on heaven, which is a place of pure and unmixed holiness, then live like you’re citizens of heaven. That’s only consistent. If you call Jesus your Lord because He has conquered the dominion of sin in your life, then live as if He is your master. Why would you call Him “Lord, Lord” and do not do what He says?
And so knowledge must issue in a worthy walk. This is its purpose. We learn, and understand, and know, never as an end in itself, but in order to live in a way that pleases the Lord in all respects. Again, as we said at the beginning, this is the identifying mark of a true Christian. The true believer longs to live in a way that brings joy to the heart of Jesus, so that when He looks upon us, He can see the effects of His own grace in our lives, and be pleased with what He can see of Himself in the people He has saved from sin. This is the goal of everything. And so it is the purpose of Paul’s prayer for the Colossians. And it must be the purpose of our prayers for one another.
IV. The Results of Prayer (vv. 10b–12a)
And when that happens—when we pray for one another that we would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we, as the people of God, may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, what will that look like?
Well, that brings us to a fourth feature of Paul’s prayer, namely, the results. The constancy, the content, the purpose, and now the results. And we find four of them in verses 10 to 12. Paul lists, “bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” There are four results of prayer in these verses. Or, you could conceive of them as four characteristics of the worthy walk that pleases the Lord: obedience, maturity, strength, and thanksgiving.
The first characteristic is obedience. “Bearing fruit in every good work.” In that famous portion of John 15, Jesus says that He is the vine, the Father is the vinedresser, and we are the branches. He says the Father is glorified when we “bear much fruit, and so prove to be [His] disciples.” In Romans chapter 7 verse 4, Paul says that we have been united to Christ—just as a branch is united to a vine—“in order that we might bear fruit for God.” Believers are to be fruitful branches. We are to bring forth the fruit that our Father, the vinedresser, expects to reap by planting us into Christ, the vine.
What kind of fruit are we to bear? Paul says, “every good work.” In 1 Corinthians 16:15, Paul calls the first converts of the church in Corinth “the first fruits of Achaia.” And so evangelism is one of those “good works” in which we can produce fruit. Hebrews 13:15 calls praise “the fruit of lips that give thanks to [God’s] name.” As Paul collects money for the poor saints in Jerusalem, he calls the financial offerings of the Macedonians and Corinthains “this fruit of theirs” in Romans 15:28. And then, of course, the full panoply of spiritual graces that characterize godly living is called “the fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
A second characteristic of the worthy walk is maturity. Paul says, “bearing fruit…and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Now, Paul also used these two participles—bearing fruit and increasing—in verse 6, when he spoke about the Gospel “bearing fruit and increasing” both in the Colossians and in all the world. He is being intentional with his language, here. And it is difficult not to see a conceptual parallel with the repeated “bearing fruit and increasing” on the one hand, and the original creation mandate in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Several commentators believe that Paul is intentionally alluding to the fact that what God had purposed for mankind in creation—which had so quickly been undermined by man’s sin—is now being fulfilled by the Gospel of Christ, who has overcome man’s sin by His death and resurrection. And so mankind comes to realize our full humanity as image-bearers of God when we are fruitful and multiply in good works.
Well, specifically, Paul says we are to increase in the knowledge of God—which is just another way of saying we ought to grow up into maturity. We made reference to it before in Ephesians 4:13: Paul says the saints are to be equipped and edified “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” And so, knowledge of God’s will in verse 9, leads to a godly life in verse 10, and that godly living leads to an even greater knowledge of God. We never arrive in our knowledge of God. He is infinite. The glories of His majesty are beyond tracing out. The more of Him we know, the more we discover how much more there is to know. And so we will be increasing in knowledge as long as we live in Christ.
And this knowledge is not merely the acquisition of more information about God; this is an increase in knowledge ofGod Himself. This is communion. This is getting to know God more the way you get to know your husband or your wife more as you live life together! as you walk through joys and trials together. This is the knowledge of God that discovers by experience just what it means that He is a God of grace. It’s when you’re on your face again, because you’ve sinned against Him again, in precisely that way you’ve asked Him for forgiveness for a thousand times before. It’s when you know yourself so vile before Him, that you wouldn’t be surprised at all if He finally cast you away from Him for good. And it’s to say—from those very depths of grief—“Lord, I know I don’t deserve to be anywhere near You, but where else can I go? You have words of eternal life. You have grace for forgiveness. Even if propriety would keep me away from You, I know that You’re the Risen Son of God, the Savior of sinners. And so I raise my eyes to You once again, and say in the shame of my uncleanness, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean!’” And it’s to know the sweetness of His willing embrace: “I am willing; be cleansed.”
There is a knowledge of the Lord that comes from walking with Him like that, from savoring His grace while being so acutely aware that you need it. To know Him there for you in trials, to savor His consolations in seasons of despondency, to taste of His goodness in providence! O, eternal life is to know God! This is what spiritual maturity is. And that’s what Paul prays for.
A third characteristic of the worthy walk is strength. Paul says next, “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might.” This is the means of a worthy walk—how the lofty standard of pleasing a holy God is to be achieved. As long as we aim to live a spiritual life, we are in need of spiritual strength. And because we do not have that strength natively within our own resources—because we are weak and helpless within ourselves—God grants what He requires. He gives what He commands of us, because if He didn’t, we’d never be able to do it. He supplies “all power”—whatever power we stand in need of to be able to serve Him obediently, to love one another sacrificially, and to endure trials faithfully, to resist temptation, to mortify sin, to reject worldliness. Matthew Henry says, “To be strengthened is to be furnished by the grace of God for every good work, and fortified by that grace against every evil one: it is to be enabled to do our duty and still to hold fast our integrity.”
And specifically, we are strengthened, look at it, specifically “for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.” Not to rule and dominate, not for ostentatious displays of charismatic showmanship. Strengthened to endure hardship, and not be moved; to bear up under manifold afflictions patiently. We are strengthened to be able to suffer long, without yielding to despair, without yielding to the deceptions of false teaching, but continuing in the faith, as Paul says in verse 23, “firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard.” “Be still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side; Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.” It takes strength to bear up under grief and pain! And so the next line: “Leave to thy God to order and provide”—to provide all power, according to His glorious might—“In every change He faithful will remain.”
Strength, to be steadfast under all difficult circumstances, and to be patient with all difficult people. That’s not easy, but it is glorious. It is evidence of grace. And it is pleasing to the Lord. One commentator said, “Our patience confounds the devil, causes angels to rejoice, glorifies God himself, and…sometimes melts and converts the most inveterate enemies” (Davenant, 140).
But that steadfastness and patience is not grim Stoicisim. It’s not just the power to grin and bear it, because the fourth characteristic of the worthy walk is thanksgiving. And not just thanksgiving, but joyful thanksgiving. Look at verse 12: “…joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” And this rounds out this opening section of Paul’s prayer. Verse 3 began with, “We give thanks to God, the Father,” and verse 12 ends with “giving thanks to the Father.” If the Christian life is all of grace, then the Christian’s lips must be full of gratitude.
You see, steadfastly and patiently enduring affliction because we have been supplied with the glorious might of God to do so is so much more glorious than experiencing trouble-less peace with no sensible need for God’s strength. Grace is so much more glorious a gift than ease! Which is why Paul says in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Him and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” The consolations and communion with the Lord as He ministers to us when we suffer along with Him for righteousness’ sake bestow views of Him that simply are not visible on the path of ease and luxury. And that brings joy, and thanksgiving, even in the midst of affliction.
Conclusion
And why especially? Because our Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” We who were by nature qualified for nothing but the flames of eternal torment and terrifying darkness by grace through faith in Jesus have been qualified for a saint’s inheritance in the everlasting Light of heaven. Which of you won’t rejoice for that? Which of you will refuse to joyously give thanks to such a kind Father?
It would seem only those who have not yet been so qualified, who don’t have that sure and steadfast hope of a saint’s inheritance. Dear friend, if you’re with us tonight and you are not trusting in Jesus, if you remain a stranger to God’s grace, you are qualified only for eternal judgment. For Jesus Himself says, “Unless you believe…, you will die in your sins.” Face it, friend: just like the rest of us, you have not walked worthy of the Lord. You have not pleased Him in all respects. In fact, you haven’t pleased Him in any respects. Romans 8:8 says, “those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
But with faith, by His grace, we are made able to please Him, even as we’ve learned from this text tonight. God is, dear friend, and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him: of those who release their grip on the idols of this life—greed, love of money, pride, lust, anger, bitterness, gossip—and who abandon their hope of pleasing God by their own works, and who turn to Jesus with the empty hand of faith, and receive Him to be all their righteousness and all their joy. His life of obedience is offered in place of your life of disobedience. His sacrificial death is offered in place of your eternal death. His resurrection life of holiness is offered in place of your present life of bondage to sin. Come to Him in faith this evening, and begin to learn what it is to live to please the God who you were created to know and love.
And my dear fellow-believers: aim all of your life at walking worthily of the Lord, and pleasing Him in everything you do. Critically examine every aspect of your life before the Lord in prayer, and ask Him: “Lord, does this please you? Does this please you? If not, Lord, give me grace to lay it aside, and put on in its place those things which bring joy to Your heart and a smile to Your face.” That is the blesséd life. That is eternal life. It’s heaven, broken into the present age. Press after it, and pray for it on behalf of your brothers and sisters.