Before we open up God's word tonight, let us pray once again. Our Father, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. We pray that as we look at this passage tonight, that you do a good work in our lives. Encourage us, we pray, where we are following you. Please straighten out our thinking and our living in those places where we are doing poorly. We pray that you'd open our ears to hear what your Holy Spirit has to say so that we'll leave this place better equipped to glorify you through Christ our Lord. Amen. Please turn with me tonight to Colossians chapter four, verse two, Colossians four, verse two on page nine hundred eighty five and a few Bibles. Tonight, we're going to touch down on a single verse in the epistle to the Colossians. This verse has a well, it fits right into the context of the book of Colossians. But frankly, it strikes me that this verse fits right into the context of any church anywhere. It's a it's a verse that we can all well understand. Please follow along as I read God's holy word tonight, Colossians chapter four, verse two. continues steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. This is God's holy word. Tonight's message is going to fall into three parts. First of all, pray steadfastly. What does steadfast mean? For what reason does God tell us to pray steadfastly? And secondly, keep watchful In steadfast prayer, what does it mean to watch? Why do we need to watch? And thirdly, keep thankful in steadfast prayer. Why is thankfulness important? So first, keeping steadfast, pray steadfast, steadfastly. Secondly, keep watchful. Third, keep thankful. As we look at this passage tonight, keep in mind that it is a legal passage. By which I mean, it is a command of God to us. As a command of God, we must consider this to be part of God's holy law, and that instructs us how we are to approach this passage. If we were to make the mistake of approaching this passage without referring it to Jesus Christ and understanding it through the grid of his finished work, then it will it will do for us if we if we approach it in that mistaken way, it will do for us what law keeping without Christ always does. It will hinder us. It will either puff us up with false ideas of how well we're doing in prayer or more likely it will depress us and discourage us as we realize that we're not living up to what scripture says. Let's approach this verse tonight. With a firm faith in Jesus Christ, remember, as we talk about these things that Jesus has washed your sins away, if you believe in him, remember that he stands as your advocate with the father pleading for you and think to The fact that God commands his people to pray reminds you that he welcomes you to his throne of grace. It is right to be convicted of sin where you fall short to be challenged to do better. But let any conviction you feel fall, call you upward to embrace that privilege that God has for his children of approaching his throne of grace, what we're going to see tonight. is that it's because God loves us and he wants to meet our needs, that he tells us to pray. He loves us. He wants to meet our needs. So he tells us to pray. And so we'll be seeking to understand tonight this Christian duty. First, God tells us through the apostle Paul to continue steadfastly in prayer, pray steadfastly. Why does God tell us to pray steadfastly? There are Many different angles we could we could take in talking about this. One reason we need to pray steadfastly is because we have steady needs. We have steady needs. The list of our needs has no end. If you read through the book of Colossians, you'll find that that church needed courage to deal with false teachers. They needed God's help to put off the old and put on the new to behave like new creatures in Christ. They needed to be faithful so the gospel would bear fruit among them. Colossians 110. They needed equipping and family relationships. They needed all kinds of things, and these are things for which we need ongoing equipment equipping. As you know, they're not once and done sorts of operations. Your life is the same, isn't it? No one here can stand up tonight, at least I hope you won't stand up and say that you're done with the need to pray, that you have no further need of the Holy Spirit. You never quench him. You never struggle with sin. You have no further need for equipping in your family relationships. Of course, that wouldn't be true. We need God's help. We need a lot of it and we need it every day. We can understand this well enough in our in the non spiritual aspects of our life, right? You need food in the fridge. Every day, not just sometimes when you go somewhere in the car, you need gas in the tank, not just every other time you want to go somewhere, but every time. Brothers and sisters, it should be no less intuitive to us that we need constant supply from God because our needs are also constant. We need we face plenty of things for which we need courage from God, faith from God, wisdom from God. So you should pray steadfastly because you have steady needs. You have steady needs and God has a steady supply. God has a steady supply for you. If you live next door to a supermarket and the owner was a good friend of yours and he told you to just come get groceries at no cost, whatever you wanted, that would be nice, wouldn't it? You'd have no excuse, though, for not having food in the fridge, no excuse for an empty fridge. Now think about it. What kind of supply does God have for you? What sort of supplies does he have available for his children? Is God short on supplies when you come to God, does he act miserly to you? Does he make you feel like you're running up the tab? Or is God generous Bible, the Bible leads us to believe that God is generous. He's our father. That means he loves you and he has all manner of supplies for you. I mean, he saved you through Christ and he did that with the goal of meeting your needs. So his supply is great. In fact, scripture indicates that God is offended if you do not ask him, Jesus said in Matthew seven eleven, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? God is commanding us here implicitly. Ask me, ask me. He commands us to. He delights to care for you. You know, to speak frankly about some of the challenges that face us, I think sometimes we are tentative in our prayers because we have asked God for things that he said no to. He didn't do what we asked. We prayed for a sick relative to recover and it didn't happen, et cetera, et cetera. You've prayed for lots of things that God said no. And sometimes that can maybe subconsciously taint our ideas about what sort of supply God has for us and how willing he is to give it. Besides, we know plenty of other Christians who've had the same experience, the Apostle Paul, he asked God to remove the thorn in his flesh three times. Right. And God said, no, God said, my grace is sufficient for you. We can think about all the martyrs who were thrown to the lions, who were burned at the stake. Don't you think most of them probably prayed for deliverance, even as their hour of death approached? I think most of them probably did. And yet God did not deliver them. That possibility of a no answer may make us timid in our prayers. We might even get the idea that God is sparing with his help or that God's help is unpredictable. Kind of like a neighbor whom you could call on for help if he happens to be home, that sort of thing. You might think about God that way. We must not think about God that way and so lose heart or grow timid in our praying. God has already proven his infinite supply of supply of care for you when he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for you. If God would freely give up his own son, scripture says, will he not also in him freely give us all things? God has already proven his care for you. And for what purpose did Christ redeem you, but to take you to glory where God is going to bless you with joy in his presence forever? When you're challenged to grasp that in the present, look at the past and see what God has done in Christ. Look at the future and see what God has in store for you and gain courage in the present. When God says no, it doesn't mean that his supply is less or that his favor is less. It means that his understanding of the situation is greater. His understanding of the situation is greater. Paul did not get his thorn removed, but Paul was at peace with God's understanding of his situation. It was the same Paul who wrote in our passage continues steadfastly in prayer. The saints who died for their faith, perhaps praying for their deliverance. I wonder if they laughed when they landed in heaven and they thought, imagine I was praying to stay on earth. You know, their perspective is different now and we need to try with our hearts and minds to embrace that heavenly perspective and say, this is a great father who cares for me. His plan is good. We can believe in that and that should empower us to pray rather than making us grow timid. Intentive. So we have great needs. God has a great supply. And thirdly, under the heading of steadfastness, God chooses to connect his supply to our needs via prayer. God has chosen to connect his supply to our needs via prayer. There's a real connection here. Now, we don't want to overdo the connection, oversimplify it. The connection between asking and receiving, because God often gives us far more than we ask, doesn't he? And sometimes God says no, as I've mentioned, because he has something better in mind. Or maybe he says no, because we ask for wrong reasons. But in general, God wants us to live our lives by the axiom that what we need were to ask and receive by prayer. That's how God wants us to live. If we do not cast our cares on him, We cannot presume that he will take those cares from us. James four, two says you do not have because you do not ask. Right. You know that verse. One of the Puritans said it this way, God will have every blessing fetched out of heaven by prayer. That's how God ordinarily blesses us is an answer to prayer. You can think of the figure of Jacob's ladder. Remember how Jacob, in a moment of great distress and need, had a vision and on it he saw a ladder or a stairway between heaven and earth and the angels were ascending and descending on this ladder. And Jesus said in John one fifty one. Essentially, he identified himself as Jacob's ladder, and that helps us to understand that when we come to God. Christ, that our needs, our petitions, if you will, go up to heaven. And it's through him that our heavenly supply comes back down to us. We have Jesus Christ and we can ask in his name. In fact, Jesus said he commanded us to ask of the father in his name, John 16, 23. God connects his supply to our needs via prayer. That's the way he sets it forth in scripture. And he does this so that he would receive the proper glory. It glorifies God when you ask him for everything you need right down to and including your daily bread. If we don't ask.