Everyone understands what it’s like to walk in the dark. You get up in the middle of the night, for example, and try to walk across the bedroom, but you can’t see anything. You bump around in the blackness and try to feel your way along the wall or furniture. You stub your toe and cry out, “Ugh (or worse!) I can’t see!” But if someone turns a switch on and light floods the room, then you can see. Then–and only then–is everything clear.
Spiritually, apart from Christ we bump around in the night. We’re trying to feel our way around, trying to make sense of what we think we can see. And we’re just in the dark and then God turns the switch on through the power of the Gospel. He floods the room of our lives with the light of truth. Now we can see. Things are clearer now and we can sing, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
Paul talks about this very truth in Colossians 1:9-14. But he begins first by writing about how Christians may grow in their sanctification.
Grow in Your Sanctification [9-11]
Sanctification is simply a process of growth. That’s what that word means. To speak of our growth in Christ is to speak of our sanctification, the process of becoming more sanctified, more like Christ.
Sanctification is related to another word, the word Justification. Justification is not a process; justification is a point in time, a one-time event. It occurs just once. To be justified is to be declared “not guilty” by the Judge of the Universe, by God.
We were once guilty but, because of Christ and our belief in Him, God justifies us; He declares us righteous, regarding us as no longer guilty of our sin. We are justified–completely.
Unlike justification, sanctification is never complete in this life. While sin no longer reigns in our lives, sin remains and we battle that sin throughout our lifetime—but we battle from a position of strength. We have all the resources we need to defeat sin and to grow in our Christian living and become more and more like our Lord.
**Learning (9)
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
The word “knowledge” there is a derivative of the Greek word “Gnosis,” from which comes “Gnosticism.” I mentioned “Gnosticism” very briefly in an earlier post.
I know that word sounds strange. The first time I heard the word Gnosticism, I thought it sounded like a disease. Somebody was preaching and referred to “incipient Gnosticism” and I thought, “That sounds like a sinus condition!” But it’s important for our study because it is a false teaching that was beginning to take shape in Paul’s day.
Think of Gnosticism as a belief in Christ, with other beliefs added to it. This is a false teaching that said that to have Jesus was not everything. False teachers were peddling the idea that, “Jesus is good, yes, but you need more than Jesus.” The idea was that you needed additional knowledge, deeper truth.
Not to get ahead, but Paul will go on to address this false teaching more fully in chapter 2:
“Beware lest anyone spoil you (or cheat you so as to plunder you of your riches) through philosophy and vain deceit, for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (all, there is no “Jesus plus other stuff”) and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Colossians 2:8-10)”
So Paul is already addressing this false teaching in chapter 1 verse 9 where he writes, “We are asking God that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” In other words, “You’ve already got the true gospel. We’re simply praying that you would be filled with the truth you already have.”
See, you receive the saving truth of the Gospel as a complete gift. It’s like a gift-wrapped present and everything is included.
But you’ve got to go on learning about the gift you possess. So it’s like opening up that gift and looking it over and studying it, and learning more and more about this precious gift you have received.
Think of the Bible as the “Instruction Manual” that tells you all about the gift you’ve got. It tells you what it is and how it all works. So you read through the Instruction Manual of God’s Word and you learn all about the God’s will for you and how to grow in wisdom and spiritual understanding.
So Paul is like, “You already have the truth. Don’t let false teachers tell you that you need something else. You have the truth so I am praying that you will be filled with the truth,” that is, “that you will grow in your learning and understanding of the truth you already possess,” allowing the truth to completely fill you as you grow.
In fact, verse 10 indicates that it is the very truth the Colossians already possess which leads to their growth, much in the way rain brings a harvest or sunlight grows a tree. The truth which they possess in entirety must so “get in them” and fill them so that they may grow.
Picture a football player’s toddler son playing with his dad’s football uniform. Here’s a 4-year-old boy and he’s trying to put on his dad’s football jersey and shoulder pads and helmet. He’d be completely buried in all of the clothing and gear! He’s not grown to the point that he could wear of all that. He’s got to grow quite a bit to “fill it out.”
So we come into he Christian faith and we’re like a little kid trying to wear professional football clothing and gear. We’re tiny and we’ve got a lot of spiritual growing to do. We’ve got a lot of “filling out” to do as we grow in the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
**Living (10-11)
The “filling” of knowledge in verse 9 leads to action in verse 10. Paul says:
10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in (or by) the knowledge of God;
This “walking” is a metaphor we still use today. We say, for example, if you’re going to “talk the talk,” then you’d better what?—“walk the walk.” If you say you’re going to do thus and such, then live it out. Walking worthy of the Lord just means that Christians should live in a way that brings a smile to the face of Jesus.
Note the connection between verses 9 and 10. Right learning leads to right living. Information you take in through learning should lead to transformation through living. Right content leads to right character. We study the Word of God and we learn about Who He is and what He has done and it leads to a way of living that causes Jesus to smile.
11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy;
Christians are to grow and become stronger in the faith. God’s glorious power empowers us to grow. And there are a couple of evidences of such growth there at the end of verse 11: “patience and long-suffering.”
Someone said patience is to endure difficult situations while long-suffering is to endure difficult people. God empowers us to be a patient people and a loving and merciful people. It’s a supernatural work that God does in and through the Christian.
The two words there at the end of verse 11 in the New King James Version, “With joy” can go either with what precedes it or what follows it. It could be either “Having joy as you endure difficult circumstances and difficult people” or, “Having joy as you—verse 12—give thanks to the Father,” and so on. In either case, the Christian is empowered to live his or her life “with joy.”
Give Thanks for Your Salvation (12-14)
God has saved us through the power of the Gospel and we ought to always thank Him for this precious gift.
12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
The Father qualifies us or authorizes us—those who are Christians—the Father has authorized us to have a share in the kingdom of heaven. We are partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
God qualifies those who are unqualified. I think that’s important to remember here! Apart from Christ, there’s not a single person in all the world who qualifies to go to heaven. Because of sin, we are all un-qualified to be partakers of the inheritance, or shareholders of heaven.
It’s like qualifying for a loan when you have bad credit. You’ve got bills stacked up six inches high on your kitchen counter. You’re not gainfully employed and your credit history is disastrous. What is more, you have absolutely nothing to offer the lending institution. You’re an absolute zero.
So imagine you appear before the banker with your head is down and you know it’s bad news, but then the banker says, “We’re going to bless you anyway. You’re qualified. In fact, not only have we qualified you for this loan, but we’re also going to pay it off for you. You don’t deserve it and all you need to do is receive it.”
That’s what God has done for us in the Gospel! He qualified us to be saved!
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
Paul didn’t write, “You delivered yourselves from the power of darkness.” No, you were in darkness. You were spiritually blind. To be in darkness is not only to be without God, but to be against God, to be a rebel in the night. You couldn’t find a light switch, because you weren’t even looking. You were just bumping around in the night and then God turned on the lights: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness.”
See, God must do the work of getting hold of our hearts and awakening faith. He is the one who qualifies us and delivers us from the power of darkness.
Oliver B. Green was an evangelist who founded “The Gospel Hour,” a radio program of an earlier generation. But listen to these words:
“If unregenerate man (this is, a lost person) should enter heaven, heaven would be hell to him.”
Wow. So true.
Natural man—apart from regeneration—is against the things of God. So if a lost person; an unregenerate man, were somehow to enter heaven then “heaven would be hell to him” because his heart hasn’t been changed.
I think that’s important to remember in our sharing the Gospel this week. Everybody seems to think he or she is going to heaven, but why would we ever think heaven would be a wonderful place if it is occupied by the One against whom we have committed treason and rebel against every day in this world? We need a new heart.
So Oliver B. Green goes on to say, “The natural man must be changed because the natural man is not subject to the will of God.” Heaven is, “a prepared place for a prepared people.”
God delivers us from darkness. God changes our hearts that we will believe in Christ and receive Him as Lord. And Paul rounds out this passage then, in verse 14, by speaking of Christ as the one:
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
If we believe Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we may be redeemed, released from the debt we owe God. Without Christ we owe a debt we cannot pay. Jesus pays the entire debt for us. And it is on that basis that God the Father qualifies us. The Father qualifies us to be blessed because Christ has taken care of the debt.
Many people today have a false understanding of the gospel. Many think that the way a person gets to heaven is by being good: doing good deeds, being nice, giving things away, and so on.
You start talking about Jesus and how one is saved and somebody says, “Well, you know you’ve just got to believe Jesus and be a good person, do good stuff, and hopefully in the end you will been good enough and done enough good stuff.”
Well, we may be very sincere and try our very hardest and give it our best shot, but that doesn’t get us to heaven.
One evening my wife and I boarded a plane to fly us to Detroit where we would make a connection flight to take us to the Raleigh Durham airport. But the flight to Detroit was on a half-hour delay. So when we got to Detroit we had just minutes to make it to the gate and board the connecting flight.
An airline worker called ahead to the gate and told us we could make the flight if we got there within 12 minutes.
So I’m running as fast as I can and my heart is pounding as I’m running up the escalator and running around people, and running through that crazy light tunnel that connects Concourses B and C. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through that tunnel at the Detroit airport. I think it’s supposed to calm you, but it had the opposite effect on me. There’s this intense music and the lights are blinking as if to say, “You’re not gonna make it! You’re not gonna make it!”
But I finally made it to Concourse A, and I’m huffing and puffing, and I round the corner at the gate, in time—just in time to see that the gate is shut and the plane is backing away. We missed it. That was our only chance to get out of Detroit that evening.
I want you to know I was very sincere in my efforts to get on that plane. I tried my hardest. I gave it my best shot. You could even say, “I got pretty close.” I mean, I was at Concourse C and I made it to Concourse A in record time. But I still missed the flight.
Once the gate shuts, it’s all over.
We may be very sincere in our efforts to be good and to “qualify ourselves for heaven.” We may try our very hardest and give it our best shot. We may even be so bold as to think we’re closer than others—but none of that matters when the gate is shut and we miss the only way of departure.
The only way to make it to heaven is for God to qualify us for the trip. He takes care of everything: booking, ticketing, and baggage. He’ll make sure you get to the gate on time. He’ll even carry you there! He delivers us from the power of darkness and conveys us, or carries us over, to the Kingdom of the Son of His love.
God does all of that for us in Christ, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
What About You?
- How are you growing in sanctification this week? This year?
- Why do you think people believe they can “qualify themselves” for salvation?
- Where else does the Bible speak of light and darkness?
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