The Train of Wisdom
Obviously last week Rick started off with a beautiful overview of the book of Colossians with the introduction of the first eight verses. Now, big surprise, we're continuing on prayer into the next couple of verses. So first, let us begin in prayer. Father, we just thank you that we know you are here with us, Lord, where one or two are gathered, or two or three, I mean. Lord, there you are there with them. So Father, we know that you are here right now, that your Spirit is at work among us, and how we pray you would open our ears open our hearts and prepare us to receive your word, to be changed by it, to be transformed, to be made more unto the likeness of the image of your Son. Do that we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen. All right, beautiful. So just a few heads up. um One thing, ah I thought to help assist, I've noticed as many of us probably struggle with, When you inevitably go home and maybe you're talking to someone on the phone or something, you're like, how was Sunday? Oh, it was just great. The message was amazing. And then they ask you, oh, so what was it about? And you go, ah, and you just can't remember a lick. For whatever reason, Satan just gets in there and just, he just wipes the hard drive clean. So I have done up, they're not devotions like last time, but in the foyer there, there's some little sheets that, They're kind of like a sermon overview, little sermon notes to kind of help you remember. They're just a concept for the moment. I'm hoping to add in maybe a few questions and who knows what they might turn into in the future. But for the moment, they're just points for the sermon to kind of help us remember what was in it. um And so one other thing that you'll see today for me doing, which don't get too excited because it's not going to happen very often, but especially for those who are more visual learners, I actually have something in the PowerPoint beyond just headings this time. I have a train. um So today, in Colossians 1, 9 to 14, we are going to be building a train. I don't know, does anyone have like model trains or ever were they into that when they were younger or anything like that? No, anyone? Okay, well I've known a few guys in my time, but anyway, we're gonna build one. I'm not into trains, but nonetheless, it fit a very nice analogy for this message. So. What we are going to have are three different parts. You'll have the tracks or the rails. We're going to have the carriages. And then we will obviously have, it's a steam train, so the steam engine and the fuel. So. first, let's begin by reading the passage. Good place to start. So from verse nine, we'll be reading. And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking you that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. For all endurance and patience with joy. giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Now, this is still part of the same introduction that Rick was doing last week, still of Paul's prayer for the Colossians that he's giving to them now. And so, He is praising, in the first eight verses, he just thanks God and thanks them for the initial work of the gospel. They've been saved, they've been brought to life. He's just thanking God that is bearing fruit in their lives. And now, his great request of God is would that work continue? Would it keep going on? Because surely we know, becoming Christian isn't just a one-time thing. You don't just... suddenly enter into the Christian life and then the Holy Spirit comes along with a teleporter that just says, hop in this thing and you'll get straight to the finish line. There is no shortcut, no secret, know, silver bullet, whatever you want to call it. All of us have to walk along this path that we call the Christian life, what it's like to live as a Christian, right? At one point we're saved and then we're called to live a different life and now we have to walk that path. And so like I said, we're gonna use it, instead of thinking like a path, we're gonna think of it like a set of tracks. putting us along the way. And so Paul is gonna encourage us and help us to see what does that look like? What does that path, that walk look like? So first we'll begin in verse nine there. And what does he say? From the day we heard, have not ceased to pray for you asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Now, what is the best thing about rails for a train? Why are we really happy that trains have rails? Anyone got any reasons? It keeps them on the track, keeps them where they're going, right? You know, it's not like a, you know, there's no one steering that thing, he's just got a stop and a go thing, right? It just follows the tracks. And so you see, the very helpful thing is that with tracks, it keeps them going in the right direction. Suddenly, the, what happens if you get rid of the rails? train goes, it's not gonna trip, you're not making it to your destination. You need the tracks to keep you in line, to keep you along the way. And so you see here is what we have called the will of God, right? This is the thing that keeps us on the right, going off into grave danger on the left and to the right, keeping us on the straight and the narrow path. And now in here, when he's saying and praying for the Colossians, be filled with the knowledge of God's will, he's not saying be filled with the knowledge of Again, we've talked about this before, not what car to buy, not what person to marry, not what retirement home to retire into. think we all know, allure is the best. I know a lot of people disagree with that, but anyway, I don't know, whatever, wherever you want to retire, whether you're going to leave your house in a coffin, those are not the kind of things that we're talking about here. There is that kind of will, but here what we're talking about is a will which is revealed to us in scripture. You see, this, when he asked for them to have a full knowledge of God's will, he's asking, This book contains within it God's entire plan for us, for the world, for the grand scheme of everything that will happen. He wants you to know what is in this book so that you know the grand story of creation. says that will be the guidelines. Those will be the tracks which will help you direct your life. And of course we know in there are some rules, if you want to call them commandments, because they help us to stay in line with the grand story. They help and reveal to us what is the eternal destiny, what lies at the end of the tracks. They help to orientate us right. And so you see, that is what He's seeking them to be filled with. Filled with the knowledge of who God is, who Jesus was, and what they have done for us. And so then he goes on from there. And what does he say? Ask that you be filled with it in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So two things there, spiritual and then wisdom and understanding, they're kind of the same thing. So first, what is wisdom and understanding? Does anyone here think they're particularly wise or understanding? Anyone? Surely some of you are, like we're not all dumb-dumbs, come on. Of course, no one's gonna raise their hand to that. We're all very humble people. But obviously we notice there are people who are wise and there are people who are not. So what is it that makes someone wise? What is it that makes someone understanding? Now look, there's a slight difference between understanding and wisdom, but they're pretty close together. Understanding. Just think about someone, sorry, not someone, think about a car, right? Everyone knows that you need an engine in a car to run. If you open the bonnet and there's no engine there, it's not going nowhere, unless you push it, I guess. But not everyone understands how exactly the engine in the car makes the car run, right? So you see, that's why we typically go to mechanics or you go to someone who really knows cars. They have an understanding of how it works. Okay, okay, but there's still a difference. What's wisdom? Wisdom is knowing what to do with that understanding, right? So someone might say they've studied every book on how to, I don't know, um can someone shout out a car? I don't know. Whatever, a Land Cruiser, right? Someone's ever read every manual, every workbook on it. Are you still gonna trust that person if they've never actually worked on the car? No, right? Because they still don't have the wisdom, the know-how to actually apply that to the situation. To put it in maybe another circumstance we'll understand, if you wanna know someone who you think is wise, this is what we typically call common sense, how to apply our knowledge and our understanding to real world applications. What kind of look does someone get on a work site when they come in with a suit and a clipboard in their hand? Do people normally respect that person? Sorry if that's you. But see, there's a reality. When someone comes in from corporate onto the work site, when they've never stepped on it in a single day, never been there for the work, no one respects them because they see them and think that person has no understanding. They have a knowledge of what goes on, but no practical understanding, wisdom. For when we run into a problem, they're just gonna throw a bunch of theories at it that actually make no sense. Who do people respect? It's the foreman on the work site who's been there from day dot to the end of the thing, who's seen everything, who's done everything, who knows everything. They are the ones they go to, right? So you see, that is wisdom, that is understanding, it is the person who is wise, who knows how to solve the problem. And so another person put it like this that I once heard, wisdom is living in accordance with reality. What it means is there is truth. There's a truth about how this world works, about how we're to live our lives. And it's simply living in accordance with that. Why do you think it says in the Psalms, um sorry, I'm trying to think of it now, sorry, the person who is a fool is the one who says there is no God. Why is he a fool? Because he's denying an essential truth about how this world works. When you remove God from the picture, you're a fool because you suddenly have no idea what you're doing with your life and you run after every other thing trying to fill that hole. That is foolishness. Wisdom is putting God in his right place, understanding how this world works with him in it. And so, what about the spiritual side of it? So he wants them to understand, to be filled with the knowledge of God's will that doesn't just lead to them saying, I know how many books of the Bible there are. No, no, but I have understanding. I understand how it works and Betty, I know how to apply myself to this truth. But then it says the word spiritual. What does that mean? Spiritual wisdom and understanding. It tells you where the origin of this wisdom is. It doesn't come from you being a smart, intellectual, really put together person. It doesn't come from you having even necessarily put a lot of effort into studying this book, though that's a good thing to do. There are plenty of people who studied this book left to right, more than any of us have, and they have no belief in God. That is not spiritual wisdom and understanding. It comes from these two passages. 1 Corinthians 2, 14. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. They are discerned by the Spirit. And as Jesus says then in John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said." You see, there's a reason this book is unlike any other book. It's because for those who will receive it, it comes with a helper, someone who will actually help them to comprehend, understand, who will help them to be wise with this knowledge here. These words on these pages are just knowledge. They are not wisdom until the Spirit comes in and makes it alive. So first here, so okay, right, we're building the track. So what is we, our people, to do? Those of us with the Holy Spirit whom we've asked to come into our hearts, what do we do? We do make ourselves studyers of this. We ought to make this a part of who we are. Do you understand, that there is this whole world out there, that there is lived experience? You can learn a lot. That's why age is wisdom, right? I know there are some old people out there that you may be saying aren't that wise. But the reality is lived experience does help. But without this, this is our manual to this world. This is what helps us to make understanding where lived experience does not. We need to understand this. And you see, there's the problem in our day and age where we have become, like everything else, light readers. because we read news, we read articles, the idea of studying something. Sorry, I'm good. It seems hard, I can't apply my mind to something, but you see, this book rewards us through study. Now of course, here come all the things. I don't have time for it. I just, don't have a mind for that kind of thing. But you see, the reality is we live in a day and an age where man, we have no excuse. Bible on our phones, literally book at every single reading level. Oh, but I'm actually not that really good at reading. Everything is on audio. My goodness. Matt, Matt, but I don't want to listen. I actually want to talk to someone. Oh goodness, how are we going to solve that problem? whole church right here. Please, literally, do you know most of the phone calls I get on my work phone? Most of them are from some star car wash in Carindale. Don't know why, all right? That's where most of my phone go. I would love to receive a phone call from someone asking, hey, what does this mean? I'm here for that. I'm literally supported, paid to do that. Please ring the phone. I'm not gonna stop you. And better yet, end all beal. Do you have a Holy Spirit? who will help you to understand. You see, there is much benefit in wrestling with this book. Even starting from a beginner to, you know, there's no good place to start. You just jump in, find yourself in a good place. And now, of course, what is the point of it all though? Especially for those of us who don't have time, right? Of course, I sympathize with like, you know, young moms, you know, I get it, you got four kids running around, all kinds of things. I don't have time to sit down to read this word. But yeah, like I've said, we have upteen resources. Man, do you know how many Young Mum podcasts there are helping young mums to read the Bible, to even find places for it? But then what is even the point of doing it all? You see, it is actually in wrestling with these big questions, going through and asking, why does God love me despite I'm a sinner? Why does God allow such horrible things to happen? These actually bring meaning to the most mundane things we do. When you understand the complete will of God, when you seek to understand it, suddenly sitting in a car for six hours makes sense. There's actually a purpose to it. Suddenly changing nappies at 3 a.m. in the night makes sense. There is a purpose to it when we understand even the greater things of God. Now going on from there. Sorry, have you guys been seeing the train up there in the PowerPoint? There should be a train that pops up. um Is it on the slideshow? Yeah? Throw up one of them, if you can. Sorry, it might be a bit out of order. Oh, sorry, sorry, I can't see it. Oh, right, there you go. All right, here we go. So here you have the track, right? You've got a knowledge of God's will. Now we're building our carriages. Okay, so moving on to our second point. So. Paul is now cooler, so this is verses 10 down to 12. So here we go. right. So, is the reason he is asked to then be filled with the knowledge of God's will so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. For all endurance and patience with joy. Stop there. Gonna leave it there for now. So you see, Paul is desperate for these Colossians to be filled with the knowledge of... God's plan for everything, for them, for their lives, how He wants them to live so that they might walk in a matter worthy of the Lord. Fully pleasing to Him. So really, all He wants is for when God looks at their lives for Him to say, wow, man, I'm so happy. Right, yes, we understand that God has saved us. There's a reality we can never be condemned once again. We can never be sent to hell because He has forgiven us. But you do realize when you sin, He's still not happy with that. He's not angry. but he's displeased. There is still a life we can live that is pleasing to him. And so you see in everything we do, we're either pleasing him or pleasing Satan. There's no middle ground. We're going one of two ways. So he's asking us to live a life that is pleasing to God. And so here, these are the carriages, right? We now have the tracks. They set us on the right path. But what are the things that must accompany us on this train that heads on the way through the Christian life into eternal life? Three carriages. First one, bearing fruit, he says. Now, most of us will have some idea of what that means. What does it mean to bear fruit? Well, what does it say the fruit of the Spirit are? Galatians 5, 22, 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So all this means, what does it mean? The knowledge of this will being filled with so that we carry what carriage into our lives. What is meant to be produced in us, it is that we are to be made more like Jesus. You see that list of the fruit of the Spirit is simply to say, you're going to look like Jesus. What did Jesus look like? He looked like one who was filled with love and joy and peace and patience. He was gentle, he was self-controlled. He was that kind of person. You see, that is what we're constantly, we are being made into the image. You're being sculpted into this image of Jesus, not to look like Him in His appearance, but to look like Him in His character. Every single day, you're gonna constantly see yourself backsliding, falling back, taking two steps forward, one step back. You're gonna feel like it's all over the place, but inevitably you're being transformed from one degree of glory to the next, bit by bit, because that is what God does. And this must necessarily accompany the Christian life. We don't just get saved one day and then just sit in the pew for the next 50 years. We change. Each of you look more like Jesus each and every day. I can see it in your faces right now. None of you look that Jewish, but I have seen all of you grow. And so then we go on down now to our second one. which should pop up there, an increasing knowledge of God. It's just like he says, I wish that you would increase in the knowledge of God. Do I need to really labor this point? What is it? It means to know who God is and what He has done. Right. And this is very much tied to the bearing fruit because how are you meant to bear fruit? How are you meant to live a life which is pleasing to God unless you know what pleases Him and who He is? You need to know the person you're pleasing. You need to know your boss in order to be a good employee. So we need to know our Father in order to live a life that pleases Him. So this is connected here. Now we go on to the third one. Which He has called us to be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. Strengthen with God's might, as it says there. And so you see, all of these things are meant to be accompanying us. So as Christians, we are called to to fruit, to be made more like Jesus, to look like a mention every day, to aspire to that, to make our lives look more like Him rather than like our old life, rather than living in sin. And we also meant to be constantly seeking new knowledge, increasing in the knowledge of who God is in His Word, asking that the Spirit might fill us with that knowledge. And then he says this, that we might be strengthened with all might. And so now understand, so we strengthen with all power here. But he says, according to his glorious might, it says in verse 11. So he's not saying, go to the gym, bulk yourself up, get ready, know, really study the Bible and do it all yourself. He's saying, according to his glorious might. So where is your strength found? In God. So you see, what does that really mean? What does that actually physically look like? Understand that as a Christian, you're not gonna start feeling like you're actually getting stronger. you're actually gonna feel like you're getting weaker each and every time. Because what is happening is actually you are letting go of the things that make you feel strong. And instead, you are fully depending upon another person, upon God. So instead, when a problem arises, you're not saying they're saying, well, I've got money, I've got smarts, I've got connections. You're saying, no, my father has all that I need. So you're putting your trust in another person, but that makes us feel weak. So you will feel weak, but that doesn't mean you're not growing. It is inevitable testimony. Ask someone who's been a Christian for a while, do you feel more sinful or less sinful as you walk through the Christian life? More sinful. Inevitably it happens because your eyes are open more and more to how weak and how sinful we are. And so this is why, that we are strengthened with God's might. And then he says, for this purpose, for all endurance and patience with joy. So you're being filled with power, with God's power, with divine power, for what purpose? That you might endure. That you might endure with patience and joy. If you're enduring something, what does that mean? You're going through something. Better yet, there is something that opposes you. Better yet, someone. There is someone who stands, who finally sees that you are being filled with the knowledge of God's will, that there is a spirit within you and he does not like that. Can anyone guess who that might be? Satan, right? The devil, slap whatever name you want to call him, The one who opposes us. Because you see, we are pursuing the very things that our first parents did in Adam and Eve. If you notice, the first two things I said, can you bring the train back up again? That's all right, thanks. Bearing fruit and increasing in the knowledge of God. Now, that's really us. Notice that bearing and increasing. If it reminds you of anything from Genesis 1, be fruitful and multiply, right? And so you see in here, in this very moment, we are called to be unlike our first parents, unlike Adam and Eve, because what did they do? Instead of choosing the right way, instead of choosing to bear fruit, and increase in the knowledge of God, they chose the lives of the devil and for the rest of their lives, they bore fruit that the caden died. So now, because we have Christ, because we have what he's referred to as the second Adam and we are his children, we are seeking to go in the right way. Not to follow the lives of the devil now, but instead to go on in wisdom, which is to be fruitful and multiply in the knowledge of God and in the fruit of the spirit. And so we understand that just like Genesis, there is one with lies who opposes us, who is stronger than us, smarter than us. Adam and Eve had no sin, no temptation towards that way. They're inclined towards good, unlike us, and they still fell for it. Satan is incredibly smart, incredibly cunning and strong, and he has thousands of years experience in tripping us up. What hope do we have? One, you are being strengthened by God, and where do we find that strength? Again, I turn you back to His will, which is found in the Scriptures. What is the sword of the Spirit? The Word of God. That is what it says. It is the knowledge of this thing which gives us the power to fight against. And you're going to say, okay, but do we really fight against the devil? Is it really spiritual warfare? Some of you will understand that more than others. Simple things are how the devil fights us. It's not like because you're going to get demon possessed or something like that. It's literally... because you didn't wake up till, I don't know, 10 a.m. or something like that, you know? I don't know, I'm not, look, if you had a really long night, that's fine. But simple things like laziness, like gossip, like sexual morality, these are the simple and plain things in which he works through to take us away from God. It is the wise way to run away from those things. And so you see all these, all these, the carriage keep disappearing, the carriages up there, all of these are following us into eternal life. They are the things that shall accompany us in this Christian life that should continue to increase each and every day. Though we may not see it, know that it is. This is what the Spirit is doing. And we mustn't think that we can unhitch them because it will come easier. All of us will have this in some degree in our lives. That we are growing weaker because we have been strengthened by God. That we are bearing fruit becoming more like Christ and we are increasing in our knowledge of God. The Christian life is one of moving forward, not staying in the same place or moving backwards. Though it may happen in periods, it is one which is hopefully moving forward. And now we come to the final couple verses, 13 and 14. Sorry, 12 to 14. And so he says, oh, sorry, no. Yeah, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in life. He has 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. So why does a bunch of carriages need a train, an engine? Anyone got any ideas? Not a rhetorical question? So it can move. Right? Very helpful, isn't it? We kind of need the engine above everything else, right? Without the train engine, nothing goes nowhere. You can get around, you can get along without carriages, not in their Christian life, but again, the engine is the most important part. So here we are, right? Yeah, the engine and the fuel. We'll get onto the fuel in a second. So here, what are we giving thanks for in verse 12? We are giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, delivering us from the domain of darkness, transferring us into the kingdom of his Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So you see here, throughout the book of Colossians, there is a lot of allusions to the Old Testament. And here is one of them. You will notice words like inheritance, delivery, and redemption. Those are the stories of the Exodus. Those are what they take us back to. He has taken us out of the domain of darkness, this place in which we're enslaved to and taken us into a great and promised inheritance. That is what he did for the Israelites as he took them out of Egypt and brought them into the promised lands. They were saved with ten plagues and a flaming pillar of fire. What are we saved by? By being forgiven of our sins and brought back into relationship with God. That is what we are saved from. We are saved from sin, from slavery to it, because we have been forgiven of the punishment and freed from it by being brought back into relationship with God. And so you see, Here is our engine, the gospel. Jesus is the one that gives us everything we need to move forward in life. If you've got all the carriages, doesn't really matter if you're doing them apart from Him, from the gospel, from the cross upon which He died. If there is no place for that in our lives, nothing happens. Our life is one of constantly visiting that cross over and over again and being reminded of that truth. We can't bear fruit without Him. We can't know God without Him. We cannot be strengthened without Him and His cross. So we need Jesus. We need to find Him in this book. Seek Him out. The Bible has been defined as a book where no matter where you jump into, you can find a path that leads to a main road that leads to Christ. It can be found in every page of scripture, no matter where you go. If you want help figuring that out, come talk Anyway. And so you see, we need Jesus. But then this is the sad part now. So many people know the gospel, but yet it can seem like so few seem to grow. How can this be? Understand the gospel is very important, but the gospel is not the fuel. Now, here is the part in my illustration, which I thought was really, really cool, because I don't know anything really about trains, but I found this out and discovered this. Most steam trains back in the day, if they did long journeys, they had the engine, obviously. They had passenger carriages or whatever they're carrying. But then there was this other carriage that was attached to the back. It was called a tender. And what it had was all the coal and all the water that they used to make the steam. So it was the fuel carriage. It was the carriage without which everything, it's almost more important than the actual engine itself. It needs the fuel. And so what is that fuel? Thanksgiving, there we go. You see, the reality is many people know the gospel. They know the facts, the truths that make it up. But what is it that actually makes it go forward? It is thanksgiving for the Because you see, there are plenty of people, like I said, there are sin people, like I know Jesus died on the cross, know He died for my sins, but there is no thankfulness for it. There is no understanding of the preciousness of that because We are thankful for those things which are precious, which we hold dear and valuable. And so you see this tender, this fuel is our gratitude to God for what He has done. And so you see, this is often the reason, going back to the first point, of why we can be lackluster and just burying our minds and our hearts and our lives into this book is because we do not realize how precious it is. We do not realize, better yet, the one who has made it powerful, which is Christ's death on the cross. You realize the Spirit couldn't come unless Jesus died. We couldn't be forgiven unless He died. everything is wrapped up in the cross. Look at the price that it costs. A perfectly innocent man, the Son of God, crucified, shamed, mocked. So you see, we ought to be grateful for all that we have received. Be grateful every day that we are increasing in fruit, that we are growing in the knowledge of God, that we strengthened by Him. Be thankful that He has given us His Word and so treat it so. We cannot make it through this life if we do not have gratitude. That is why if I take you back to the third carriage, right? So be strengthened with all might for all endurance with patience and joy. We are joyful about what we endure. Plenty of people can endure things and be plain grumpy about it, all right? Be impatient about it. But we are called to patience and joy. Because without it, we go nowhere. That is what actually makes it possible to suffer. Because as Paul told us, There will be suffering in this life for all people who choose to be Christians. There is suffering. The only way you can make it through is by being grateful for what you have. And what is the one thing that can never be taken from you? The gospel. Christ, the cross. So, all of this. There has been like, frankly, this was a hard message for me to write because there's just like lots of stuff in that passage there. And I know that we kind of rushed through a lot of it. But you see, there is a purpose. and understanding this because this is a overview of the letter still. This introduction are things that Paul will continue to unpack later. So I've given us an overview. This train, we're gonna pull it apart. We're gonna see the different parts that make it up over the next couple weeks as we go through the rest of this letter. And so don't expect to have everything under wrap understanding. You're still gonna have questions most likely. But understand, all of us need every part of this train. We need the gospel, we need to be thankful for it, and we need to increase in every way in every one of those things. And so we need to be filled with the knowledge of God's will. And so one final thing. as we think and ponder about this train, as we seek to be built up, to have this train be made stronger, which is what we should seek to do. Remember, Paul did not write this letter to himself or to an individual. Who did he write it to? The church of Coliseum, which would have been a bunch of house churches in a geographical area, right? So he's not writing to one person. He is writing to a church community. And so his prayer, Remember, this is a prayer that he is praying right now for them, is that they would grow, grow in spiritual understanding and spiritual maturity, that they would know God more deeply. So what should that encourage us to do? If Paul's doing it, we should probably be doing it too. This is an encouragement to pray, not just that we would grow, but understand that we should be praying that each other might grow. Of all the things Paul could pray for, This is what he prayed for most for these Colossians. And understand, he has never been to this church, he doesn't know these people, but he is praying for them because he is desperate that God might be known in them, that they might know God. And so surely we should have a desperate desire for those around us, for those we know to know him as well. I would just ask when you're praying for the people in this church, put that in your list. Ask that they might increase in the knowledge of who God is, that they might know Him more deeply. And we should make this a part of our family, a part of our tradition of what we do for each other. It should not be something that's unknown to us. We are called to help each other grow into mature adulthood. We are helped, we need to help each other get to this in Ephesians 4.13. This was Paul's desire for us to pray until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Conversion is the start of the journey. We need the church to be able to make it the rest of the way. We need to be praying for each other that hour, whatever you wanna call it, but if it's your train, that your train would be strengthened, would be built up. All of us need to help each other build that train. All of us should be really, really excited and keen about building model trains in each other's lives. That's what we're doing for each other. So we'll wrap up now, and then I'll invite the worship team up for a final song. Father, we thank you, Lord, that you've given us your spirit. Lord, you have sent him down. that He might teach us all things. You have given us Your Son who has given us access to all that You are, to Your fullness. So Father, we pray that You might open the doors, that we might have access, that we might lean in, seek You with all our hearts, and that You might reveal Yourself and all spiritual wisdom and understanding that our lives may just result in praise and honor and glory to You as we bear fruit, as we increase in wisdom, and as we do all of it, strengthen with Your powerful mind. and with joy and gratitude in our hearts for all that you have done. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.