Transcript
Cal Ripken Jr. is known as the Iron Man of baseball. On September 6, 1995, he broke the record held by Lou Gehrig of 2,130 consecutive games played.
There were days when that consecutive streak was in danger. In a June 1993 game Ripken was involved in a bench-clearing brawl.
A Time magazine article said this, Ripken twisted his knee [in the brawl], and when he woke up the next morning, he couldn’t put his weight on it. He told his wife, Kelly, he might not be able to play that night.
Kelly stated, “Just before he left for the ball park, I said, ‘Maybe you could just play one inning and then come out.’ But he replied, ‘No! Either I play the whole game or I don’t play at all.’ I told him, ‘Just checking, dear.'”
Ripken did play the full nine innings that night. In fact, he has played in 99.2 percent of
every Orioles game since the streak began.
In any high pursuit, we face the temptation to lower our standards, to do just enough to get by. Cal Ripken Jr. committed himself to walk worthy of the title Iron Man.
Colossians 1:10 says this of a high pursuit for the believer, that we are to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.”
In our walk with the Lord and for Him, He is worthy of our very best, and not to do just enough. We walk with faith and devotion that we might please Him.
Colossians 1:9: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”
The words, “For this cause” refer to the favorable report that Paul had received concerning the Colossians’ “faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints” (v. 4.).
The day that Paul had heard of their faith and love, the effect was instant, that “we,” meaning he and Timothy, then began praying for them.
And they didn’t just pray once. They did not cease to pray for them from the day they heard the report until Paul wrote this letter.
And their prayer was “that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will.”
When considering the will of God, we tend to apply the phrase to major decisions in life: which job should I take, who should I marry, what house should we buy, where should we go to church, and how many children should we have.
There is nothing wrong with considering God’s will regarding these things because God is involved in our lives, and it’s good to think of Him in life’s decisions.
But Paul has something big, deep, and broad in mind here when he refers to the knowledge of God’s will.
The word “filled” means to fill full, to fill to the top or brim. Paul desired that they be filled to the limit, filled completely with the knowledge of God’s will, obtain a full insight into it, down to the tiniest detail.
And what fills you will control you, controlling both your actions and your reactions.
A married couple on their wedding day is “filled with joy.” If a person gets frightened, we say he is “filled with fear.” A child on Christmas morning is always “filled with excitement.” A person in a traffic jam is often “filled with frustration.”
When our Lord was rejected by those in Nazareth, Luke 4:28 says, “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were FILLED WITH WRATH.”
And that is the idea of being filled with this knowledge of God’s will, that it then becomes a dominating influence that affects our lives. This will is to pervade and influence our purpose, plans, thoughts, and actions.
The word, “knowledge,” is the Greek word, epignosis, and this word means full knowledge, complete knowledge.
Paul is heaping up terms here, as he prayed that they be filled to the top, filled completely with a full and complete knowledge of God’s will.
Paul is not talking about something that they are to do themselves. Instead, he is asking and praying to God for Him to do something for them. The Holy Spirit is the one who actively fills, supplies, and completes with spiritual knowledge, and Paul desired that the Colossians be cooperating recipients of the work of God in their hearts and lives.
This prayer by Paul is about the Spirit of God disclosing and filling us with this knowledge of God’s will through enlightenment to His Word.
Thus, Paul’s prayer for the knowledge of God’s will was to be done “in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” It is the Spirit that illumines us to God’s will in wisdom and spiritual understanding.
“Wisdom” speaks of insight into God’s purposes, and “understanding” refers to a putting together. And this is a spiritual putting together of spiritual things.
One of the spiritual blessings we have that Paul listed in Ephesians 1 is: “Wherein He [God] hath abounded toward us in all WISDOM and prudence; Having made known unto us THE MYSTERY OF HIS WILL…” (1:8-9).
And in 1 Corinthians 2:7, Paul wrote, “But we speak the WISDOM of God in a MYSTERY, even the hidden WISDOM, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.
“The knowledge of God’s will” is about “the mystery of His will,” the revelation of the mystery that Christ first made known to Paul concerning the dispensation of grace, and the grace truth that the Church, the Body of Christ, is to live by today.
This truth had been hidden, hid in God, until it was first revealed to the Apostle Paul, but it is now fully made known and found in his letters.
The Spirit enlightens believers to this truth today. As soon as Paul learned of the Colossians’ faith and love, he and Timothy started praying that these new believers would be filled with a full knowledge of God’s will, or the mystery.
Paul prayed for “wisdom” or spiritual insight into God’s purpose in the Church today, His purpose and plan for the heavenlies through Christ and the Church, the Body of Christ.
He prayed that they would have a spiritual understanding of this will, a spiritual putting together in their minds and hearts so that they would see this wonderful plan of God.
In prophecy, God revealed His plan for the earth through Christ and Israel, and to Paul He revealed His plan for the heavenlies through Christ and the Church. And the Spirit’s illumination of the Word allows us to see and have insight into this twofold plan.
As we are FILLED with a knowledge of this will, the mystery, the grace truth for the Church, it is to translate into our lives, it and we are to allow the Spirit to direct and guide us by it. It is to pervade and influence our purpose, plans, thoughts, and actions. And this will lead us to be the people of grace that God desires from His Church today.
Paul spoke of this will of God later in this same chapter, when he wrote, “Whereof [or in and for the Church] I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the Word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints” (1:25-26).
Colossians 1:10a: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing…”
An understanding of God’s will for the Church today as revealed through Paul, then leads to a walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. The connecting word “that” shows that the spiritual wisdom and understanding of this will is to affect our daily walk.
The ultimate aim of right knowledge is a right walk! The result of the knowledge of God’s will for the Church under grace is an outward life that is governed by that will.
Paul prayed without ceasing for the walk of the Colossians. And that’s a reminder to pray for our walk and the walk of others in the Church.
Our “walk” is about our manner of life, our conduct in the progress of life.
Paul prayed that the Colossians may conduct their manner of life in harmony with the responsibilities that their new relationship to God and the knowledge of His will calls for.
And a believer must walk according to God’s will and His plan for the current age and dispensation of grace.
This means that we are to follow the grace instructions as revealed in the revelation Christ made known to Paul for the Church.
This is what can result in a “walk worthy of the Lord.”
Like in Ephesians 4:1, which tells us to “walk worthy” of our calling, “worthy” here also means suitably and in a manner worthy of. And the literal picture is of a set of scales that are balanced.
What is on the scale in this verse is our “walk” on one side and “the Lord” on the other. Although it seems impossible that anyone could walk worthy of the Lord that is the teaching here of God’s Word. God always sets the standard high for believers.
But how we walk worthy of the Lord is by walking according to the knowledge of the Lord’s will for His Church under grace. When we follow the Lord’s teachings of grace, as He revealed to and through Paul, our walk of grace is a walk worthy of the Lord today. And this results in a “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.”
The purpose of having a knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding is in order that we might please Him in our walk and in all that we do. The Lord is pleased when we follow and walk by His grace instructions for the Church.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, Paul taught, “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to WALK and to PLEASE GOD, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.”
Paul begged the Thessalonians himself and exhorted these brethren even “by the Lord Jesus” that what they had been taught and received from Paul as to how they should walk, they were to keep on following and abounding more and more, striving for excellence, maturity, and a closer walk with the Lord.
Walking according to Paul and his instructions results in knowing how to walk and to please God, because it is a walk according to what God is doing today in the dispensation of grace. For us to walk to please God today, we must follow the grace teachings found in Paul’s letters.
Paul had given them “commandments…by the Lord Jesus,” he said in 1 Thessalonians 4:2. From the revelation Paul received from the Lord Jesus, he relayed the commandments of the Head of the Church, to the Body of Christ, for our daily walk.
The chief aim of believers in their walk should be to please the Lord. And carrying out the commandments of Christ through Paul for our walk will please the Lord.
And to walk wanting to please the Lord is the logical outcome of a believer’s gratitude to the Lord, and wanting to please the One who died for us and saved us and released from the bondage and consequences of our sins.
Many people live to please themselves, with no concern for others. Some live to try to please a boss, a parent, their peers, friends, siblings, or a spiritual leader they respect. Others live trying to please everybody.
An old story tells of an elderly man traveling with a boy and a donkey. As they walked through a village, the man led the donkey, and the boy followed behind.
The townspeople said the old man was a fool for not riding, so to please them, he climbed up on the animal’s back.
When they came to the next village, the people said the old man was cruel to let the child walk while he enjoyed the ride. So, to please them, he got off and set the boy on the animal’s back and continued on his way.
In the third village, people accused the child of being lazy for making the old man walk, and the suggestion was made that they both ride. So the man climbed on and they set off again.
In the fourth village, the townspeople were indignant at the cruelty to the donkey because he was made to carry two people.
The man and the boy pondered the situation and then continued their journey carrying the donkey on a pole between them. But then as they crossed a bridge, the donkey broke loose from the pole, fell into the river, and drowned.
The moral of the story is that you can’t please everybody. If we live to try and please everybody we might please some, but we’ll never please everybody.
Living and walking to please God is what’s most important. This will not please people either, but that doesn’t matter. What God thinks is what truly matters and is always what’s most important.
In His earthly ministry, our Lord stated in John 8:29, “And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that PLEASE Him.” In being like Christ, that is what we strive for also in our walk, to do what pleases God.
The combination of walking and pleasing God brings Enoch to mind. Genesis 5:24 tells us of him, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” As Enoch walked with God by faith in his relationship with Him, Hebrews 11:5 adds,
“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, THAT HE PLEASED GOD.” Enoch walked with the invisible God and then he walked into eternity.
But before he was taken, his testimony was that he pleased God by his faith in Him. As we walk to please God, we know that the walk of faith always pleases Him. As Hebrews 11:6 reminds us “without faith it is impossible to PLEASE Him.”
Colossians 1:10b-11: “…being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”
In Paul’s prayer for the Colossians, he then moves on to present three characteristics of a “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” And the first characteristic is: “being fruitful in every good work.”
Paul attaches high value to good works in his epistles, but good works are viewed as the fruit of grace, not the root of grace.
The gospel of grace makes it very clear that salvation is not of works. It is a gift of God to be received by faith alone, and not by works of righteousness which we have done.
However, after we are saved, it is God’s desire to produce good works in us. God has prepared good works for us to do, and He is pleased when we walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10 states, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto GOOD WORKS, which God hath before ordained that we should WALK in them.” God desires that we walk and work, that we walk with God and work for God and His glory.
This fruit of good works is not about ticking off a spiritual to-do list; it’s about cultivating a life of faith that naturally produces good works and responds to the opportunities that God gives us to serve Him and others.
Good works are those acts of service that are good in their character, beneficial in their effects, and useful and kind in their actions.
They entail any kind of activity undertaken for the glory of Christ, carried out in the power of the Spirit. It’s been said that “Good works could be aptly termed ‘God works!’”
The second characteristic of a “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” is “increasing in the knowledge of God.”
In our walk with God, God would have us have the heart of Moses in Exodus 33:13, when he said to the Lord God, “that I may know Thee.”
Increasing means to cause to grow. Increasing in the knowledge of God is done through the knowledge of God’s Word. This isn’t about knowing facts about God or information about the events of the Bible from cover to cover.
It’s about knowing God, and understanding Him, and learning more about His heart and character and dealings with mankind.
Spiritual growth results from and is tied to the knowledge of God through His Word. The Spirit uses the knowledge and understanding of the living Word to cause us to grow.
We also increase in our knowledge of God by being “filled with the knowledge of His will” because then we understand what God is doing now, today, under His current program with the nations, saving souls out of all nations by grace through faith alone in Christ.
It’s been said well that “What rain and sunshine are to the nurture of plants, the knowledge of God is to the growth and maturing of the spiritual life.”
To know God is the privilege of our lives. We will never cease “increasing in our knowledge of God.” Since God is infinite, to know Him is an infinite process. The increasing in our knowledge of God will go on into and throughout eternity.
In our walk to please God, God is pleased with those who seek and desire to know Him more, who want to understand who He is, what He has done, who with humility and reverence delve into the counsels, wisdom, and truth of His Word to know Him more.
As Jeremiah 9:24 says, “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.”
And our knowledge of Him is increased through our walk and personal relationship with Him from day to day, learning more of Him in a personal, relational way, as we experience His love, grace, and faithfulness firsthand.
We know God and increase in our knowledge of Him as we walk with Him. We walk with Him as we live by faith and grow in His Word.
This increasing in the knowledge of God is having a relationship with Him that gets a little bit deeper, a little bit stronger and a little bit closer every day.
The third characteristic of a “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” is to be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness”
To walk well-pleasing to God cannot be done in our own strength and power. To walk worthy of the Lord, we need divine strength and power and we must rely on it.
We must recognize our weakness and His strength, our insufficiency and His sufficiency, our inability and His ability.
And in Paul’s prayer he shows us that “all might” is available to us. And this might is “according to” God’s glorious power.
Paul’s prayer request is big. The request is not that the Colossians be strengthened with might “out of” God’s power, but “according to” it, which you could say means “up to the limit of His power.” But God’s glorious power is limitless and infinite.
The prayer is for the Colossians to be strengthened and equipped for their walk, not just according to their need, but according to and proportional to the Divine supply.
This prayer is a request for a blank check for power from God’s inexhaustible supply.
Limitless resources are available for the believer to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. No believer ever needs to live a weak, spiritually bankrupt Christian life.
We have “all might according to God’s glorious power” to draw on by faith that we might walk worthy of the Lord and please Him in our conduct.
This power of God enables our walk to please God and Paul prayed for this power for the Church for the specific purpose that we be strengthened with all might “unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”
The Christian’s daily walk is often a long journey, and we empowered to walk it with
patience and longsuffering with joy.
The power of God manifests itself in a quiet, consistent, endurance in life.
Patience means endurance, perseverance, and to bear up under the weight and pressure of a given situation. It is the word used of “the patience of Job” in James 5:11. Job manifested a determined, persistent endurance in the face of his trial.
The term “patience” refers to bravely enduring difficult circumstances and refusing to buckle under the pressure. It is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us.
The term “longsuffering,” is basically patience with people. It is the quality of mind and heart which enables us to cope with people in such a way that their unpleasantness, malice, or cruelty will not drive us to bitterness, despair, to hastily retaliate or to outbursts of anger.
God’s glorious power not only gives us the patience and longsuffering in our difficulties, it enables us to do it with joy and to maintain our joy. Gladness in times of hardship and rejoicing in the times of trial is not natural; it is supernatural.
But the life of faith and God’s grace enables a believer to suffer patiently and even praise God in the midst of their trials.
As Romans 5:3-5 states, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed…”
As we walk worthy of the Lord, God’s might and strength is there for us by His grace to help us meet all of life’s challenges: to endure and overcome problems with circumstances and to endure and overcome problems with people, and to do it all with joy.
The first footprints put on the moon will probably be there a long, long time. Unlike on Earth, there is no erosion by wind or water on the moon. Nothing gets washed away.
Since the Moon has no atmosphere, it is exposed to the solar wind, a stream of charged particles coming from the sun, and over time, this acts almost like weather to change the surface of the moon, but the process is very, very slow. So slow, that the footprints left behind by astronauts on the moon would last millions upon millions of years.
We all leave behind lasting “footprints” in life. Where we go, what we accomplish, the influence we have on others, these are the legacy that we leave behind us.
Through our daily walk with God, may it be a walk that pleases God which leaves a lasting footprint in this world for Christ, a walk and footprint that will be remembered far into eternity.