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Well, this evening I wanted to challenge you with a lesson that has been, again, a personal challenge to me as well. And it happened as I was preaching verse by verse through Colossians. Again, I think one of the most instrumental things in my life is just to be in God's Word on a regular basis, and that be my job, you know, what I'm paid for.
It's just tremendous. And God just strikes me and impacts me, I think, oftentimes the most, even more than my congregation as I'm working through books. And with the book of Colossians, I just adore the book of Colossians.
I think whatever book you're teaching through at the moment is your favorite book. But one of the lessons that definitely I got out of the book of Colossians is the sufficiency of Christ. It's about the sufficiency of Christ.
And just affirming that again to the Colossian church in the midst of all the distractions that they face, just like we face in our day and age today. It's the same strategy that Satan has. He wants to remove our affections from Christ and have us focus on other things, whether it be works or legalism or whether it be mysticism.
And the same thing is happening in the church today, isn't it? Those are the two major prongs of attack. They come under different colors, different guises in the church. Not outside the church. They're drawing us away from Christ.
And it just refreshed me. It refreshed my church. And then I got to chapter four and I was like, God, why did you put chapter four in here? It's just a bunch of names. Is there anything, this is my human self, good in this bunch of names?
And then I started studying it and I began to see that there's so much good in every verse in Scripture. And that was just affirmed to me again. Every word of Scripture is alive, active, even a bunch of names.
And the sufficiency of Christ, I wish I could preach the whole of chapter four. It just revolutionized my life. But, you know, we'll be here for a couple of weeks and I don't want to do that to you. You've got ice cream.
But, chapter four brings out the sufficiency of Christ in a way that looking back is so evident. Jesus Christ is sufficient in His person. Chapters one through three. But He's also sufficient through His body.
Through people that are captivated by Him. There's just so much here, but I want to focus on one of the men in this chapter. Who I think it's appropriate to focus on. He's the pastor that founded the church in Colossae.
His name was Epaphras. And there's not much in the Bible about him except for three verses. These are two verses that we're going to look at. And yet there's so much here to learn. And so let me read it for you and pray that God would use it in your life.
And I know He will, as He used it in mine. But it's Colossians chapter four, verses twelve and thirteen. Colossians four, twelve and thirteen. Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you His greetings.
Always laboring earnestly for you in His prayers. That you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I testify for Him that He has a deep concern for you. And for those who are in Laodicea and Heropolis.
Epaphras, there's again not much about him except these two verses. And the Spirit of God chose to concentrate on something obviously that would change us and edify us. That's why these two verses are here.
It's a little snapshot of this unsung hero who I know is going to hear well done. When he sees Christ and as he's in the presence of Christ already. He's the pastor of this church. He founded this church.
In fact, Paul never met the Colossians. He only met Epaphras. Did you know that? He was his prison mate. And he got to write to the Colossians. He got to be concerned for the Colossians. He got to know about the Colossians because of the concern of Epaphras.
I would say in many ways, Epaphras at this moment in time when Paul is writing this in the 60s. Changed Paul's life because of Jesus working in Epaphras. And the one singular thing that really impacted Paul.
And even Paul was able to learn from and that's why he wrote these two verses inspired by the Holy Spirit. That changed Epaphras' life was his prayer life. The fact that he was passionate about prayer.
You got to think about this for a moment. Epaphras was the pastor of the church. Reconstructing this, I think this is what happened. With his concerns and struggles in the church in Colossae. He traveled, I think, about a hundred miles to go visit Paul in prison.
And he came, I think, with this idea of maybe getting counsel from Paul. Maybe visiting with him. Maybe even praying with him and encouraging him for a while. And then going back to his church. And we make plans like that sometimes.
They're good plans. And then lo and behold, something completely unexpected happened. And it was something that happened because the Roman government looked at pastors specifically that were spreading this contagion of Christianity.
Where people were saying Jesus is Lord and Caesar isn't Lord. They began to see pastors that were preaching that Jesus is enemy number one against the Roman Empire. That's why Paul was in prison. And his dear brother, his visit, instead of being a short term visit, turned into a sentence.
And he was stuck there in that jail with Paul. Even while his church was going through a crisis, God allowed in his sovereignty, this is crazy. We can't understand it, right? And we go through situations like that.
God allowed in his sovereignty for this man to be completely cut off from his church. And to be cut off from what he wanted to do. And be cut off from the vitality of the work even that was so necessary and important.
And yet, what was he doing? He wasn't sitting in prison and just getting in a funk and being depressed. He wasn't sitting in prison just kind of chewing his nails and worried about the Colossian church and what was going on.
And this is why he changed Paul's life. He was sitting in prison and saying, even when I can't do any other work, I can still do one work. And nobody can stop me from doing that. They can cut my feet off, spiritually speaking.
My ability to work for the church. But they can't cut my heart out. And my heart is always going to be, no matter what I'm doing, busy in the ministry of prayer. Because that's the most fundamental work that a pastor can do.
And I would say to you, that's the most fundamental work that a Christian can do. And honestly, this is a lesson that God has had to hammer in me. At times, even when I'm doing church planting, there have been times when I've realized that the reason why I have problems in church is because I'm doing it in my own strength and I'm not praying enough.
And God will bring trials my way. I've seen it in different seasons. And maybe he's done that in your own life. Until you come to the point and realize that all the running around that you do is absolutely futile and useless until you're actually a Calvinist and getting on your knees.
And saying, I am useless without Jesus. And Paul saw that in Epaphras. What does he call Epaphras? Just look at it in the beginning of verse 12. Epaphras, who is one of your number, he's a bond slave of Jesus Christ.
And you've got to stop there. Paul never uses that term, bond slave of Jesus Christ, for anybody else but himself in Epaphras. It's a very high standard in his mind in terms of somebody that is so sold out to the pleasure of Jesus Christ.
That they would even say, my will is nothing. Everything that I am and everything that I do is consumed by the pleasure and the will of Jesus Christ. Even as Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 5 and 9, right?
Whether at home or absent, this is my consuming desire to be pleasing to the Lord. And he looked at Epaphras and he said, I see the same thing. I don't see Epaphras. When I see Epaphras, I see Jesus. He's just so consumed with the things that Jesus loves and with the things that Jesus wants.
And so he's not depressed, but he's praying. And I would say he's teaching us to pray even in the way in which he prays. This is the sufficiency of Christ here, even in this passage. In a way that pleases Christ.
Epaphras prays as a bond servant of Jesus Christ. And his prayer life is a prayer that is soaked in the pleasure of Christ. I want to pray like that, you know? I want to pray in a way that's so Christ-centered.
Sometimes I think even we have to repent of the way we pray because it's man-centered. I want to pray more like God-centered and God-focused and Christ-centered and all that I do. And I think that's what Epaphras taught Paul and that's what Epaphras can teach us tonight.
There's three things about prayer that pleases Christ that we can learn in this passage. Three elements of prayer that pleases Christ. And I don't know where you are in your Christian life. You may be young in your Christian life.
You may be old in your Christian life. But it's never too late to learn how to reprioritize and make this the focal point of all your energies. Not that you want to stop doing other work for Jesus, but you've got to start with prayer.
If you want to see God produce revival in your own heart. If you want to see God produce revival in your family with the burdens that you have of parenting. If you want to see God produce revival in your community with the burdens that you have even for people that are lost and just so depraved.
And you live in that kind of a society, don't you? Yourself, you've got to start with prayer. There's three ways that we can learn about praying like this that can change us. The first is, it's found in verse 12 again.
A paraphrase, a bond slave of Jesus Christ. And this is the crux of this passage. Always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers. And the first element of prayer I think that I want to learn and that we've got to learn from this.
Is that prayer, if it must please Christ, must be constant. Constant. Sorry, 1 Thessalonians 5 .17, right? We all know this. It's just so hard to apply. Pray without ceasing. Some of us have got to learn the fact that you don't just pray when your eyes are closed.
You know, that's just way too compartmentalized and way too artificial. Now there's a time for that. But we've got to learn in a sense almost to be in an atmosphere of prayer. Just like breathing air is the atmosphere that we live in.
The Christian must say, I can't live if I'm not praying constantly. Washing the dishes. Whatever I'm doing. I don't want prayer to be just some part of my life. I want prayer to be sort of the air that I breathe.
Because I know that I can't breathe without Jesus spiritually, you see? That's the first thing that Paul learned from Epaphras. He's looking at him and he's writing, I think, with amazement in his pen and in his mind.
Just saying, this guy is always, that's the first one he uses, always laboring. And that idea of laboring is this idea of doing manual labor that makes you sweat. Have you prayed like that? You know, we've all been to those all-night prayer meetings.
I don't know if you do them. We tried in our church. It's a struggle, isn't it? Because you're striving against the flesh. No matter how many cups of coffee you got, you pray two or three times. What was the energy that caused Epaphras to be able to pray like this?
Where you can pray in the sense of praying without ceasing. I think there's two things. The first was that his prayers were planned. His prayers were planned. What do I mean by that? It says, Epaphras, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, was always laboring earnestly for you.
Now stop there. That word, you, again, English sometimes fails at some points. It's not singular. It's plural. And I guess if you're in the South, I don't know if you can do this here, you would say, you all.
That's really the accurate rendering of what this verse is saying. This is the idea here. He wasn't just praying. This is what I believe. In just this generic way, Lord, I just pray for those Colossians, man.
They're so concerning to me. Just save them from their sin. No, but I think that what he was doing, when you're looking at this idea of the plurality of the whole church, is he had planned and he was thinking through names of specific people and their specific needs and their specific burdens.
I don't know. He didn't have an iPad in those days, but I don't know where he had all this information. On his little stone tablet, maybe. And he was working through the list of the people in Colossae.
And that's why he didn't have enough time for anything else. You know, even after I studied this passage, I got done and I just started writing down the people that I wanted to pray for. I just got a notebook.
You should try this. Start a prayer journal. And I got a notebook and I started writing down, you know, my wife's name, my kid's name. This is the first circle of people and the different issues that I want to pray for in their life.
My seminary students, the people in my church. And I was thinking, Lord, there's not enough days in the week to pray for all these people. That's what happens when you start, you know, being real intentional about the burdens in your life.
And burdens are souls, right, around you. And you don't just try the shotgun generic approach of just throwing up gasps of vagueness out to Jesus. But you think about specific people. You think about their specific burdens.
You think about the specific issues that, you know, even this morning there were so many people that I met. And they shared with me different concerns. And I had to take the time to write down on a piece of paper.
Because how many times have you been in a situation where somebody shares with you a problem. You say, I'm going to pray for you. And you forget ten minutes later. You never pray for it. You've got to plan it.
You've got to work hard at this. Because Christ is pleased when his people demonstrate that kind of specific love towards each other. And what greater way to do that than through prayer, right? This man was bound to his church by name.
With full knowledge. With plan. Start there. You won't have enough time. There's another reason why I think he was so charged up and so fueled with prayer. And I think it's found in this second idea. He's always laboring for you in his prayers.
And there the English renders it right. It's plural. Prayers. Not just prayer. Not just laboring for you in the general idea of prayer. But prayers. And I think there's a reason why Paul uses the plural there again.
Because his prayers were not just planned. But they were varied. They were varied. There's a variety. Prayer is an adventure, brother and sister. There's a variety in prayer. And I guess you could start off by saying adoration, confession, thanksgiving.
And all the different ways in which we can approach God through Christ. Isn't it amazing that we can even approach God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth. And see him as Father. That was Jesus' favorite expression for him, wasn't it?
And he taught us to pray in that way. As we gain access through him. Call him Father. The one who owns all and can do all. And without whom nothing happens really. Because he's sovereign over all. We get to ask him.
We get to go before him with the burdens of our life. Doesn't that just blow your mind? But I think there's another sense of variety in this. I've grown in understanding in my own life. Because I think when I started off as an early Christian.
My prayers were just filled with so much fake piety. And three-syllable theological words. Like God can't understand simple language. That was such a formal process for me. And maybe this was just in my life.
But I began to realize. And it was more after I had kids. And I was trying to teach them how to pray. Kids can't pray like that. Like seminary nerds. They've got to learn how to pray. And see God as just their Father.
I love having kids. If you have kids, you know how it works, right? Sometimes parenting works the other way. You learn from your kids and start teaching them. This happened to be in the area of prayer with Hannah, my oldest daughter.
And I was teaching her to pray when she was three years old. And I taught her. And I thought of this wonderful analogy. And I said, Hannah, you know prayer. You remember how today you were hurt when you were playing outside.
And you cried out. And the first person that you thought of was who? Daddy. Because you know that your daddy will rush to your side and help you. And I said, Hannah, you know what? There's another daddy.
And he's bigger than all. And he's overall. And he made you. And that's your father in heaven. And prayer is simply asking him for help when you need it. I was just trying to teach her that concept of prayer.
And the next day, she's three years old. She's super smart and super depraved. But the next day, we're driving in a car. You have like six million people in Pune. And traffic gets a little crazy sometimes.
And I'm not a very patient man. And sometimes I just go out with Hannah to go buy milk and bread and spend some time with her. And we got stuck in this bad, bad traffic jam. And after about, you know, my patience lasted for about five minutes.
I have that much sanctification. And after about five minutes, I didn't say anything obscene or anything. But I just let out a cry of just anger and frustration. You know, because of this guy that just wasn't moving.
And so Hannah, very sweetly, she turned over to me and she said, Daddy, would you like to pray? Those are the situations where you need to pray. There's a variety to prayer. And I think that's what Paul saw in Epaphras.
Where it's not just this formal time in your life, but sometimes just simple expressions of help. Sometimes it's great, wonderful peons of praise. But it's just something that you can do at any time, any place, anywhere.
There's no limit to the adventure and the experience of access that we have through Jesus to our Father. And once you realize that, you can't stop praying because you love Him. You see? And you love the fact that your love is based on His love and that He even listens to you.
First thing we can learn about prayer that pleases Christ is that it's not just a part of your life. It's the air that you breathe. It's constant. Second thing you learn about prayer is it's Christ-centered.
So important. Prayer that pleases Christ is Christ-centered. Look at the next part of what we see here. What's the prayer concern and the prayer request that Epaphras has? Look at verse 12 in the second half.
That you may stand perfect. That's mature and whole and fully assured. That's unshaken. This was a church that you can literally say in the language of Ephesians, was tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine.
And so Epaphras was praying that they wouldn't be. That you may stand perfect, mature and stable. In what? In all the will of God. Now just think about this. The will of God. Colossians teaches us. What is the word of God?
It's the word of Christ. And the will of God is centered in knowing Christ. You see? But even think about it a little bit more. This language that Epaphras uses, it's so interesting. Really takes us back to the theme of the book of Colossians.
And track with me for a minute. And what is the theme of the book of Colossians? I think it's the sufficiency of Christ. But look at it specifically in the language of Paul. And see how it echoes what Epaphras was praying for.
Colossians 2, 9 and 10. For in him, in Jesus, all the fullness of deity. That is all that God has. And you can think of even John 1, 14. He was full of what? Grace and truth. Everything that we need. In Jesus, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.
And therefore, you are made complete. It's the same idea. You are perfect. You see? And he's the head over all rule and authority. Now, I never saw this till I was reading Bishop Lightfoot. And he has a good commentary on the book of Colossians.
Just quickly, this is what he says. And it was good insight. And I think I agree with him. And he said it's really interesting that Epaphras prays this way. Because in about 80, 60, there was a devastating earthquake in the Lycus Valley.
And almost the three cities that were in the Lycus Valley, including Colossae, were completely wiped out. And the people were building it up. And Paul was writing about two years later. So he would have known about it.
And they had lost their homes. They had lost their loved ones. This is historically documented. What do we normally pray for when we hear of churches like that? When we hear of situations like that? We focus on.
And there's nothing wrong with praying about these things. Jesus even says, ask God for your daily bread. God isn't against us thinking about our earthly needs. But we focus on those things, don't we?
We forget about everything else. And it's so instructive that when Paul thinks about the centrality of Epaphras' prayer, I'm sure he prayed for their needs, but the one thing that stands out to him as an emphasis is not that these people would have relief workers and NGOs going in there and rebuilding their homes.
He's thinking about their souls, you see. Why? Just think about it. I've seen this in India all the time. When we were working with an orphanage of homeless kids, is when you just give them food and education, you're just dressing them up with gift paper and sending them off to hell.
You're doing nothing for them. In a very real sense. When you only focus on the outside of what people need, and you don't focus on their souls, you're really doing nothing. You don't really love them.
And I believe that because this man was a Christ-centered pastor, he was able to see beyond even the immediate temporal needs. You see, our prayer life reflects what? In a sense, what we love most. Isn't it?
What you ask God for shows what your priorities are, shows what you're consumed by. What are you consumed by? That God would give you your home back? That God would give you a better salary? There's nothing wrong with praying for those things in their place, but is that your focus?
What about your soul? What about souls of the people that are under you? That's what Epaphras was concerned about. You see? Now, this is the other amazing thing. This prayer work. What did Jesus say to us in Matthew chapter 6?
He says, ask anything in my name, in my will, in agreement with me. Which is what Epaphras was doing. And I will give it to you. Epaphras was sitting in this prison cell, I don't know, for one year maybe.
Praying that these people would stand complete in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. What am I reading right now? I'm reading the book of Colossians. Which was the answer that God gave to that prayer. Through the pen of the Apostle Paul.
To specifically meet that exact thing that Epaphras was praying for. In a sense, the theme of the book of Colossians, you see? There's a reason why it's connected to the prayer of Epaphras. Because it's the answer to that prayer.
And even today you read the book of Colossians and God is answering Epaphras' prayer for the church. When you read this book. That our souls would be stabilized and firm in Jesus. That's what happens to you.
And you begin to love Jesus more than earth, than the things of this world. And you become firm. Isn't that great? God's still working. Through the prayer of this man. That prayed for the eternal. And not just the temporal.
See, what are you building in your prayer life? What are you building? Prayer that pleases Christ is Christ-centered. Amen? And there's a third thing about. I think some of the reasons why sometimes my prayer life and our prayer lives aren't always fervent.
And it's found in the last principle here. In verse 13. Paul says this. For I testify for him that he has a deep concern. That's the key word. A deep concern. For you and for those who are in Laodicea and Herapolis.
It extends to the whole three twin cities. They're all kind of bonded together geographically. Here's praying for all of them. And I would say the third element of prayer that pleases Christ. It's constant.
It's Christ-centered. And it's concerned. What does that mean? That word literally can be used. And it's used in other places in Paul's epistles. For the concern of a mother. Towards her children. It's talking about a deep affection.
Like a parent would have. For the sake of the well-being of her own child. And that's what drives prayer. Prayer is not just something that comes out of just a mechanical. I've got to pray for my kids.
But it comes as a response. And that's why it happens more than just a scheduled time. To you just being broken with love. And with concern. And with affection. And having the eyes of Christ for people around you.
That's what drives prayer. I think sometimes that's missing in our lives. You know, I was convicted. Listening to a few years ago of a well-known pastor. Who was in New York, actually. And he was called to preach.
It was an amazing opportunity. I don't know why. Maybe they were mocking him or making fun of him. But he was called to preach to a gay and lesbian convention. That was held in New York. And he stood up before them.
And he said, you know, I stand before you as a representative of Jesus Christ. And I love you. But because I represent Jesus Christ. And Christ is concerned for your soul. I have to tell you that the lifestyle that you live is against Him.
The one who has created you. And it's against the principles that He has designed for men and women. To ultimately find joy in Him. And he said, furthermore, not only is it against Him and His word. But it's destroying you.
And it's destroying the people around you. And the loved ones around you. And as he said those words, he began to weep. He couldn't finish his sermon. He was really affected by what he was saying. And realizing what those people in that room represented as lost souls.
You know what happened? He couldn't finish the sermon. The whole audience of several hundred got up and gave him a standing ovation. They didn't get saved. They didn't get saved. But don't you think that that's the beginning?
Of somebody who would meet them later on in private. Planting a further seed. Because of that man demonstrating not just the truth of Christ. But what? The compassion of Christ. And I think that's exactly what Paul saw in Epaphras' prayer life.
I think that's why that pastor wept that morning. Because he was praying before he met those people. Prayer is not just a mechanical exercise. But prayer has to be a response of a heart that is broken.
Like Jesus' heart was broken. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. But what does Paul say? I can do what? All things through Christ who strengthens me. And this evening I would say to you. I think that that's made really clear and specific when we get on our knees.
And I would exhort you by the grace of God. You know this church. I'm so encouraged even being here. But just to remind you again. That the strength of this church is a hidden strength. What you see in terms of the energies up here.
And the people's lives that are represented here. Is not the real strength of this church. But the strength of this church is Christ. And it will happen when you get on your knees. And God will use you in even greater ways.
Because He is a great God. And He loves to display His sufficiency. Amen. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for loving us. So much that you would even work through our prayers. Our prayers are nothing Lord.
But you are all. You are strong. You are sufficient. You are able to keep us from stumbling. And to present us faultless before your throne. And so we thank you for being such a sufficient Savior. That not only did you redeem us.
But you also ensure that you perfect the work that you have begun in us. And we pray Lord that you would help us to be men and women. That would keep running to that throne of grace. It's a throne. Which has authority and power and sufficiency.
Lord help us to cling to that throne. And to see that as our life blood. Specifically in prayer Lord. Help us to make even commitments tonight. To be praying more. So that you would be glorified. In your church.
And in your people. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.