In Sunday’s message, How Redemption Fuels the Christian Life, Ryan showed us from Colossians 1:11-14 how gratefulness for our redemption in Christ fuels the strength, patience and joy that Paul prays for God to give them. Martin Lloyd-Jones expands on this text and warns us against forgetting the centrality of Chris’s work in beginning and sustaining the Christian life:

The gospel…, in the first instance, does not ask us to do anything – it is primarily an announcement of what God has done for us…. The work of the devil is to twist it, to pervert it…to prevent us from seeing it…, [to tell us] that the message of Christianity is a call to us to do something to put ourselves right, to put the world right, to stop this, to stop that! But the very first principle of Christianity denies that completely; it is the exact opposite. Christianity is an announcement and a proclamation of what God has done. Yet people still persist in thinking that Christianity is a call to them to do something. That is why they do not sing and praise God; that is why their hearts are not on fire and full of rejoicing. It is because they think Christianity is a code of ethics, a way of life and of living. No, says Paul,… he [has qualified] us; he has done it all.” – Love So Amazing: Expositions on Colossians 1

Since this concludes three sermons on Paul’s prayer in Colossians, this is a good time to link to resources on the subject, so that we would more faithfully pray and in a way that is faithful to the gospel.

Books:

Heart of Prayer, Jerram Barrs

A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, D.A. Carson

A Praying Life: Connecting With God in a Distracting World, Paul Miller

Praying Backwards: Transforming Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus’ Name, Bryan Chapel

DSC Audio:

Prizing the Privilege of Prayer, Jerram Barrs

Saturday Seminar: Prayer, Ryan Kelly

Learning Prayer from Paul, Ryan Kelly

Brokenness Unto Joy: Confession, Tim Ragsdale

Pursuing the Pleasure of His Presence in Prayer, Ryan Kelly

What to Pray for the Saints in Christ, Ryan Kelly

When Paul prayed for strength for believers be prayed that they would be “strengthened with power.” Prayer for power is a frequent request of the apostle’s for the church. Several things come to mind when we think of “power.” Last week we lost power before the first service when a balloon collided with a local power line. Cars are powerful. Bombs are powerful. But there is a kind of power that outdoes them all. D.A. Carson has a helpful explanation of the power that is “according to his glorious might”:

“The power that raised Jesus from the dead–is the power that is at work in us to make us holy, to make us a fit place for Jesus to dwell, to enable us to grasp the limitless dimensions of God’s love for us (Eph 3:14-19), to strengthen us so that we have great endurance and faith and lives constantly characterized by thanksgiving (Col. 1:11-12). It takes extraordinary power to change us to become like that. In fact, it takes nothing less than the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. What the apostle wants, then, is not power so that he might be thought powerful, but power so that he might be conformed to the will of God. Only the power that brought Jesus back from death will do.” – Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians, Pg. 87

In Sunday’s message, Our Prayers, God’s Priorities, Ryan Kelly showed us from Colossians 1:9-14 how to pray. Taking Paul’s lead, we should pray frequently, for understanding, for fruit, for strength and in all of our prayers we should keep circling back to redemption, for we pray as those who have been “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13-14). Ryan also recommended an excellent book on the subject of prayer by D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers.

In Sunday’s message, Thank God for Gospel Growth, Ryan preached from Colossians 1:3-8 where Paul tells his readers that he thanks God for them and for how the gospel “is bearing fruit and growing” among them (6). As Timothy Keller puts it, “The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity.”

This quote from C.F.W. Walther in his 1929 work, Law and Gospel, shows us the kind of reading and preaching of Scripture that leads to fruit-bearing, gospel-growing life.

The Word of God is not rightly divided…

• When the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and then justification; faith first and then repentance; good works first and then grace.
• When the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and then justification; faith first and then repentance; good works first and then grace.
• When the preacher describes faith in a manner as if the mere inert acceptance of truths, even while a person is living in mortal sins, renders that person righteous in the sight of God and saves him; or as if faith makes a person righteous and saves him for the reason that it produces in him love and reformation of his mode of living.
• When the Gospel is turned into a preaching of repentance.
• When the preacher speaks of certain sins as if they were not of damnable, but of a venial nature.
• When an attempt is made by means of the demands or the threats or the promises of the Law to induce the unregenerate to put away their sins and engage in good works and thus become godly; on the other hand, when an endeavor is made, by means of the commands of the Law rather than by the admonition of the Gospel, to urge the regenerate to do good.

For more reading on how the gospel grows us and grows in us, check out Monergism’s page on gospel-centered living.

If we were to survey a group of Christians with the question, “What is true religion?”, most of us would not be satisfied with the answer James gives in James 1:27: “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” That’s social gospel moralism. What of the cross? What of faith?

In the message on Adoption Sunday we zeroed in on the orphan part of that verse to understand how we come to care for orphans and how this description of true religion relates to the gospel.

In context, James is speaking about the life of those who have been “born of the word of truth,” who know God as, “Father,” who have received “the implanted word” (1:16-27). So, orphan care is something that happens when we believe the gospel. Orphan care is a part of true religion because this is the kind of thing that we do when we know God, who is, as Psalm 68:5 says, a “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows.” We care for orphans because we are God’s children.

Orphan care includes foster care, adoption, defending the unborn, serving orphans in foreign lands, and supporting all of these things financially and through prayer. We’re not all responsible to do all of these things, but we are responsible to be doing something for orphans in their affliction.

Adopting and supporting adoptions is one crucial way to address orphans in their greatest immediate need: The need for parents.

And DSC’s Adoption Ministry is busy helping encourage, network and support adoptions. At the Adoption page, you will find information about a Bi-Monthly Fellowship for adoptive families and those interested in adoption, adoption related videos, resources for supporting and financing adoptions, and many helpful adoption related links.

Also, if you’re not an adoptive parent, but would like to care for an adoptive family, sign up to become a “Spiritual Grandparent.” Spiritual Grandparents get to know a family, pray for them, eat with them, watch the kids at times, pay attention to the family’s needs and love the children as grandparents would. Contact Jason Mancini for more information at jasonm [at] pmi-nm [dot] com.

On the subject, we are especially eager to recommend a book by Russell Moore, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches. Also, Dr. Moore recently published an excellent post about orphan care at his blog, Is The Orphan My Neighbor?

Orphan care does not define us, but it does identify us as those who belong to our orphan loving Creator, and it provides the world with a category for the adopting love of God in Christ, who bore our afflictions and carried our sorrows that we might call God, Father.

On Sunday Ryan introduced the book of Colossians, covering the context, authorship, and the theme of this New Testament letter, written by the apostle Paul.

We also considered the importance of reading books like this straight through to get a sense of their unity and message. Colossians is, after all, a letter. Since this is actually a helpful approach to daily Bible reading, Ryan challenged us to read through Colossians once each day for the next week, then to do the same thing with a different New Testament letter after that. For longer books, like Romans, it may help to divide the book into two sections.

To help you read through Colossians, here’s the outline that Ryan gave on Sunday:

I.  Believing in Christ’s Preeminence (Chapter 1)

• His Preeminence in our Experience (1:3-14)
• His Preeminence in Creation (1:15-17)
• His Preeminence in the Church (1:18-23)
• His Preeminence in Paul’s Ministry (1:24-29)

II.  Defending Christ’s Preeminence (Chapter 2)

• His Preeminence vs. Empty Philosophy (2:1-10)
• His Preeminence vs. Judaistic Ceremonialism (2:11-17)
• His Preeminence vs. Man-Made Rules (2:18-23)

III.  Living Out Christ’s Preeminence (Chapter 3-4)

• His Preeminence in Your New Identity (3:1-10)
• His Preeminence in the Church’s Unity (3:11-17)
• His Preeminence in Your Home and Work (3:18-4:1)
• His Preeminence in Proclamation (4:2-6)
• His Preeminence in Service (4:7-18)