Hi, I'm Marty McKenzie with His Love Ministries. Welcome to the Least of These podcast. We reach out to those the world has forgotten. If you'd like to know more about us and how you can donate to help us fulfill our mission, go to hisloveministries.net. Thank you very much and God bless you. We shall suffer no tribute of praise For the glorious gift of His love And the blessings that hallow His days In the sweet quiet of life We shall meet on that beautiful shore, In the sweet, quiet life. We shall meet on that beautiful shore. Amen. Alright, well, we're gonna look at our Bibles now we're gonna look at Colossians chapter 1 and we're gonna start in verse 9 today and kind of go back and let y'all get caught up a little bit. Remember the book of Colossians is really about Jesus Christ having superiority, supremacy and everything, preeminence, and we don't need anything else, right? Jesus is all we need. And remember there were some people that had kind of started to drift into the Colossian church and they began to, tell people that they needed more than Jesus, more than what they have. They said, kind of like some of these people today, they come to your door or something, or they used to come to your door and they'd say, well, what you have is good, but we have the latest revelation. We have a little bit more. And they try to tell you that you need the Bible plus what they have. Another Bible or another something that they have. And that's what was going on back then. That's what still goes on today. And what happens is these people take the same words that we use, the same terms that we use in Christian language, and what they do is they use a different dictionary. So when we say the resurrection, they won't say that Jesus literally bodily raised from the grave, things like that. And so that's why Paul uses in this book, remember he's locked up in the prison during this time, and he uses words like fullness and filled and perfect and mature and complete and wisdom, because these people were saying, well, we have the real wisdom. You need this to be complete. You need this to be full. You need this to have the true wisdom and all the things you need to live the Christian life. And so people always want to come in and they want to add to what the Bible says, but the Bible says three different times, if you add to my words or take away from my words, I will take your name out of the book of life. That's pretty serious business. That means you're headed to hell. If you alter, change the word of God, And some of these preachers nowadays, they really need to take heed to that because they're trying to just make it say and make it easy on the ears and on the heart and the mind, because they don't want to say what the Bible says is truth. And we, if we're truly Christians, we need to understand and what Paul's going to pray today is we need to know the word of God. That is the first and foremost thing we need to know. And when we know the word of God, then everything else can kind of flow out of that, right? But being a Christian is becoming what you are. Jesus Christ saved you. He forgave you. He changed you. He put a spirit in your life. If you're a believer, and when He changed you and He saved you, He made you something potentially different. You are different, but you have the potential to be a whole lot different. That's why He changed so many people's names when He saved them and forgave them. Paul became Saul. I don't know if God did that or Paul was just using the Greek name instead of his Jewish name, Saul. But he changed other people's names. He changed Jacob to Israel, right? And he changed Peter. He says, your name is Simon, but you shall be called Peter. You'll be the rock, right? You're not gonna be a shaky one anymore, but you're gonna be a rock. And so we change people's names and the Bible says we have a new name written down in heaven that no one knows, but God and us will know one day. And so he changes his name and he sees what we are, but he sees what we can be if we allow him to change us and work in our life through the word of God. And so remember Paul wrote this book and he's in prison and he writes it showing us that Jesus is the head of the church. In Ephesians he writes about the body of the church, but here he writes Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He has the preeminence, he has first place. Without Him, we are nothing. And so he writes, he gives his credentials, and of course he writes for verses three through eight, he writes, one long sentence of the Greek, and he gives thanks for several things. He gives thanks for their faith, their hope, and their love. And he says, the reason you have your faith and your love is because the hope that's in you, right? The hope of going to heaven, the hope that you have because you're a Christian. And he says he learned all this from who? Epaphras, right? And Epaphras ends up staying in Colossae and he sends back Onesimus, the slave who was saved and changed, he sends them back and he sends Tychicus back with this letter so that they can read it. And I think he probably also sent the, maybe possibly at the same time, the book of Ephesians, because he talks about the book, the letter that was sent to Laodicea, which they think the book of Ephesians is really that letter. So when we get to this section of chapter 9 through 14, It's kind of all one train of thought, but probably we're only going to be able to cover the first part of it today. We're going to cover verses nine through about 11, which is really the petition. And then verses 12 through 14, we'll probably get into that next time and we'll see how far we get. But he talks about praise. He just burst into praise there. Well, let's read chapter nine and I'll just read through 14 because it's one big section of thought. Chapter one of Colossians. verses nine through 14. He says, for this reason, since the day we heard it, we do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, that you may be fully pleasing to him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy. Given 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 and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Well, we could spend weeks on that, just that one section, couldn't we? But we're not gonna do that. But what we wanna do today is, first of all, we wanna see that for the reason, he says, for this reason, we also, since the day we heard, for what reason? The reason he heard of their faith, their hope, and their love, and their love for all the saints, and the way they were living, and their salvation. Since the day he heard that, what did he do? He says, we do not cease to pray for you. Remember, he's there. And far as we know, I think it's Aristarchus and Epaphras end up with him there. Because at the end of the book, he writes about his fellow prisoners, right? And I think Aristarchus and Epaphras are there, but we don't know if they were actually arrested. But they were there with Paul, taking care of him and helping him. Because remember at this time he's under house arrest in Rome. And remember Paul writes 7. of his letters that he writes in the Bible while he's locked up in prison. He writes four of them in the first time, and then he writes three the last time. He writes the epistles to the pastors, 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus, but he writes Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon while he's locked up the first time. And so he writes all these books and he says, for this reason, since the day we heard, we do not cease to pray for you. That doesn't mean that he's. Praise all day, every day, but it's kind of like, you know, one man said it like this, it's like, you know, you're in an attitude of prayer. That maybe somebody comes to your mind and you slow up a prayer for Ms. Grace or, you know, if somebody else comes to your mind, you pray for them, knowing what they need or, Lord, I don't know what's going on with them, but But I want to pray for him, right? I remember hearing a story about a man that he said he was out in the jungle or somewhere, and they were surrounded by some cannibals or something like that. And they were just about to be killed. He was a missionary. And he said that he didn't know what happened, but all of a sudden, they left. And they thought they were all going to die. But it turns out, when he told that story, he said, come to find out, during that particular time, this guy said, yeah, I called these people, and we all began to pray. And he said, later on, when he talked to these natives that began to come to the Lord, that they said they saw these mighty warriors in white that scared them half to death, so they all left. So every one of them were praying and the Lord sent his angels to surround them and protect them. So we never know why God sends, ask us to pray, right? But when he puts somebody on our heart, we pray for them. And it might be just a brief prayer. Sometimes I'm riding in the parking lot and I said, oh Lord, please give me a parking spot here. There's nobody, there's not any parking spots. I'm gonna have to walk three miles just to get to the place that I'm trying to get to. And you pray for, God says take what? Everything to Him in prayer, right? There's nothing too little for God. So we can pray for the little things, we can pray for the big things, but we just throw up those little prayers all day long as we're going through the day. And He says, what does He pray? First of all, He prays for them to have a deep and thorough understanding of God's will. He says, I do not cease to pray and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So he prays, first of all, remember Paul's prayers. Every time you read the book of Ephesians or Philippians or Colossians or some of these books, what do you see Paul praying for? He's not praying for people who are sick, but what's he praying? He's praying these spiritual prayers where he's praying God, you know, make these people full of God. Give them the length and let them know the length and the depth and the height and the width and the depth of the knowledge of the love of God, right? Know how great this love is that they might be what? Filled with the fullness of God. And notice a lot of times he prays these prayers, and they're conditional prayers, and each part of it says, in order of that, in order of that, in order of that. And so each one of these pieces kind of comes together, and that's kind of the way this prayer is today, that all of these things that we're gonna talk about today, that they come out of this first prayer for them to have a knowledge and understanding, a spiritual knowledge and understanding of God's will. And so when he's talking about that, what's he saying? He's praying for knowledge. And let me just say something about this word knowledge. I kind of left that one out earlier. Remember that these people said they had this super knowledge, right? These Colossian, whoever, heresy people that were there. And they said, we've got the super knowledge, right? We've got the knowledge. But you know what Paul's saying? He's using this word, epigenosis, which means super knowledge. So remember he's throwing their own terms right back out. Knowledge and fullness and completeness and perfectness and being fulfilled and all these things he's throwing out because he knows that we have the truth. These other people don't and they'll come and they'll tell you we got the full gospel There's a group that's called the full gospel businessmen something and they say unless you speak in tongues You're not really saved right and people will say all kinds of things and say if unless you do this unless you do that You're not truly saved, right? And that's what's going on here. And so Paul throws his own, he throws their own terms back out there. And he says that you may be filled with the super knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So what is God's will? We know there's a general will and there's a specific will, right? Some of the general will of God is that we'd be saved. We'd be sanctified. suffering, that's one of the things, that we'd be spirit filled. And those are some of the things that we'd be giving thanks always, that we'd be joyful. Those are some things that's the general will of God for all Christians, right? And then sometimes God gives us the specific will. But what he says here in all wisdom, So all wisdom means, first of all, and that's another term that they're throwing out there too. We've got the wisdom, right? But what he's saying is this wisdom, first of all, is a wisdom that this is the principles that we need to understand from the Word of God. And unless you know who you are, you don't know how to behave. I don't know if any of y'all's parents when you were kids or maybe as an adult and you having kids or somebody you said, now you're a, and I'm gonna throw my last name out there, you're a McKenzie. Now I want you to go out and act like one, right? Well, how does a McKenzie act? Well, if the parents have been doing their job, they've been training you at home how to live in such a way that you're not bringing embarrassment to the McKenzie family, right? Well, guess what? That's what God's given us, right? He's given us the Bible, and the Bible tells us how to behave, It tells us first who we are, and remember that's the first two chapters of Colossians, and most of the books of the Bible that are written by Paul, he'll give us part of the book as who are you or what should you believe, and then he says, now in light of what I've told you about who you are and what you should believe, now guess what? This is how you behave, right? So unless you know what you are and the truth you don't know how to believe, right? You don't know how to behave. That's like if somebody's teaching you math and they don't teach you 1 plus 1 is 2 and they tell you to go out and add some things up, how are you going to add anything up, right? You can't add it up, right? And to do basic math, you have to know the numbers, and then you have to know the addition, and then you have to learn subtraction. And until you do that, you can't learn what? You can't learn multiplication, and then you can't learn all the trigonometry and calculus. Algebra, I couldn't learn any of that anyway, because my brain doesn't work that way. But God gave me more of a science brain, but you have to learn the basics before you can learn the big stuff, right? And that's what he's saying here, that you be filled with all wisdom. In other words, that you're gonna learn the word of God. You're gonna understand. We understand the will of God through the word of God. And so he says here that you'd be filled. And what does that word filled mean? I'll kind of back up here. It means to be controlled, right? You know, some places where the Pharisees, they were mad with Jesus and it said they were filled with rage. And the Bible says to be filled with the spirit. What does it mean to be filled with the spirit? It means to be controlled by the spirit. It means to let the word of God dwell in you richly. And those things that you know up here come out here, right? And that's the way the word of God works. And so wisdom is the ability to store up and organize the knowledge of scripture. You take those principles, they're in your head, but then what happens next? Understanding is the application or the ability to apply those principles to your life. The Bible says, we'll see in a minute, the walk worthy. How do you do that? You do that first of all, by doing what? Learning the word of God. And that's one reason I spend so much time in here going through the word of God. I don't just try to see how much we can go through real super quick and sometimes maybe I get a little too deep, maybe. But the bottom line is, there's so much more that even we could ever understand or know in our lifetimes. The more we know, the more, if you're a Christian, you realize that you don't know. Y'all ever heard of J. Bernard McGee? He was an old preacher at Church of the Open Door. I think that was in California. And there was another guy there before him, Ray Steadman. But J. Bernard McGee says, when I was a young man, he said, I thought I knew everything. And he said, the older I get, the more I realize how little I really know. And that's the way it is. You realize, but when you get ahold of somebody who says, well, I know everything, or I've got it all under control, then you just run, because they don't. Nobody does. Even Paul didn't do it. He said, I don't know, I haven't arrived, I haven't made it, I haven't achieved it, but I press on towards the goal, towards the prize, towards the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. So the first step towards fullness of spiritual life and a spiritual intelligence is growing in the will of God by knowing the word of God. That's our first step so we know the Word of God. And that's one of the things I'd encourage you if you have an app on your phone or you've got that large print Bible or whatever it is, take your section of scripture. You're never too old to learn. You can learn every day. Take your section of scripture and just read it over and over and over again. Take a chapter a day or if you read pretty good, pretty fast, take one of these little short books like Colossians and read it Once a day for 30 days or 60 days or 90 days. I got, one of my family members says, hey, read one chapter for seven days in a row, right? I like to read it at least 30 days, because if you read it 30 days, it begins to, and you can, one guy, John MacArthur said he read the book of 1 John for 90 days straight, and you know what he said? He said, today, to this day, I can still see where those verses are at on that page. And he's in his 80s now, right? He's still preaching. But that's what we need to do is first of all know the word of God. And so the first thing he says is he prays that they would be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. And we might not get but to one more. And then the second thing he prays is that their wisdom and understanding would lead to practical obedience. In other words, they would apply what they know up here to their life, right? Remember what I said about the Christian life? The Christian life is becoming who you are. In other words, Jesus saved you for something greater, right? He's given you the Holy Spirit in your life. You're a child of the King. You're a child of God. And he's given you the ability to become more than what you are physically. You know, I always keep saying that the service, you know, they say, if you want to be all you can be, join the army or the Navy or the Air Force or the Marines, right? Well, if you want to be all you can be, join God's army, be saved, be forgiven. And once you become God's child, You can be a Simon Peter and you can become what? You can become the rock, right? You can become the one who's stable and doesn't, well, he still wasn't perfect, but he was the rock and he founded the church. And he prayed and he preached the first sermons and 3,000 people got saved, 5,000 people got saved. You remember what God said to Gideon? Gideon's hiding in the grain bin because he was threshing the wheat in the wine press because every time the Israelites would go out on the hills and bring the crops in, you know what would happen? The Midianites would come in and steal all their crops. And so Gideon's hiding in the wine press and God speaks to Gideon and you know what he says to him? Gideon, the almighty man of valor. Gideon's probably looking around going, I don't see anybody else in here. Who's he talking to, right? But you know what Gideon became? He became a mighty man of valor. He began to throw down idols and do those things. He started out on shaky ground and he did it at night and destroyed it, but he became a mighty man, right? And the thing is, is that's what God wants us to do. He wants us to understand the word of God. And then once we understand the word of God, he wants us to apply it to our life and become the person he wants us to be, right? You'll never be all that God wants you to be until you begin to apply the word of God to your life. and say, God, what is it you want me to do? How do I react in this situation? What do I do here? How do I do it? And how do you know those decisions? That's the specific will of God, right? Some of it's general, because, you know, some things he says, love one another and forgive one another and quit bearing grudges against one another and all these things. But in some places, you know, there's not a verse in there that says sell your house do this or do that or move from one facility to another, but you have to pray and read the word of God and God will give you direction, right? And so that's how we learn the word of God and that's how we grow and become the person that he wants us to be. And he says that you may be worthy of the Lord, right? Or live in a way that's consistent with those godly principles. Paul said that in Psalm chapter, or not Paul, but in Psalm chapter four, verse three, it says, but know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself, for the Lord will hear when I call unto him. And so two words summarize the practicality of the Christian life. One of them is walk, and the other one is work. People look at you and they say, what is the character of your life? What is the pattern of your life? Are you consistently living for the Lord and doing good things? Not that you're perfect, because none of us will be this side of heaven, right? And what are we doing for the Lord? But as our pattern, the Bible says, those who practice sin, are not saved, right? Those that practice sin. Practice makes perfect. These people, they get sinned down perfect. They sin and sin and sin and they go further and further and further down. But if we keep on practicing holiness and asking God to help us become what he wants us to be, we get stronger and stronger and become more and more and more like Jesus Christ, right? That's what he wants us to do. And so if I can't first get the wisdom then I don't know how to walk correctly. I don't know how to do what God wants me to do. And then I can't work for God unless I'm walking with him and asking him and talking to him and say, God, what is it you want me to do? How do you want me to do this? Where do you want me to do that? And sometimes I heard a man say this one time, and I think some of it's true, that the older you get and the more you know the Lord, the less the Lord just gives you specific answers because you already kind of know the answers in your mind, right? One man said, if you're spirit-filled and walking in the will of, and as best as you know how, you're prayed up, confessed up, and living for the Lord, he says, what do you do? Anything you want to. Because what are you going to do if you're living that way? God's controlling your mind, your will, and your emotions. He's going to give you the right thing to do, right? And you won't be doing anything that's not pleasing to Him. And that's what He's talking about. So we walk and we work in our life. We're not to be here to please ourselves, but to be here to please Him, right? And so I guess we'll have to go to the next point when I come back next week. I didn't even get near as far as I thought I was gonna get. But there's just so much in these three or four verses here, 9 through 11, 9, 10, 11, 12, I guess 9, 10, 11, three verses, and we're not even gonna get to all of verse 10. But there's just so much here that if we truly know the Lord, then we wanna please Him. We wanna walk worthy. That word worthy is the word which we get worship from, right? Worthship, that's where that word came from, worthship. He's worthy of worship, and that's what we're to do. We worship Him with our life, the way we live, the things we say, the things we live out in our lives. And when people look at us, who do they see? That's a prayer, right? That they see Jesus. When they look at our lives, they don't see Marty and go, oh, there's Marty. He calls himself a Christian. But look what he's doing over there. Look how he's living. Listen to how he's talking. Look at the things he's doing. He's talking to that person mean. What's he doing? I thought he was a Christian. But instead, they should be saying, you know what? That Marty, there's something different about him. I don't know what it is, but I want what he's got, because you know what? He don't act like everybody else. And I need to find out what that is. And then you get an opportunity to tell people why you live the way you live and do the things you do. have that open door to say, you need Jesus too, right? And I've told y'all before, invite people to the church service. If somebody needs the Lord, and if they're willing to talk to me, I'll be glad to talk to them if they'll talk to me. Or I got some tracks if you want to hand them a track. I got one somewhere around here in my bag somewhere, and you can tell them this is what the Lord did for me, and he can do it for you too. Because you know, all of us, are headed for either heaven or hell. There's two destinations. And the Bible says that we're on the train headed for hell unless we've trusted Jesus Christ. But the moment we trust Jesus Christ, the Bible says, whoever believed does not condemn, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. So those that have never truly trusted in Christ, they don't have to do anything. They're just headed to hell. That's the bad news. The good news is, is everybody can get off the train that wants to. If you want to get off the train headed to hell, you can get on what the old guys used to sing when I used to go out to the prison, get on the gospel train, get on board, and ride that gospel train. And you know what? When you trust in Jesus Christ, life's different, life's joyful. Life is trouble and it is tribulation, but Jesus said, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world, which means since he's overcome the world, we can too, right? Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word. We thank you that that's the source of all of what we need to know and how to behave. Lord, help us to have this spiritual wisdom and understanding that we might walk worthy of the Lord, being fully pleasing to Him and bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all might according to His glorious power for all in patience, endurance, giving thanks to the Father in heaven. And we'll give you all the praise and the honor and the glory in Jesus' name, amen. Hi, I'm Marty McKenzie with His Love Ministries. Please help us reach out to those the world has forgotten. Everyone we minister to is locked up in some way, shape, or form. Some are locked up in bodies that don't work and in the nursing home facility, in the wheelchair, the bed they cannot get out of. We minister to children and youth who are locked up because of behavioral problems or their parents. They aren't doing right and they're crying as we want to have a real family. Other kids are locked up because they've committed crimes. We also minister to those locked up in the jail and the prison, to those locked up in addictions, to drugs, alcohol, depression, and suicidal thoughts, and a variety of other things that keep them from becoming who Jesus wants them to be. He came to give us life and to set us free, and these folks are not free, but we can set them free through Christ Jesus, at least in their minds and their spirits. We do about 2,000 services every year. We hope and pray that you'll support us in some way so we can continue our mission, go to HisLoveMinistries.net and click on the donate now button and we hope and pray that you will do that. Thank you and God bless you.