Silent Prayer
Colossians 1:9b-12
A little boy said, “Daddy, Daddy, I want to get married!” to which his dad replied, “In order to get married you have to find a girl.” The little boy said, “I’ve found the girl I want to marry.” The dad asked who it was that his little boy wanted to marry. A big smile came across his face and he proudly said, “I’m going to marry grandma.” “Let me get this straight,you want to marry my mother? You can’t do that.” to which the boy replied, “Well, why not? You married mine!” Love the innocence of a child. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms and “grandmoms” out there.
Here’s a little more Mother’s Day Humor just for fun.
A police recruit was asked during the exam, ‘What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?’ He answered, ‘Call for backup.’
A child came home from his first day at school and his mother asked ‘What did you learn today?’ The kid replied, ‘Not enough. I have to go back tomorrow.’
Here is a light-hearted presentation of what we all think about our moms, at different points of our lives.
4 Years Of Age – My Mommy can do anything;
8 Years Of Age – My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot
12 Years Of Age -My Mother doesn’t really know quite everything.
14 Years Of Age -Naturally, Mother doesn’t know that, either
16 Years Of Age -Mother? She’s hopelessly old-fashioned
18 Years Of Age -That old woman? She’s way out of date
25 Years Of Age -Well, she might know a little bit about it
35 Years Of Age -Before we decide, let’s get Mom’s opinion
45 Years Of Age -Wonder what Mom would have thought about it
65 Years Of Age -Wish, I could talk it over with Mom
To those of you whose moms have passed away this past year, may God bring you special comfort today.
Colossians 1:9-12 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Have you ever heard of Pastor E.V. (Ed) Hill? E.V Hill pastored the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles for 42 years. He tells the story of how his “Mama’s” love and prayers changed his life. During the height of the Depression, Hill’s real mother, who had five children of her own, didn’t have enough food to go around, so she sent four-year-old Ed to live with a friend in a small country town called Sweet Home. Ed just called her Mama. As he was growing up in Sweet Home, Mama displayed remarkable faith which led her to have big plans for young Ed. Against nearly insurmountable obstacles, Mama helped Ed graduate from high school (the only student to graduate that year from the country school) and even insisted that he go to college.
She took Ed to the bus station, handed him the ticket and five dollars and said, “Now, go off to Prairie View College, and Mama is going to be praying for you.” Hill claims that he didn’t know much about prayer, but he knew Mama did. When he arrived at the college with a dollar and ninety cents in his pocket, they told him he needed eighty dollars in cash in order to register. Here’s how Hill describes what happened next:
I got in line …, and the devil said to get out of line …, but I heard my Mama saying in my ear, “I’ll be praying for you.” I stood in line on Mama’s prayer. Soon there was [another new student ahead of me], and I began to get nervous, but I stayed in line …. Just about the time [the other student] got all of her stuff and turned away, Dr. Drew touched me on the shoulder, and he said, “Are you Ed Hill?” I said, “Yes.” “Are you Ed Hill from Sweet Home?” “Yes.” “Have you paid yet?” “Not quite.” “We’ve been looking for you all this morning,” [he said]. I said, “Well, what do [you] want with me?” “We have a four-year scholarship that will pay your room and board, your tuition, and give you thirty dollars a month to spend.” And I heard Mama say, “I will be praying for you!”
Never underestimate the power of a praying mother or praying father, a praying grandmother or grandfather. Never underestimate the power of the prayer of a righteous person. James 5:16 tells us the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. As I wrestled with what to share with you this Mother’s Day morning, I thought about myself as a mother. I thought about the things I am praying for my own kids. I thought it would encourage us all to look at a prayer in Scripture that could become a good model for us as we pray for our children and as we pray for ourselves.
Colossians 1:9-12 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Silent Prayer
When I read this prayer, I hear Paul saying, “I want you to live full and fruitful.” This is a prayer for abundant life. Look again at verse 9: For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Moms and dads, let’s pray that our kids live Full, and I don’t mean full of themselves. Just making sure we are all clear. 🙂 Paul prayed that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through spiritual wisdom and understanding. Knowing and doing the will of God will lead you to be Strong in Purpose. People who pursue and live out the will of God are the ones who will live the most full and purposeful life. We all have a need, even non-Christians, we all have a need to know why we are here. We need to know why we were created. We need to know what difference we are called to make in this life. Only in a relationship with God can a person know and understand their true purpose for life.
As we raise our kids, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the development of intellectual intelligence. Exposing our kids to the right things early is supposed to help their brains develop and prepare them for intellectual greatness. I remember when Hannah was born all of the Baby Einstein products were the rage. In 2001 the company came out with lots of classical music DVD’s for babies, flash cards, and toys that were supposed to make your baby a genius by the time they were three. We bought it all. Did it work, Hannah? 🙂
We also invest a lot of time and effort into making sure our kids develop their athletic or musical or other creative prowess. We pray they make the team, we pray they get the solo, we pray they excel and stand out and are competitive, but how often are we praying they will be filled with spiritual knowledge and be able to discern and do the will of God?
First of all, it is God’s will that everyone should be saved. That is the baseline, the starting point for walking in our God-given purpose. After that, we need to pray that our children discover the purpose for which God created them.
Walter Knight told of an old Scottish woman who went from home to home across the countryside selling thread, buttons, and shoestrings. When she came to an unmarked crossroad, she would toss a stick into the air and go in the direction the stick pointed when it landed. One day, however, she was seen tossing the stick up several times. “Why do you toss the stick more than once?” someone asked. “Because,” replied the woman, “it keeps pointing to the left, and I want to take the road on the right.” She then dutifully kept throwing the stick into the air until it pointed the way she wanted to go! (Today in the Word, May, 1989.) Sadly, that is how many people pursue the will of God. They keep asking God to reveal His will until they think what they see or know or hear lines up with what they want. That isn’t how God’s will works.
There is a prerequisite for knowing the will of God; and it’s this – being willing to do it … God does not say to you, “I’ll show you my will and then I’d like you to decide if you’d like to do it.” He does not reveal His will so that you can speculate on it, so that you can mull it over, or so you can ask your friends on social media what they think about it. God reveals His will to people who are committed to do it no matter what it is. (Bob Orr)
Strong in Power (Holy Spirit)
Colossians 1:11 speaks about being strengthened with all power. I want my kids to know they can be filled with power to overcome temptation. They can be filled with power to stand up for what is right. They can be filled with power to be courageous in any situation. They can be filled with power to be witnesses for Christ. They can be filled with power to learn something new, conquer any challenge, and go wherever God leads.
I want my children to be saved, but I also want them to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that they can be filled with God’s power and live victoriously every day. This concept of Holy Spirit power can be difficult to understanding because when we hear the word “power” our minds go to the earthly understanding of power. The world’s idea of power has this idea of controlling people and circumstances for your own advantage. The world’s idea of power is about self-sufficiency and independence without a need for help from anyone else, including God.
Worldly power is all about the person seeking power. Holy Spirit power is all about experiencing God’s power so that the things of the world, including our selfish ways, our removed and we are remade into the image of Jesus Christ. It isn’t power to do what we want, but it is power to become what God wants! It is power to do what God asks.
When you pray for the power of the Holy Spirit, you are praying to be torn apart and remade. You are praying not for power to manipulate others, but for power to yield yourself completely to God. You are praying for power to get out of the way and to let go of your agenda. You are praying for an ability to empty yourself so that you can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God! (Ephesians 3:19) You don’t become powerful when you are filled with the Spirit. You become nothing so that the immeasurable and incomprehensible power of God has full control of you and can flow without limitation through you in miraculous ways. A Holy Spirit infilling simply makes you a conduit for God’s power to flow to others around you. So, pray not that your kids become powerful, but that they become weak and desire to simply be channels for the power of God to fill them, change them, and flow through them. I want my kids to have Holy Spirit power not to conquer the world but to conquer themselves and to change the world for Christ.
Pray that your children have a desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to seek His power because to be filled with the world’s power is to seek self and to self-destructive. To seek the Spirit’s power is to seek to be made new and to be used of God.
Verse 10 of Paul’s prayer talks about living a fruitful life: And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work,
So, in addition to praying that your kids will live a full life, pray they will live a fruitful one. Pray they will take initiative, work hard, develop their skills and excel in their vocation, but also pray for them to understand that their highest goal, their highest aim should be to produce fruit for the Kingdom of God. You see, we aren’t meant to simply be filled up with the knowledge of God and the power of God for ourselves, but we are to be filled so that we can become Fruitful.
God desires that we become fruitful both in our doing and in our being, both in our works and in our character. What we do and who we are will both speak to others about who God is if we have been filled up with Him. Let’s talk first about being Strong in Doing (works).
Ephesians 2:10 tells us we have been created anew in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. Notice what Acts 10:38 says, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”
Can you see the order of events here? Jesus got full and then He became fruitful. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power (got full) and then He went around doing good. Specifically stated here is the fact that He went around undoing the work of the devil. In other words, His good works had devil-destroying power. We are to be like Him.
I don’t just want my kids to be good people. I want them to do good things. I know a lot of moral people that live clean lives. They are responsible. They take care of business. They are polite. They achieve success. But in many of those instances, I don’t see their goodness benefiting people other than themselves.
Christianity isn’t merely about believing, but it is about becoming. It isn’t simply about faith, but it is about action. What we do shows who we really are and what we believe. Our actions back up our beliefs.
Luke 10:25-37 recounts the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10:25-37 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Notice that Jesus said that loving God and loving your neighbor are the way to life. Isn’t that interesting? He said, “Do this, and you will live.” Loving God=Getting Full. Loving Your Neighbor=Becoming Fruitful. Getting full and becoming fruitful is the key to experiencing your best possible life because you were made to do good works. When you aren’t doing those good works in Jesus’ name, you aren’t living out your whole purpose, and without executing your whole purpose you will only be living a half life at best.
Both the priest and the Levite passed the wounded man by. The good works we are called to do can’t happen when we pass on the opportunity to do them. People who are seeking to be used of God don’t walk by opportunities to care for the wounded. People who want to be fruitful don’t mind an alteration in their schedule. People who want to be used of God are willing to share their resources. People who want to produce fruit are willing to go back and check on the situation. They aren’t content to just move on. They follow up. They go the extra mile and walk it back again.
I pray my kids are “extra mile” people. I pray they are Good-works people. People matter to God, and they ought to matter to us. Fruitfulness for us will mean that we value people more than anything. It will mean that we have compassion on and care for those who are in situations where they can’t care for themselves. That wounded man had been left for dead. He could not help himself. I’m not talking about enabling people or taking care of people when they can and should be doing their part. I’m talking about being willing to be used of God to meet needs when people don’t have it in and of themselves to do it.
Here’s the truth: Unbelievers don’t know how to find Jesus. They don’t have a clue. It’s easy to sit back and criticize people who live broken lives, but we live in a day and time when people have grown up not knowing or understanding who Jesus is. They don’t know what it means to have a relationship with Christ, let alone a church family. They don’t have the tools of prayer and Bible reading to keep them steady. They don’t have a church family to encourage them and teach them. Walking by faith is completely foreign to them. They don’t have an awareness that you can live for things that are eternal instead of just living for things that are here and now. They don’t know they can live everyday in a relationship with the God who created them and will never leave their side. They are the walking wounded and the spiritually dead. They don’t know…
There are too many obstacles in their way. There is too much darkness in our world. We cannot just leave them for dead. We must put a spiritual breathing mask on them before it is too late. We cannot expect them to know how to take the first step. But we can show them the love of Jesus through our good works and in so doing gain the opportunity to tell folks about how they can walk with Jesus. Let’s become strong in the area of good works, strong in our doing.
Finally, I see that we are to bear fruit in our being through our endurance and patience, through our attitudes and character. (PLEASE SHOW NEXT SLIDE NOW)
Strong in Being (endurance and patience)
Verses 11 and 12 again: that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father…
The world needs the witness of Christians who won’t give up on God when life is tough. They need to see the heart of a Christian warrior who will pray without ceasing. They need to see believers who will live with fortitude and patience, people who exhibit joy even in the midst of adversity.
Let’s pray that our kids will run the race with endurance. Let’s pray they will rise to meet challenges and develop the attitude that they will keep pressing on. Let’s ask God to allow a spirit of joy to fall over the now and emerging generation so that they can put people and pain in perspective and work through life with emotional health.
Our attitude can do as much to woo and win people to Christ as our actions and if it isn’t right, our attitude can make our actions appear to be a mere show and will become a turnoff to the world. Pray that our kids develop an inner character that reflects the depth of their faith. Let’s pray our kids walk in faith and not in fear, in peace and patience and not in impulsiveness which will lead to heartache.
Let’s pray our kids’ lives will be full and fruitful. Let’s ask God to help them know and do His will, to fill them with His Holy Spirit and power and to do good works and exhibit righteous character.
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