Introduction: After addressing salvation (Colossians 3:1-4), separation (Colossians 3:5-8), sanctification (Colossians 3:9-15), and saturation (Colossians 3:16-17), he then made several specific applications. Those applications are the duties for wives to submit to their husbands (Colossians 3:18), for husbands to love their wives without bitterness (Colossians 3:19), for children to obey their parents in all things (Colossians 3:20), for fathers to refrain from provoking their children (Colossians 3:21), for servants to obey their masters in singleness of heart (Colossians 3:22-25), and for masters to treat their servants justly as fellow humans (Colossians 4:1).
The devil does not want you to fulfil any of these responsibilities and duties. He will do all in his power to keep you from obeying God in these areas. Knowing this, the Holy Spirit had Paul turn his attention to instruction.
Transition: To help us flesh out these applications, his first instruction deals with the absolute necessity of prayer and precaution, particularly regarding your responsibilities and duties just listed.
1. Prayer: Continue in Prayer.
a. This is a command to pray.
1) Prayer is not an option in the Christian life; it is a necessity. Here we find that it is literally a command from God.
a) Prayer is a vital part of communion with God. God wants your fellowship. He created you with the ability to think, reason, and communicate with Him. No relationship can thrive without communication. For this reason, Jesus made prayer a priority. (Mark 1:35) “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.“
b) One of the ways that we can express our love for God is through prayer.
c) In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we are commanded, “Pray without ceasing.“
d) Through prayer, you can talk to the Author of the Bible to help you understand what He said. (1 Corinthians 2:14) “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.“
e) In prayer, we can cast our burdens on the Lord. (1 Peter 5:7) “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.“
f) Through prayer, we receive answers from God. (James 4:2) “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.“
g) Prayer is your hotline to God in time of need. When Peter was sinking in the sea, he prayed, “Lord, save me.”
2) In the context of this book, this command to pray likely anticipates our overwhelming feelings of doubt and fear as we consider our Christian duties. Husbands do struggle to love without bitterness. Wives do struggle to submit as it is fit in the Lord. Children do struggle to obey their parents. Servants and masters do struggle to fulfil their roles as God commands. For these reasons, we MUST pray! God alone can give us victory. He alone can enable us to do what our flesh resists.
b. We are to continue in prayer.
1) Literally, it states, “In prayer, steadfastly continue.”
2) We are to adhere devotedly to prayer. We are to remain at it. We are to be steadfast and faithful in prayer.
3) Do you get the idea here that God knows we will struggle to pray like we ought and depend on Him for the grace we need? I do! Prayer is one area of my Christian walk that I never feel is all that it could be or should be.
4) When I was in Bible College, I remember a preacher saying, “Prayer can do anything God can do.” When we are weak, He is strong! He is waiting for us to ask for help. Remember the words spoken to King Asa? (2 Chronicles 16:9) “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. …“
Not only do we have a necessity to pray; we also have a necessity to be precautious.
2. Precaution: Watch in the same with Thanksgiving.
a. To watch is to be precautious.
1) The particular word used here focuses on attention, mindfulness, caution, and alertness rather than on just staying awake. Watching is cautiously standing guard.
2) We must be precautious because the devil is always trying to catch us off guard.
3) A web article gives this thoughtful comment. “The reason Satan is so effective at influencing humans to sin is that humans are generally unsuspecting of Satan’s attacks.
a) Those attacks come from an invisible enemy who seems to be nonexistent.
b) Those attacks are subtle and come in the form of ideas, impulses, suggestions, and moods …
1) God warns us to watch as we pray. We find the words “watch” and “pray” together seven times in the N.T. These two duties go together. Answering prayer is God’s part; watching for the enemy and crying for help is our part.
2) The night before His crucifixion, Jesus charged His disciples to, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41).
3) Any time that I go on a bush walk, I am very precautious. I watch constantly for snakes. My eyes are always searching the path ahead for anything that may resemble a snake. If we watched that cautiously for the devil’s baited hooks, we would avoid many falls. We would not struggle nearly as much with our duties if we watched more cautiously for the devil’s lures.
c. We are to include thanksgiving in our prayers.
1) If you are like me, you do not praise God nearly as much as you petition Him. We could learn a valuable lesson from old Daniel in Babylon. (Daniel 6:10) “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.“
2) When we pray, God wants us to be thankful.
a) Thankful for His willingness to hear us.
b) Thankful that we are not left to live the Christian life and to defeat the devil on our own.
c) Thankful for His grace to enable us to do our duties. With God’s help, we can be obedient, and we can be victorious.
d) Thankful that God will protect us and deliver us from Satan if we depend on Him.
3) We find a similar challenge in Philippians 4:6, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.“
Conclusion: Have you been praying for God’s grace to fulfil your duties? Have you been watching by taking the necessary precautions so that the devil does not trip you up in your duties? Have you been as thankful as God wants you to be? If your answer to any of these questions is “No”, then why not ask God right not to forgive you and to help you make the needed changes.
