"Fully Pleasing Him"

So, we're back, back on the stage, which is a little bit different. Back with a microphone that I find very irritating. More ways than one will look forward to being home, but it's certainly been nice to be here together and I think what will now be a feature every time, Lord willing, we're able to get away as a retreat, is having an opportunity to take a break from our normal passage back home, working our way through Exodus and focusing on the very passage that we all learned together over the course of this weekend.

And so this morning, we're closing out our church retreat and we're going to spend some time reflecting on Colossians 1, 3 through 14. Now Colossians 1, 3 through 14 is broken really into two verses. It's essentially two sentences.

Paul, for modern American grammar, would get a lot of red marks on his writings. Americans are averse to run-on sentences, but the ancients loved them. And even earlier English writers tend to love run-on sentences as well, but we don't think in long thoughts anymore.

We can't keep the main subject and all of the corresponding structure in view, so we need kind of short, curt, to-the-point sentences. So really, verses 3 through 8 are one sentence in Greek, verses 9 through 14 are another sentence in Greek.

So two sentences in Greek that occupy verses 3 through 14. However, we're going to divide it into three sections, mainly because I want to have three focuses, or three moving parts to the message this morning.

Now as I say that, you'll know and you'll see, and I'm sure you can sympathize, I will hardly do justice to this passage. I would need five, maybe ten sermons just to try to do justice to this passage.

There is so much theological depth packed into the phrases, the key words, the way that there's a correlation between the first and the second half, and then all of the reference points we have, not only in Colossians, but the gospel writings as a whole.

So I simply want to engage, almost in passing, some of the central features of this passage that I found particularly striking and important based on our focus over the weekend. And I'm going to draw that all to a singular application in two parts, a single application, the main application, that I would like to put before us, maybe challenge us to consider, and hopefully take with us when we leave this place.

So the first thing we'll do is look at verses 3 -8. We particularly want to see three key words for Paul, faith, hope, and love. Then we'll look at verses 9 -11 and get into the real focus of R .C. Sproul's sessions, which were pleasing God, and we'll talk about verse 10 in particular, fully pleasing Him.

And then in verses 12 -14, we'll consider the truth of the gospel. So beginning in verses 3 -8, we give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.

Paul begins in his letters, he often begins this way, with a presentation of his thankfulness. When Paul sits down at his desk or takes the yellow legal pad on his lap and begins to draft his letter to a church, he must have taken a moment to say, what am I thankful for about these believers?

What ought I be thankful for in regard to these believers? He always begins letters with a note of thankfulness. That's meant to come across as an encouragement to them. I'm thankful for you. And that's something that I think we can learn from as he encourages them to do in the second half, in the second sentence, give thanks, give thanks to the Father, consider and reflect on all his benefits, be thankful for them.

So before we even press into the content of his thanksgiving, we should just appreciate the fact that Paul offers thanksgiving. I say that because we live in an age of instant gratification. And with instant gratification comes thanklessness.

You want everything, you want everything now. I lived in the days when you had dial-up internet. Some of you even lived before those days. Now, we have everything in microseconds. And if it takes longer than a microsecond, we get frustrated.

And I remember having to wait 20 minutes to have some access to America online. We live in the age of instant gratification. And with that, we find more and more to complain about, less and less to be thankful about.

We, in fact, don't even have enough time to consider the things we should be thankful for. Thanksgiving, in other words, does not come naturally to us. But what Paul shows us is that thanksgiving is one of the chief graces of a mature Christian.

A mature Christian is a thankful Christian. A mature Christian is someone who can find thankfulness even in the trials and difficulties of their life. Not just a naive optimism or a glass-half-full outlook, the world has those as well.

But one who is genuinely and sincerely thankful for God, thankful for what God is doing, thankful for what God has done, thankful for who God has put them with. And that we see in Colossians 1, verse 3.

The thing that's striking is Paul says, he's been thankful as soon as he heard. Now, there's details from chapter 2, details from chapter 4, details from the book of Acts that would imply Paul never met these particular believers.

Most likely, he knew Epaphras when he was in his long stay in Ephesus. It's more than likely that he was actually discipling Epaphras there. But we know from Acts 19 that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into the province of Asia.

And here, we have Herapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae. So we don't, at this stage, perhaps early 60s, this is one of the prison epistles, we don't have evidence that Paul had ever met these. So he's heard them.

He speaks of those who had not seen his face. But he says, I'm so thankful for you. I've heard about you, and I'm so thankful to know about you, so thankful to hear the reports of you, so thankful for what God is doing in you and through you.

He had just heard about this body, and he's thankful for them, and he's committed to pray for them. Now, I wonder, as a church, in our little neighborhood in Barrie, if we were to hear about a church plant, the town over, some brand-new church plant, and there was all this buzz, and people were coming through the common, maybe even stopping in, did you hear about the church plant in Phillipston?

Oh, it's amazing what the Lord is doing there. What would our response be? What do you think? I'm almost embarrassed to say what my response would be. Well, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see what the Lord's doing over there.

I don't know that my first instinct would be thankfulness. It might be, oh, well, I hope they don't take anyone from us. Maybe, in fact, we'll take some from them, yeah? Maybe it will fail, and we will increase.

No, no, I don't actually think that way. But that doesn't mean I would be genuinely thankful. Would I say, I'm so thankful, God's doing a work in the next town? I've never met any of these people. I'm going to pray.

I'm going to pray with thankfulness and joy. The Lord is doing something, even in a place that I have not been, people that I have not met. The Lord is at work. That's something to rejoice about, something to be thankful for.

And then notice the particulars of Paul's thanksgiving. He's thankful and is prayerful since he heard of your faith, he says, in Christ Jesus, your love for all of the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.

These three words are central to Paul's theology. We see them in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, the famous triad. Now, these three remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love. Paul returns to love when he affirms with these believers that Epaphras had declared to him their love in the spirit.

So he has a natural love for them as other believers. They have a natural love for all of the saints. Epaphras has said so. So all around, you see this mutual love. Even though these brothers and sisters had not met, there's a comprehensive love for what God is doing, a love that has come from God and is for God's people.

That will be alongside the main point at the end. They have faith. You could translate that trust. And here, we see Paul reverse the word order from Jesus Christ to Christ Jesus. That's just a reminder that that word Christ is not a proper name, but rather a title.

Even in office, it's Messiah. You put your faith in the Messiah and with all that comes with the Messiah. You trusted in the one who had been promised to Israel's race, the Savior that though they rejected, he has become the chief cornerstone.

And that faith in Messiah has corresponded to a love for all of the saints, all those who have been saved by that same blood, governed by that same spirit. They have been made one. And that is in accordance with, that even, in fact, grows out of a hope that is laid up for them.

That seems to correspond to his description of the inheritance that they partake of, something that's reserved for them, as Hearst Peter would say. So Paul has heard of these believers, and then he goes on to say that they are also ones who have heard.

I heard about you and what the gospel has done in your life. And I'm thankful and prayerful as a result of the things that I have heard.

But you know what?

That all began when you heard, when you first heard the word of the truth of the gospel. And then Paul says, and by the way, here's something to be joyful. Here's something to be thankful. Here's something to be prayerful about.

The same thing you heard, that's gone out all over the world. And wherever it's gone, just as it has in your life, it's bringing forth fruit. So as you have this love for all the saints, think about all these little groupings of the saints all over the world that even this very morning are gathering to worship the Lord who has saved them.

Paul is thankful for that. Paul rejoices in praise for that. He seeks that it might increase, but he certainly appreciates that it is. We have a number of synonymous terms here. Word of the truth, the gospel, since you heard the grace of God in truth.

So look at these phrases, the word of the truth, the gospel, and the grace of God in truth. These are all the same thing. These are all different ways of understanding the word, the message, the gospel, the grace of God that has come to them.

The message that is bearing fruit. He puts it in these different ways to show them different angles of the same saving message that they had received. The word of the truth, the gospel, which was to them the grace of God in truth.

And this is not a passive reception. It does not have a static outcome. This is not merely a social club that has gathered in Colossae, nor here in Jaffrey. It's not an outward adherence to some new understanding, as many Stoics and religious devotees did in the ancient world.

No, no, Paul says the gospel has come and it is fruitful. It is bearing fruit in you. It is bearing fruit through you. It is bearing fruit all around you. Wherever the seed has been cast, there is fruitfulness found.

The word of God does not return to him empty nor void of the purpose for which he sent it. And so, Paul is essentially encouraging these believers if faith has begun by hearing, and hope is the basis and the fixation of that faith, and it's working out in love as faith must always work itself out in love.

And Paul says, you have every evidence of the Spirit of God working in and.

Through you.

You have the saving presence of his grace in your life. You've got the real McCoy, the real thing, and that's shown by your love for all of the saints. You have faith, hope, and love. And if you look to Christ, and you look to the brethren of Christ, and you have a hope for glory, this is the sign that fruitfulness is working.

Fruitfulness is abounding. That's something to be thankful for, Paul says. And then he moves on, secondly, to verses 9 through 11, fully pleasing him. For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it.

Don't you love that image of the day? It's like as soon as the report came, he just bowed his head and began to spontaneously pray with thanksgiving to God. Since the day we heard it, we have prayed and we have not stopped praying for you.

And then he gives us the content of that prayer, that petition, that they would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Ligon Duncan, in his exposition, makes a really important point about prayer.

And honestly, you'd have a whole message about prayer, more than a message on prayer. We're not gonna spend too much time on prayer, but I at least want to say this. Paul turned to prayer when he saw God was at work, rather than turning to prayer because he did not see God at work.

That's a very good catch. Paul became increasingly prayerful as he saw movement and activity and blessing from God. That, for him, was the trigger, the impetus to begin praying more and more zealously, more and more faithfully, more and more incessantly.

Because God is at work, because God is doing something, because fruit is abounding, he's gonna put his shoulder into prayer. I think, and I think what Ligon's getting at here, I think we tend to pray when we don't see God working.

When we enter into trial or letdown or discouragement, and we say, it's time to take the safety hammer and break the glass case of prayer. We've tried everything we could in the flesh, and now we're gonna have to finally come to the end of ourselves and resort to praying for God to fix these things.

Well, Paul doesn't have that logic at all. When he sees God working, he prays incessantly that God would continue to work, that there would be more fruit, that there would be an increased activity of the spirit among the people of God.

We are tempted to think, well, if God's taking the initiative and he's already working, that's great. The prayer's been answered. We can kind of rest and put in cruise control our prayer lives. We'll only have to resurrect prayer when that begins to falter.

But notice what Paul says, since the day we've heard it, we do not cease to pray. You are fruitful, you are increasing, you have every evidence of God's presence and vitality among you. And that's a reason to pray without ceasing.

We do not cease to pray, asking that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. You read the letter and you observe that Paul's gonna have a lot to say about wisdom and understanding.

To these Colossian believers that were on the verge of being blown about by every wind of false doctrine, empty philosophy that would cheat them, heresies and false teachers that were coming through and seeking to lead them astray.

And so Paul is praying, even as you heard the truth, I pray that you would be filled with wisdom to know that truth and act accordingly. With spiritual understanding to catch the deceptions in the strain, to see the lion who's prowling around you, seeking whom he may devour.

I love that he says that they would be filled, not just have, but be filled. Essentially, they already have the knowledge of God. Essentially, they already have the fruitfulness that belongs to knowing God, knowing something of what God is seeking to do in and through them.

He said, I'm glad you have it. I give thanks for that. I pray for that all the time with thanksgiving, and yet I'm still praying that you would be filled. That you would come to maximum capacity of understanding God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Right now, perhaps, you feel that you have everything you need to know in the Christian life, but Colossian believers, you must be filled even more. You must have more knowledge of his will, more wisdom, more spiritual understanding.

So notice that he's not just praying for the ability, but he's asking really for the aim. Not just the ability to have the knowledge of God's will, but the aim of God's will, to walk in wisdom and understanding.

He wants them to make it their aim to fully please him. And part of making it your aim, as Paul would say of himself, to fully please the Lord, is to actually discern through spiritual understanding and wisdom, the fullness of his counsel.

To actually comprehend the knowledge of his will and walk accordingly. That's the aim of the Christian. We are satisfied often with far less. Give me my vitamin for the day, Lord. Give me one thing to chew on, one thing to work on.

We don't actually pray, Lord, fill me from head to toe, not leaving an ounce of room. I want to fully comprehend all of your will and all that it requires of me accordingly. I want to know everything in every aspect of my life that can be pleasing to you.

I want to know every way that my life can be laid down as a living sacrifice on.

The altar.

Don't just consecrate the top of my head, Lord. Consecrate me fully into your service. That's essentially what Paul is saying. Be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

This is what will bring fruitfulness. This is what is fully pleasing, a walk that is worthy of the calling of the Lord. And again, the gospel is the basis, but also the means of walking worthy, pleasing, and being fruitful in the Lord.

They'd already heard, already received, already trusted the word of the truth of the gospel. But now by believing and owning and reflecting and cherishing the word of the truth of the gospel, they will be filled with knowledge.

They will have lives that are filled with fruitfulness. This is what it will look like to walk in a pleasing way. Walking is a metaphor. Of course, that is often used in the Hebrew scriptures. And Paul picks that up.

We have it in other places in his letters. Galatians 5 .16. I say then, walk in the spirit. You will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. 1 Thessalonians 4 .12. You may walk properly toward those who are outside, lacking nothing.

Romans 13 .13. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness, not in lust, not in strife, nor envy. Believers are to walk in a proper, in a fitting, in a worthy manner.

This, Paul says, is pleasing to God. Walking worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him. Now that word pleasing in Greek is a very interesting word. In secular Greek, so outside of New Testament Greek, just other references we have from the time.

The word would have signified, the best way I can put this is a sort of teacher's pet mentality. A goody two-shoes, we might say. You know the type. I wonder, some of you are teacher's pets. I think I might have been a few years.

I lost a lot of friends for like two years. Yeah, I think I'm like the teacher's pet. I'm fully pleasing, in a sense. A more proper word, this is the perfect word for it, though it's a rare word, obsequiousness.

That would be exactly what fully pleasing here means. It's every attempt to try to gain favor. Like a teacher's pet, if you know what that means. You know, I organize your desk for you. Oh, and here's an apple.

Oh, and can I wet the eraser and sort of clean the chalkboard for you? And oh, by the way, I actually did next week's homework ahead of time. It's like every little thing I could possibly conceive of that would give me favor, that would be pleasing to you.

And Paul is saying, let us walk in a way that we have that desire. We're looking, thinking, reflecting, searching for anything, everything that would be pleasing to God. It's our delight to find His favor.

Literally, we could render this, we say fully pleasing Him, fully. It's hard to translate. An equally valid translation that may be more helpful would be pleasing Him in every way or pleasing Him in all respects.

That's what it means to fully please God. I don't have a balancing scale of things that I know are pleasing to God because I know His will about these things. And things that I know probably aren't really pleasing to Him, but hopefully, the things that are pleasing to Him are making up for the things that are not.

I know that this part of my life, this part of my relationship, this part of my home, it's not really pleasing to God, but that's okay. Look at what I've got going for me compared to many others, all right?

Look at this part of my devotional life. Look at this aspect of my walk. Look at my personality in this respect compared to others. Surely, that's pleasing enough to the Lord. Well, Paul's not talking about that mentality here.

Fully pleasing Him, fully pleasing Him. That's what it means to walk worthy of the Lord. That's what you need to be fruitful in every good work. What prevents us from being fruitful in every good work?

Sometimes, the things that are fully pleasing to God are quite difficult and awkward, and frankly, we just have no interest, no desire. In fact, we have contempt to do the things that are pleasing to God in certain situations.

So rather than doing more, in that pleasing way, we do less. We do enough, but not more. Spurgeon, he did a string of sermons through Colossians 1, and I was reading one this week, and he had this wonderful story from the American Revolution.

It's funny that it was a positive example, though he was British, but he appreciated, apparently, our general at the time, George Washington. He shared this story of a time where Washington was sort of riding along inspecting his troops, and he noticed that there was a group of men, and they were laboring, sort of had come down to sort of, you know, shirtless, exasperated ends, and they're all trying to carry timber off to the side of the road.

And he noticed them struggling, slipping in the mud, and he noticed that sitting next to them on horseback was their superior, sitting there, waiting patiently, watching them struggle and fail to get all of the timber off of the path.

And so Washington rode up and sort of asked, or maybe even put a little gentle pressure on this man, why are you not helping these soldiers? He said, well, oh, sir, he thought he was mistaken, I'm a corporal.

In other words, this is beneath me, you probably thought I was just like them. No, no, I'm not taking a break, I'm actually a corporal, this work is beneath me. And so Washington got off his horse and went over, took off his coat, quite an expensive coat, I'm sure, got into the mud with these men and hauled timber, put the corporal to shame.

Went up to the corporal after and just to turn the knife handle a bit said, if these men ever need help again, you come find General Washington. Spurgeon says, I love that this is his application. He says, dear brother, as soon as he finished his story, he says, dear brother, I know you are far too experienced.

In fact, you're just too old, you have too much learning to help teach the youth. Oh, and I know you are far too respectable and you have too much dignity in your place of work to hand out a tract. Spurgeon says, brothers, pray, don't have such an ignorant way of thinking.

You ought to ask to be useful in every possible way. Have you done a little? Ask that you could do more. Have you done a lot? Ask you could do even much more. And if you've done even much more, ask for grace to proceed to the highest possible degree of usefulness for the Lord.

Even if it means as the general, the very top of the continental army, you're in the mud hauling wood off the path. That's what it means to fully please the Lord. Paul, in other words, not only understands but he expects the Christian life comes with great effort.

You don't come into Christianity through the great trials and tribulations of being lost and being in bondage and then you're freed and liberated to now live a life of ease and be fanned by ostrich feathers and pluck grapes from golden platters.

No, that is not the Christian life. And I trust most of you already know that that's the case. It's a life of purpose that involves all sorts of exertion, all sorts of suffering. We must suffer many things to enter in to the kingdom.

So there's grace because of that struggle. There's grace because it requires so much of our bodily life and activity. As Christian Stedler pointed out, for Paul, sanctification is not a concept of virtue.

Sanctification is not some bonus for people who are living the higher life. Well, we're all Christians and, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is be a little more sanctified, like a nice little virtue, some little bonus that not everyone has access to.

No.

It expresses, this is Stedler, it expresses in bodily life actions that please God. That's a very good insight and he's going to round it out even more. Sanctification is not a virtue. Rather, it is an expression in bodily life of actions that please God.

Although the process of sanctification takes place at a distance from the world, we don't go in the same course or manner of the world, nonetheless, we don't renounce the world. We live rather in such a way that we're present in the world and that's what makes sanctification so incredibly difficult.

And so we prove the worthiness of our calling rather than becoming monks and moving into the monastery, we are present in the world. We don't become scribes and Pharisees. You remember Sproul's second session on that.

Rather, we make it our aim through acts of sacrifice and struggle to be fully pleasing to God. It would be easier if we all moved into a monastery. It would be easy if we just had to live here on a camp for the next 30 years together in fellowship.

We didn't have to go about the world and all that comes with the world and counteract and interact and be present in the world and trying to be consecrated to God's service. That's the rub and that shows us why we need the Lord in order to please the Lord.

We'll never be fully pleasing to the Lord if the Lord is not present in our lives. We will not walk in a manner worthy of the Lord if the Lord does not make us worthy of his grace, worthy of his mercy, if he doesn't strengthen us by his spirit.

And that's what Paul says next. Strengthen with all might according to his glorious power. And if you have some connotation of being empowered and having all might and you think, yes, I will never struggle again.

If I were to be strengthened with all the might of God's glorious power, I would just roll over every trial and tribulation. I wouldn't flinch. I wouldn't sweat. I would never feel dejected. I would never be discouraged.

I would go from strength to strength. And you would be puffed up like the Hindenburg. And you would burn up like the Hindenburg as well. That's why Paul says that strengthening, that might that's according to his glorious comprehensive power is for patience and long-suffering.

How does might and the glorious power of God the Creator correspond to the need for patience and long-suffering in the Christian's life? Is that what you thought the power of God was going to produce in you?

You're struggling to be patient, but you're patient. You're struggling to persevere, but by the fumes of your faith according to God's grace, you're persevering. And you probably think something like, if only I had God's power, if only I had the strength of the Lord in my life, I wouldn't be struggling.

In this way.

I wouldn't be feeling so burnt out and trying to persevere in the walk. Oh, brother, sister, listen, the fact that you're persevering is proof positive that you are receiving the strengthening of God.

The fact that you are enduring, though it's a struggle to endure, is proof positive that you are given a might according to his glorious power. You have patience. You have long-suffering. And though it's not always constant, you even find times of joy, that you may have all patience and long-suffering, not without, but even with joy.

That is what the strength of God looks like in a Christian's life. It doesn't mean we don't go through life with gritted teeth from time to time. We certainly don't live the Christian life without feeling.

If you open up the book of the Psalms, you see that shining through the pages. So many of the Psalms correspond exactly to what Paul's describing here. God's spirit present, blessing coming, but that strength, that presence of God, not corresponding to some mighty advance like a conqueror, but rather simply to clinging by faith, to enduring, and suffering, and even finding joy in the midst of it, as the psalmist almost always can find a verse or two to slip in some joy.

So Paul says, brethren, I want you to have that endurance. I want you to be able to have all patience and joy as you endure in the Christian life. This, too, is pleasing to God. This, too, is pleasing to God.

And where we feel dejected, where we're struck down and struggling, Paul reminds us again, give thanks. As he moves out of long suffering, he then, verses 12 through 14, says,.

Give thanks.

Don't forget the gospel. And he speaks again to the truth of the gospel. As you're enduring, as you're struggling, as you're being strengthened by the spirit, which doesn't always feel like strength, sort of an invisible gentle strength, a firmness of conviction, a planting of our feet that never feels sure, though it is eternally sure.

His manner is that of the dove, as we see throughout biblical revelation. But then Paul reminds them of the gospel. Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and the light.

He has delivered us from the power of darkness, conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Look at these key words. I was talking with someone, I think it was Hogan last night.

We were talking about how difficult it is to not speak Christianese to your young ones. We absorb Christianese, and we all use these little phrases and key terms. And because you're a Christian and you've heard these things as stock phrases for years, maybe decades, you just assume we all know what they mean.

A point was made by Tony yesterday. How do you hide the word in your heart? Well, we all use that phrase, right? You're like, you know, it's great that you can hide the word in your heart. Amen, brother.

Yeah, just keep hiding that word in your heart. And then a six-year-old goes, what are you even talking about?

What does that mean?

And then all of a sudden you're like, what does that mean? Why do we speak of that like we know what it means? And we have these key words. Paul's developing a Christian theological vocabulary of the redemptive experience.

He's articulating the Gospel by using these words, these angles on the saving activity of God in the person and work of Christ Jesus. Notice what the Father has done. He's qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance.

That's a ton of specialized vocabulary that draws on all of the Old Testament revelation. The Father has qualified us so we were disqualified.

Why?

Why were we disqualified? What are we now qualified to? To be partakers of an inheritance. Whose inheritance? What is the inheritance? Well, it's the inheritance of the saints.

What do you mean the saints?

Who are these saints? Well, the saints in the light. What are you talking about? Almost every part of these two verses is completely new articulation of the Gospel. He's delivered us.

Deliverance.

That would be something entirely unknown apart from this depiction of sin and bondage. The very things we're seeing in the story of Exodus. God delivering His people out of bondage and slavery. God delivering His people out of the clutch and the condemnation of Pharaoh.

Through the wrath of the sea, as it were.

Deliverance.

And what was that deliverance ultimately of? Even in Exodus? The power of darkness. So now we have the contrast between light and darkness. You've been brought out of darkness into light. And what is that light that you've been brought to?

Where is the inheritance of the saints found? Well, that's the kingdom. It's the kingdom of the Son. And all of that corresponds to God's love for it's out of love that the Son was sent to bring forth the kingdom in all of its fullness.