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COLOSSIANS - Christ in you, the hope of glory!
Studies in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians
Part 5 - A Summary of the Letter and Words of Personal Greeting (Colossians 4:2-18)
23. Remain Steadfast in Prayer (Colossians 4:2-4)
Colossians 4:2-4
2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving; 3 praying together for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; 4 that I may reveal it as I ought to speak.
Do you have personal contact with God? Do you pray? If God is your Father, and you His child, then it is only natural that you speak with your Father and He with you. When a child no longer speaks with his earthly father then something is wrong between the two. Either the child has a bad conscience because of some committed wrong, or the father has worry or problems in his business, so that his thoughts are elsewhere. God our Father, however, is all-wise and all-powerful. He always has time for us. He waits for you to bring your prayers to Him, where you can entrust your problems to Him and remorsefully confess your sins. You can pour out your heart to Him. He listens to you. He is your Father! Jesus died for us and has reconciled the Father to us, so that the “promise of the Father” can be fulfilled in us (Acts 1:4).
Whoever wants to learn how to pray prayers that get answered should contemplate the Lord´s Prayer (Matt. 6:8-13). Following the unique and unearthly form of addressing God the Father, there follow the three Kingdom of Heaven requests, which serve to both align and fill our thoughts.
How can you hallow the name of the Father through your prayer, in word and in life? What does the worship you offer God look like, and how about the thanksgiving you offer for His many blessings and kindnesses?
There then follows the intense petitioning for world mission, so that the spiritual kingdom of our Father can spread out. Through your prayer of faith, you become a responsible participant in the foreign politics of your Father in heaven. Are you prepared to follow when He summons?
Complete and full submission to His Father will is the next prayer. Have you given yourself to Jesus forever? Do you want the saving will of your Father to be accomplished in your own life as well as in the members of your family, without tumult, just as it is in heaven?
There follow the two requests for daily living, with the petition for sufficient daily bread, for clothing and all the other necessities of life. This request includes your loving concern and prayer for all those hungering in the world, for it is written in the “plural form”.
We need to thank the Lord for the petition asking forgiveness for our sins, for no man is righteous in and of himself. Jesus paid for our entire sin and guilt with His blood and justified us entirely – provided that we forgive each one of our adversaries as kindly as the Lord forgave us (Matt. 6:12, 14, 15).
The last two requests of the Lord´s Prayer have to do with deliverance and in keeping us from departing from God - from the Father and from the Son. We implore the Father to allow us fall into no temptation, but that He train us with the firmness of His holiness, so that we might be kept, lead and consoled by Him through His Holy Spirit.
The last request has to do with our spiritual battle against Satan and his demons. Not one of us can overcome him alone. We ask of God, the Father and the Son, for our complete redemption from the power and cunning of Satan, the evil one. In “Jesus alone” are we sheltered from all his temptations.
Most of the petitions in the Lord´s Prayer are written in the plural form, so that we are not to only pray for ourselves alone, but also for other followers of Jesus, as well as for unbelievers. The person who only prays for himself stands in danger of becoming a spiritual egoist.
The worship and glorification of the triune God enlightens us and broadens our perspective, so that, in comparison, our problems become tiny indeed. The goal of the Father remains the implementation and victory of the worldwide kingdom of His love and truth. He has given all power and authority in heaven and on earth to His Son, so that the elementary power of heaven can be realized in His followers, and so that they will be prepared to receive the glory of their Father. Do you too want to return home to your Father in heaven, to be able to see Him and to be eternally made a part of His family?
Amen means: That is definitely true! Let it be so! The Lord has heard your prayer when you prayed it in the name of Jesus and in His Spirit.
Paul emphasized in his letter one of the petitions included in the Lord´s Prayer, commanding us to offer thanksgiving. Many prayers of believers consist of both direct and indirect request. It is similar with small children, who continually talk about their wishes, yet seldom give thanks when their desires are fulfilled. That is exactly the question for us all: Are we truly miserly when it comes to giving thanks? When the father in heaven answers our prayer and we forget to give thanks, is it not a sign that we take ourselves more importantly than God Himself! Psalm 50:23, 103:1-22, 104:1-35, 107:1-45, 108:1-5 and others teach us to offer thanksgiving from a full heart following the granting of our sincere petition. In like manner, the book of Acts and the letters of Paul contain many allusions to thanksgiving overflowing from those anointed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:23-26; 21:3-5; Eph. 1:3-6, 14-16; 3:20-21; 5:18-20).
The originality of the prayer summons of Paul to the Colossians lie in its urgent entreaty for the church there to pray for him and his co-workers, that he, as the apostle to the unreached nations, together with his team, might be granted open-doors and open hearts, so that they might be able to proclaim the gospel with total authority and power. He did not ask the church to pray for release from his long house-arrest under the Romans. Such a request was not on his prayer list, but rather, that evangelization could continue, that men and women would be converted, that churches would be established, that they themselves could continue to be involved in this work even from prison, that the kingdom of the Father would come and that the Father name of God would be hallowed.
God answered these prayers of the church! The letters of Paul continue, until today, to pave the way in many languages, countries and philosophies for the expansion of the gospel. Even in recent days, a man in the throes of death was able to testify a word of Paul against spirits bent on tormenting him: “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20).
Above all else, Paul wanted to further testify of the unimaginably great mystery that had been revealed to him, of which he had been able to experience a hundredfold; namely, that from his time on, even until today, Christ indwells non-Jews when they come to believe in Him. To that end, he formulated the breathtaking sentence: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Paul understood his stay in prison to be a consequence of this fact, which fanatical Jews saw as an unforgivable blasphemy, that is, when a Jew inducted non-Jews into the promises and blessings of the Old Testament. For that very reason, Paul and his churches were being persecuted by the radical followers of the Old Covenant (Acts 21:27 – 23:22, etc.).
Paul openly confessed, however, that his ministry of preaching did not arise from any personal inspiration or theological idealism. Rather, there was a divine must resting upon him. He must proclaim and preach the crucified and risen Jesus, the Son of God. This was the One who had appeared to him, the persecutor of Jewish Christians, who had not condemned but pardoned him. Jesus was the One sending and authorizing him to call out and build up a world-wide assembly of non-Jews. It was for the sake of this ministry that Paul was persecuted, and for which he would ultimately die (Acts 9:16).
Whoever studies the life of Jesus will also find there was an inescapable must of God resting upon the Son of God, who took upon himself obedience and consequently carried it through (Matt. 16:21; 17:12; Mark 14:49; Luke 2:49; 9:44; 24:26; John 3:14; 10:16; 29:9 etc.). This must is no unmerciful predestination, but rather, proves itself to be an inward driving force in those who love God as their Father and who have been called of Him to carry through His plan of salvation.
The age-old enemy, who at all times fights against God, against His Son and against His Spirit, will oppress the church of Jesus Christ, just as he did the Son of God Himself, from within and without. Therefore, Paul enjoined the inescapable must of God upon the young church in Anatolia, which was to take up spiritual battle against the dark forces of this world: “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
Paul closed his concentrated teaching over faith and ethics in the church with the summons to remain constant in prayer, during the day, and also in the night, when sleep doesn´t come. “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much!” (James 5:16)
Prayer: Father in heaven, we worship You, for You allow us night and day to turn to You and Your Son Jesus Christ. We thank You for giving us the spirit of prayer that calls out in us: “Abba, dear Father!” We thank Jesus Christ for teaching us to pray the Lord´s Prayer so that we can pray in His Spirit and in His power. We thank You for answering the prayers of Your saints, prayers spoken in the name of Jesus. Help us to be incessant in prayer and in the certain faith that You indeed hear us. Amen.
Question 50: Why did Paul end his teaching and witness with the injunction to remain continuous in prayer and in the offering of thanksgiving?