Walking In A Manner Worthy Of The Lord (Colossians 1:10)

 

Colossians 1:10

“so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;” (ESV).

Paul’s prayer for the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ at Colossae is that their knowledge of God’s will may have a Christ-centred impact on their conduct (v. 9). He is praying that the Holy Spirit may grant them all wisdom and understanding to enable them live a life whose goal is to fully please the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, simply put, a life lived in all spiritual wisdom and understanding is a Christ-centred life. In this verse, there are two questions we ought to grapple with as we seek to draw lessons for our spiritual encouragement: - 

1)     What is the MEANING of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord?

Similar expressions occur in passages like Ephesians 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 2:12, and Philippians 1:27. The key phrase in this verse is “worthy of the Lord” since it encapsulates the goal of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will. The word “worthy” is the Greek word axios, which is the root word for a weighing balance. A weighing scale/balance is used to match the value of two items on either side of the pivot. In a similar manner, the word “worthy” can be rendered to mean assigning a matching/corresponding/equal value or worth. Therefore, when John the Baptist says concerning Christ Jesus that, “he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie”, he is saying in other terms that “I am not Jesus’ match” (John 1:27). In Romans 16:1-2, the Apostle Paul commends Phoebe to the saints in Rome, urging them to “welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints.” The Apostle is in other terms urging them to welcome her in the Lord in a manner befitting or commensurate with her status amongst them as a saint. The emphasis in all these occurrences of the word is the “correspondence.” Therefore, with the same import, we can say that “walking in a manner worthy of the Lord” means living a life that faithfully corresponds with or reflects or mirrors the true value, worth, honour and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in both His Person and Work. It is a life that faithfully reflects the sufficiency & supremacy of Christ Jesus in your life. It is a life that reflects the efficacy of His work of atonement in your life. It is a life that reflects the pre-eminence and prevenience of Christ in all things. It is a life whose motto is: “Christ is all and in all.” Such a life, the Apostle prays, can only be demonstrated by the help of the Spirit who grants the saints all wisdom and understanding (v. 9). Such a life is necessary since our conduct both among the unbelievers and within the believing community is a reflection of or witness to what we believe about Christ Jesus, who He is to us, and what He has accomplished in us and for us. We are the mirror of Christ in a sinful and unbelieving world. We are the mirror of Christ at home, work, and in the church. We therefore, have a solemn duty reflect Christ faithfully. We have a duty not to distort, or dim, or blur the glory of the Person and Work of Christ in the world by the way we conduct ourselves but to unleash its full glare among all people. That such as life fully pleases him emphasises the fact that the Lord Jesus is both the focus and motivation of the Christian life. It is a life that redirects and deflects the glory to whom glory and honour and worth is due—the Lord Jesus Christ.

2)     What are the practical MARKS that you are walking in a manner worthy of the Lord?

a.      Bearing fruit in every good work.

In verse 6, the Apostle acknowledges that the gospel that came to Colossae through Epaphras’ ministry is already bearing fruit and increasing among the Colossian saints. And one of the marks of this fruit is love in the Spirit for all the saints (vv. 4,8). So, Paul is now praying for increased productivity of the gospel among these saints on a wider scale. That is, “in every good work”—both spiritual and material. In other passages like Ephesians 2:10 and Titus 2:14, the Apostle draws the connection between salvation and good works. His emphasis is that the effect of the gospel in one’s life is practical Christian living. He contends in Ephesians 2:8-10 that we are saved, not as a result of our own works, but by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and that this isn’t our own doing but rather, it is the gift of God so that no one may boast. But then he goes on in verse 10 to draw the connection between this “by grace alone” salvation and “good works” when he says that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. A similar connection is seen in Titus 2:11-14 when Paul says in verse 14 that “Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” The point being made in these passages is that we are saved to walk in a specific path carved out beforehand for us by God—a path leading to glory. What is entailed in walking in this path is doing good works that God has prepared for us beforehand to accomplish. When this happens, the Lord Christ Jesus who saved us is fully pleased. The Apostle renders the phrase “bearing fruit” in continuous tense to emphasise that we are to produce the fruit of the gospel throughout—in and out of the season. This differentiates us from the natural trees like mangoes and oranges that are seasonal in bearing fruit. The Lord Himself says the same thing about the need to bear fruit in John 15:1-8. At least three things are emphasised in this discourse (1) Increased productivity necessitates pruning (v. 2); (2) Fruitfulness necessitates remaining/abiding in Christ (vv. 4-6); and (3) Fruitfulness glorifies God the Father who is the vinedresser/gardener (v. 8).  We ought to remember that fruit-bearing to which we are called is a direct result of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (Colossians 1:9). The Colossian saints are already manifesting the fruit that binds everything together in perfect harmony—love for all the saints. The Apostle is now praying for them to manifest the fruit in all its facets (see Galatians 5:22-23). One of the most fascinating things about the fruit of the Spirit is their interdependence. For instance, patience isn’t devoid of love and love isn’t devoid of kindness etc. The Apostle teaches us to understand that we please the Lord when we are fruitful and not when we are spiritually barren.

b.      Increasing in the knowledge of God.

Another mark of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord is growing in the knowledge of God. The phrase “increasing in” implies that there is some knowledge of God that the Colossians already have that led to their salvation, having been taught by Epaphras (v. 7). Our salvation marks the beginning of a life-long journey of discipleship that never leads to graduation. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, who was entrusted with great mysteries of Christ (see for example Ephesians 3:1-6), says elsewhere that he wants to “know him [Christ Jesus] and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). He doesn’t want to graduate from God’s school of theology although he is a graduate of the infamous Gamalelian seminary. It is this very continuous growth in learning that the Apostle Peter calls his readers' attention to when he tells them to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). The phrase “knowledge of God” lays emphasis on the course outline of the study—God. It is this very understanding that shaped the minds of the drafters of the Historic Confessions of Faith like the Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession when writing the early chapters of these documents. They all begin with God and His Word at the prologue of these documents. They knew exactly from where to begin—theology. The rest of the chapters explicate the application of theology in all realms of life. All other doctrines—the doctrine of man, salvation, creation, etc., all make sense only when we truly know who God is. For instance, it is until the prophet Isaiah beholds the ineffable holiness of God that he understands who he is, relative to God—a sinner whose sins must be atoned for (Isaiah 6:1-7). This means that you should seek to attend a church where the knowledge of God is the focus of preaching and teaching; a church where men’s and women’s fellowships and small study groups are imbued with the knowledge of God; a church where children are nurtured in the knowledge God; a church where singing is God-centred. Motivational speaking on the other hand, works well in the setup of “Summits” such as the one that was held by T.D. Jakes in Kenya last year, 2019 where you were to part with KES 75,000 to attend. A church is a community of believers seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God; a community of saints who daily set their minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (Col. 3:1-4). It also means that both at an individual and family level, you should aim at growing in the knowledge of God above everything else. Growth in the knowledge of God is organic rather than static. It is like a freshwater lake with both inlets and outlets. The inlets bring in wanted knowledge while the outlets remove the unwanted knowledge. We grow in the knowledge of God both by learning and unlearning. This growth is both quantitative and qualitative. It is a growth in both depth and breadth. For example, at conversion, we learn the simple truth that we are saved because of the love of God (John 3:16). But as we grow in our knowledge of God, we begin to comprehend that this love also entails fatherly discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11). In this case, the depth of our knowledge of God’s love has increased. At the same time, we broaden our knowledge of God by studying His other attributes such as His holiness. All these require diligence in appropriating the means of grace such as God’s word and at the same time experiencing God’s power in our lives daily as we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God. Job, towards the end of the Book, exclaims, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). This is the cry of someone whose knowledge of God’s sovereignty has tremendously grown—both in terms of what He knows about God and what he has experienced about God in his own personal life.