Living the Jesus Life

Colossians 1:9-14

When Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, he named the inhabitants of the land “Indians.” He called them Indians because thought he had reached what Europeans of the time referred to as “the Indies” – China, Japan, and India. He was, in fact, nowhere close to South Asia. Or East Asia. Or any part of Asia. Between his homeland and Asia were vast regions of land, unexplored and uncharted, by Europeans and Africans. They were of course very well known by the people who already lived here. But the problem Columbus had was that he assumed the world was smaller than it was.

Have we made a similar mistake with regard to Jesus? Are there vast areas of who he is, according to biblical revelation, that are unexplored? Are we unintentionally reducing him to manageable, predictable proportions? Are we looking at a junior varsity, decaffeinated, one-dimensional Jesus of our own making, thinking we’re looking at the real Jesus? Are we snorkeling in the shallows, thinking we’ve now hit bottom in the Pacific?[i]

If we’re going to follow Jesus … if we’re going to live the Jesus life … we’re going to have to get to know him as he is … as he is revealed in the pages of scripture. Not as we would have him be. Or think him to be. And that Jesus … the real Jesus … is going to challenge each and every one of us. He’s going to question our assumptions and our preconceived notions about the way life is supposed to be, regardless of what those notions might be. Because living the Jesus life is the opposite of normal human life, even good human life, in all cultures, in all places, in all times, and from all perspectives. We do not naturally lean toward living the Jesus life. None of us do.

In Colossians 1, Paul and Timothy tell the Jesus followers in Colossae that they are praying for them. And because they were praying for them, they are praying for us too. And the content of their prayer is important, because their prayer is that the Jesus followers in Colossae, and we, will grow in living the Jesus life. Take out your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians 1:9-14.

So what are Paul and Timothy praying for the Colossians, and us? Look V. 9. The first thing Paul and Timothy are praying us is knowledge of God’s will. When I pray “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” I commit myself to seeking God’s will in my life.

They pray that we will be “filled with the knowledge of his will …” But they aren’t talking about a specific will for our lives. They’re talking about the great, divine narrative of redemption, from the creation to eternity in the Kingdom of God. And they aren’t talking about an intellectual knowledge here. They’re talking about an experiential, relational knowledge of God and his will that leads to a transformation of the way we live.

The knowledge they’re talking about here is a deepening awareness of who God is and of what God has done for us in Christ and how that works itself out in our lives. He speaks to us, revealing himself to us, through his Word. As we hear, and read, and study, and meditate on the Word of God, the Holy Spirit opens our ears to hear, opens our eyes to see, and opens our hearts to receive the Word of God and we grow in our knowledge of God.

God knows us. He knows us whether we realize it or not. He knows everything about us. But God also wants us to know him. One of the things that happens when we place our faith in Christ is that God gives us the ability to know him, to see him more clearly. He longs for us to grow in our depth of knowledge about him and what his will demands of us in daily life.

In early October of 1996, I met Becky. Nine months later when I asked her to marry me, I knew her. A year after that, on June 13, 1998 when we were married, I knew her even more. Today, 28 years later, I really know her. But I don’t know her as well as those of you who have been married for 40 or 50 years know your spouse. It is a knowledge that deepens over time and with experience. And on the day when one of us says goodbye to the other neither of us will have completely plumbed the depths of the other. There will always be more to know. And we are finite human beings. How much more is that true of our infinite God?

But they don’t just want us to have knowledge, even relational knowledge, intimate knowledge, of God and his will for his creation. They want us to have wisdom and understanding too. It’s been said that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. And wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. But it goes great in a vegetable salad! By that definition, wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge well.

But in the first century Jewish mind, wisdom was way more than that. For them, wisdom is learning how to live in God’s world in God’s way. And both wisdom and real knowledge are grounded in reverence and respect for God. Proverbs 1:7 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” And Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Wisdom is born out of a reverential receptivity in our hearts and minds and wills to knowledge of God. It means we cultivate hearts and minds that are malleable in the hands of God.

And understanding here is an interesting word, because it means more than just to understand something. You see, there is a word in the original Greek that the translators chose, for whatever reason, to not bring into English at all. It’s the word, “Pneumatikos.” It’s root is the word “pneuma,” the Greek word for spirit. Both our spirit, and, when you add the word “holy” to it, the Holy Spirit.

They are talking specifically about SPIRITUAL understanding, and that is something EMPOWERED BY the Holy Spirit. It isn’t a secret understanding. It’s simply a Holy Spirit empowered understanding of the character and will of God, of who Jesus is, deep in our spirits.

And Paul and Timothy don’t just pray that we’ll have this knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. They pray that we’ll be FILLED with it. That it will occupy every cell and fiber of our being. That it will impact every synapse and neuron, every vein and artery. That God’s redemption that was unleashed in Christ will fill us completely and spill out everywhere.

But Paul doesn’t stop with just our being filled with knowledge of God, even if that knowledge is relational and experiential. Knowing God has a purpose. Look at V. 10. Paul wants us to have not just knowledge of God and his will but the strength to do it.

Jesus asked his disciples “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). What good is knowledge about God, even experiential, relational knowledge of God, if it doesn’t change the way we live? What good is truth if we don’t put it into practice?

Paul wants us to have not just knowledge of God’s will but the power to do God’s will, and he understands that the power itself comes from God. “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might …” He didn’t say “may God strengthen you according to your strength” or “as much as you can handle.” He said “according to his glorious might.”

To live the Jesus life we need a power beyond our own human resources. Not our just our own strength. Not just our own best effort. The limitless, unparalleled strength of God. To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to live in a way that pleases God, to bear fruit in every good work and to grow consistently in our knowledge of God, that isn’t something we can do on our own, no matter how good we are! Look at V. 11.

God’s strength shows up for us in three ways here. Three ways that enable us to live the Jesus life. The first is patient endurance, the ability to hold up under any difficult circumstance, AND the ability to deal with difficult people. Patient endurance is more than just the ability to withstand difficulty. It’s the ability to glorify God in difficulty.

You see, endurance contains within it the idea of contentment. You probably don’t even have to flip back a page in your Bible to see Paul’s own experience with endurance. Back in Philippians 4:11 he says “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” We often take that last line out of context. It isn’t a promise to a 110 lb. skinny kid trying to make the football team. What Paul really means is “I can face any situation, any circumstance, good or bad, through him who strengthens me.”

The second way God’s strength shows up for us is joy. The Greek word for joy is “chara.” The Greek word for grace is “charis.” One flows from the other. God’s grace brings joy. Unlike happiness, which depends on happenings, or elation, or exuberance, joy is not an emotion. I have often defined joy as “the quiet confidence that God is in control.”

In the New Testament, joy is consistently linked with hardship, with suffering, with deep pain. It isn’t a surface smile. It isn’t happiness in the face of pain. It is simply the knowledge that I am known by God, loved by God, and in his hands, regardless of what I face. Paul and Timothy’s prayer is “Lord, give them endurance to stand under any circumstance, give them patience with every person, and give them the joy that no person, no circumstance, nothing in all of creation can steal from them.”

The third way God’s strength shows up for us is in gratitude. Look at V. 12. One of the things I encourage my counseling clients who are dealing with depression to do is keep a gratitude journal. Most of them don’t do it. They look at my like I’m crazy. They want some big, dramatic intervention. But often, the most impactful things we can do are small things. Simple things. That make a big difference. Like instead of focusing on what you don’t have, remember what you DO have.

Isn’t that what Jesus tells us to do? “Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matt. 6:28-29).

Author and blogger Chris Winfield shares his thoughts on gratitude:

“Why did this have to happen to me?” It didn’t matter if it was something big (my dog gets cancer, good friend dies) or something little (flight is delayed, spilled something on my shirt). I was in a constant state of “poor me.” This all started to change once I began writing a gratitude list every single day for the past 34+ months and it has changed my life profoundly. Here are the 4 most important things I’ve learned on my gratitude journey:

1. It’s Hard at First: My mentor told me to text him three things that I am grateful for every day. Sounds pretty easy right? Well, it wasn’t. When you’ve lived most of your life not focusing on gratitude, it’s not so simple to change that.

2. There Is Always Something to Be Grateful For: No matter what was going on in my life (business problems, I was sick, someone cut me off in traffic) there was always something that I could find to be grateful for (my health, my daughter’s smile, etc.).

3. Gratitude Grows the More You Use It: My gratitude lists started off very basic and I struggled to find things to be grateful for (especially on the really tough days). But once I consistently took action, it became easier and easier.

4. It Can Help Stop Negative Thought Patterns: According to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, the average person has about 70,000 thoughts each day! There’s one big problem with this — the vast majority of these thoughts are negative. Gratitude can work to stop these negative thought patterns by replacing it with something positive.[ii]

The problem with most people today who try to start keeping a gratitude journal is that they aren’t sure who they’re being grateful for. Even if they call themselves spiritual and have some kind of concept of God in their minds, they don’t know God, either in their minds or in their hearts. But those who follow Christ, those of us who are seeking to live the Jesus life, do. The Jesus life in us that Paul and Timothy have described, and for which they pray, is empowered by God.

Look at Vv. 13-14. God alone has qualified us to be his children, has delivered us from a world of darkness and has transferred us into his kingdom of light. We do not, cannot qualify ourselves. That is God’s work. It is God who qualifies, it is God who delivers, it is God who redeems us in Christ. It is we who are qualified, delivered, and redeemed.

But that doesn’t mean we are passive. For we actively seek to be filled with the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of God, and we ask God for his strength – given to us in patient endurance, joy, and gratitude – to live the Jesus life.

[i] Dane Ortlund, Deeper, (Crossway, 2021), p. 23

[ii] Chris Winfield, “13 Things I’ve Learned Writing 1,024 Gratitude Lists,” Chris Winfield Blog (1-24-15)