Col No.3 The Apostles Prayer 2

And there he tells us of some great spiritual experience which he profited from and goes on in all truthfulness to recount that following this there was a great test which came his way as a follower of the Lord Jesus. We'll read the first 12 verses of 2 Corinthians 12 and please would you read as a congregation the even numbered verses no matter what your version of the Bible is. It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory.

I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. And I knew such a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth. Of such a one will I glory yet of myself I will not glory.

But in mine infirmities and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations there was given to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me lest I should be exalted above measure. And he said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. I am become a fooling glorying ye have compelled me for I ought to have been commended of you for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles though I be nothing.

Amen. And we'll read through together to the 12th verse. Colossians chapter 1 reading verses 9 to 12 inclusive and we'll all read this together.

For this cause we also since the day we heard it do not cease to pray for you and to desire that he might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that he 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. Now I would be grateful and you will find it helpful if you would turn to Colossians chapter 1 and we shall focus our attention upon the 11th and 12th verses of this remarkably relevant epistle. Last week you may recall I uttered the comment that it would be a valuable exercise to engage in a study of the prayers of the Apostle Paul.

He was nothing if he was not a warrior in the ministry of intercession. True he had many innate natural qualities. He had an incisive brain.

He had leadership potential which became exploited in the service of Jesus and coupled to that was his own discernment in being able to appoint to positions of responsibility men who could rise to them. But the flame which caused all these natural characteristics to come to a blaze was prayer itself and the Apostle as I noted when he writes his letters to his Christian friends and several communities in the Roman Empire saturates what he has to say in the ministry of intercession. The word pastor is closely aligned to the word shepherd.

Indeed they're almost synonymous interchangeable terms. The pastoral symphony for instance brings to mind the thought of a landscape with a shepherd and with flocks in view. And one thinks biblically of the young David perhaps in his teenage days looking after his father Jesse's flocks on the undulating slopes around Bethlehem.

A faithful pastor was David. On several occasions the sheep were in great danger. Perhaps it was twilight and David heard the roar of a lion or maybe the grunt of a bear and he knew that his sheep were in a very dangerous situation so armed with his club and his staff and and his sling he went to the point where he thought these ferocious beasts were about to spring.

And there he exercised a ministry on behalf of the sheep and slew those animals. Now as it was for David on the natural so you determine it was for Paul on the spiritual. He's a pastor.

He's a shepherd. And there are many flocks that need to be looked after around the Roman world. And one of those flocks is found in the city of Colossae.

Now Paul is not the shepherd. The shepherd there is Epaphras. But Paul is concerned for the sheep for Epaphras is a friend of Paul's.

Indeed Paul led him to the Lord. So Epaphras in one sense exercises the ministry of under shepherd with Paul being the overall superintendent. Now what does the pastor do? What does a shepherd do for his sheep on the spiritual level when he's separated by the miles? What can he do? Well he can do something that is vitally important as important today as it was yesterday.

He can pray. He can pray for his sheep. For he knows that there is the roaring lion of the devil himself who goes around the world seeking whom he might devour amongst the Christian community and the pastor will pray against that.

The good shepherd keeps watch over his flock by day and also by night. The Lord sets the scene in the garden of Gethsemane as he engages in intercession for his disciples. And so it is for all who are in spiritual leadership incumbent upon them I argue to pray for the flocks of God around this world.

And we discover within these verses that we've been reading a compact edition a praesie if you like of the intercessions that Paul was offering for the church at Colossae. And I say that Paul would be offering today and that you and I must be offering for the church of Jesus Christ here in Worthing. I try to summarize the four basic features that there are within this prayer.

Put them into heading so that it will be easy for you to to memorize. And you will recall that the first thing that we located in the ninth verse was that the Apostle was concerned that these people might have a godly knowledge. 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 God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

A godly knowledge. Hinged to that is his concern for a worthy walk. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work in increasing in the knowledge of God.

You see knowledge is basically important for conversion. You can't be converted unless someone brings to you the illumination of the gospel message. Now Epaphras was the lamplighter at Colossae.

By the power of the Spirit he lit the the wick of the candle within the hearts of the men who listened to what he had to say. And Paul was praying that those Christians at Colossae as we're praying for men and women in the 20th century that their knowledge which they have received in part might be filled out that they may come to a greater understanding of the purposes of God. A godly knowledge.

A prerequisite for every Christian. Therefore basic to the prayer of any who exercise the pastoral ministry on behalf of others. But you see Christianity transcends the mere intellectual.

It goes to the experimental. To the practical. So from a godly knowledge you pray for a worthy walk.

Philosophy deals with the mind. Theology deals with the lifestyle. And the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.

He does not in some capricious way in some haphazard fashion plot his course in this world. No he's under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit. He's not his own.

He belongs to the Lord. And so he's going to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus. The man who walked worthily every day, every week, every month.

In the track that Jesus has mapped out the disciple will follow. Ah but there you've got a problem. Why? Well you see the Lord Jesus had great obstacles in his way.

There can be no doubt about this. Satan came along. Sometimes dynamically tempting the Lord Jesus.

Deflecting him from doing the will of the Father. Other times he used substitutes. He used his emissaries, his ambassadors.

At one occasion, terrible though it was, he used one of the close colleagues of the Lord to try to dissuade him from fulfilling his father's purposes. And today if you're walking in the steps of Jesus there will be problems. And I would argue from my own somewhat limited compared with some people here experience in the Christian life that it gets harder and not easier as you go along.

So the sensitive pastor who's prayed for a godly knowledge, who has asked God for a worthy walk on the part of the ones for whom he's offering intercession, will go on logically to pray for for a mighty strength. Verse 11, strengthened with all according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. And then finally he will pray that the people might be granted a praising heart giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

So let's look for a moment or two with brevity as my objective as well as clarity this morning at this third petition of the pastor Paul towards the Saints at Colossae and to all those who've been hallowed and sanctified by the Spirit of God in the 20th century. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. Now I say there will be tests in the Christian life, problems that will press in upon us, but here we are told that the supply of strength is equal to the gravity of the testing.

The supply of strength is equal to the gravity of the testing. There is nothing I feel that Christians should be aware of more than this as they engage in the service of the Lord Jesus. Come wind, come weather, come riches, come poverty, come health, come ill health.

There is a strength which God will give spiritually which is correlated to the need that you have. Mary Schleser, Florence Nightingale, a host of other women could be cited as an instance of this. Take Florence Nightingale for a moment.

Diminutive person and yet with her medical training she feels that she ought to go to the front line of a horrific battle that's taking place in her lifetime. In the most unhygienic circumstances and making for herself a track that no other woman has been on before. She goes to the front line of a battle and in the unwholesome atmosphere of military conflict with the language of the barrack room she there sets up a primitive hospital and in the name of the Lord God she ministers to soldiers who are crude and somewhat barbaric.

How does she do it? How does she cope? Well she has found out what the apostle here has been praying for and intimating is possible for every woman, for every man. That when there's a need correlated with that need is a divine strength so that a person can cope with all the problems that come their way as they engage in the glorious service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take a poor soul at the end of their life perhaps with malignancy, a malignancy eating away the last vestige of health.

They've been a Christian for many a year but now the pain is awful physically speaking and it's not all that easy to cope and hold on. Are there resources at our disposal? Is there a resource at the disposal of that particular person that will keep him in his hour of great need? Yes, says the apostle, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long suffering with joyfulness. Notice the apostle when he makes reference to this divine strengthening, uses the comparative words according to his glorious power, not of his glorious power.

You say, what do you mean by that? You're just playing with grammar. No, I'm not. Let me cite the instance of two millionaires.

Let's say that they're confronted with the need of a charity and one millionaire gives of his money to that needy cause. We congratulate him. Here is a man and he's written out a check, he's given of his wealth and it's good that some of this money is applied to this worthwhile venture.

But here is his colleague, also a millionaire, and he gives not of his wealth but according to his wealth. Now that's stupendous. He gives relative to what he has.

Now here is the Lord God and he's concerned with the human situation. He's strengthening the Christian church and every individual. And the way that he gives is not of his power but according to his power.

And that, if you think it through carefully, almost blows the mind to the extent that the apostle Paul, when he is engaging in a piece of autobiography, says this, that he is at a position in his own spiritual pilgrimage that he can praise God when he's weak. You remember the instance that he cites. There's this thorn in the flesh.

What it was? Well, we're not too sure of, but it seems to me from the context and other allusions that the apostle is physically weakened. There is some disease, some problem that he suffers from. As far as his health is concerned, he asks the Lord to strengthen him, to cure him.

But the answer does not come. Rather, he receives this particular piece of consolation. My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

And now the apostle responds to this and he says, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches and so on. You see the point? Here is a man who is thanking God that his situation is such that he can find experimentally what it means to be clothed, to be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power.

And in what areas of one's experience is this divine strength related? Well, follow it through in the verse. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering. You see the instances therefore that I cited earlier on from Florence Nightingale and the poor person with a malignancy, these instances are warranted.

I am to know this divine strength, this spiritual surge of power and energy unto all patience in whatever state and condition I am. That word longsuffering is perhaps a little bit archaic these days. It was a word that was particularly coined when this translation of the Bible was released.

The people really who were engaged in the translation wanted an opposite from the word short-tempered. And so they made up their own and it's rather a lovely one isn't it? The opposite of short-tempered, long-suffering. And the Apostle is here citing this instance where a person's patience is well nice spent.

He's really in great difficulty and he might move into the area of being short-tempered. No, says the Apostle, because I'm strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. Then I can take this dynamic energy and it will yield the fruit of patience and longsuffering in whatever circumstance I am in.

I say the reasoning here is remarkable. But notice this is no stoicism which the Apostle is advocating in his prayer. He's not saying grin and bear it.

Oh no, he is saying that it's possible with all the problems that crowd in upon the Christian, upon the believer, to be so strengthened with all might according to the glorious power of God unto all patience and in every situation which would test our patience and our short-temperedness. He's saying that this can also throw up with it the joyful attitude, with joyfulness. Nothing I feel is more wonderful than this.

Whatever circumstance I am in, whatever environment is mine, I can still know the joy of the Lord. You know the worldling doesn't know this. The person who is not a Christian believes that it's his environment, it's the circumstances that are conducive to the display of health and of joyfulness.

And so we speak about happiness and perhaps that's the best word to use in that particular instance. Because you see happiness is a derivative of the verb to happen. Happiness is governed by what happens.

But joyfulness is much deeper. What happens on the external does not interfere with the joyfulness that the Christian knows real deep down in his own personality. Now this is not just New Testament teaching.

Listen to the prophet Habakkuk. He's citing a situation where there would be economic disaster and chaos in a country. He says at the end of the prophecy that bears his name, although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat.

The flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet, yet what about you Habakkuk? Will you be plunged into depression and despondency? Will you be like some in the stock exchange in New York when it went broke in the in the 20s was it and you got men committing suicide? Will you be sucked into a vortex of despair? No, says the prophet, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation.

You say it's all pie in the sky. I tell you, you ought to have my calling if you believe that. I've known men's bodies racked with cancer before now, praising God in a ward full of infirmed people.

I've known memories of Christian people still linger on in hospitals and nursing homes in this particular town with a professional staff that could not understand why these people were able to maintain joy when their physical bodies had so deteriorated. So many instances, not just in the area of health, could be cited to back up that what the Apostle Paul is praying for here is not pie in the sky, but is full of realism, something that can experimentally be entered into on the part of the Colossians yesterday, but also on the part of us today, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. Well, there you have it, the third petition.

He's asked the Lord, I repeat this for help for you to see where we're going. He's prayed for this godly knowledge, for this worthy walk. Now he's asked the Lord for this mighty strength, and yet he's not through.

There's one more thing. He's asking the Lord that he will give his people a praising heart, a praising heart. Again, I say that this is very interesting.

It's very significant in the epistles. Paul is constantly enjoining the Christian people to be a thankful people. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, he makes reference to those who have given an offering to the Lord from the thankfulness that there is in their own hearts.

Perhaps an even clearer reference to what I'm trying to bring to your attention is found in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 20, where there the Apostle is once again asking, pleading, suggesting to the Christian community at Ephesus that their natural response to the gospel that they have received is to be seen in terms of a thankful heart, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus. You get it again in Colossians and chapter 3 and the 17th verse, perhaps the most exquisite statement in the whole of the Bible concerning the praising heart of the believer. Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

I believe that Christian people should be the most grateful people on God's earth. They should be a praising people. Him serve with mirth.

You remember we were singing that a little while ago, but not just singing it. That makes a mockery if it's not lived out in our lives, to praise the Lord, to come together on a Sunday morning and a Sunday evening to enter into these hymns so that they become our own piece of praise, which we offer to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. There's hardly anything that distresses me more than sometimes when we sing a hymn, which is full of verve and vigor and enthusiasm, and we don't rise to it.

We don't make that hymn our own hymn. Why? Well, you see, we're falling short of this standard that the New Testament sets for us, and the Old Testament also. We are to be a thankful people.

Come ye thankful people, come. We sing that at harvest, don't we? But every Sunday is an occasion when we commemorate the spiritual harvest of salvation having been brought into this world. Therefore, in all things, we give thanks unto the Father.

Now, why? What is the springboard of this thankfulness? Well, listen to the apostle. It's quite logical here. You can't miss the point that he's making.

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers in the inheritance of the saints in light. What does that word mean? Which hath made us meet. That's an archaic word.

Very hard for some of our contemporaries to appreciate this type of biblical language. Well, let's take the word meet out and substitute it with the word qualified. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

All right, you've got the word qualified in your mind. You understand what that means. We'll come back to it in a moment or so.

Let's go on to the thought of inheritance. The inheritance of the saints. What does this mean? Well, in the Old Testament, reference is often made, or at least it's made on several occasions, to people who have an inheritance.

There were those two sisters in Genesis who were complaining to their brother Laban that he was making off with their inheritance. Go on to the book of Numbers, and there you will find some reference made to the allocation of various parts of the promised land to the tribes. And reference is made to the tribe of Levi, who had no earthly inheritance, but their allocation, their lot was the Lord God.

Go on to Joshua, and there you'll find that man farming out the various tracts of country. An inheritance, you see. The Old Testament people, they understood what all that was about.

Ah yes, that you and me in the Christian era, in the New Testament dispensation, we have an inheritance. Did you know that? That inheritance was drawn up by our Lord Jesus. He wrote a will.

Are you aware of this? You say, well, what had he to leave? On the earthly level, nothing. But on the spiritual level, he had a great deal. He left his righteousness.

When he was breaking bread, when he was giving wine to the disciples, he was in effect accumulating all his spiritual wealth, the purity that he had retained during the years of his ministry, during the whole of his life on this earth. He was saying, look, I transfer it to you. All the benefits of a life that has been lived in complete obedience with the will of the Father, it is now credited to your account.

Now Christian people, therefore, become the wealthiest people on God's earth. They have an inheritance. They are qualified to receive this inheritance.

But notice, and this is why I said I will come back to that word qualified. It's not something that they have done themselves. A man who has a degree, you can congratulate him.

He's taken a course of studies at a university or a polytechnic and he's worked hard and he receives the rewards of his labor. You can say he's done well. He's qualified himself.

But no, that is not the way in which the word is used here. Giving thanks unto the Father who hath qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. I did not save myself.

There was nothing I could bring into the holiest place of all to indicate to God that I should be received into his eternal kingdom. No, it was God the Father who sent his Son to die on the cross of Calvary, to bear my sins, to take away my shame. It was the Father who qualified me.

It was the Father who elected me. It was the Father who, by the dynamic operation of the Spirit, called me from a godless generation into the redeemed community, into the family of the elect. Now when you know that, my friend, when you know that properly, then despite your environment, despite your circumstances, you will be a praising person.

The inheritance of the saints, it's yours. The inheritance of the saints in light, the light of the glorious gospel which has shone into your heart and life, has illuminated you, has given you an indication of all that God has for you in the future. And as I said earlier, it matters not, come wind, come weather, come sickness, come health, come riches, come poverty, come loneliness, come companionship.

Whatever the circumstances may be, whatever the environment is through which you pass, all this belongs to you, and no one can pluck it from your hand. No one can take it away from you. Now you see, therefore, how not only logical, but how sensitively spiritually Apostle Paul is when he prays for these things.

And I repeat, there's no prayer that needs to be offered more than this one for us all. A prayer that we may have a godly knowledge, but not just knowledge of itself. That can become sterile.

But that that knowledge might be worked out in practice day by day. A worthy walk coupled with a godly knowledge. And that when we are tempted to defect from the cause of Jesus, we might be strengthened with all might.

Not the might of the elders, not the might of the spiritual leaders in a particular Christian community, but the might of almighty God himself. Strengthened with all might, so that there's sufficient need, that sufficient resources correlating with the need. And ultimately, as a result of this, making us into a praising people, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

May God fulfill that prayer in our own experiences here in the tabernacle increasingly. To his glory. Amen.

Father, we ever stand amazed at the way that your word just relates to our situation in the late 1970s. And we ask that this prayer, which lives and rings a contemporary note, may be realized in the experience of each one of us in this tabernacle this day. Lord, we want a godly knowledge.

We want to walk worthily. We want to be clothed in strength and in your glorious might. We want, O God, to return to you thanks constantly as a praising people.

Lord, we plead again, answer this prayer in terms of our Sunday through to Saturday experience. For Jesus' sake. Amen.