Praying to Grow Spiritually

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This morning we’re going to look at Colossians chapter 1, and we’re going to look at something that the Apostle Paul prayed for, and that’s something I think we should pray for as well. You know, we don’t always ask for, well, let me say it this way, the things that we ask for, even the things that we ask God for, are not always the things that are best for us. And that’s why sometimes the best thing we can pray is, Lord, just do your will in this situation because I don’t even know.

I don’t even know what the best outcome is here to pray for. But you know what he does. But there are things that there are things in our lives that we can we can ask God for that are not necessarily the best thing for us there.

And taking asking God out of the equation, there are things that we want in our lives that are not the best things for us. The things that we pursue. And I’m not even talking about spiritually.

I mean, we all know that there’s a restaurant back home where you can order a meal that just one meal alone is something like 2,500 calories. Now we all know that’s not a good idea, but they’re always crowded anyway. Folks, sometimes the things that we want and the things we go after are not the best thing for us.

And I’ve noticed this in my own family, in my own home, I don’t keep a lot of junk food on hand because if I don’t buy it, I won’t eat it. But if it’s in the house, I’ll eat it. But if I just exercise my willpower at the grocery store, then I don’t have to exercise it at home.

It’s easier that way. But there are a few things that I keep on hand, and Benjamin knows what they are, and Benjamin knows where they are. I’ll keep potato chips on hand for when we have sandwiches for lunch, and try to restrict myself and say that’s the only time we’re going to have those.

He’s always asking me, Daddy, can I have some chips? No, or I’ll fix him a sandwich. Can I have some more chips?

You haven’t even touched your sandwich. Of course, you can’t have more chips. He always wants chocolate milk.

Now, the milk part is good. I don’t care what vitamins and minerals they add to the syrup. It’s still chocolate, though.

And he wants to fill up on chocolate milk instead of eating. So he’ll say, Daddy, can I have some more milk? And I really have to think about it.

There are some things he’ll ask for that he really wants that I really have to think about. How much have you had already? Is this going to be too much?

Then there are those rare occasions when he asks for something that’s actually going to be good for him. The other night, he asked me for green beans, and I had to turn around and see who said that, because he doesn’t eat green beans. The other night, I made pasta for dinner, and he has discovered bread this week, and loves anything bread, pumpkin bread, corn bread, you name it, you say bread.

So I told him we were having pasta bread. It has wheat in it, doesn’t it? It has grain in there.

So I told him, here’s your pasta bread. Well, then he said, Daddy, can I have some more pasta bread? Sure you can.

You bet. You want more green beans? You want more pasta bread?

You bet you can have it. I don’t even have to think about that. Because it’s the stuff that’s good for him.

Folks, we spend so much of our lives in the pursuit of things that are not the best for us. And we even take our lists to God and we ask him for things that are not the best for us. They may even be good things, but they’re not the best for us.

that I believe that when we do go and ask our Heavenly Father for the things that are the best for us, I believe He doesn’t even have to think about it. He says, this is my will for you. You bet you can have that.

And folks, there are some things that God has expressed and said, this is my will for you. The Bible says that He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Is it God’s will that somebody becomes saved?

I believe it is. You don’t even have to tell me who it is. I believe it’s God’s will.

God’s will for us after that, the Bible says this is the will of God for you, even your sanctification. God desires that we be set apart and act like it and grow in him and that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning is praying for spiritual growth now we’ve already talked some about praying to make our requests to God but today we’re going to talk about a specific request we’ve spent so much time in the midst of this series of studies talking about how there’s so much more to prayer than just bringing our requests to God but on the other side of that we can’t neglect that he’s given us prayer for a reason, and He wants us to make our requests known to Him. And if they are in line with His will, He’s going to grant them.

We’re going to talk this morning about a prayer request that is in line with God’s will, and that God desires to grant for us, and that is prayer to grow spiritually. Like I said a moment ago, it even says in the Bible, this is the will of God, even your sanctification. God desires that we be set apart, that we act like it, and that we grow in Him.

That’s what, sanctification, I don’t completely understand this myself, but as I read and study in the Bible, I believe sanctification, which means to be set apart to God, is both an instant thing and an ongoing thing. I believe at the moment of our conversion, God sets us apart and says, you are mine now, you are bought with a price. But then the process of us growing into that sanctification, the process of us growing spiritually and learning how to become more like Jesus Christ takes us the rest of our natural lives.

And we can pray and ask God for his help in that. Colossians chapter 1 starting in verse 3 Paul writes to the church at Colossae and says we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you now don’t make the mistake there of thinking he’s talking about two different people God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that’s the same person we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you we thank him for you we pray for you always he says to the church at Colossae since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which ye have to all the saints. So he starts to list some of the things that he gives thanks for about the church at Colossae and what has led him to pray for them.

He says we have heard of your faith in Jesus Christ. We’ve heard of not just the fact that you believe, but we’ve heard of the strong conviction you have in Jesus Christ. And he said the love that you have to all the saints. I’m sure we could all say, we won’t name names, but we could all say we’ve been in a church before that wasn’t very loving to each other or to people outside. And it’s a refreshing thing after such an experience when you walk into a church that is loving.

And he says here of the church at Colossae, you have a love for all the saints. There’s a loving church. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, where have you heard before in the word of truth of the gospel?

So he gives thanks for the hope that they have. Not just for the fact that Jesus Christ died for them, not just for the fact of the gospel, but for the fact that they had heard the gospel, that they had responded in faith, that because of that they have this living hope. We get saved a lot of times and we realize in the beginning, hey, everything’s changed.

I have this relationship with God now. I have the hope of eternal life, but we go on and it seems like the world makes us forget that incrementally that there’s a hope of something to come in the future, that there is more than this. I think we know it up here, but a lot of times we get beaten down and begin to live our lives in kind of this dismal, depressing state where we begin to feel like this is all there is, and we forget we have something to rejoice about because there’s a hope of eternal life with Jesus Christ in heaven because of what he’s done for us.

And they had not forgotten that hope of what was to come, and he gives thanks to God for that. He said, which has come unto you, verse 6, as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth. He said this message and this hope of the gospel had come to the church at Colossae, as it has to all the world, and he said it brings forth fruit.

There was evidence in them and from them of a changed life in Jesus Christ. There was evidence in their lives that the truth of the had taken hold. He says, since the day ye heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth. Excuse me, we talked about this a few weeks ago in Sunday school, and it is hard to look at other people and see what may be impossible, unless it’s manifest outwardly, impossible to look at other people and see the changes that take place in their hearts.

But folks, we can look at our own heart, And if the day that we heard and received the truth, something didn’t change in here that we noticed, something didn’t change in here the day we heard the truth, then we need to go back and look and see whether we heard and received the truth or not. Now, I won’t tell you that your life changes. For some people, it does change 180 degrees overnight.

For some people, again, it takes a little longer to begin to manifest the change. But from the moment of conversion, folks, they call it conversion for a reason. The Bible calls it conversion for a reason.

And at the moment of conversion, if nothing else, our desires ought to begin to change. I’m not saying that if you accept Christ as your Savior, if you trust Christ as your Savior, that immediately you walk away and everything in your life is different. For some people that is the case.

But if you walk away and nothing is different, folks, that should be a major red flag to us. Something in our heart should be different. And he says for them that since the day they heard of it, they didn’t have to wait and go get taught some more.

They didn’t have to go to Bible college. Folks, from the day they heard the gospel and believed it, he said they had brought forth fruit. And what does that mean to bring forth fruit?

Well, you look at an apple tree, and what kind of fruit does it bear? Anybody? Okay, good.

It’s not a trick question, I promise. An apple tree bears fruit as an apple. It demonstrates that it’s an apple tree.

And it might be difficult for me, I know some of you grew up in the Lincoln area where they’re known for their apples, but it might be difficult for me to just look at a tree and say, oh, that’s an apple tree until I see the fruit on it. Some plants I can tell, others I can’t. A peach tree brings forth what kind of fruit?

Peaches. That is absolute undeniable proof that what you’ve got is a peach tree if it brings forth peaches. The kinds of fruit that a Christian is supposed to bring forth are what are called the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 6.

love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, gentleness. I’m not listing them all, and I’m not listing them in order. Sorry about that.

You can go look it up for yourself. But there are things that the Lord says, this is the fruit of a Christian. As a Christian, this is the kind of fruit that we will bear.

And some of the things that he talks about in here. If we are Christians, there ought to be some evidence of it. There ought to be some growth to demonstrate what kind of tree we are.

There ought to be some fruit. He said, as ye also learn of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. And he said, these things you’ve been taught by Epaphras, he said, who also comes and tells us what he’s seen firsthand of your love and your faithfulness.

So all of this up to this point has been the introduction of what he’s about to say. The things that he’s heard about them, that they are loving, that they’re faithful, that they have a vibrant faith that gives them hope for tomorrow, that they believe the gospel, that they bear fruit and they began to bear fruit from the time of conversion. They didn’t have to wait until somebody taught them the Holy Spirit led them to bear fruit.

And now because of this, he says in verse 9, for this cause we also, he says because of this, because of all the things that he’s just mentioned in verses 3 through 8, for this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. He said, ever since we heard of what God has done in your midst, we have begun to pray and we have not stopped praying that God would continue the work that he’s been doing in you and that God would grow you spiritually to where you need to be. Folks, we all ought to have somebody praying that for us.

We all ought to have somebody praying that for us. You know what? Then pray it for somebody else too.

Pray it for yourself. I know in this passage, Paul is praying it for the church at Colossae. But folks, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to pray these very same things for ourselves.

There’s nothing in here that indicates it’s not God’s will for us to pray for our own spiritual growth and health and well-being. What it just demonstrates here is that it’s right to pray for spiritual growth. Whether it’s for us, whether it’s for someone else, we should be praying for spiritual growth.

That should be at the top of our list when we make our requests known to God. He says that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Wow.

That’s a big prayer to pray for somebody, that they might walk worthy of the Lord. Are you worthy of the Lord? Not a trick question.

You’re not. Sorry. No offense.

Neither am I. Even as a Christian, my walk is not always worthy of the Lord. But you know what?

I very much want it to be. And that for each of us should be the goal that we go after, is to walk in such a way that’s worthy of the Lord. And I don’t think that’s a self-righteous thing to pray, because we pray that in recognition that the only reason we can be acceptable to God is because of what Jesus Christ did for us.

And the only way that we can walk that way is with the power and the enabling of the Holy Spirit. And so we’re fully relying on God to help us walk worthy of Him in a way that pleases Him in everything. being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Folks, we should desire to know more about God and who He is and what He wants. Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Now when he says strengthened with all might, of course we know what that means, but he says right after this, according to His glorious power.

And I would submit to you that throughout this passage, everything that is being prayed for them is according to God’s glorious power. that whether it is the love that they had, whether it’s the hope that they had, whether it’s the knowledge, the wisdom, the understanding that they had, whether it’s the might he’s talking about, whether it’s the ability to walk worthy, folks, there’s not a bit of it that’s available without the glorious power of God. Now, some people in the world are capable of being fairly nice people.

There are some people who are just nice by nature. There are others who are not so much nice by nature. And I didn’t look at any of you on purpose when I said those two particular groups of people.

Some are nice by nature, some are not so nice. And we can do nice things and we can be basically good people by the world’s standards. But folks, it doesn’t change that even though we have a nice facade and we’re polite and we’re civil, it doesn’t change the fact that inside our hearts are desperately wicked, as the Bible says.

It doesn’t change the fact that I, on my own, am completely unable to walk in a way that is pleasing to God. I am completely unable to grow spiritually, but for the glorious power of God. All the spiritual blessings we have, all of the spiritual growth we have, comes as a result of God’s power and God’s working in our lives.

And we can’t forget that. Just being a nice person is not spiritual growth. There’s so much more to it than that.

Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Folks, you want to think you’ve grown spiritually, try going through situations that require patience and long-suffering, and go through those situations with patience and long-suffering, and also add joyfulness into the mix. Can’t do it on our own.

I can attest to you from personal experience. Going through things that require patience and long-suffering, I don’t have the capacity to do it, because there’s always this war within me of how you want to respond to a given situation or something that’s said, and you can want to respond in the Spirit, and you know this is the right thing to say, but in the flesh you want to say this, and you just want to, oh, I could get you so good with what I’m thinking right now. And there’s this war that goes on between the flesh and the Spirit, the Bible says.

And I give full credit when I am nice, when I am patient and long-suffering and joyful, I give full credit to the fact that it’s not me, it’s the glorious power of God, who gives us the ability, who grows us, who strengthens us spiritually, to walk in a way that’s worthy of Him when we could not otherwise do so. And he says in verse 12, Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of light. Folks, that word meet, we don’t use that word in this context much anymore.

Another place I know of the Bible using it is in Romans chapter 1, where it says people rejected God and bore within themselves the recompense of their error, which was meat, which means basically they reaped what they sowed. They received the reward of their sin, which was fitting. This word meat means fitting, acceptable.

So when it says here, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us acceptable, which has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Folks, what is the inheritance of the saints in light? Everything I know about the New Testament indicates that what that means is salvation.

It means God’s grace. It means eternal life. It means a relationship with God here on earth, which we did not have because it was damaged in the fall when man sinned.

And the Bible says that not only are we given these things, we are made joint heirs with Jesus Christ, that God looks on us as His children. And what it says is that we are to give thanks to God the Father who has made us fit to be partakers of this inheritance. There’s nothing in me good enough or in you good enough that we deserve all the blessings that God has given through Jesus Christ, but God through Jesus Christ made us acceptable.

God through Jesus Christ makes us acceptable who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Folks, that word translated. That word translated is also used in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis, where it talks about Enoch.

And the Bible says very, very briefly of Enoch, that Enoch walked with God and then he was not, for God took him. And some translations actually say that he was translated. Some versions of the Bible.

That’s too many uses of the word translation. That’ll mix things up. Some versions of the Bible say that he was translated.

He was carried from one place to another. Folks, God did not leave us to die in our sins. And when he saved us, he didn’t intend us to continue to live in our sins either.

The Bible says that he has translated us. He’s delivered us from the power of darkness. He set us free from the chains and the bondage with which we were held to sin, where we sinned because we had no choice.

We’re sinners. That’s what we do. He set us free from that bondage and that slavery to sin, and He has translated us, He has picked us up from one place and moved us to another, which is into the kingdom of His Son.

Folks, when we trust Jesus Christ, we are supposed to grow in Christ because we serve Christ. We no longer are bound to serve sin. We now serve Jesus Christ. We’ve been taken from one kingdom and picked up and put down in another kingdom. And now we’re to grow where we’re planted.

Five things I’d like to share with you very briefly this morning about prayer to grow spiritually. In all of this, he has prayed not just that God would start to do something, but basically that God would continue what he’s already been doing, that God would continue to grow the church at Colossae. And each and every one of you this morning, if you are born again, if you have ever trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, God has already sanctified you.

He’s already begun the process when he picked you up out of one kingdom and put you down in the other. And God began to change the desires of our hearts. Spiritual growth, praying for spiritual growth is praying that God will continue to grow us in that process.

When we trusted Christ, as I said, the desires began to change. There was a desire to live for God, a desire to know Him. Not that we’re always able to live out perfectly, especially not immediately.

But there is that desire. And God, if we are listening, and if we’re studying His Word, and if we’re going along with that desire of our heart that has changed, God begins to teach us about Himself. And God begins to strengthen us, and God begins to give us a hope and a joy.

And when we say, let’s pray for spiritual growth, let’s ask God for the things that He wants to give us, the things that are good for us, like asking for the green beans instead of the chips, the things that we really need and that are going to help us. We’re talking about asking God to continue to do what he’s already been doing. Folks, this is God’s will, and we don’t have to twist his arm to get him to grow us spiritually.

If we will pray and if we will seek him, he’ll grow us. First of all, from this passage, we learn that God can show us his will and how to apply it in our lives. How it applies in our lives.

Two very important things there. That God teaches us what his will is and how it applies. There are some times when I know the will of God, but I don’t know what that means in my particular situation.

For example, I’ve used this example before, but I knew when I was 15 years old that God was calling me to preach. Now, how did that apply in my situation? Did that mean I was supposed to come to this church?

How did I know that? Was I supposed to stay in Oklahoma? How did I know that?

Was I supposed to go somewhere in Texas? Was I supposed to go overseas? I didn’t know.

I just knew that it was God’s will for me to preach. And as time went on, He would reveal to me how He wanted me to go about that. There are certain things that God reveals to us in His Word and through prayer that are His will, but we don’t always have the knowledge of how to apply it.

There’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom, I’m told. I’ve heard a man say several times that knowledge is knowing stuff, and wisdom is knowing how to use the knowledge. Folks, we need to seek God’s will and how it applies to our lives.

it’s not enough just for us to to go to God’s word and say what is your will if we are not willing to do it and figure out how it works in our life and he tells us in verse 9 he says for this cause we also since the day we heard it do not cease to pray for you and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding and I believe that means not only what God wants but how God wants you to do it and God can show us his will and how to apply it to our lives. Just knowing the will of God is not enough for us to grow spiritually. If we’re growing spiritually, it means that we are learning God’s will and that we are actually doing it.

The Bible says, do not be just hearers of the word, deceiving yourselves, but be doers of the word. When I was growing up, it wasn’t enough to know that my mother wanted me to clean my room. It wasn’t enough just to know my mother’s will.

There had to be a desire to do something about it and what that meant. and you all know as well as I do that just knowing God’s will doesn’t get you anywhere unless there’s a desire to actually obey his will. And I’m convinced the problem with so many Christians in our country today is not that we don’t know the Bible although there is some of that but the biggest problem I think is not that we don’t know the Bible is that we’re not willing to obey and apply and follow the parts of the Bible that we do know.

Folks, spiritual growth doesn’t mean just learning more facts about what God wants It means the desire and the wherewithal to do it and to live it and to apply it. And so he prays for them, not only the knowledge of his will, but in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, the knowledge of how to apply it. Second of all, this morning, God can enable us to live in a way that is pleasing to him.

Paul prays for them that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. It’s a very hard thing to do, to walk in a way that is worthy of the Lord. I’ve told you before that when I try to think about how holy God is, I can only understand it in contrast to myself.

That I’m wicked, that I’m sinful, that I’m fallen, and He is none of those things, that He’s without imperfection. But to try to wrap my mind around the holiness of God, I don’t even understand how holy God is. I don’t even begin to understand how perfect God is, how without blemish or flaw God is.

And yet here we’re talking about walking in a way that is worthy of that kind of holiness? oh my goodness there’s no way I could do that outside of his strength walk in a way that is worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing pleasing God in everything do you please God in everything only one or two of you are shaking your heads that’s okay that’s the answer for all of us no we don’t please God in everything so if you’re sitting here this morning and you realize that you don’t please God in everything well we’ve still got work to do I don’t care how long you’ve been a Christian I don’t care how long you’ve been walking with the Lord or how well we think we’ve got it figured out we’re still not pleasing to God in everything, so there’s still work to do. And I submit to you on this side of eternity, we’ll never completely attain that, but it doesn’t give us the excuse not to keep going.

I clean my house knowing it’s never going to stay clean the way I want it. That doesn’t give me an excuse just to let the filth pile up because it’s going to be dirty anyway. It’s like telling your kids, you’re just going to get dirty tomorrow, no more baths.

Really? I’m never going to be as perfect as God’s holiness demands, so I might as well give up. No.

Folks, we may never get there, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop trying, that we shouldn’t stop trying to walk in a way that’s pleasing to God. And part of spiritual growth, I’m convinced, is the maturity to realize I’m never going to get there on this side of eternity, but I’m going to keep doing it just because it’s the right thing to do and because it brings honor and glory to my Lord and pleases Him. Folks, a desire to please God.

And God can enable us to live in a way that’s pleasing to Him, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. And we realize that when we do the right thing, when we do walk at times in a way that’s pleasing to Him, it’s because He has enabled us and given us the grace to do what it is He expects us to do. Third of all, this morning, God can equip us to be more fruitful in our service to Him.

Think about this short portion of verse 10 where He says, being fruitful in every good work. In everything that they were expected to do as Christians, he was praying that they would be fruitful. I am not fruitful in every area I’m supposed to work on as a Christian.

You’re probably not either. That’s not to say there are not areas where we’re fruitful. There are areas in our lives where we’re busy at work for God and reaping good results.

And by that, I don’t mean always things that the world takes notice of. There’s this idea that when we talk about bearing fruit, It means we have to be, you know, that it means we’re the kind of Christian who’s out there leading thousands of people a day to Christ. That’s not all that’s talking about in bearing fruit. But in all the things God has commanded us, Paul was praying that the church at Colossae would bear fruit.

He says being fruitful in every good work. And there are places in our lives where we bear fruit. The commandment where you may be bearing fruit is being a good parent.

God has called us to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and you may be doing a super job at that. Maybe the fruit you’re bearing in every good work right now is forgiveness. Maybe the work where you’re bearing fruit is talking to people about Jesus Christ. It can be a ministry.

It can be something that a regular work that God has called us to do. It can even be something within us. But the Bible says being fruitful in every good work.

But just because we’re bearing fruit in one area It doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to follow God’s commands in the other areas. I can’t say, well, I’ve been very good at being patient and forgiving this week, so I can forget all that stuff about thankfulness. Folks, it doesn’t work that way.

One doesn’t balance out the other. We are given commands to obey. We’re given good works that God expects us to do, not as a way to earn His approval or earn salvation, because we couldn’t do that if we tried.

but he commands believers, people who are already his, of good works and says, do this because it’s right and it pleases me. And folks, it’s our responsibility to do every one of those. And Paul says, I pray for you that you would be fruitful in every good work, in every area of your life that God has called you to work on.

And folks, we should be praying for each other and for ourselves that God would equip us to be more fruitful in our