We're reading today from Colossians 3, starting with verse 12. And we're going to read 12 through 17, and then we're going to turn to Colossians 4 for a couple more verses. And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. 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 hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Then we're turning to chapter 4, and we're going to read 2 through 4. Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well, that God may 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, in order that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak." May God bless His Word to us. Let's pray together again as we come before God's Word this morning. Our Father, as always, we are so grateful that You have revealed Yourself from heaven, and that You haven't limited the revelation of Yourself to what can be seen in the creation. Father, in that we know Your invisible attributes and Your eternal nature and Your divine power, for they are clearly put on display. And yet in Your Word, in these 66 books, and in Jesus Christ, whom they reveal, and in all of the promises that You have made to Your people that are yes in Christ Jesus, that are answered in Christ Jesus, to which we say, Amen, Father. In this Word, You have revealed so much to us of Your character, of Your nature, of Your purpose and Your plan for us, of who we are, of what we were made to be in Your image, of how You have redeemed us and who we are in Christ Jesus, and what our purpose in this life is as we walk by faith and sojourn in this world. And so, Father, we praise You for all of this truth. And we ask that as it is living and as it is active and as it wields the very power of God to not only save us, but to transform us, that You would accomplish that purpose in our hearts today. That You would help us to not only be hearers of the Word, but also doers as You continue to conform us to the very image of Christ Jesus. And it's in His name that we pray all of this for the sake of Your glory. Amen. Amen. How many of you here today, don't raise your hands, but just ask yourselves this today honestly, in your own minds and in your own hearts, how many of you would say that on a regular basis, daily, you are recognizing specific areas in your life where you need to grow in holiness and in sanctification? Specific particular areas of sin. In your thought life, in your attitudes, in the words that come out of your mouth, in the relationships that you have with other people, in the habits of behavior in your life, whatever it is. Specific places where sin remains and where you need to be putting sin to death. specific places where you need to put sin off and be constantly putting the righteousness of Christ on in increasing ways, in growing ways. So it's my hope and it's my prayer that as I ask a question like that, that every single one of us, that every single person here today is going, yep, that's me. That's me. Because if we think this way, if we start to think, well, you know what? Not really. I'm doing pretty good. You know what? I don't really have that much to worry about in terms of sanctification and holiness. I've gotten to a pretty good place in my life, and the things that are left are not really big deals, and I don't need to spend too much time worrying about them. If we're thinking like that, or if we're thinking, you know what? I don't really have any specific areas that I need to focus on too much or grow in too much, but you know who does? And then someone else's name comes to mind and someone else's sin comes to mind before ours does. If we are tempted to think that way, if we let ourselves think that way, then we are absolutely and completely deceiving ourselves in our sin and in our pride. And so I hope that as we've been working through Colossians chapter 3, which is a very, very practical chapter, and as we've been absorbing everything that Paul has been teaching us here about killing sin and putting off the deeds of the old man and putting on the holiness and the righteousness of the new creation in Christ Jesus, I hope that God's Word has been exposing all kinds of areas in all of our lives where we all fall short, and convicting us and prompting us to to strive for holiness in our lives. In the book of Hebrews, in chapter 4, the author of Hebrews urges Christians to do that, to strive after holiness. It's a very active command to strive after holiness in whatever ways it's lacking in our lives. And then in chapter 12 of Hebrews, in verse 14, he even goes so far as to say, strive for peace with everyone and strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Now see, this is how absolutely critical striving after holiness is in the Christian life, because without it, the author of Hebrews says, there's no hope of actually seeing the Lord. And notice, when you listen to words like that, that the pursuit of holiness is not just something that we can sort of wait to passively happen to us. Just thinking good thoughts about the Gospel and waiting for holiness to appear sort of automatically in us, without any striving on our part, that's not going to cut it. That's not how the Bible speaks. It is something we have to strive after. It is something we have to diligently pursue and practice, Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 1. It's something we have to work out with fear and trembling, Paul says in Philippians chapter 2. But at the same time, it's not something that we can work out on our own. It's not something we can strive for in our own strength. What does Paul go on to say there in Philippians? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. And so the work that we must do as Christians absolutely depends on surrendering to the work that God is doing in us by His Holy Spirit and through the transforming power of His Word. So that's why then the author of Hebrews, as he urges us to strive after the holiness of God, he also reminds us and teaches us and exhorts us that the Word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, and that it pierces to the division of soul and spirit and joint and marrow, and that it discerns the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. No creature is hidden from God's sight, but all are naked and exposed by the ministry of the Word to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. That's the power and the ministry that the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of God has in our lives. So see, striving after holiness absolutely depends on exposing ourselves to that ministry of the living and active Word of God so that it can pierce us. so that it can expose our very thoughts and the very intentions of our hearts and so that by its power we can cut out the sinfulness that it exposes and produce the righteousness and strive after the holiness that God desires and commands for us. In the book of James, James urges us also towards holiness in our lives, to be people who are sacrificially loving, to be people who don't show partiality, but strive to love all people equally, to be people who are quick to hear, who are slow to speak, who are slow to anger, to be people who put away all filthiness and wickedness in our lives. And he says in James chapter 1 and verse 21, receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And so you see how it works? The holiness that we have to strive after actively in our lives depends on our receiving with meekness, humility, the Word of God that is implanted in our souls. And that's what James means when he goes on and says, therefore, be doers of the Word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. And so Christians today, as we've been working through Colossians chapter 3, remember if all we are is hearers, If we're not yielding, if we're not submitting, if we're not surrendering to the living, active power of God's Word in us, and then by that power doing, by that power constantly putting sin to death and growing in holiness, if we're not doing that, then we're deceiving ourselves, James says. Holiness is not an optional reality for the Christian life. It's mandatory. It's necessary. Without it, we won't see the Lord. If there's not growing, thriving, constant, increasing holiness in our lives, it probably means that we've never known Him in the first place. That we're deceiving ourselves about who we say we are as children of God. It's necessary. And it's not just a passive reality in the Christian life. Holiness is not something that we just sit back and let go and let God automatically do in us, apart from striving. apart from actively obeying. But again, it's a striving that depends on a strength that we don't have, and there's the beauty of it. It's a strength that God Himself graciously supplies and that we depend upon Him for in order to attain the holiness that He requires. For we're His workmanship, Paul says in Ephesians 2, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. In Psalm 81, as God is admonishing the people of Israel for being stubbornly sinful, in spite of how tenaciously merciful and gracious God has been to them, He's calling them to repent. He says to the people, I'm the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. He's calling them to repent, see? to be holy, to be righteous in their lives for once. And He tells them that if they're going to have any hope of doing it at all, they're going to have to depend upon Him for it. They're going to have to open wide their mouths and let God fill them with the strength and the righteousness that they need to kill sin and to live in righteousness and holiness. And so see, this is the Christian life. The Christian life is this constant balance of actively striving to be holy and also constantly receiving from God and His living and active Word, the strength and the ability to do it. And I say all of that at the outset this morning because it's critically important for us to know that balance and to not lose it on either side, especially as we work through passages of Scripture, like Colossians 3 and 4, where Paul is telling us to do things, he's commanding us to do things, he's exhorting us to put off sin. and to put on righteousness, and to live like the new creations that we are in Christ Jesus, to put sin to death. Those are imperative commands, Christians. Do it. Put sin to death. They're not suggestions. Sanctification and holiness is necessary business. It's not optional. And again, it's not passive. It's not something that we just wait to happen to us. We're required to work and strive. But at the same time, if we're ever going to succeed, we absolutely have to depend upon the strength that only God can provide. We've got to open wide our mouths and let him fill them. And so Having been exhorted by Paul to do all this, to put sin to death and to put off the deeds of the flesh, to put on righteousness, to walk in faithfulness in the church and in our families and in every context and circumstance and relationship in our lives here in this world, now today in verses 2-4 of chapter 4, Paul exhorts us to pray. To pray because, see, prayer is the way in which we open wide our mouths to the Lord. that He might fill them, not just with things that we have physical need of. God, I'm sick, so I'm opening wide my mouth. God, I feel physically weak, or I'm under affliction, or circumstances are hard, so my mouth's open wide and I'm looking for You to fill my need in those ways. Not just that. Not even primarily that. God, I'm a sinner. God, I'm weak in holiness. I'm weak in sanctification. God, my thoughts are impure. God, my words are out of control. God, my attitudes don't please You. And the things that I'm doing don't honor You all the time, and so I'm opening wide my mouth so that You can fill it with what I need to glorify You and to exalt You and to grow in holiness as I put my sin to death. That's what prayer needs to be, Paul is saying here in the book of Colossians. It's a reception of the strength and the provision that God supplies as He would grow us. E.M. Bound says that prayer puts God's work in God's hands and keeps it there in case we're ever tempted to be strong in our own strength. Or W.S. Bowden said that prayer is weakness leaning on omnipotence. And again, that's true in every way. It's not just weakness in adversity and trials and circumstances and suffering and pain. That's not the only time that we need to prayerfully lean on the omnipotent arm of God and trust His sovereign work. It's also in our weakness in holiness and in obedience and in our failures to work out our salvation through fear and trembling. It's in those times that we need to draw near to our God in prayer. and receive from him the grace and mercy that we need to grow and to thrive in holiness as we submit ourselves to the work that he's doing in us. And as we turn from our own strength and depend on his work. And so let's look here today at some very simple, basic, but Very, very profound exhortations about the essential and non-negotiable importance of prayer in our lives as Christians, as new creations in Christ Jesus that are continually seeking to put off sin and put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And I think these things are going to challenge us all today. Verse 2 of Colossians chapter 4 starts out with a command, an imperative, to continue steadfastly in prayer. Notice that. Not just to continue in prayer. Keep on praying people. You'll get there someday. No, no, no. Continue steadfastly in prayer. It's all actually one word in the Greek that Paul uses there. It's a particular word and it's a verb, and it comes from a word that means to be strong. And so it's translated in some of your translations to be devoted to prayer, or to be steadfast in prayer. All good translations. It means to be persistent in prayer. It means to be constantly busy and engaged. in prayer with the emphasis on the word constantly. Constantly. Here's an example. In Mark chapter 3, Jesus used this same word when he was going around and teaching people and healing people and all the crowds, remember, and the throngs of people would get really thick and really dense and they would press in all around him. And at one point, They were squishing Him so much, they were coming around Him so much, that He instructed the disciples to go to the shore of the Sea of Galilee and get a boat and keep it ready, lest the crowds crush Him, He said. So see, they were supposed to be standing by, at the ready, Always alert, watching for that moment when maybe they need to go and yank Jesus out of that crowd, put Him in a boat and get Him out of there, before the crowd crushed Him. And that sense of always being alert and always being ready, and constantly being vigilant, that's this word continuing. That's what Paul uses here in Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2. constantly steadfast and devoted to prayer in that kind of way. In Romans chapter 12 and verse 12, here's how Paul puts it in that verse, he says, Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant, be constant in prayer. That's the same word. Be constant in prayer. That's the sense of this word, this command that Paul is giving to us. He means Don't just pray occasionally. He means don't just pray once in a while. Don't just pray when things are really, really hard. Pray also when things are good. Pray when things are bad. Pray when you're tempted. Pray in between times. Be constantly devoted to prayer. So see, if we're going to be effective in identifying sin in our lives, killing sin in our lives, striving after holiness in our lives, growing in grace and knowledge, being conformed to the very likeness of Jesus Christ. If we're going to succeed in any of that stuff, Paul says, there's no hope unless you are steadfastly continuing and devoted to constant prayer in your life. Now let's talk about what that means. What does that actually look like? How do you actually do that? You say, well, praying is when I fold my hands and I close my eyes and I pray out loud to God and I have this dialogue with Him, this verbal spoken dialogue. How do I do that all the time? Well, see, that's a good question. Can you even do that? Is that what Paul means? That we actually need to be carrying on this verbal dialogue with God constantly during every waking moment of every day? One commentator I read this week said, you know what, they have places for people who pray out loud all day long every day, And the doors lock from the outside in those places. It's not actually possible to be doing that, to be carrying on a verbal spoken dialogue with God every minute of every day, constantly. We'd never be able to do anything else. We'd never be able to talk to anybody else. Now there are people who have tried it, like monks who hold themselves up in cold stone rooms in monasteries off in the mountains. And they just pray out loud all day long, every day. And to some people that sounds like it's really spiritual. But the thing about it is this, that it's actually not. It's actually a very, very shallow view of prayer that limits prayer to spoken and verbal expression. A prayer necessarily includes spoken expression. Often times it needs to, for sure. But prayer isn't limited to verbal, spoken communication with God. In the Middle Ages, one person said, the time of business, he's talking about the business of his life, the time of busyness in my life does not differ with me from the time of prayer. And in the noise and the clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are bustling about at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were on my knees in the quiet of my room. It's possible to be praying in chaos, he says. Thomas Kelly says, there is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we can be thinking and discussing and seeing and calculating and meeting all the demands and external affairs of our lives, but deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration and in song and in worship to our great God. So in other words, this is what Paul is talking about. There is a way to be constantly prayerful in an important way, a necessary way, even when you can't be constantly verbal. There's a way in which, even when there's all kinds of activity going on in your life all around you and all kinds of stuff that you're engaged with in your life, behind the scenes, in our minds, in our hearts, there's a way in which everything can be framed up by the realities of our great God. His presence with us, His sovereign providences in our lives, His faithfulness and constant goodness to us, His glory and His majesty and His dominion in all things, so that in everything that we're doing, in everything that we're engaged in in our lives, it's all framed up by that reality of who He is and that He's with us, and so we're constantly giving Him praise. and we're constantly confessing our need of Him and acknowledging the sufficiency of His grace in everything, everything in our lives. This is how it works. Our minds and our hearts are designed this way by God anyways. They're kind of like lenses on a camera. The camera lens takes in light and then focuses it through several layers of curved glass, pieces of curved glass, focuses it onto a piece of film, a plane of film, or an electronic sensor at the back of the camera, the back of the lens. And if it's focused properly, then it creates an accurate image of what came into the lens, of the light that came in there. And see, if the curved pieces of glass If they're not lined up properly, or if they're flawed or skewed, they're not curved the right way themselves, then there's going to be an image on the film, but it's going to be out of focus, or it's going to be distorted as an image. And see, that's exactly how we are. Created by God, created in the image of God, created for the worship of God, created to be living expressions of the glory of God, but in our sin, We lose focus. We lose focus on Him. And we get distorted by sinful desires, by worldly wisdom, by distractions from the earth and the world around us and the culture around us, by our own self-focused ambitions. We lose focus. And when that happens, then, see, once the lens gets skewed by sin and self and pride, by the world and the flesh and the devil, by the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life, once all that skews the lens of our minds and our hearts, then our perspective of everything that we're taking in, of all the circumstances of our lives, every experience, every relationship, everything, our perspective gets skewed, it gets distorted, it gets taken out of focus. We're not seeing it all with reference to our awesome God and His glory and His majesty. And so in the midst of whatever circumstances we're facing, if our focus is habitually distorted by all of that sin and selfishness and pride and flawed wisdom of the world that remains in us, then we're going to see things the wrong way. And then we're going to respond to things the wrong way. In hard times, we're going to tend towards things like discontentment and self-pity, bitterness and vengeance, things like that. In times of temptation, if we're out of focus, we're going to tend towards fleshly indulgence and things like rationalization of sin and justification and things like that. In good times, if we're out of focus, we're going to tend towards pride, thinking that we deserve these things, self-importance, self-gratification. Things like that. And see, when those are the kinds of attitudes that are typical of our hearts, it's because there's this inner dialogue that's going on inside of us. Kind of like prayer, but not to God, but to us. We're talking to ourselves about ourselves because we're consumed with ourselves. There's this inner dialogue where we're processing everything in life with reference to self, with reference to me. Well, this circumstance isn't fair to me. This isn't what I deserve. Or if we face temptation, ooh, that would be good for me. That would make me feel good. I would enjoy that. Or when good things happen, well, what does this mean about me? Look how awesome I am. See, it's this sort of self-absorbed inner dialogue where our thoughts and instincts and feelings all are focused on self and selfish desire. And what that means when that's going on is that the lens of our minds and our hearts is radically out of focus. It's skewed. But see, when the lens is properly focused, and this is what Paul's been doing to us and for us all throughout the book of Colossians, right? He's focusing us on the great realities of who Christ is and what He's done. His deity, His glory, His exaltation, His supremacy. When our hearts and our minds are focused like lasers on that stuff, then our perceptions of reality and the circumstances of life around us and our responses to the experiences of life and what's going on in our lives, they have less to do with us, and they have more to do with Him. That's how it works. When our lens is properly focused, then In times of hardship, we'll be instinctively trusting Him more and casting our cares upon Him. This is hard, so I need the Lord. In times of temptation, we'll be instinctively resisting because we'll say, like Joseph did in the Old Testament, how could I do this against my God who is holy and who has done so much for me? See, because we're focused on Him. And in good times, we'll be instinctively ascribing praise to Him, praise God for this blessing, thanksgiving, gratitude to Him from whom all blessings flow. And see, when that's happening, then there's an inner dialogue that's going on in our minds, in our hearts. Even in times that aren't explicitly vocalized, there's this inner dialogue going on where our thoughts and our instincts and our feelings are focused on God and focused on His glory. And so in times of trial, it sounds like, what does God have to teach me in this trial? God, what do you have to teach me in this trial? In times of temptation, how could I sin against you, God, in this way? How could I do this to you who have done so much for me? In good times, it's God, I am so grateful to you. And I give you praise and I exalt you for the mercies that you have lavished upon me that are new every morning. And see, that inner dialogue that's focused on the glory of God and not out of focus on self, that inner dialogue is prayer. That's what it is. If it's not happening in your life, in my life, in our lives, inwardly, constantly, we are out of focus. Because we're consumed more with self than with our God. The inner dialogue is prayer when it's focused. And sometimes, hopefully lots and lots of times, that inner dialogue then gets vocalized. Like it comes out of us. In private, in corporate settings of prayer. We express it verbally. But even when it's not spoken, in the life that's focused on the glory of Christ, that inner dialogue of prayer is the constant refrain of our minds and our hearts. And see, here is the danger, Christians. The danger is when the inner dialogue of our thoughts and feelings and instincts and attitudes is pervasively me-oriented, self-oriented, distorted and obfuscated by sin and pride and worldly wisdom, and then prayer is reduced to those relatively few times when we focus enough to talk out loud to God. And even then, when we do it, how often does the way that we talk to Him get distorted by that same pervasive, selfish, prideful sin? So that God becomes sort of the butler that we ring to bring us what we want. John Blanchard says, praying is much more difficult than just saying words to God. Ouch. Even the Pharisees said all kinds of words to God, prayed ceaselessly. Any unbeliever can do that. can say lots and lots of words to God. Prayer, biblically, is first and foremost always a disposition of the heart. that then gets expressed outwardly in vocal words. It's the constant inner dialogue of thoughts and feelings and instincts in the mind and in the heart that are pervasively focused on God and His glory and majesty and sovereign dominion and authority. And then that constant dialogue and that regular inner disposition gets voiced, gets vocalized in times of verbal prayer. Isn't that what we see going on in David's life in the Psalms? He's constantly meditating day and night, he says, in his mind, inwardly, in his heart, inwardly, on the Lord, in his wisdom, in his ways, in his truth, in his law. And then there are all of those times that he voices it in prayer and in the Psalms that come pouring out of him. So verbal prayer, if it's real prayer, is just the outflow of the constant inner prayer that must be going on always, pervasively, in the life that is pervasively focused on the glory of God. James Montgomery says, prayer is the Christian's vital breath. It is the Christian's native air. In the Christian life, in the God-focused life, prayer will be more like breathing than it is like talking. Reflexive, constant, always going on, always in the background, once in a while being expressed in audible ways. Martin Luther says, prayer is the sweat of the soul. I love that. It's what comes flowing out of a soul that is regularly saturated with the glory of God. But see, in the life that is pervasively focused on self, prayer isn't the sweat of the soul. In the life that is constantly and pervasively focused on self, verbal prayer is instead the occasional substitute for the constant inner dialogue and refrain of a heart and a mind that sees and responds to everything with reference to self. John Bunyan, the great Puritan writer of the Pilgrim's Progress and other things, Bunyan says, in prayer, it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. And so, see, when Paul, in places like this, in Colossians 4-2, when he exhorts us to continue steadfastly in prayer, to be devoted to prayer, to be constant in prayer, to pray without ceasing, he doesn't just mean making sure to fold our hands and say the words lots of times. He means something much deeper than that. that will regularly result in that, but something much deeper than that. He means cultivating a pervasively Godward disposition inwardly of mind and of heart that perceives and responds to everything in life with reference to the reality of God and His glory and His goodness that then comes pouring out of us in praise and thanksgiving and confession and supplication, prayer. And cultivating that inner disposition means regularly doing the stuff that Paul is talking about here. Regularly forsaking self. Regularly mortifying sin. Regularly taking thoughts captive. Forsaking worldly wisdom. Abiding in God's word and truth. Prioritizing the worship of God above all other earthly activity. serving God in such a way that everything that we do, even the mundane things like eating and drinking, all of it gets done to the glory of God. And it does also mean setting aside deliberate times for focused, mindful prayer, outward prayer, audible prayer, both privately and with our families and personally, and corporately with God's people. And then Paul also says, look at verse 2 again, he says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. That little phrase, being watchful, again is a single word in Greek, and it's a participle. A participle is a verb that's functioning like an adjective. It's describing the big command verb to continue steadfastly in prayer. In other words, being watchful with thanksgiving is how we continue steadfastly in prayer. It's the description of what it looks like. The word watchful means it comes from a military context. Originally it referred to setting a guard to keep a watch out on the wall of the city for enemies who would be coming to invade the city. A watchman, that's what this word originally referred to. And it's a word that's used lots of times, more than 20 times in the New Testament. And several of them in the Gospels actually refer to physically keeping a watch. You remember Jesus and the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion? And he told them to stay awake and keep watch Well, he went and prayed because he knew what was coming in the morning, but they fell asleep. And so he rebuked them for that, right? He said, so could you not watch with me for one single hour? And then he told them, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. See, that's the same word that Paul uses now here in Colossians 4.2. The emphasis is on being awake. The emphasis is on being alert. On having our eyes wide open. On not being able to be taken by surprise. On being able to see what's going on. This is what prayer helps us to do. And this is the kind of prayer Paul is exhorting us to here. And it's the result of devoted, constant, steadfast prayer. If you post a watchman on the wall of a city, he's got to stay there all night constantly watching, right? He can't go down for a snack, and then come back up and look for a minute, and then go down and watch TV for a while, and then go back up and look for a minute, and then go read a book. He's got to constantly be vigilant in watching, and this is what Paul is saying. This is how we are to pray. Matthew Henry puts it like this, he says, prayer protects against spiritual lassitude. That's a good word, right? Lassitude means laziness, sluggishness, apathy, lethargy, listlessness, things like that. We get that way sometimes physically, right? We get worn out sometimes, or maybe we just get lazy sometimes, we get listless, we don't want to do much, and so we're just sort of laying around lazy. That's kind of what happened to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, right? They got sleepy. They got lethargic, they got listless, and so they weren't good watchmen. If any kind of trouble was going to sneak up on them, they wouldn't have noticed. They wouldn't have done anything about it. And see, there's great, great danger, Christians, in becoming that way spiritually. And we live in a country that is full of all kinds of toxins that put us to sleep spiritually, that create spiritual lassitude. And prayer fights against it. Prayer protects against it. There's this danger of becoming spiritually lazy and apathetic and listless. And that happens any time self and our own interests and our own desires become more important and more significant to us than the pleasures of God and the glory of God and the will of God. It happens whenever selfish desire is more prominent in us than gratitude toward the God who has loved us and redeemed us. That's when we get vulnerable to all kinds of spiritual threats. And Satan is waiting for that. He's armed to the teeth with all kinds of arrows and darts and strategies and threats to take advantage of the times when we get spiritually lazy. Like false teaching. temptation, fleshly desire, sinful attitudes, worldly distractions, all these schemes of the devil that he would use to sort of plant seeds in our hearts, seeds of doubt, seeds of fear, seeds of greed or lust or malice in the soil of our lives. When we get lazy, we don't notice that he comes and he sows these seeds. So again, listen, if there's a city that's vulnerable to attack, And the watchman who's posted up there on the wall is supposed to be watching for the enemy coming from a distance. If he falls asleep and then the enemy ends up sneaking right up to the wall of the city and breaching the wall and getting into the city, he's going to cause all kinds of damage now because the watchman fell asleep. Because they weren't lobbing arrows at the enemy before he got to the wall. It's going to be a lot harder to deal with the problem once the enemy is inside the city, than if the watchman had been awake and alert with his eyes wide open, constantly scanning the horizon and the landscape, looking for any signs of the enemy. So that when the enemy comes, it can be dealt with before he breaches the wall. This is how prayer needs to work in our lives, this inner disposition of prayer. in Gethsemane was able to overlook and look past the horror of what he was about to endure on the cross and say, not my will, Father, but yours be done, because he spent that whole night in prayer. And so he was on the defense against temptation. Job was able to endure agonizing, unthinkable loss and still be able to avoid the temptation that spewed off of his own wife's lips to curse God and die. Paul was able to suffer all kinds of constant affliction and imprisonment all the while giving praise to God and serving Christ without succumbing to self-pity or despair or vengeance or laziness and just saying, I'm done, I'm out, I did my bit. How did they do that? Or think about Joseph again in the Old Testament in Genesis. He was able to stand in the presence of Potiphar's wife in her living room as she was throwing herself at him. And he was able to resist that temptation. How? Well, he said, how could I do this and sin against my God? You see how that happened? Because the majesty and the glory and the worthiness of God were so foremost in Joseph's heart and mind going into the situation in temptation, coursing through him as a constant spiritual refrain of prayerfulness, so that when temptation appeared, he was watchful, he was ready for it. and gratitude toward the God who had been so merciful and faithful to him dominated his focus. How could I do this against God who's done so much for me? I'm so grateful to God because I've been meditating on His goodness day and night for so many days and months and years of my life here that this one moment of temptation isn't going to distract me. But see, if you're constantly focused on self, what I want, what I want, what I want, what I need, what I need, what I feel, how I feel entitled, what I think... Then if temptation comes, Satan seems like you're ripe for it. When temptation comes, you're just going to go, well, that's what I want. Joseph would have just gone, that's what every guy wants. A woman throwing herself at him. But he wasn't focused on self. His focus was dominated by the glory of God. And so that overwhelmed any sense of sinful, selfish, fleshly desire. He resisted. God-fearing people like Job and Paul, they endured because they were alert to the enemy's ploys, because their minds and their hearts were consumed with the glory of God already, so that when the enemy showed up, they were prepared. Are you prepared? Are you preparing? Because you don't know when the enemy comes, you don't know when temptation comes, you don't know when trials come. And they come all the time. If your mind and if your heart aren't firmly fixed already, if there isn't this constant dialogue of God-focused prayer going on and dominating your thoughts and feelings and instincts and attitudes, then when trials come, and they're gonna come, you know they are, and when temptations come, and they always do, daily, hourly temptations, minute by minute temptations come. Because Satan is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour you. And if your heart's not ready, then the trials and the temptations are going to eat you alive. So this is what Paul is saying here, Christians. Be watchful, always and constantly. Don't be spiritually lazy or listless. You've got to keep your spiritual eyes open all the time. And you've got to recognize, when you start feeling selfish, this is what I want. I don't want to pray right now. I don't want to read my Bible. I don't want to do this right now. that that's when you're weak, that's when you're vulnerable. And prayer protects against spiritual lassitude. So pray to God for the strength, open wide your mouth and say, God, please fill it. I need to be strong right now. I need to be alert right now. The thing that keeps us spiritually alert and protects against that laziness is constant, devoted, steadfast, God-centered prayer, even when it's not vocalized. that inner spiritual disposition that gets cultivated when we forsake self, when we fix our focus on God's glory and majesty and faithfulness to us, so that gratitude towards Him, thankfulness towards Him overwhelms all of our selfish ambition and pride and fleshly desire and compels us to praise and worship and serve Him instead of serving self. Then when we face temptation, guess what? It builds endurance. Then when we face trials, it builds strength and character, and we start to grow in holiness in ways that we never would be able to on our own. And look at how in this passage here, in these few verses, look at how this isn't just an instruction from Paul to other Christians. Look at how Paul's not just exhorting us to be constant in watchful prayer with Thanksgiving. Look how he's doing it here. Look at how this is demonstrated in his own life. Where is Paul when he's writing this letter? He's writing this letter to a church that he's never even been to. He's taking the time to care about people he's never even met. And where is he when he's doing it? He's in Rome. And why? Because he's been imprisoned there. He had been falsely accused. He had been slandered. He had been arrested by Roman authorities in Jerusalem. And they put him on a boat and they shipped him to Rome so that he could make his appeal to Caesar. And when he got to Rome, and getting there meant this particularly harrowing journey at sea that's chronicled in several chapters in the book of Acts. When he got there, In God's kindness, Paul wasn't thrown in with the rest of the common criminals into that big, dank hole that was the main prison in Rome. In God's kindness, Paul was allowed to live in a house in Rome, but he was under constant guard by a Roman guard, a Roman centurion, that he was actually chained to. So if the guard fell asleep, Paul couldn't just get up and sneak out. He's chained to this guy day and night. He can't go anywhere. He can't leave. And he lived like that, chained up to a Roman guard. He lived like that for two years in Rome. And during that time, he wrote at least four, I think five, but at least four of the books of the New Testament, including the book of Colossians. And see, the point is that in the middle of all of that ongoing tribulation that Paul was enduring, he wasn't focused on himself in the least. He wasn't complaining about everything he was going through. He wasn't spending all of his days and nights writing petitions for his release. He's spending his days and nights writing New Testament Scripture. He's not telling everyone who comes to visit him all about the plight that he's been through and all the drama in his life and how he's been falsely accused and people did mean things to him and trying to defend his reputation to everybody. He's not doing that. That's so tempting. That's so, you know, if you've been falsely accused, it's so tempting to just go on a rampage and tell everybody what you think is true. Never does any good. Usually makes things worse. See, that's just self-focused, and Paul doesn't do any of that here. He spends all of his time telling people about the glory and the excellency and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He's not praying that the doors of the prison would be blown open so that he could be set free. He's praying that doors will be opened to the Gospel. Look at that. He's in chains, and he says, pray for us that God may open us a door, not to the prison, but for the word of God to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak clearly. He's saying pray that I would take advantage of this opportunity living in a place that's not the nicest place to live. That's kind of what our friends back here are doing in East Portland. Maybe this isn't their first choice of where to live and maybe it's a little scary living among all those ethnicities who believe Things that are kind of scary. But God, give us the humility to see it as an opportunity to serve these people with the gospel. To proclaim Jesus Christ to them. Instead of thinking first and foremost about self. In fact, do you remember in Acts chapter 16 where Paul and Silas were preaching the gospel in the city of Philippi and they came across a slave girl? She was literally a young girl who was a slave to these masters and she was demon possessed. And this is actually why they took her as a slave, because the demon in her would tell people's fortunes. It caused her to be able to be a fortune teller. And so these people grabbed her and took her and were making her tell fortunes for profit so that they could keep the money. And so when Paul and Silas were going around the city of Philippi and they were preaching the gospel, this girl was following around after them all the time and the demon in her kept on screaming, these men are servants of the Most High God who proclaims to you the way of salvation. And so God is actually using this for the cause of the gospel and it says that Paul got annoyed with her and cast the demon out of her. And then her masters got all upset because She couldn't tell fortunes anymore. And so they couldn't make money with her anymore. And so they took Paul and Silas and they beat him severely with rods. And then they had them arrested and thrown in jail. And you remember, as they sat in jail, bruised and I mean, beaten up, bloodied and broken in the middle of the night. What were they doing in the jail? moaning and wailing, woes me. What would you be doing? That's what I'd be doing. This is a bad day. I got into the wrong business. I mean, what would the disposition of our souls be? These guys, sitting there all beat up and bloodied in the middle of the night, were singing hymns. Were praying and doing it loud enough for all of the other prisoners to hear. because their minds and their souls were full to overflowing with the glory and the goodness and the faithfulness of God. And so prayer and worship was their spiritual sweat. It's what came out of them when things were hard. There was no room for self-pity. There was no room for discontentment. There was no room for complaining. It was just prayer and praise. The sweat of the soul. And then there in Philippi, you remember? Acts 16, in the middle of the night, suddenly there's this great earthquake right underneath the prison. And it shook the very foundations of the prison so hard that all the doors of the prison got flung open, and literally, it says, all the chains fell off the prisoners. And in the morning, the jailkeeper came, and he saw all the doors were open, and of course he assumes, oh man, they all got away, they all escaped, and I'm in trouble. And so he pulls out his sword and he's ready to kill himself because he thinks that would be a better fate than whatever the Roman government's going to do to him once they find out all his prisoners escaped. And so there he is with his sword out ready to do himself in and suddenly Paul calls out from inside the prison. Still there. Don't harm yourself. We're all still here. They all stayed there. All of the prisoners, not just Paul and Silas, all the prisoners stayed there. And the jailer, without any hesitation, fell on his knees before Paul and said, what must I do to be saved? And they preached the gospel to him, and he was saved. And not just him, they went to his house, and everybody in his household, his whole family, heard the gospel, repented, believed on Jesus Christ, and were saved. And so see, instead of seeing the open doors of the prison as an opportunity for his own gain, Paul saw doors wide open to the gospel. The breaking of his own bonds in that jail and gaining his own freedom from imprisonment, that mattered absolutely nothing to Paul compared to the breaking of the bonds of sin in the lives of the jailer and his family and probably the other prisoners and their eternal freedom from condemnation and the wrath of God. And so here in Colossians 4, Paul again, once again he's in chains, but his God-centered, gospel-saturated, constantly, steadfastly praying mind and soul has no room, it's got no time for the concerns of self, for fleshly attitudes, all he can even ask for prayer for. for himself while he's chained up there in Rome, is that in these circumstances God might use him to make the Gospel clear. Listen to it in the book of Philippians. That's another book Paul wrote during this same time, during those two years when he was chained up in Rome. In Philippians chapter 1 and verse 12 he says this, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel. so that it is become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold now to speak the word without fear. How about that? I mean, somehow the one guard that Paul was chained to in that little house in Rome became the conduit for the gospel to become known to the whole imperial guard in Rome and the whole city. And Paul's imprisonment and Paul's selfless, God-focused, gospel-saturated heart emboldened all of the other Christians to live that way, too. And the result was the advance of the gospel. And so for Paul, being falsely accused back in Jerusalem and hauled away to Rome, chained up for two years, it wasn't a cause for him to complain. It wasn't a cause for him to despair. He said, God's sovereign. He's got a purpose in this. Let's just realize it. Let's figure out what it is. It's an opportunity, he says. And it's an opportunity of eternal proportions. And Paul actually really had no idea The proportions, right? How profoundly God would actually use him in the chains of his imprisonment for the cause of the gospel. He didn't have any idea because now, 2,000 years later, we still have all these letters that he wrote from prison. I mean, what a majestic book Colossians is. What an encouraging book Philippians is. What a rich book Ephesians is. As we saw last week, what a majestic display of the Gospel Philemon is. He wrote all four of those in prison. He probably wrote Hebrews also, and he probably wrote it from prison in Rome. What a treasure Hebrews is. I mean, look what God did. Because Paul didn't waste his imprisonment succumbing to fleshly, selfish temptation. Self-pity, or discontentment, or bitterness, or anger, or self-avindication, or vengeance. None of that. None of that. Paul remained constant. Paul remained steadfast in prayer. Paul was watchful. Paul was thankful to God so that he saw and responded to every circumstance through the lens of God's sovereign goodness and faithfulness and the supremacy and the excellency of Jesus Christ and the eternal glory and power of the gospel. And that's the message for us today, Christians. Plain and simple. Let us not waste our lives. Let us not waste whatever opportunities God gives us. Pray with me today that God will help us to see our circumstances as opportunities of eternal importance to put the glory of Jesus Christ on display. Let's pray today. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the words of scripture and we thank you for the example of their power in the life of the Apostle Paul. We pray, Father, that You would help us to imitate Him as He imitated Christ, in His dependence upon you, in His selfless devotion to you, in His life of constant prayer and watchfulness. Father, teach these things to us. Teach us to remain steadfast in prayer. Teach us to be constantly vigilant and watchful through the inner dialogue of prayer that sees everything in relation to You and Your goodness towards us. Teach us to be grateful, Father. Overflow our hearts with thankfulness and gratitude towards You in such measure that it would overwhelm and outweigh completely any fleshly impulse that is in us, especially in those times where we're tempted, where we're tried. Father, teach us and give us the strength through this watchful, thankful, constant prayer to mortify the sin that remains in us, to grow, to thrive in holiness, to forsake ourselves, to see every circumstance of our lives as an opportunity to exalt Jesus, to magnify Jesus, to put the glory of Jesus Christ on constant display. And so, Father, empower your church, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.