MESSAGE

FROM THE

WORD

THINGS THAT LEAD US TO PRAY

Colossians 1:4-7

SERIES:  Colossians                                                                                           Message # 4

            As we continue our series in Colossians, we are looking at the power of prayer.  We saw last week how a thankful heart leads to a desire to prayer.  Prayer is an important part of the Christian life.  We saw that Jesus taught us how to pray.  We see throughout the scriptures how God’s people are called to pray for their own needs and those around them.  One of the great stories in the Old Testament reveals this pattern.  We read,                   II CHRONICLES 20             God’s people were simply living out their life when several nations decided to invade Israel.  The forces were overwhelming, so the passage tells us that Jehoshaphat “TURNED HIS ATTENTION TO SEEK THE LORD…”  That is Old Testament lingo for “they began to pray…”  Jesus warned us about simply repeating prayers.  This is not repetitious prayer.  This is seeking the Lord to ask for His protection and seek His advice.  If you want a simple definition of prayer, that is it.  Prayer is taking every situation and seeking God’s direction and asking for His help.

            As we come to our study in Colossians, we read                 COLOSSIANS 1:3-8              We saw in our last message how to develop a thankful heart.  We saw that the result of a thankful individual is a prayer life.  Being thankful to God, we seek to pray.  We pray that God’s will is accomplished, we pray for His workers, and we pray for those around us.  In our study this morning we want to look at the topic of issues that cause us to pray.  Obviously, emergencies lead the people of God to pray.  Because Paul had a thankful heart, he was lead to pray for these people.  Next week we will see what he prayed for.  In this message, we are going to look at the issues that brought him to pray.

            FIRST, PRAYER RESULTED FROM THEIR FAITH.  This is an interesting point, because we often hear that “faith” is a very personal thing.  That is not so in the New Testament.  Faith must have feet to it in order for it to be true faith.  This is why James tells us that faith which is all by itself is dead faith.  In the 21^st century church, faith is a passive concept.  It is something that you can believe in, but which can be very personal and private.  That is not the faith of the New Testament.

            Faith is not passive, it is active.  We read,                HEBREWS 11:1-8, 20-31             Did you notice anything consistent in any of these verses?  In each of these cases, faith was not passive, but active.  Let me give you one illustration.  What if the verse said, “BY FAITH NOAH BELIEVING GOD WOULD SEND A FLOOD, BUT BEING A PRIVATE MAN KEPT IT TO HIMSELF AND DID NOTHING”?   If that was the verse, Noah would have died.  Faith has to have an active component to it.  There are many ways to demonstrate this, but let me just give you one.  When Paul writes that he had “HEARD OF YOUR FAITH…”, there is an interesting grammatical construction.  The literal translation is “HAVING HEARD THE FAITH OF YOU…”  The word for faith is not by itself, it has a definite article with it.  That means the faith is not abstract.  The word for faith comes from the root word “to obey”.  In other words, to have faith is to obey.  Apart from obedience, apart from action, there cannot be any faith.  There may be wishful thinking, there may be personal preferences, there may be generic beliefs, but there is no faith.

            There is another concept that Paul points out in these few words.  Faith must always have an object.  Many in today’s world have faith in faith.  It isn’t important what you believe as long as you believe in something.  That is not a Biblical idea.  Paul wrote that he had, “HEARD OF YOUR FAITH IN CHRST JESUS”.  Faith is a wonderful idea, but it is only as valid as is its object.  Many investors had faith in Enron and lost their fortunes.  Charles Spurgeon tells of two men who were in a little boat that was floating down the river.  Suddenly people began to shout at them from the shore and they realized that they were approaching a large waterfall and their lives were in jeopardy.  Some people threw a rope into the river and one of the men jumped from the boat and grabbed the rope.  The other man saw a large tree in the middle of the river and grabbed that.  Unfortunately, the man’s weight caused the tree to snap and it fell into the river and plunged over the falls.  Faith is critical, but faith must have the proper object to be valid.  If you place your faith in a con man, in a false prophet, or a false messiah, you are in trouble. 

            This is why the New Testament writers and the Apostles always made Christ the object of their preaching.  We read, 1 CORINTHIANS 1:21-24             It isn’t enough to preach.  It isn’t even enough to preach powerful sermons.  You must preach sermons that draw people to Christ.  He must be the object of our faith.

            SECOND, PRAYER RESULTED FROM THEIR LOVE.  More than any other characteristic, the people of God should be known for their love.  This is even noted by our Lord.  In Matthew Jesus was asked several questions.  We read,                         MATTHEW 22:35-40            Did you notice that there are two loves for which we should be known?  We should be known for our great love for God.  We should also be known for our great love for each other.  If either of those is out of balance, we will fall into trouble.  If our love for God wavers but we love people, we will fall into sentimentality.  If we love God but fall short in loving people, we become harsh.  Let’s see the balance.  John says            JOHN 1:14-17               When God revealed Himself in a human form, He was characterized by grace and truth.  He didn’t let things slide, but He was filled with mercy.  He was gracious.

            This presents us with some unique opportunities.  We live in a world that is often filled with loneliness, isolation, and fear.  Into that world, God sends His church.  What is our task?  It was to love God and to love their neighbor.  We are told by Luke,                         ACTS 2:42-48; 4:32-37        That is love in action.  You see the incredible love for God as they stood in awe of what He was doing, and they demonstrated great love to others as they gave of their wealth to meet the needs of their community.  This is why our missions statement states, FAITH CHRISTIAN CHURCH SEEKS TO BRING PEOPLE INTO A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST BY STUDYING HIS WORD, ENJOYING HIS PEOPLE, PRACTICING HIS PRESENCE, AND CARING FOR OTHERS”.  This was the power of the early church.  They loved God with all of their hearts.  In addition, they loved those around them.

            Let’s just take a moment to examine our hearts.  This is a difficult part of life, but Socrates said that, “the unexamined life is not worth living”.  Let’s examine ourselves to see how we are doing in the love category.  I sat down and tried to think in my own mind how we demonstrate that we love someone or something.  Let me give you nine I came up with.

1.                  The desire to be with them.

2.                  The commitment to sacrifice for them.

3.                  The understanding of the other’s needs and wants.

4.                  The inevitability of becoming like them.

5.                  The reality of investing in their desires.

6.                  The denial of your desires to fulfill theirs.

7.                  The willingness to overlook their weaknesses.

8.                  The commitment to tell others of them.

9.                  The continual thinking of them during free time.

            Take those issues and compare it with your relationship with God or with others.  In your walk with God, do you put His will above your own?  Are you financially willing to go without to see that His work is advanced?  Is your desire to be with Him?  Are you willing to sacrifice for Him?  These are just a few of the questions to ask as we examine our love level with God.  On a scale of 1-100, what would you say your love passion for God is?  It needs to be 100%.

            THIRD, PRAYER RESULTED FROM THEIR HOPE.  In a world where half of the people living were slaves, there was not much cause for joy in this world.  However, the Christian faith brought hope into the world, because it focused life on the future blessings rather than the present difficulties.  This is not pie in the sky.  Just as an illustration, picture child birth.  As a woman goes into labor, there is pain and agony.  There is the feeling of “I want to get out of this”.  However, as soon as the baby is born, there is great joy and the pain is forgotten because the child has come into the world.  That is hope.  It is not a denial of the tribulation one is going through, it is an acceptance of that tribulation and a realization of God’s blessings in the future.  Paul wrote,          ROMANS 5:3-5; 8:24,25              I want to look at this hope.  We read,    1 PETER 1:3,4; TITUS 2:13                        This hope is not wishful thinking.  This hope is a secure benefit, reserved for us in the bank of Heaven.  There is nothing that can take it away.  It is an anchor for our life.  When things get tough, it is hope that gets us through, because we know that our hope is secure in the midst of turmoil.  This hope is also resting in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul wrote,      EPHESIANS 1:9-14               Hope, like faith, must rest in the right object.  I remember reading about a man in Florida who wanted to get rich quick.  The Southern Power ball Lottery had exceeded 150 million dollars and he went out and purchased 10,000 tickets.  He hoped he would get rich.  However, purchasing all of those tickets still gave him the odds of winning at 1500 to one.  To make that your hope is bad odds.  On the other hand, to hope in Christ is a sure thing because of the resurrection.  One has defined hope as “anticipating and expecting God to work out His revealed will in my life even when it doesn’t seem possible”.  Does that definition deny tragedies and trials?  Not at all.  It simply believes that in the midst of those trials, God is going to do His work in our life.  Sometimes that finished work is not realized until Heaven, but that is our ultimate hope anyway.  This is why Paul states that this hope is “LAID UP FOR US IN HEAVEN”.  Jim Elliott led a group of missionaries to Equator.  Soon thereafter the five men were martyred.  As they picked their way through his diary they noted that he had written, “he is no fool who gives up what he can’t keep to gain what he can’t lose”.  That is the hope of the believer, the realization that we give up what we could never possess in the first place so that we might attain what we will never lose. 

            There is one aspect that is critical for us to understand.  We read,           TITUS 2:13               Did you notice what we are to do?  We are looking for something.  However, we are not looking for something, we are looking for someone.  The “BLESSED HOPE” is not an event or a location.  It is a person.  We are looking for a person and when He returns, the entire will of God in our life will be fulfilled.  When we go through difficulties, this is our comfort, that God will finish His work in us even when we don’t understand how.

            PRAYER RESULTED FROM THEIR RESPONSE TO THE TRUTH.  We are going to pick up on this thought next week as we look at the power of the gospel, but let me just begin the topic.  We live in a culture in which truth is a very subjective thing.  Something might be true for you that is not true for someone else.  It is not true because it is true; it is true because I believe it.  That is why it cannot be imposed on anyone else.  What right do you have to force someone to accept your truth if they believe in another truth.  Obviously there are some issues in which this is true.  We take communion every week.  Some churches take it every month or every quarter.  I would not want a law passed requiring people to take communion just as we do it. 

            On the other hand, there are many issues that the Bible speaks to which are a part of our culture.  This is the battle over the definition on marriage.  One side argues that marriage is man-woman.  That is the Biblical mandate, and it has been a part of our culture since the founding of our nation.  Others argue that the Bible cannot be used as the standard because of separation of church and state.  Therefore, homosexual marriage should be allowed.  I read an article this week in the largest selling newspaper in our nation advocating the legalization of polygamy.  What is the solution?  Paul writes, “OF WHICH YOU PREVIOUSLY HEARD IN THE WORD OF TRUTH…”  Paul is claiming that the scriptures are true.  We read,    1 TIMOTHY 3:14-15            This was the position of our founding fathers.  Not all were Evangelicals, but all accepted the authority of the Bible.  That is why so many of our laws were based on Old and New Testament principles.  The biggest problem in this area, however, is not that our culture resists the authority of the scriptures, but those within the church resist it’s authority.  How should we respond to God’s word?  We read          NEHEMIAH 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 13-16             Why did they do this?  Because God’s word said to.  This holiday is still practiced today by Jews around the world in what is called “Succoth”.  It is right after the celebration of Yom Kippur.  When God speaks, we do not argue, we obey. 

            What is your response to God’s word?  Do you ignore it?  Do you rationalize it away?  Do you change it to be more pleasing to your friends?  Or, do you obey it.  In your finances, your family, your job, your neighborhood, does God’s word give you direction in how to behave?

            You may think that the obedience to the word is isolated from our hope.  It isn’t!  It is the cause of our hope.  How is that so?  Our hope is not in this world.  Obviously there are glimpses of our eternal hope as God moves in our life here on Earth, but our hope ultimately rests in eternity.  How do we even know that we have an eternal hope?  It is because the Bible tells us.  “JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW, FOR THE …”  If the Bible is not telling the truth on current social issues, on what basis do we believe it is telling the truth on eternal issues?

            Let me close with these words from Hebrews.  We read,              HEBREWS 6:17-20             Our hope is an anchor, because it is a sure thing.  It is guaranteed because of the blood shed by Christ on the cross.  However, the only way we can be sure is to be convinced that what we have heard is the word of truth.  When God speaks, you need to listen.