Hope Church LV Sermons
Colossians 4:2-4
In the first quarter of 1990, God placed on my life a call to ministry. I'd only been saved a few months. I was a freshman in college and after a few months of walking with the Lord, God began to stir in my heart, a passion to preach the gospel. I sought some counsel from my pastor at the time, and I was talking with him about this thing of a call to ministry, and I went and sat down with him, I said, "How do you know God's calling?" And I thought, "You know, that's the right step to go sit down with somebody who's called, who's surrendered to that call, who's been the seminary, who's trained, and he'll be able to give me wisdom." And he said, "Bance, when you know, you'll know." And I'm thinking, "Is that the best you got?" I mean, three years in seminary, and that's the best line that you've got, but man, he was so right. When the call of God to ministry comes on your life, it is so definitive and so certain. And there's a reason for that, because many times in ministry there, you get to walk through some of life's greatest joys and some of life's greatest tragedies. Ministry is a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, and it is that definitive call of God that keeps you day in and day out on your face before him continuing to pursue him because you can't stop what you didn't start. If you choose to become a pastor, you can choose to do something else, but when God calls you to something, you can't stop what you didn't start. And in that first year after God called me into ministry, he birthed in my heart some verses and just really laid these verses on my heart, and I'm now in my 24th year of pastoral ministry, almost 20 of those years in a senior pastor role. And through those 24 years of ministry, it has been these verses that God gave me in that first year that have really become like an anchor, they're life verses for me. And I'm sharing this with you this morning because they're from the book that we've been studying now for about a year together here, the book of Colossians. And Colossians chapter 1, verses 28 and 29, Paul said this, "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man, and teaching every man, with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ." And Paul said, "For this purpose I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." Paul said his passion and it became my passion, and it's been my passion now for 24 years of pastoral ministry to present every person complete in Christ, the word complete that Paul uses a few times in this little letter is a word that means mature, are fully developed. John MacArthur said it this way in his commentary, he said, "Our aim is not merely to win people to Christ, but to bring them to spiritual maturity." It's our passion at hope to see every one of you. It doesn't matter where you've come from to the point that you are today. Our passion for you is to see you fully devoted to Jesus, mature in your faith, walking with God daily. For the past year, we've been walking through this wonderful New Testament letter where Paul has been unpacking that principle of completeness in Christ. In Colossians, we have learned about who Jesus is. Paul takes some time to lay a foundation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, and he does that so beautifully, some of the greatest doctrinal truth in all of the Bible and the person of Jesus is found in the New Testament letter of Colossians. And if you've not been with this throughout this whole study, you can go on to iTunes and you can go back to some of those series like the incomparable Christ where we dug deep into the doctrinal truth about who Jesus is. But Paul wasn't just telling us about who Jesus is so we could know more about Jesus. He was telling us about who Jesus is so that that could have a deep transformational effect in our lives because who I am, Paul went on to teach us, is rooted in who Jesus is. You see, if I don't understand who Jesus is, I can have an identity crisis in my own personal faith because who I am now in Christ is wrapped up in who Jesus is. And then Paul transitioned in the letter and he began to describe for us not just who Jesus is and who we are in Christ, but what it looks like now for Christ to live his life through us. And that's where we've been for the last few months. In chapter three, unpacking truth about what it looks like for Christ to live his life through us because the Christian life is not you and me living for Jesus. The Christian life is Christ living his life through us out of the overflow of our fellowship with him. Well, this morning, we begin the final series in the book of Colossians. We've got a few weeks left and I've got to be honest. Every time we get to the end of a book, I get there emotionally because God has done so much in us through the book of Colossians. Aren't you thankful for the Word of God? I've heard so many of your testimonies through email or just in conversation about some of the life-changing moments you've had. Some of you, when you share your story with other people, your story will always be related to the book of Colossians and something that God's done in your life over this last year as we walk through these verses together. But this morning, we begin the last leg of the journey home. And Paul, in the final chapter, identifies what we're simply calling some marks of maturity. As we bring this letter to a close, Paul finishes with a flurry that is identifying some marks, some characteristics, some traits that are common, and the lives of believers who are mature. Now, doesn't mean they've arrived, doesn't mean they're perfect, but they're walking an intimate fellowship with God. So, if you have your Bible, turn to Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, and we're going to read this text, Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, here's what it says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the Word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned, that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak." I want to give you, first of all, this first mark of maturity. As I meditated on these verses, as our pastoral team labored through these verses over the last couple of weeks together, and really tried to dig out the truth of what's in here, I want to begin by just giving you a statement. And this is a mark of maturity. When you find someone who is complete, they are mature in their faith. They are walking with Jesus. Here's the statement, "A mark of maturity is a desperate pursuit of God in prayer." Read that out loud with me, "A desperate pursuit of God in prayer." That statement alone was deeply convicting in my own life this week. Why won't you look at that statement? Does that describe you? Man, I'm somebody who has a desperate pursuit of God and the evidence of that is my prayer life. Paul says, as he gets to the end here, here's a mark of maturity, prayer. The word he uses here, prayer is the most generic term in the Bible for the word prayer. Prayer expresses or prayer reveals our desperation level for God. If you don't believe that statement, I want you to just think about when do you pray the most? We pray the most when we're the most what, desperate, right? Let things be rocking along pretty good, and I might forget to pray. But let the doctor call my house with the test results, or go into the office and find that pink slip laying on your desk, or get in the car to go to work in the morning and you hear the "t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t" instead of the cranking of your engine, right? And those moments when we get desperate, what do we do? We pray, and not only do we pray, we get other people to pray. Sometimes even before we call heaven, we're calling other Christians and saying, "Hey, you got to pray." Here's what Paul is saying. When we are walking in maturity with Jesus, we have a growing understanding that moment by moment we are completely desperate for God. It doesn't take a crisis. We know we're desperate for Him. HA Ironside said it this way, "Prayer, first of all, is communion with God. We need to pray as much as we need to breathe. Our souls will languish without it, and our testimony will be utterly fruitless if we neglect it." So in the verses that I've read for you, Paul gives us five characteristics of prayer in the life of a maturing Jesus follower. So I want to just give them to you, and we'll be finished this morning. Here's the first one. Give them to you in five words, here's the first word, constant. When it's unpacked by that phrase, Paul opens the text with "devote yourselves" to prayer. That phrase "devote yourselves" is not a suggestion. It's actually an imperative. It's a command statement, and it's in the present tense, meaning it's describing a continuous action. Paul is describing something that we are to continuously engage in. It is reminding us that we are so desperate for God that we must live in constant communion with Him. And this is not a new theme that Paul is unpacking here. It's the same thing Jesus taught the disciples. We won't turn there, but in Luke chapter 18 Jesus gave them a parable to show them the Bible says in verse 1 that at all times they ought to pray. Jesus taught the disciples when He was on the earth with them that prayer is something that we should do at all times. Paul said in another place, first Thessalonians chapter 5, he said, "We are to pray without," what's the word? Seizing, right? "Pray without ceasing." Say that another way, "Don't stop praying." Sometimes it's helpful in understanding the Bible to read it, but then try to say it. Back, using different words, but saying the same thing. We read some of these phrases so often pray without ceasing, "Don't stop praying." What does that mean? Does that mean 24 hours a day, seven days a week? I'm to be on my knees and to cause it with my head bowed, my eyes closed, my hands folded praying? Well, obviously that's not what He meant, right? What Paul is talking about here is the practice of constant conversation with God. You see, what we tend to do with our prayer life is we tend to put our prayer life in a nice, neat little box. For some of us, that box is 15 or 20 minutes every morning before we go to work. We get up and we open our box and we spend some time in prayer and we finish our time before the Lord and we close the box and we put it on the shelf and we go throughout the day. For others of us, this box, we open it up at night before we go to bed. We're laying down in the bed and we'll open up the box of prayer and we'll pray in those moments, but then we get done, we close the box and we drift off to sleep and we don't pick it back up until tomorrow evening when we're back there ready to go back to bed. For some of us, it's an even smaller box. For some of us, you just opened it up this morning. It's church. You know what's really, if we're going to be real honest, there's some of you here today. The extent of your prayer time is what we do here when we stand before you and say let's pray and I'm not saying that to be judgmental. I'm saying that to help us understand what maturity looks like. Paul says it's not in the box. For some of us, it's a box that we only pull out in moments of crisis. We kind of have like an emergency prayer box. Oh, it's on. Let me get the box out. Here's what Paul's saying. Get rid of the box. Where to live in constant conversation with God, constant communion with Him. Let me give you a second word, alert. Not only constant, but alert. Paul said, devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert. The word alert here is a word that means to be awake. Well, that's kind of a given, right? I mean, it's hard to pray when you're asleep, to be watchful. It's a word that denotes paying attention. And as I was thinking about that phrase, keep alert. I thought about, from the time I was old enough to put on a glove and swing a bat, I played baseball. I started with T-ball, you know, you put the ball in the T, and then we went to the next level of playing ball. We didn't have coach pitch back when I was a kid. They just let those little kids start throwing it, so you just got hit a lot, right? I mean, that's just kind of the way it was. But when you start playing baseball, one of the first things they teach you when you're playing in the field. Now, I was always one of the taller kids, so they just, and I wasn't real fast, so they always stuck me at first base. That's where I always wound up. I was the first base for my whole life. That's all I ever played was first base. But when they put you out in the field, no matter where you are, the coach teaches you to be, what, alert, why? Because you never know when the ball has come in your way. And the thing about baseball, it's not constant action at every position. You could sometimes be out there in right field, two or three innings, and never see a ball. And you'd see some kids out in right field, man. You always put the ones out in right field, right? They're out there picking daisies, they're picking their nose, or... Always wonder about major league right fielders, what they feel like, right? You have to be on your toes, and that's why in baseball they teach you that little thing to get up on your toes, and in baseball they teach you that chattering thing where it's "Hey, about to come on, about to hear about it." What is that? Part of that is just keeping you in the game, it's keeping you alert, because you never know when the batter swings, when that ball's coming at you. And when that ball comes at you, if you're not ready, you blow the play. That's the image of keeping alert. And it's interesting Paul uses it in the context of praying. He's saying to us as Christians, "Don't put your prayer life in a box, maintain constant conversation with God, why?" Because you never know when life's going to hit the ball your way. And in that moment, if you're not ready, you'll miss an opportunity to pray. For example, somebody does something at work that is wrong. You know it, you see it. Maybe it's just wrong in general, maybe it's specifically wrong towards you. And in that moment, guess what? Life just hit the ball your way. You can get angry. You can get defiant. Or you know what you can do, you can pray. God, I don't know what they're going through today. God, I don't even know if they know you. And Lord, maybe the reason they're acting the way they're acting today towards me is because they don't know you. And God, help me today not to be so consumed with me, but God, would you help me today be consumed with letting them know you? What's that? It's keeping alert. Your eye is caught by a person of the opposite sex. You see someone that is attractive or beautiful. And immediately your mind wants to begin to, to race with the thoughts and the emotions and the lust that can creep in when you catch someone who's attractive or beautiful. Listen, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that part of you is broken, right? Now, when you see that person, you could respond and lust and starting to grab a hold of that thought and you could begin to, to relish that moment and you can run off down a path mentally or if you're on your toes, Lord, God, I thank you that you made that person the way that they are. And Lord, I know that you created them for someone else. And God, I pray for their purity today. God, I pray that you would protect them and guard them, Lord, I pray for my marriage today. God, I pray that you'd protect and guard the purity and the sanctity of my marriage. Lord, I pray for my kids today in their purity as they are going to live in the same world that I'm living in and they're going to see the same things that I'm seeing. God, would you guard their heart? You see what you're doing? You're ready. He cuts you off in traffic. I heard that subtle. And listen, don't hear me saying this today and think, man, Pastor Vance is so spiritual. He always gets this right. Just ask my kids. I don't always get it right. But you're in the car, somebody cuts you off in that moment. You can get frustrated. You can bang the steering wheel. You can say some things. You can make some motions. Or God, I pray for whoever's in that car, Lord, I don't know why they're in a hurry. But maybe, maybe they're on their way to the hospital because they've got a call about a loved one who's dying. God, I don't know what's going on in their life, but Lord, I pray for them today. And Lord, I also pray for the impatience that is so easily stirred up in me. You see why Paul calls this a Mark of maturity? He's sitting a little 10-minute carved out in the box. God bless the missionaries. Let's go to work and get things going. It's keeping alert. Third word. Well, before I give you the third word, let me give you a quote. It's by Rick Warren. I read it this week. It's so powerful. That's what he said. Everything you do can be spending time with God if he is invited to be a part of it and you stay aware of his presence. That's good. Number three, thankful, thankful. He says with an attitude of thanksgiving, you see how he's piling this on, devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert with an attitude of thanksgiving. I'm to be thankful. Thanksgiving is a word that describes an expression of gratitude to God. As we pursue God continuously in prayer, we should always do so with an attitude of thanksgiving because the reality is we have so much to be thankful for. And if we're not careful, we'll allow the crisis of one moment to overshadow the grace of a lifetime and will miss an opportunity to be thankful. That means we can't be burdened, but we can be burdened with a sense of gratitude. This is the seventh time in this letter that Paul mentions the idea of being grateful. Paul opened the letter in chapter one, verse number seven, by saying, we give thanks to God for you. Paul opened the letter by saying, hey, I want you guys to know there in Colossians, I write you this letter, we always are giving thanks to God for you. We thank God for what he's doing. We thank God for what he's doing in your life and how he's changing you in the testimony that you have and the way you're engaging in the world. We thank God for you. Then in chapter one, verse 12, look what he says. Chapter one, verse 12, he says, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of this. You would tell you one of the things you got to be thankful for, he's qualified us. It means he's made us acceptable. Here's what that means. I don't have to make myself acceptable to God today. He's already taken care of that in Christ. So no matter what I'm going through, I can stop and say, God, thank you, that even though all hell may be breaking loose in my life, I am accepted by you today and there's not one thing I have to do to earn that. We thank God for our position in Christ. On in chapter two, verse six, look what he says, "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed and overflowing with what? Gratitude." What is he being thankful for here? He says, "Now, yes, God's made you acceptable, and now he's building you up in him. He's continuing to work out in you, that which he's already completed in you positionally. And Paul says, "Man, we can be thankful that we're not finished yet. He's still working on me." Chapter three, verse 15, look at it. Paul says, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called into one body and be what? Thankful." He's saying, "Be thankful for the body of Christ." Aren't you thankful for the church? The fellowship of believers, your small group around you that you get to do life with, you are not alone. It says, "We can be thankful." Chapter three, verse 16, look what he says, "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing every one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms, singing with thankfulness." He's thankful for the word of God that speaks into our lives. In chapter three, verse 17, he says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks." What are we thanking God for there? That every opportunity in my life is an opportunity for God to share his story through my life? We're getting an opportunity to be thankful. Here's what Paul's saying. We should constantly be in fellowship with God in prayer. We should be on our toes watching for those opportunities to immediately turn those things to God in prayer. And Paul says, "When you do, be thankful." Now when that person cuts you off in traffic and you want to get angry but you think about praying, right then you begin to pray and you use that as an opportunity to intercede and to go to God in prayer and you begin to fellowship with God and you say, "God, thank you for reminding me. Thank you, God, that you're working in me. God, thank you for what you're going to do in and through me. Thankful. Word number four. Unselfish. Unselfish. Paul in verse three says, "Praying at the same time for us." Our natural tendency is to allow our prayer life to be totally focused on us. Our needs, our wants, our desires, our problems, our challenges, our opportunities. Our relationships, our finances. We tend to have a self-focus when it comes to praying. But Paul says at the same time, it's a phrase that literally means together with what Paul is saying is it's not unspiritual to pray about things in your own life. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that to pray about your own things is wrong. That's not what Paul is saying. He just saying, "While you're doing that, at the same time together with that, you need to also be praying," Paul says specifically for us as well. But he's talking about praying for other people. When my prayer life is consumed only with me, it's an example of immaturity in my walk with Jesus. Why don't you think about that? When my prayer life is consumed totally with me, it's an example of immaturity in my walk with Jesus. And Paul was not asking them to do something that he was not living out. If you go back to chapter one of this letter, verse three, listen what Paul said, "We give thanks to God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, praying," what is the next word? Always for you. Paul said, "Man, we're praying for you." Paul was not just writing them a letter and saying, "Hey, I want you to pray for me." Paul was saying, "I want you to pray for me, but I want you to know something. I'm also always praying for you." I'm giving thanks to God for you. And in really a lot of chapter one, as Paul describing exactly what he prays for these believers gives us a great model of praying for others. Let me give you three examples of people that you should be praying for on a regular basis. There are a lot more than this, but let me give you three. Number one, your family. You ought to be praying for your family, mom, dad, brother, sister, children, parents, husband, wife, grandparents, you ought to be praying for your family. If your family are not believers, first and foremost, you should be praying for your family to come to know Jesus. You should be praying for opportunities to share Christ with them. You should be praying for God to invade their life with the gospel. If they are believers, you should be praying for their growth and their development. You should be praying for the deepening of their intimate fellowship with Jesus. You should be praying for God to protect them and guard them emotionally and mentally and physically and spiritually. You should pray for God to use them and plant them in this world as godly seeds to bear fruit for his kingdom. We should pray for our family. Secondly, you should pray for your small group. We encourage every believer, every person that's connected in hope to get connected into a small group of believers, a small group of people where you can grow in your faith, where you can do life together, you ought to be praying for the people in your small group. You ought to know their names. You ought to have a list of their names and you ought to regularly, either weekly or monthly, be praying over the people in your small group. When you're at small group, you need to listen as people share things in small group that's on their heart. You need to make some notes and you need to take those home and you need to turn those into an opportunity to pray for people in your group. You need to be praying for your small group. There's no way in a church this size that any one of us can pray for all of us, but in 175 small groups that we're broken up into in over 30 zip codes around the city, we can pray for every one of us every week by name, multiple times. I don't know about you, but I'd like to have people praying for me. Let me give you a third group. You need to pray for your pastors. You say, well, that's a little bit selfish for you to, it's right in the text. That's really who Paul was to these people. He was the pastor that had planted this church and Paul specifically is saying to pray for us. Listen to me, as pastors, we need your prayers. Listen, we are human beings and we have all the same temptations and all the same opportunities and all the same struggles. We got the same darkness in our heart that resides in yours. We don't get that removed when God calls us to ministry. We have families that aren't perfect too. We have people that we work with that we don't like, no, I'm kidding. We have all the same things you deal with. And let me tell you something else, as pastors, God has given us a position of influence and the enemy would love to tear that down. Listen to me, because when he gets one of us, it affects a lot of people. It affects a lot of people. We need your prayers. And if you can only pray one thing for us, I want to give you a verse of scripture that I pray over my life all the time. Here it is. It's in the book of Psalm chapter 36 verse 11. Look what it says, "Let not the foot of pride come upon me and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away." Listen, every pastor has two great enemies. There's an enemy within and an enemy without. That verse deals with both of them. God, let not the foot of pride come upon me, the enemy within. God don't let me get in the way. But then he says, "Don't let the hand of the wicked drive me away." There's an enemy on the outside as well. And listen to me. Either one of those enemies can take you down. Fifth and final word, missional. Should be constant, should be alert, should be thankful, should be unselfish. It should be missional. Paul says that God would open up for us a door. Paul is reminding us that as we mature in Christ, we understand that God's activity in the world is bigger than me. It's interesting, Paul is writing this letter. Do you know where Paul is when he's writing this letter? Anybody know? He's in prison. You would think he would say, "Pray for us that we get out of prison." That's not what he says. Look what he says. Pray for us that while we're here, God will open up a door to us for the Word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned. That name dawn on Paul to say, "Pray for me to get out of prison." Why? Because he's so walking with Jesus that he knows if he's in prison, it's because God put him there. And he's content to be there for the advancement of the gospel. There's no telling how many jailers in Rome came to faith in Christ because of all the time Paul's been in prison. A lot of the time Paul's been in prison, it's interesting. They kept him chained hand-to-hand with a guard at poor God. Can you imagine? You're on duty today. What's my duty, Paul? Okay, I know what he wants to talk about. You know why? Because he was missional. He was consumed with a mission that was bigger than him. We spend so much time praying about temporary stuff. New car, bigger house, better job, promotion, more people under me, retirement, portfolio. When we're maturing in Christ, we begin to spend more time praying about the mission. We live in light of a moment that will happen at the end of the age when every tribe, tongue, people and nation will be gathered around the throne of the Lord Jesus. And you think we had a good time singing this morning? Wait till they break out on that day. I'm going to sit in the back, Teddy, on that day because I want to watch some folks who for years have just been reserved. You're going to lose it up there. You're going to lose it. Paul says when you're maturing in Christ, you're always praying about the mission. Andrew Murray said this, "The church should seek above everything to cultivate in God's children the power of an unceasing prayerfulness on behalf of the perishing world." We should pray for the mission. We should pray, as Paul said here, that the word every time we gather, how much time this week did you spend praying that the message today would be clear? You hear what Paul says? Pray that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. How much time do you spend praying this week? Every week, man, at hope when we gather, God, would you make the message clear for everyone who hears? God, with clarity, would you speak right into their heart? We should pray for churches in our city to be clear in their preaching of the gospel. How much time do you spend praying for other churches in Las Vegas? You do know we're not the only place gods that work here, right? There are a lot of good, great, and godly churches in this city that we get to partner with in kingdom work. How much time do you spend praying for them that they make the gospel clear instead of complaining about them because they do something you don't like? There's a whole sermon there when I go stop. How much time do you spend praying for believers to make Jesus known through the way they live and the words they say on a weekly basis in Las Vegas? How much time do you spend praying for church planters, for missionaries, for people groups? I'm going to close with a quote that I read this week that struck me. It was so profound by Andrew Murray in his little book, The Secret of Intercession. It's a quote that it's uncomfortable. It's so profound. Listen to what he says. Look at it on the screen. God rules the world and his church through the prayers of his people. That God should have made the extension of his kingdom to such a large extent dependent on the faithfulness of his people in prayer is a stupendous mystery and yet an absolute certainty. God calls for intercessors. In his grace, he has made his work dependent on them. Listen to the last phrase. He waits for them. Wow, there's an indictment against the church in America about where our nation is. He waits for them. Amen. God bless the church. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.