In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Colossians 4:2-4 and the apostle Paul’s exhortation there as to how all Spirit-filled, Word-filled Christians must devote themselves to thanksgiving and prayer, praying especially for the faithful going forth of the saving gospel message of Christ.
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Summary
We are called to understand that a Spirit-filled, Word-filled Christian will experience the transformational power of the gospel in every area of life — including how we speak. This passage from Colossians 4:1-6 teaches us that the highest use of our speech is prayer, and that devoted, alert, and thankful prayer is not optional but is the frontline ministry of every believer.
Key Lessons:
- Transformation by the Holy Spirit is revealed in our conduct, relationships, and speech — not in emotional or ecstatic experiences.
- Every believer — not just leaders — is called to be devoted to corporate prayer as a body, because prayer is frontline spiritual warfare.
- Thanksgiving is not merely a feeling but a command and a discipline that reorients us toward God, defeats Satan’s lies, and overflows into healthier relationships.
- Prayer must have direction: we are to ask God specifically to open doors for the gospel and grant clarity in proclaiming Christ as the mystery now revealed.
Application: We are called to stop neglecting prayer and become a people genuinely devoted to it — praying together, staying alert, maintaining thankfulness in all circumstances, and asking God boldly to open gospel doors for those around us.
Discussion Questions:
- In what specific areas of your life has the Holy Spirit’s transformation become visible — and where do you sense He is still at work?
- What practical steps can you take this week to move from occasional prayer to devoted, corporate prayer as described in Colossians 4:2?
- Who in your life have you stopped praying for, and what would it look like to pick that prayer back up with faith that God answers?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 4:1-6 is the central passage, teaching devotion to prayer, thankfulness, and clarity in proclaiming Christ. Supporting passages include Ephesians 6:18 (alert prayer in spiritual warfare), Luke 18:1 (praying and not losing heart), and Colossians 1:27 (Christ in you, the hope of glory).
Outline
- Introduction
- The Spirit’s Work of Transformation
- Transformed Speech: The Highest Form
- Devotion to Prayer
- Thanksgiving in Prayer
- Direction in Prayer: Open Doors for the Gospel
- Prayer Answered: The Story of Jeremiah Lanier
Introduction
All right, this morning we’re looking at Colossians 4, and I want to read verses 1-6.
Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you have a master in heaven. 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. Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.
Let’s pray. Lord, this morning as we come to your word, we thank you, Lord, for the authority of the word of God. We’re not, and we never desire to preach men’s words, but your words, because this is what we need for our soul.
This is what we need, Lord, to know how to live, to know how to please you, to know where we stand with you, so we can have confidence and boldness in our life to live the way it pleases you.
And Lord, as we do that, we know, Lord, we maintain our joy and the peace of God that you’ve given us. And then we can do the things we have to do, even though those things may bring us through trials and persecutions and trouble.
Lord, we can do it in a way where we respond to our circumstances in a way that honors you, and not allow our circumstances to control us. So thank you for the word of God. Teach us this morning, and I pray in Christ’s name, amen.
The Spirit’s Work of Transformation
A spirit-filled, word-filled Christian will begin to see the transformational power of the gospel in each part of their experience as they make this their journey through this world. As a believer grows in the knowledge of the word of God and Christ and is led by the Holy Spirit, transformation takes place.
That’s really a great evidence that you are a believer. Now, where does that transformation become visible? Because we do want to see it.
These foundational truths lead to a more practical thing the Spirit of God is doing in the believer. When we become Christian, the first thing that takes place is that we are justified. We are pronounced just by God, indwelt with the Holy Spirit, in which it begins this gradual process of sanctification.
Change in me and you starts to happen when we are really believers. It starts the instant we are justified, but it is not completed until we are received up into glory and in the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is cleaning us up, making changes in our lives, bringing into our lives conformity to the will of God.
This conformity happens from the inside out. We are changed from the inside out. God wants to see your fruit. He wants to see the fruit of the Spirit and what the Spirit is doing inside of you, and you ought to want to see that too.
“God wants to see your fruit — the fruit of the Spirit and what the Spirit is doing inside of you.”
The goal of the Christian life is righteousness. We are being sanctified so that we will know what the right thing to do is. Behavior is at the center of concern in sanctification. Behavior shows what is or is not going on in the inside.
How the Spirit Changes Us
The Holy Spirit is inside of us to produce good fruit. Now, what are the major aspects the Spirit uses to change us? Well, there are several areas he uses to change us.
Number one, repentance. He brings repentance, a change of mind, heart, and will, that we would see things God’s way. That’s even the gospel, and then even as we grow in our Christian life, he’s changing our mind.
We just don’t repent once. We repent all the time about what’s going on in our life. We repent of sin, and he convicts us of that sin. Conviction is about what is wrong and evil in our life.
Then he convicts us of righteousness. That conviction is the knowledge of what is right and good and pleasing in God’s sight. We are convicted about those things.
Now, how can you do what is right and pleasing to God if you have no idea what is right and pleasing to God? That’s where the scriptures come in. The Holy Spirit addresses your mind and informs your understanding with truth.
The Spirit is not only the Holy Spirit, he is the Spirit of truth. That’s what it says in the Gospel of John, where when Jesus was before Pilate, Pilate said to him, “You say you are a king.” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king, for this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
The Spirit bears witness about Christ, not about himself, about Christ. Romans tells us that we’re transformed by the renewing of your mind. God doesn’t bypass your mind; he transforms your mind.
First Corinthians tells us, “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking. Yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.” The Holy Spirit is making this change in us through the truth, the word of God, in your mind.
The word and the Spirit go together; they cannot be separated. Remember, it is the Spirit of God who’s given us the word of God, so they can’t be separated. The word of God transforms us, so we develop deep biblical convictions.
When that happens, our conscience will not allow us to live against those biblical convictions. Once we’re convinced by the word of God, no one can change your mind, because you see it in scripture. When that comes, there will be a transformation of your mind, so that you will desire to do what is right, and you will desire to live in a pleasing manner before the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Once we’re convinced by the word of God, no one can change your mind, because you see it in scripture.”
The Holy Spirit is working on our conduct in order for us to bear the image of Jesus and bring us out of the baby nursery and baby bottles and diapers, and move us into self-control and spiritual maturity, resulting in a progressive transformation and an increasing Christlikeness, and then ultimately the glory of God in our own life.
There’s a definite result that you may see when the word of God and the Holy Spirit is working in your life. God wants you to see that. However, the results of the filling of the word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit may not be what you think or what you have heard.
Because if you heard that the filling of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues, or seeing visions, or having dreams, or having feelings of euphoria, where someone loses their self-consciousness and self-control, which manifests itself in swooning and chanting and clapping and barking and laughing and stamping the feet and stuff like these, if you have heard these are the things that result from being filled with the Spirit of God, you would have missed the details of scripture.
Where Transformation Becomes Visible
Because the scripture records that the results of being word-filled and spirit-filled are revealed in your conduct. What does it say in the word of God? Be like the holy one who called you, be holy yourself also in your behavior. See, that’s where it shows up.
Also, you’ll have the mind of Christ. You’ll be obedient to the word of God. You will be prayerful, you will be thankful for everything to God, and you will separate yourself from the powers that are in the world.
You don’t want to be pressed into the world’s mold, but you want to be separated and a dedicated child of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then also you will be very concerned about souls, where they’re going.
It’s also revealed in your character. As Colossians has been teaching us, this will be revealed in our appearance, in not the way you physically dress, but the way you spiritually dress. How we dress as kingdom kids, are we putting off sin, those sin-stained garments? Are we putting on new clothing?
Only the Christian has the capacity to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God, and with the ability and will to serve and please God. Loving God’s word and loving God will also include hating sin and desiring to pursue righteousness.
Therefore, salvation is not a matter of improvement or perfection of what has previously existed in your life. It is a matter of comprehensive transformation. It is a matter of progress in Christlikeness.
“Salvation is not a matter of improvement or perfection. It is a matter of comprehensive transformation.”
It’s also revealed in your relationships. We saw that in verse 18 onwards, our relationships, that we will see it there. A result of being word-filled and being controlled by the Holy Spirit is submitting, and that means that the supreme condition of the filling of the Spirit of God is submission to Christ, the knowing and the doing of the will of God.
This is where we see transformation. We see it in our everyday walk, in our marriages between wives and husbands, in families between children and parents and fathers and children. We see it in our conduct and our speech. We notice it in what we are devoted to, in how we use our time and our opportunities, and how we see and consider other people.
It’s also revealed in our response to the world, or our response to circumstances that come into our life once we’re a believer. This Lord’s Day, this morning, we will see the transformation of the gospel in the Christian, changes in lifestyle, which has to do with duty and performance.
Transformed Speech: The Highest Form
And what is very interesting to notice in our text this morning is how the Christian is to continue to grow to spiritual maturity and Christlikeness, which includes speech. How we talk, how we communicate.
As the Christian grows, their language is transformed into forms of speech that will be God-centered, word-focused, other-focused, and needs-focused. These forms of speech will edify and build the people in the body of Christ. It is how the word-filled, Spirit-filled believer talks and walks in this world.
“As the Christian grows, their language is transformed into forms of speech that will be God-centered, word-focused, and other-focused.”
Unfortunately, unless you are under the control of the Holy Spirit, our words will most likely hurt and not heal. The Epistle of James informs us of that little member in our body, how evil it could be.
He says in James 3, “For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.”
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, men who have been created in the likeness of God. From the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be.
There is someone who can tame the tongue. It’s the Holy Spirit and the word of God. There’s going to be a change in the forms of our speech.
“There is someone who can tame the tongue — it’s the Holy Spirit and the word of God.”
The first form of transformed speech, which I’ll kind of park on this morning, is possibly the highest use of the gift of speech. Let’s take a glimpse at verse 2. Here is the first thing under the major heading: the gospel transformation changes what we are devoted to.
Devotion to Prayer
And notice the first form of transformed speech found in Colossians 4:2. Notice what it says: devote yourselves to what? Prayer.
That is the highest form of speech, language, because now we are actually talking to God. And we know we’re talking to God because now we have entrance into the throne room of God through Jesus Christ.
In the Greek it says there, the prayers, it includes the definite article. That speech has its focus on the character and the person of God.
It shows that a believer who is being transformed has a dependence on and a need to communicate with the living God, who delights to hear from us, and he delights to answer our prayers. But this definite article stresses something. All believers are to be devoted to this.
This is not just for the pastors and the deacons. It’s not just for those who are leading. It’s for every single Christian. Devote yourself to the prayers.
In other words, from Acts 2:42, it also means that we are to pray together. We are to be busily engaged, the whole body of believers, to be busily engaged in prayer together.
We Christians are to give constant attention to prayer. We cannot individualize what God has actually meant to be corporate. What people are devoted to, that is what they will do.
Now we have to ask ourselves the question this morning as a congregation. We do pray here and there, we do pray on Zoom in different places, but are we devoted to prayer, all of us? This is an all-team effort. There’s nobody sitting on the bench in this one, everybody’s on the field in the game. That’s what devotion means.
If we’re going to win in this spiritual battle, if we’re going to do things for God as a body, then we must be praying. That is the stress of this passage here, that we’re devoted to it. Regular and constant prayer shows where one’s priorities are, where one’s concerns are, where one’s passions are placed.
It really implores us to remember, prayer is always first and should always be regular, always. Christians, don’t miss out on this one thing. This is one of God’s greatest gifts he gives us in the use of our tongue, is to pray to him and to pray together.
“Regular and constant prayer shows where one’s priorities are, where one’s concerns are, where one’s passions are placed.”
How do you learn how to pray? You pray with somebody who knows how to pray, right? When the disciples came to Jesus, he says, teach us how to pray. Jesus did that.
How did they learn how to pray? He didn’t necessarily have a lesson on this. No, he prayed and they listened to him, and then they began to pray like he did, because Jesus always prayed in the will of God.
Prayer together as a church body is the one great gift that God gives us. And this is the first transformation of this speech that he’s given us.
Staying Alert in Prayer
Now I want you to notice in our passage there are two important actions connected with devoted prayer. If you notice, it says in verse 2, “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it.” The first action is to stay alert in it.
Christians, if we are to pray with timely effectiveness, we cannot fall asleep at the switch. We cannot fall asleep on our post. Now, anybody who’s in the military knows that if you fall asleep on your post, you can get actually executed for that.
But it’s not a good thing to do, because you are the watchman for the enemy coming. This is how prayer is looked at in the church—that we are the watchmen, the watchmen who are awake, and we are diligent in being awake.
Just like Luke 18:1 reminds us, if we are without prayer, if we don’t pray, if we don’t stay alert, then we’ll faint. For it says this: “Now he was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart.”
So if you don’t pray, you will faint and you’ll not be able to fight. And not only that, you’ll let the enemy into the camp.
Luke 18:1: “At all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. If you don’t pray, you will faint and not be able to fight.”
Now I did give this illustration in the past, but I thought it was a good one. One of my professors, Dr. Rasa, who’s now with the Lord, wrote several volumes on prayer, and he was really big about prayer.
But he had one illustration about staying alert in his work. He said that early American cowboys who took drastic measures to keep alert and hold fast to their work while guarding cattle at night exemplified this idea by rubbing tobacco juice in their eyes to make them smarter, or keep them awake, to keep their eyes open and help the riders stay at their post and not grow weary.
I don’t mean you do that, but it just illustrates how important it is for us to stay awake in this area. I sometimes see that the church is falling asleep here, and I don’t want to be a church that falls asleep in this area.
Prayer as Frontline Warfare
Because this, my friends, this is frontline warfare. Prayer is frontline ministry. And why are we to stay alert? Because we are traveling through enemy territory, right? We’re aliens in a foreign land, we’re not home yet.
While we’re walking through this enemy territory, we will find that we need to be praying. As the sister book of Colossians tells us in Ephesians 6:18, “with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on alert, again with all perseverance and petitions for all the saints.”
We’re on alert, praying for one another, that we would all stay strong, that we wouldn’t walk away from the faith, that we wouldn’t fall and not be able to get up. Prayer is often found in the context of spiritual warfare, because it is frontline ministry, and you’re needed on the front lines.
Nobody’s in the rear, we’re all on the front lines. If we don’t get this, this is not good. We need to get it.
I believe in Colossians, Paul is kind of saving this for last, as he does in Ephesians, all these chapters in chapter six of spiritual warfare. Where did that come from? Paul’s saying, no, you need to be serious, that when you’re a Christian it is warfare until the day you die.
This is not smooth sailing, this is not a bed of roses, this is warfare. That’s why we need to pray. We need to be talking to the Lord about what’s going on in our life, what needs to be done, and what his will needs to be done, while we’re walking through this world as aliens.
If you don’t pray, you’ll be weak and faint. Yes, you’ll get weary in the midst of spiritual battle, but you don’t have to be weak and faint. Being weary is different—you’re tired.
How many people have not been tired, right? Life is tiring, things that you have to deal with are tiring. But it doesn’t mean you faint, it doesn’t mean you give up, it doesn’t mean that you’re weak and you can’t do anything.
No, it means you’re strong in the Lord. Being strong in the Lord, Christians can show that they are in touch with Jesus, the commander of the troops. Christians are to put on the whole armor of God while maintaining constant contact in prayer to God. That’s who we are.
“Christians can show they are in touch with Jesus, the commander of the troops, by putting on the whole armor of God while maintaining constant contact in prayer.”
Christ is made real to us in prayer, and we are not to give up and become discouraged when answers to our prayers are delayed. Remember that God knows how and when to answer prayer. Our responsibility is to keep on praying and to trust God completely for the answer, that will be according to his will and in his own time.
Stay alert, so that you’ll be around for the answer too when you do pray. The first action in devoted prayer is keeping alert.
Thanksgiving in Prayer
Now look at the second action in verse 2 of Colossians 4. It says there, keep alert in it with an attitude of Thanksgiving.
This is like the fourth time he mentions Thanksgiving in just a few verses. I’m thinking to myself when I’m studying this, is it that we don’t get it?
The first time in Colossians 3:15, he says, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God.”
Then in verse 3, a third time, he says, “Giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Now again, in the context of prayer, he tells us to have an attitude of thankfulness when you pray.
Believers who are full of gratitude to God for his gracious calling will find it easier to extend to fellow believers the grace, love, and forgiveness of God. They can put aside petty issues that might inhibit the expression of peace within the community.
We know that the Lord loves to see those who serve in his church maintain a cheerful and thankful heart, because both are the will of God.
It seems like a very easy command, and this is a command—another imperative to follow: Be thankful. You would think that’s easy.
But why is thankfulness so unnatural to us? You may say we live on a planet that has been corrupted by sin, where there’s too much suffering and evil, so it’s hard to be thankful all the time.
Others may say we really don’t know God, we really don’t have a relationship with him, we don’t trust him, we don’t really like the way he does things. So it feels normal to withhold thankfulness, especially when we do not find much in our life to be thankful for.
When that happens, we’re not looking very closely at what God is doing in our life. But Romans already answered the question on why it is unnatural.
In Romans it says, “For they knew God and they did not honor him as God or give thanks.” Why is that? Because human beings think that they’re wiser than God. They listen to Satan’s temptations to doubt God and to turn away from him.
This is really speaking of a man that is unsaved and unconverted. But I do think that it spills over into the Christian’s life too.
When someone hears the gospel of Jesus Christ and turns from their sin and repents and believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, the Spirit of God indwells them and begins to transform them. They find out very quickly that the Bible admonishes believers to often pray coupled with Thanksgiving. It’s all over Scripture.
Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5:16. It says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you.”
If you want to do the will of God, if you are asking the question, what’s God’s will? It is God’s will for you to be thankful and be devoted to prayer. That’s what God’s will is. Now I can get that. Practicing it is something else.
Philippians tells us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, and let your request be made known to God.”
In Colossians 2:6-7, we’re to overflow with thankfulness. That means there’s a cup filled and it just keeps coming out, right? It keeps coming out. That’s how we ought to look before God. Our thankfulness can’t be stopped, you can’t put a lid on it, it just keeps coming out.
“Our thankfulness can’t be stopped, you can’t put a lid on it — it just keeps coming out.”
I believe the only way to have that happen is when doctrine really takes root in your mind and heart, and you realize very clearly what God has done for you. You had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t add to it, you couldn’t take away from it, but he did it.
You feel so humbled and so thankful that he saved you and he put you on a path that’s leading into the kingdom of God. There’s not many things that could really divert your thankfulness. It just overflows in every circumstance and relationship of life.
We’re faced with the choice all the time. How are we going to respond to it? Are we going to move toward God in thankfulness, or are we going to move away from God with ingratitude? Those are the two choices you have.
It’s not pretty to see a believer that’s not thankful. It’s not pretty, because they’re not getting something, or they’re so focused on their circumstance or on the people in that circumstance that they allow them to rob it right from them.
They’re down in the dumps now because of it. But being thankful doesn’t mean that you don’t hurt inside. It doesn’t mean that there’s not trouble in your life and everything’s going fine. That’s not what it means.
It means I’m thankful because of Jesus Christ and what he’s done, and no one could change that, because God doesn’t lie to us. He tells us the truth.
“I’m thankful because of Jesus Christ and what he’s done, and no one could change that, because God doesn’t lie to us.”
Six Effects of a Thankful Heart
I came across this little booklet done by Puritan Reformed. I read it, and they had six things in that little book that it says will take place as soon as you’re thankful. I thought I’d share those with you this morning, because it is helpful to lift up or bolster what it says in our passage.
As soon as you are thankful, the first thing is you enter into the presence of God. You remember that you are living your life in God’s presence. He is listening to you and he’s involved in your life.
Secondly, as soon as you are thankful, you start to see your life differently, through the eyes of God. You no longer are problem-centered, but you are God-centered. Just like it says in Romans 8:28, all things work together for the good to those who love God, are called according to his purpose, right?
A third thing is, as soon as you are thankful, you defeat Satan’s efforts to control your interpretation of reality. That was an interesting one. Satan always wants us to doubt God and turn away from him. He’s done that in the garden, he’s had a lot of training in that, and he wants to do it in your life.
Being thankful really aids us to trust the Lord in what he says about life. Just like again in Romans, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? In other words, God wants good for you. He’s a good God and he wants good for you.
A fourth thing is, as soon as you are thankful, you begin to link your life to God’s promises. You learn how to see your circumstances through the lenses of God’s word, not the lens of your experience, which always dilutes, devalues, and diminishes God.
Too much feeling-centered stuff is going on in our life today. People are hurt too quickly, they run away from God because they’re hurt, it didn’t go their way.
A fifth thing is, as soon as you are thankful, you start to see not only your situation but yourself, your own heart, through God’s eyes. When you have a thankful heart, you affirm that because of Jesus, God is up to something really good in your life.
You begin to notice that you’re weak and vulnerable, and you still feel safe in God’s plan for you. You can confess your sin and be confident that God forgives your sin. Why can you do that? Because the Bible actually says, if you confess your sins, he’s faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness.
When we’re confessing the sin that we remember, God’s cleaning you up from the things you stopped remembering.
1 John 1:9: “If you confess your sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
And then the last thing, as soon as you are thankful, your human relationships get healthier, because you are shaped by faith. You become more dependent on God and less controlled by your relationships with people.
Thankfulness will prevent you from being judgmental or demanding of others, or fearful of them, or easily hurt. I don’t have to be easily hurt when I’m thankful to God, because I know I don’t deserve what I already have. And that just keeps me humble.
Thank you, Lord, for what you’ve given me. Thank you, Lord, for not only saving me, but all the little things you do in my life every day, for my family, for my friends, for the possessions you give me, for living in this country. The list goes on and on.
Get up every day and make a long list of what to be thankful for, and you won’t grumble once in that day.
The scripture informs us that if we are going to be devoted to speak to God in prayer, we must do it coupled with the attitude of Thanksgiving. If you don’t have an attitude of Thanksgiving in your prayer, who’s going to be the first one who knows about it? It’s going to be God, right?
Ingratitude in our life is incompatible with genuine gratitude. Ingratitude should not be the normal default conduct of the genuine believer who is growing in his knowledge and understanding of God’s word.
Giving thanks should be, as Paul again in the sister book of Ephesians 5:20, always giving thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.
Rather than being discontented with what we have, instead we take pleasure in our God, in our home, in our family, in our church, in our possessions, in our occupation, in our circumstances, whether good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, we’re thankful.
If you’re thankful, it will rub off on someone else who’s not. Thankfulness is the key factor in worship. When we worship God intelligently, we know who we are and we know what we are to do, and this makes a satisfied, happy, and joyful people.
“Thankfulness is the key factor in worship — it makes a satisfied, happy, and joyful people.”
If you go to the Psalms, all you see is Psalms about thankfulness. I like Psalm 100:4, enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
A lot of times praise and thankfulness, the word thankful, are all interrelated in the Old Testament. They kind of go together. If we use the words gates and courts, it represents the temple of God and where men and women approach God’s presence.
The heart is engaged as one becomes excited to come into the presence of God with an attitude of Thanksgiving and praise. That’s how we should every time come before God.
If we come before God in devoted prayer together, and coupled with thankfulness, that adds to our worship. We’re able to lift up our words to God in worship and in singing that exalts his name, and we really mean it. People say, wow, these people are really into this. That’s how it ought to be.
Direction in Prayer: Open Doors for the Gospel
It’s first devotion to prayer. But back to Colossians 4:3-4, that’s the first thing, devotion to prayer. There is also to be direction in prayer.
Notice what it says in verse three. Before I look at verse three, I must say that prayer must have a direction to it, because prayer is aiming at something. If it doesn’t have a direction, we’ll never know if we hit the target, right? We’ll never know if prayer is really answered.
What is the direction of prayer, at least in our text this morning? We’ll see in verse three, praying at the same time for us—that’s Paul, Timothy, and Epaphras, as well.
So the first thing is, what is it? God will open up to us a door for the word. Paul is saying, listen, while you’re praying, Colossians, pray for me. Where was Paul? He was in prison, right?
He was in prison and he wasn’t getting out of prison. He says, pray at the same time for me. Here’s a prayer for something only God can do. What is that? Open doors.
An open door stood for an opportunity for speaking the gospel. The Apostle Paul is using a certain word that produces a mood that he wants to bring forth to the reader. It is a subjunctive mood.
The subjunctive mood indicates the relation of the action to reality. It means the action is possible, but it depends on certain objective factors. Now it becomes simple in a minute.
Viewing the action as possible, what is the action? If the Colossians actually follow through on their prayer, something will take place. Then God will respond to the prayer.
Now, anytime we pray for open doors, you hear the thing: when God closes the door he opens the window. Take that off your wall. No, God opens doors, right? He opens doors.
But an open door doesn’t mean there’s not going to be trouble or antagonism. In fact, we find in scripture where Paul says in 1 Corinthians, a wide door for effective service has opened to me, but there are many adversaries.
Anytime there’s an open door, there’s always an adversary there to prevent you from either praying for that door to be open, or walking through it once it is opened.
There are some doors that are open but they’re not God’s open door, and we have to be careful about those too. In fact, there’s an example in scripture of 2 Corinthians 2, where it says, I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and when a door was opened for me, my spirit was not handling it well, and so I left there and I went to Macedonia.
He knew, and he then says this: thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph, in the triumph of Christ. So God will always lead us. There may be an open door, but it’s not God’s open door. It may be the open door you want.
Getting back to this mood, if the Colossians do not pray, and the subjunctive mood indicates the reality of this actually taking place, open doors depends on some external conditions—that the Colossian believers actually follow through praying as Paul requested. That is what he’s getting there.
Now for us, the question would be, what if we don’t carry out prayer for God to kick open doors for speaking the gospel? What if we don’t pray that? What will happen if we don’t pray that?
Nothing will happen if we don’t pray that. The external condition for this actually happening is that we continually follow through in our prayers, and if we don’t, it won’t happen.
It was John Piper who said, without persistent prayer we have no offense in the battle against evil. Individually and as churches, we are meant to invade and plunder the strongholds of Satan. But no prayer, no power.
“Without persistent prayer we have no offense in the battle against evil. No prayer, no power.”
If we’re not vigilant, we will be ensnared by temptation. Our defense and our offense should always be an active, persistent, earnest, believing prayer force that comes from the body of believers.
That’s a direction of prayer. I want to hit this target that Paul is asking the Colossians to pray, so God would kick open doors for him for the gospel. We are to pray that God would kick open doors for us for the gospel.
That loved one that you are thinking about, but maybe not praying for, or maybe you gave up praying for them because it’s been a long time, and maybe their name slipped out of your mind.
Or we’re going to mall evangelism on this weekend, and we’re praying, Lord, kick open a door for us, so when we pass out a tract or we have a conversation with somebody, that they would actually listen, and that you would allow them to receive the word of God with power and they be saved. Or at least we can plant the seed, water the seed, and you bring the increase.
Praying for Clarity in Proclaiming Christ
And so another direction that Paul asks for the Colossians to pray is found in verses 3 and 4, where it says, “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 you to note in that passage, Paul did not ask the Colossians for prayer to get him out of prison, but for an open door and clarity of speech. Prayer for the purpose of making clear that Christ himself is the mystery.
Just like Paul’s approach in dealing with the false teachers that we found in Colossians, he did it by a positive setting forth of the truth of Christ from the scripture, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Where it says in Colossians 1:28, we proclaim him. That’s what we do, we proclaim him.
Colossians 1:28: “We proclaim him.”
Paul’s not proclaiming something speculative or uncertain, or some vague feeling or experience. No, he is proclaiming clearly the truth about Christ.
The truth about Christ from scripture is a very clear message. Stated positively, the clarity of scripture refers to its accessibility, that the knowledge of God contained in the Bible has been revealed in such a way that it actually can be sufficiently understood in and of itself, and by those who seek it.
This is the content of the message. Jesus whom we preach, Colossians 1:27, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. And what is that mystery? Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ: The Mystery Revealed
Christ in me, the hope of glory. That’s a mystery that’s now unveiled by God and by the preaching of the gospel. In other words, Christianity is Christ. You can’t get away from that. He is at the center of it all, and your attitude and relationship to this person is of significant importance.
You don’t need an endless list of angels to have to go through between God and man, which the Gnostics believed and which Paul was refuting in Colossians. You don’t need that. Christ can bring you to God because he is God.
I like 2 Corinthians 4:5. It says, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ as Lord.” It’s all about Jesus, his person and the facts concerning him. In him is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge.
Colossians 2:3 says, “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And in him dwells the fullness of God.
The Apostle Paul is saying things about Jesus that go far beyond what people say today about Jesus—that he’s a good teacher, that he’s a good example, that he’s a good man to follow. Usually they go no further and even conclude that Jesus is not divine, that he’s not God. He was a good prophet, but he’s not divine.
That’s why we need a book like Colossians, and that’s why it’s here in the Bible for us. If we didn’t have it, we would all conclude that Jesus was an exceptional human being, and that is about as far as we would go.
But if you look at scripture, as I already mentioned, in the word of God in Colossians 1:15-18: “For he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. So he himself will come to have first place in everything.” That’s who Jesus is.
Colossians 1:17-18: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He himself will come to have first place in everything.”
But Satan wants to pull us away from that. He wants us to fall away from devoted prayer and prayer filled with thankfulness, and a desire to pray to God to kick open the door so we can see your handiwork in saving other people.
And Lord, when we do speak, allow us to speak with clarity. Paul wants clarity in unveiling God’s great secret. What secret is that?
The mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations has now been manifest to his saints. What is that revelation? It is the revealing of the great secret of God—the love and mercy and grace of God, meant not just for Jews alone, but also for all mankind. The gospel goes to everyone.
Now Gentiles don’t become Jews, nor do Jews become Gentiles, but both become one new person when they come to Christ in repentance and faith.
So the question would be: if the Colossians prayed this prayer, was it answered? I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Acts 28, which we read this morning, and I want you to notice something.
I can emphatically say yes, it was answered. He ends the historical book of Acts in this way. Acts 28:30-31 says, “He stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him. Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all openness, unhindered.” Was the prayer answered? Yes.
“Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, with all openness, unhindered — the prayer was answered.”
It’s always good to stick around for the answer, because sometimes that’s why some people conclude prayer doesn’t work. You’re not there long enough to see the answer.
Prayer Answered: The Story of Jeremiah Lanier
Let me close with this this morning, especially because the main thing is that the highest use of speech is prayer. There was a man named Jeremiah Lanier. It was September 23rd, 1857. He came to New York City and was working in the financial district.
He said it wasn’t very good to be a Christian at that point. Wealthy bankers and real estate speculators were thanking God for their wealth, and right down the block there were all kinds of slums and poverty that were being unaddressed.
Jeremiah went there to do work, being somebody who was going to be in mercantile, or like a pharmacy, or sell all kinds of goods. That’s what he went to school to learn.
He finally went there as a nonbeliever, and then he heard the gospel and became a Christian. He got connected to a church and started immediately doing evangelistic work with a lot of the poor people there.
A church found out about him. It was actually a Dutch Reformed Church, and the Dutch Reformed used to preach the gospel back then. For 168 years in our church we’ve been preaching the gospel, so some prayers have been answered there, and we’re still doing it.
But this man, what he did is that he said, I’m going to go. He gets hired by this church, goes out to the community, hands out all these pamphlets and tracks, and invites people to church. Nobody came.
He comes and says, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” He prays, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” And the answer that he got from the Lord is, the Lord says, “I want you to pray.”
That’s what he did. He says, “How am I going to reach these businessmen that are all over here?” So he starts a businessman’s lunchtime prayer.
From 12 to 1 in the afternoon, you come during your lunchtime, and you can stay 10 minutes, you can stay for the whole hour, you can stay a half hour, whatever. You come and pray. There’s going to be a little bit of singing and some exhortation. If anybody speaks any more than 5 minutes, a bell’s going to ring. We don’t want to waste anybody’s time. We’re coming here to pray.
At the first meeting, what happens? The first day, Jeremiah, half hour goes by, it’s just him. Another half hour goes by, one person comes. At the end of that first day, six people actually did show up.
The following week, 20 people showed up. The fourth week, 100 people showed up. Then October 18th, a financial panic seized the city. New York City was collapsing the economy into a deep recession.
All these businessmen are freaking out. What did they do? They go to the prayer meeting. In 6 months, 10,000 businessmen came to pray. They had to open up police departments and other churches and firehouses. All these people wanted to come and pray.
They had to start a morning prayer because some guys couldn’t come in the afternoon, but they still wanted to pray. Two years later, it’s reported that it spread all across America, reporting that 1 million converts were added to the church in America during that time.
It started from one little guy asking God, “What do you want me to do?” and starting to pray to God. Some of these men came and weren’t converted, but they heard everything that was going on. They started asking, “How can I be converted?” They came, they started coming to Christ, and God saved a lot of people.
I thought that story was very applicable to this point, that we ought to be devoted to prayer. If we’re not, we don’t know what’s going to happen. But if we are, we look for what’s going to happen, and God answers prayer.
“You’re sitting here this morning because someone prayed for you that you’d be saved.”
Does he not answer prayer? Matter of fact, you’re sitting here this morning because someone prayed for you that you’d be saved. You’re sitting here today because someone prayed for you that you’re saved. And if you’re here and you’re not saved, someone’s praying that you will be saved. Amen.
Let’s pray. Lord, this morning, thank you for the word of God. It so impresses upon our heart and our soul what is really needful in our life.
Lord, sometimes we’re so concerned about the simplest, smallest things, and yet, Lord, the thing that is most important we neglect. But I pray, Lord, that today we would stop neglecting those things and we would pray.
I pray, Lord, that you would make us a people that is devoted to prayer. In our devotion to prayer, Lord, we would be active in that. Lord Jesus, we would be praying and we would be filled with thankfulness as we are devoted to prayer.
We would be alert as soldiers. As we do that, Lord, we would be shooting at a target with direct prayers to the throne room of God. I pray, as we do that, we will learn how to pray more in your will and for your purpose and for the advancement of the church in the kingdom of God.
That we would have open doors for the gospel, and that you would enable us to speak clearly those truths, and that, Lord, we would see the results. I ask you for that today in our family. I pray in Christ’s name, amen. Amen.