The Letter to the Colossian Church- 2


Subtitle: A Prayer of Petition
Colossians 1:9-14. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, July 20, 2025.
We are continuing in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae. Last week, we looked at Paul’s prayer of thanksgiving for their faith, their love, and their hope in God.
In these verses, he moves into a prayer of petition on their behalf.
Let’s look at our passage.
Paul asks for certain things in their lives (v. 9-11)
Just as prayers of thanksgiving are a kind of prayer, so we have prayers of petition, where we ask God for things. The idea of petition may seem strange to connect to prayer. However, think about how we use petitions in our society. At its root, a petition is going before some authority and asking them for something. Yet, due to the political nature of most authorities, we get as many people as possible to “sign” our petition, basically saying that they are asking for this also. Thankfully, our prayers to God are not generally dependent upon getting enough people to agree with us.
We should recognize that there are different categories of things in our petitions to God. Some things like food, money for bills, or healing from a sickness, if they are answered by God, will no longer be in our prayers of petition. They will be a part of our prayers of thanksgiving, but we will no longer be asking God to heal someone who is already healed.
The things that Paul asks for them are not the kind of things that can be answered tomorrow and be done. They are the kind of things that are being answered throughout our life and are completed through death and resurrection.
This brings up a side issue. It is common for people to compare their petitions to those of others. When we are praying for someone that has stage-4 cancer, it is common for people who are battling a cold to feel like their healing is too small to bother God. We can find ourselves in a strange place of not praying because we are convinced God is too big to be bothered with us. The problem here is this. We don’t realize how we are diminishing God in thinking that He is too big to be bothered. What we are really saying is that He is not quite big enough to be able to deal with the big and small things of life. Your petitions are important to God because they are part of the way that He is working to make you like Jesus.
Before we get into what Paul is asking for them, he mentions that he has “not ceased to pray for” them (vs. 9). To pray without ceasing is not so much about praying every second. It is a prayer that is always in his heart for them. He loves them, and he desires things that can’t be answered in a moment in time. Thus, he continually prays that God will do these things in their lives. He said the same thing to the Thessalonians and other churches. Paul’s prayer for one is his prayer for all.
These are not prayers of empty (vain) repetitions. Jesus didn’t say, “When you pray, do not repeat your prayers.” Rather, he said, “When you pray, do not use vain repetitions.” There is a repetition that has meaning. It is when we are praying for things that take a life-time to complete, and we are doing so out of love. However, empty repetitions happen when we think that we can get what we want by God through some mantra or mechanism of prayer. People can build rituals of prayers and activities as a means of acquiring whatever they prayer. This puts us in the driver seat and makes an answer to prayer all about our ability. Prayer at its root needs to be a child coming to their father. There is no way we can force our Father in heaven to give us what we ask. But, we can seek His wisdom as we ask.
In our flesh, we can grow weary of praying for the same thing over and over. However, the Spirit of God can stir in us a love for our family (biological or spiritual) to the point that we won’t give up praying, asking, these things for them.
Paul asks God to fill them with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
The word for knowledge here has a prefix that gives the added sense of a precise and correct knowledge. How can we have a precise and correct knowledge of the God’s Will? In fact, think of all the ways in which we are surrounded by imprecise and incorrect knowledge of God and His will. The only way we can get this is if God reveals Himself to us, which He has been faithful to do.
Can you imagine this prayer being “answered” completely in this life? I mean to the point where you never have to pray for it again. This is the kind of thing that you will be asking God over and over again, not because He isn’t answering, but because the knowledge of God’s will has an incomprehensively large range. It goes from the micro such as decisions for our individual life: jobs, marriage, kids, etc. However, it stretches out to the macro, such as the response of our Republic and this world to the Gospel, to the point in time in which the saints will inherit the Kingdom of God.
God answers such a prayer as we live life and wrestle with it before Him in prayer.
Paul adds the modifiers of “spiritual wisdom” and “understanding.” He calls it spiritual to highlight the source of the wisdom and understanding. However, we know that Paul doesn’t mean just any spiritual source. The devil is a spiritual source of false wisdom that many in the world embrace and call wisdom. Paul clearly is pointing to a wisdom whose source is the Spirit of God.
This is what James speaks of in James 3:15. He warns to have a wisdom from God, “from above,” versus a wisdom that is earthly, from the earth. He uses two more words to describe a worthless wisdom. The second is that it is sensual, that is, from our senses and flesh. Lastly, James speaks of a wisdom that is demonic. We can treat earthly, sensual, and demonic as three different kinds of wisdom, but they are tied together. The devil uses our flesh and the world around us to manipulate us like he did to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The wisdom of this world and the wisdom of our flesh simply becomes a proxy for the wisdom of the devil because he leads us by the nose through them.
What is the difference between understanding and wisdom? Well, understanding is an aspect. It is the moments when we gain insight into what God wants and why He wants it. However, wisdom flows out of understanding and answers the question, “So, what should we do?” The source of wisdom is critical because it will direct the things we do and don’t do.
How does God fill us with the knowledge of His will? He does so through the written Word, through mature believers, and through the help of the Holy Spirit. This means we must be a people who are reading the Word of God (seeking His wisdom), interacting and talking with mature believers, and seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit through prayer.
Paul also asks God that they walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in all respects. There is a lot of water under the bridge in this area within the Church. There is a whole range of how people respond to a verse like this. On one side of the range is a group that sees absolute obedience without failing as the meaning of this. It is a legalistic perfectionism that typically has a group of elders who are the judges of how well you are doing. On the other side of the range is a group that promotes Jesus as such a covering for our sins that we don’t even have to quit sinning. They will even dissuade the desire to obey God because you are trying to save yourself. This is the easy grace crowd that demands next to nothing for those who are in their group.
Let me be clear. Jesus is worthy of absolute perfection, but Paul is not calling for this. He is referencing the reality that we represent our Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus to a world that doesn’t know them. Part of the understanding of His will that we need is to see how God works through the way we live our lives in order to draw others to Him. A manner “worthy of the Lord” is a focused life that seeks to please Him in everything. Anyone who does this will find themselves failing in many things, not on purpose, but simply out of falling short of Jesus. Yet, what do we do when we fall short? God’s word tells us to heed the Holy Spirit, repent, and pray for His help. We shouldn’t do this out of fear, but out of a desire to please our Lord and help his purposes.
In this area, it is important to distinguish between salvation issues and discipleship issues. I will come back to this in a moment, but this is critical here. This “worthy manner” phrase is not about obtaining or keeping our salvation. It is about our discipleship in Jesus.
Paul also prays that they would bear fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. There is a theme that begins in Genesis 1 and flows throughout the Bible. God made humanity to be fruitful like He is. Yet, he connects it to “every good work.” God is the one who defines both what is fruitful and what is a good work. He is the source of every good thing, and it is He who puts good things in front of us to do, whatever that be. He is the teacher of both what is good and how to do it.
Some people can be picky and choosey about what they want to do or not to do. This calls for yielding our fleshly desires and surrendering to His heavenly desires.
When we do the work that God gives us to do well, then it bears good fruit. This involves pruning things that are not good out of our life. It also involves pruning things that are fine in and of themselves. However, there is too much crowded into our life, demanding our time. It can squelch and inhibit good fruit. Thus, a perfectly good branch can be cut off to give more sunlight and oxygen to the other branches around it.
A person led by the Spirit of God will have the very life of God springing up within their life and flowing out into the lives of others. This fruitfulness has the by-product of increasing our knowledge of God.
This brings us back to the tension between salvation and discipleship. How can we do good works? I thought all our works were as filthy rags? The apostle Paul was not contradicting himself. Rather, we need to distinguish between salvation and discipleship. None of our works and worthy walking can save us. In and of themselves they fall short of the absolute righteousness needed to save a person. When it comes to salvation, it is the work and walk of Jesus that can save. He creates a place within him that we can step into by faith. It is a faith in him. He is the One who performed the work of saving me. However, now that we are in that saved and cleaned place, he wants us to learn of him, become like him, discipleship. In that saved place of trusting Jesus, we can do good works and walk worthy. Our works are no longer filthy rags because they are done by faith in Jesus, and they are stirred up by the Spirit of God. The works that are done in Christ and by the leading of the Holy Spirit are cleansed by Jesus, and we now do them for the right reasons, to glorify God for Jesus as opposed to trying to impress Him with us.
Paul also asks that they be strengthened with all power for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience. We can get excited about the idea of having power. Visions of creating worlds and vanquishing the armies of Pharaoh may dance in our heads. Yet, Paul speaks of a power that is “according to His glorious might.” This is the power displayed by Jesus when he went to the cross. It is in contrast to the power that the Corinthian Christians desired. There desire was all about a power that would distinguish them above each other. The power of Christ is distinguished by it penchant to place ourselves beneath others in order to lift them up. It is the strength to die to what our flesh wants. This is at the root of any good work that we may do for Christ.
Paul sees a connection between the exercise of spiritual strength and something that it produces in us. It will make us steadfast and patient. These two words are really about patience, but it is patience looked at from a different facet. Steadfastness pictures patience as the ability to remain under a heavy load, rather than quitting. It is perseverance, endurance. The second word translated patience is the picture of not easily losing your temper and blowing your top.
Only the power of God’s Holy Spirit can help us to persevere and not lose our cool, whether this is with others or towards God. Yet, we will need to die to the cries of our flesh to quit and get angry. We will have to picture Jesus on the cross and choose to join Him there.
Some translations connect the phrase “with joy” to patience, i.e., having patience with joy. Others connect it to the next verse, “joyously giving thanks…” It is one of those strange cases where the grammar can actually allow for both interpretations. Whether we can determine which of these Paul intended, I think the difficulty is moot in the end. Think about it. Is there ever a time when we shouldn’t be patient with joy? Or is it okay for our thanksgiving to be without joy? Regardless of which of these you think is most likely, we should do all things with joy.
Give thanks to the Father for what He has done (v. 12-14)
We should see this as the last thing that he is praying for them. Just as He gave thanks for them, he desires that they too become a people giving thanks to the Father, and with joy. We should notice how all of these things tie together. Our growing in spiritual wisdom and understanding helps us to know the Lord and be joyful for all that He does in our lives, even just for our lives.
Yet, Paul is transitioning out of what he prays for them and into a treatise about God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, verses 12 through 14 describe what the Father has done for us. When we understand what He has done for us, we will joyfully give thanks to Him even in difficult times.
He points out that our Heavenly Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints of light. This could also be translated as, “qualified us for a share [a portion, a lot] in the inheritance.” What is this inheritance of the saints? It is the promise throughout the Old Testament that God will give the Kingdoms of the world to His representative and the saints. This is most clearly described in Daniel 7. Verses 13 to 14 focus on the Son of Man (aka the Messiah) who receives full dominion over the kingdoms of the world and a Kingdom that will never end. However, later in verse 22, it explicitly states that the saints will take possession of the Kingdom. Thus, this singular person, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the One through whom the saints can participate in the Dominion of Messiah.
By ourselves, we were (are) not worthy to receive this kingdom. At the tower of Babel, God casts off the nations and creates a nation for Himself out of Abraham. The nations failed to qualify. However, we have a similar dynamic at the cross of Jesus. Israel is cast out of the land because it has disqualified itself as a recipient of the Kingdom. Christ then takes a remnant of Israel and uses them to be a light to the Gentile nations. The key to this is that Jesus was the only one, Gentile or Jew, who qualified to receive the Kingdom from the Father. Yet, the good news is that we can participate in his qualification.
There is a present aspect to the portion that we are qualified to obtain, and there is a future aspect to it, but more on that in a moment.
Why does he use the phrase, “the saints of light?” Saints is a reference to the fact that we are set apart for God’s purpose. This makes us holy, holy ones, and that is what the word “saints” means. Light here is used to refer to the God of all Light. It is symbolic of the way that truth helps us to see the realities that exist around us. Jesus is the light of the world. Yet, he in turn tells us that we are the light of the world. How is that? When we put our faith in Jesus, and his Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, the light of Jesus shines through us like a clay lamp. In and of ourselves, we are just a clay lamp. However, with the oil and flame of God within us, we can be used of God to shine the light, the truth, of Christ to the world.
Part of what qualifies us is that the Father has rescued us from the domain of darkness. This is external imagery that takes on a military feel. His people have been stuck in a kingdom of darkness and need to be rescued, like Israel in Egypt. However, this is not a rescue from a geographical place or a particular government.
A child born into this world starts out innocent of any evil. Yet, the darkness of this world presses in upon them. It seeks entrance by any means. By the time we become adults, the darkness of this world has made us a part of its dominion. In the end, each of our hearts is where the domain of darkness reigns.
It is the Father who sent the Son to take on the nature of a man in order to rescue us from the grip of the devil. These people in Colossae were under the dominion of the Beast Kingdom of Rome, but now they have been rescued and are no longer at the mercy of that darkness.
Finally, the Father has transferred us to the Kingdom of the Son of His love. God hasn’t just rescued us. He has put us in the Kingdom of Jesus. Of course, they are still in Colossae and must deal with the Roman governance. This is due to the “now but not yet fully” nature of the Kingdom of Jesus.
This kingdom will never end, but it will go through phases. We are in the phase where he is offering terms of peace to his enemies. “Join me! Why will you die? Take my hand!”
He is called the Beloved Son, or Son of His Love, because it is tying into the prophecies about the ultimate son of David. God promised a forever kingdom ruled by one who would be a son to God and God would be a Father to him. These prophecies of an Anointed King are fulfilled in Jesus. He is the One who has a perfect relationship of love with the Father. It is God’s love for Jesus that is the bedrock of our hope. If I was alone, then I could fear that He would deny me. However, when I am with Jesus, God will not deny Himself!
Paul ends by stating that in Jesus we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. These are also things that the Father has done, through the work of Jesus. These are the foundation of our qualifying to inherit the Kingdom of God.
Those who are in Christ have forgiveness of their sins. However, this is not so that we can go out and sin more, but so that we not lose heart and give up when we fail. Jesus cleanses us from our sins. Yet, our cleansed state is only as we stand in Jesus. Yes, I can be cleansed, but I am also standing within a cleansed place, the Lord Jesus.
How can we be sure that we have been redeemed and forgiven? It is not because you have never failed, that is for sure. We can be sure because we are obeying what the word says: put your faith in Jesus, turn from your sin, and follow him by the help of the Holy Spirit.
I pray that you have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and are firmly in the Kingdom of the Beloved Son, Jesus. Yes, your geography hasn’t changed, but your soul has changed!













