Colossians: Running on Empty
Pastor Fletcher preaches about spiritual fullness from Colossians 1:9-14 [read for us in Korean]. Discussion points: Using worldly solutions for spiritual problems will keep us running on empty spiritually, bearing spiritual fruit and increasing in knowledge are signs of spiritual fullness, Jesus transferred us into his kingdom through his own death and resurrection.
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Scripture reader: Good morning church. So our scripture reading today is taken from Colossians chapter 1 verse 9 to 14. I will be reading from the Korean version and you can follow along in the English version. When I finish reading, I will say this is the word of the Lord and we will all finish by saying thanks be to God.
And so, from the day we heard, we 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, 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; 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 to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Has anybody ever come into church, and just feel like you are running on E. And I'm not talking about your gas tanks. Although the price of gas is, the price of gas, undoubtedly a few of you are running on e there too. But Do you ever just feel spiritually empty, like you don't have anything left to give? And where is it even gonna come from? How, why does it matter? I wonder how many of us this morning are feeling like we are barely holding it together. Like we're exhausted Like we're running on empty.
Why? Why are we spiritually exhausted? Why are we on empty? Why do we lose our patience so quickly? Why do we feel so spiritually dry? Why does our Christianity feel so forced at times? The typical spiritual advice to these sorts of questions, you, you know, it doesn't use such words. There's usually more to it than this, but when you boil it down, it is the equivalent of saying, try harder. If you're feeling spiritually dry, the answer is to try harder, do more. But that's kind of like telling someone in the middle of a marathon to run more. It's just like, how are you going to complete. This process, when you're in the middle of the process, what, what do you mean try harder? I'm giving it my best. And I'm telling you, I feel like I'm on empty.
Does anybody resonate? There has to be another way. We're in the middle, second week, middle in a sense of our series on Paul's letter to the Colossians. And in this passage, we see pray Paul pray for the Church of Colossae, and what does he pray for? What does he pray for the very beginning? He prays simply that the people of Colossae might be filled in a spiritual manner. That they might be filled with the supernatural spiritual knowledge of God. You see, he wants to give us. This divine prayer that we can carry into our days, that we don't have to run on empty, but that we can be filled with the fullness of God. He wants us to experience the strength of the power of God, because our empty souls need to be filled with the fullness of God. Our empty souls were created to be filled with the fullness of God.
The point of Christianity isn't merely to believe some ideas about who God is, but the point of Christianity, is to actually commune with the God of the universe. The point of Christianity is to have spiritual fullness. Our empty souls need to be filled with the fullness of God. Amen. Three points today. First, The spiritual fullness that we all long for. Second, what does spiritual fullness look like? And third, how do we receive spiritual fullness?
First, the spiritual fullness that we all long for. I, I often wonder if there will ever be a time. Where I feel like I've arrived in life. I wonder if you have the same feeling. How many of us go from life stage to life stage just feeling like that next life stage might be more satis it might be more satisfactory, it might be more satisfying. But then once we get there, we find that the emptiness comes with us. That you might move from being single to married to being without children, to being a parent. You might move from having no job to having a job, from having an apartment to having a house, but as you move along, you don't actually feel satisfied. You see, you are having more. But you just don't feel full.
I wonder how many of us struggle with that. And I think that one of the reasons why we oftentimes have that experience, is because we're looking to worldly solutions for spiritual problems. We look to worldly solutions for spiritual problems. We feel like we're not measuring up. We're not measuring up at the workplace. We're not measuring up, at, at school. We're not measuring up to our colleagues or to our friends. And so what do we do? And we're good at this here. We try harder. We do more. So much of our life is spent proving ourselves to those around us, and maybe even. More importantly, proving ourselves to ourselves. Something feels like it's missing from my life.
And so what do I do? How do I deal with this thing that's missing from my life? Well, one answer might be to open up the Amazon app and to, to purchase socks. That's what I'm missing in my life. And that quick shot of dopamine suddenly makes me feel like my life has more meaning and purpose. Got some new Bombas on their way. We feel exhausted from another day of chaos. Just feeling completely on E.
And so where do we turn? And look, I'm with you, OK? We turned to Netflix, we turned to. Whatever streaming platform you might have, whatever scrolling you do on your device of Doom. We turned to some type of escape. And sometimes they can be. More. nefarious than others as we turn to substances to numb ourselves and to truly escape from the moment. We settle for worldly solutions to spiritual problems. But look friends, settling for worldly solutions for spiritual problems is like pouring water in your gas tank. The tank might be full, but the engine isn't gonna run.
And so I want to look at this passage and see that there has to be a way. There has to be something more satisfying. The thing that we're longing for is actually spiritual communion. It is communion with God. Our empty souls were built to be filled with the communion of God. Now if you're a Christian here this morning, you know this. But yet many Christians don't live lives that are spiritually full. We settle for spiritual survival instead of spiritual abundance. And that is why Paul is praying this prayer. Look, it's not a given that if you are a Christian, that you are living in this spiritual full fullness, because Paul is writing to a church, to a group of Christians, and he's saying, I'm praying that you might be filled with the knowledge of God, that you might be filled with his will and his understanding.
Look with me, verse 9. And so from the day that we heard, this is the very beginning of our passage today as we go through it, we're just gonna go through it verse by verse as we we walk through here. But first, and so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Don't miss this. He's praying for Christians. He's saying there you can live a Christian life and still be missing out on some aspect, that feeling you have of emptiness. You can experience a satisfying fullness from God.
This is very similar to another one of Paul's prayers that he prayed and the just the previous book, if you have your Bible open, you get to 2 books ago, he just goes back in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 19, and to know he's praying for the Ephesians in this, in this point, and he's telling them that he wishes that they would know the love of God, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That is the desire that we might be filled with the fullness of God, that we might live in communion with Him. And now, look, when I talk about being filled with the fullness of God, I know that some of us come from backgrounds where being filled with the presence of God is just an emotional experience. Where I talk about being filled with the fullness of God and what do you think about? You think about slaying in the spirit.
Now, some of you might not be familiar with that term, but that is a term that many of us are familiar with. Where the Spirit of God comes on someone, and absolutely. I'm not saying that emotions cannot be a part of this spiritual feeling. There have been times in my life that have been intensely emotional with the Lord. But the everyday fill filling of the knowledge of the Lord is not dependent upon your Sunday experience. It's not dependent upon how much your body received the message on that Sunday. It's not dependent upon these highly emotional experiences.
It is dependent upon experiencing the love of God. And that love is new every morning to us. He's talking about the regular life of a Christian who lives in loving communion with God. Our empty souls need to be filled with the fullness of God.
Second point. What does spiritual fullness look like? What does spiritual fullness look like? He goes for quite a little while on what this looks like. I think that all of us can resonate with this idea of running on empty, but what does it look like to run on full? Well, like some of us are just like, I've got no clue. I've been running on empty for so long. I have kids. It's been a long time since I slept well. I'm running on empty. What does it look like to run on full?
He describes it, verse 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, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious mind for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father. To to have spiritual fullness is to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. This idea to walk, this is a popular Jewish idiom is something that we find all over the the Bible where it talks about your manner of life. The way in which you go about your life is your walk. And to walk in a way that's worthy of the Lord, he gives four different descriptions.
So it starts with that, that, that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, OK? So this is how you live a life fully pleasing to him, if we just look at verse 10 in that way. So as the result of my prayer is that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to God, and then he gives, there's a coal in there, and then he describes what it looks like to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And there's four different things. First is bearing fruit. First is bearing fruit in every good work. Every good fruit tree bears fruit. What good is a fruit tree without fruit? But it's a tree that bears fruit, it's a blessing for all those around. And so does your life bear fruit? Are you walking in a manner worthy of the Lord? And what that looks like is to have a tree that bears spiritual fruit, that there's an overabundance, that you are spilling out blessings for others.
The second is that increasing in the knowledge of the Lord. Now when the New Testament talks about increasing in the knowledge of the Lord, it's not just talking about our head knowledge of the Lord, but it's talking about our heart knowledge of the Lord. Now of course as we increase in head knowledge of who God is, it also, it helps us to bear fruit. It also helps us to to grow in our heart knowledge to the Lord. But to know the Lord academically is not the same thing as to know the Lord in an intimate sort of sense. And so here he's saying, if you are walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, you're going to be bearing fruit and you're going to be increasing to know Him. That your knowledge of him will continue to grow.
Third, being strengthened with power for endurance and patience with joy. When you are filled with spiritual life, it does not mean, let me make this really clear, clear. For those of us who are running on empty this morning, when you are filled with spiritual life, it does not make life easier. I wish I could give you something to make life easier. But what it does do is it gives you the strength of God to endure through life's trials. So it's life hard. Is parenting hard? Is our Amen. Our finance is hard. Is work hard. Is school hard? Being filled with the fullness of God will not make those things easier. But it will give you the strength to endure them. You can do it. You can. It's hard, but you can. Be encouraged. You can make it through all of life's hardships.
Finally, the fourth thing that looks like to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord is giving thanks to the Father. A heart That does not give thanks is a heart that instead complains. And I have been so convicted of my complaining heart. I set the tone in my family sometimes, complaining about things. I have one of these. I have the spiritual gift of seeing the bad and everything. I don't know if anybody else has that spiritual gift. Enneagram one, I don't know if you do the Enneagram, but I just have the ability just to see what is wrong with everything. but what goes with that is I can also see how to make everything better. But what I've been learning lately is sometimes I can keep my thoughts to myself. And I can give them to the Lord, and I can trust him. And as I see what's wrong, I can also recognize what's right. And I can give thanks.
Yesterday I was walking and usually I, I was walking my youngest to a friend's house, and, and usually when I'm walking kids' places, I'm like, all right, come on, kid, let's get over here. I'm like, hop in the car, let's get there as fast as we can so I can continue on my efficient, productive Saturday. Because as I check things off my list, it makes me feel like a better human being. But instead, I decided to walk with the kid, and guys, yesterday was glorious, was it not? I was walking my kid and, and about halfway there, I was like, why am I walking so fast? Like, let's just chill. And he, he held my hand across the across the street and then he just kept holding it. And I'm like, that's, that's what's up, little bud. Like these days aren't gonna last forever.
And so we walked there and about halfway there, I'm like, I could live like this, you know, like, like I could move here and enjoy this type of life where I walk my kid. Wait a second, I do live here. And I just need to give thanks because it's good. And so it's a fruit of the spirit. It's a manner walking walking and worthy of the Lord that that you give thanks, that you're able to see the good in life and just enjoy the moment. Let me just encourage you throughout your day, take a breath, enjoy the moment.
Now I wanna be really careful here, because as I list these ways to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. It would be easy for me to preach this and say, OK, do that. But how is that so much different than try harder? It's really not. These things. They're not things that we can just drum up, but these are the overflow of a life that's lived in fullness with God. These are things that come as a result of the prayers. He's not saying I'm praying that you do these things. He's saying, I'm praying that you be filled with the fullness of God. I'm praying that you'd be filled with the knowledge of the spiritual wisdom and insight of God, so that the overflow of that would be that you live a life worthy of him, that you walk in a manner.
And so how do we do it? How do we actually receive this? If my self discipline cannot fill my empty soul, how do I get it? Only Christ can fill my empty soul. Number three, how to receive spiritual fullness. How to receive spiritual fullness. Verse 12. Giving thanks to the Father, OK, so we're picking up at the end of what we just did, the four ways to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Verse 12, 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 to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
And so the end of Paul's prayer here is just full of gospel goodness. He's highlighting all these things that God's done for us that we need to bring back to the front of our mind. First, he says, he's qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. He's qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Now in a in a room in the Boston area, if we talk about qualifying for anything, we're almost always talking about qualifying for the Boston Marathon. And those of us who are here, you might know, if you've been here for long enough, that that's almost impossible, that you have to be a robot, basically, to run that fast. It is insane.
When I think about this idea of being qualified, this, this passage says that he has qualified us for inheritance. I think about John the Baptist. I don't know if you know John the Baptist, he was Jesus' cousin, and he, he grew up to be a weird prophet. but even as he was a weird prophet wearing camel hair, camel's hair, and eating locusts and whatnot. He recognized that Jesus was the Messiah quite early. And so in his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. He actually says something quite profound. Before Jesus even starts his ministry, he says, one is coming after me, of whose sandals I am unworthy to even untie. Now untying sandals was a job just for servants or slaves. And so for John the Baptist to say, the one's coming after me, whose sandals I'm unworthy to tie, he's saying, I'm not even worthy to be his slave. I'm not even worthy to be his servant. That's how much greater he is for me.
And so for this passage, when it says that he has qualified us for the inheritance of the saints, what it's saying is that he's taken someone who's as unworthy as John the Baptist, probably more unworthy. And he has not just qualified us to be a servant, but he's qualified us to be a son. That we share in his inheritance. That he has made us worthy, that he has taken people who aren't even worthy to be called a slave, and he's made them into sons.
And then, what's it say next, as we continue to go, verse 13. That he's delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Do you know what it means to be transferred? Who here has been transferred? Have you ever been transferred at your company? And shifted from one team to another. If you've been transferred, you know that although you might request a transfer, that ultimately the decision is not yours. That at the end of the day, they say, you've been transferred, you're moving. You've been transferred away from Scranton, and that's what I think about, away from Scranton and been transferred to the Binghampton campus of, Dunder Mifflin. But yeah, it's not up to you if you've been transferred.
He says that you were in the darkness, but God has transferred. You look at every other religion says, here's 5 ways that you make God happy with you. Here's 5 ways to go from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light. Here's ways to live your life, to be a better person, to have more spiritual fullness, but only Christianity says. That the Son of God Himself has taken on the domain of darkness. That he bore it on the cross himself, so that he might transfer you into the kingdom of light through his resurrection, the kingdom of His Son. He took on the domain of darkness so that we might be transferred into his kingdom. God does all the work. He does all the work for us.
If you are in Christ, you have, let me make this really clear, if you are in Christ, you have legally received all the fullness of God. It is yours. It's to your name, it's with you. But there's a difference between union with God and communion with God. And I think that this gives that the existential angst that each of us, bear. If you're a Christian here, where it's like, I know Jesus, but why do I still feel empty? And it's because this idea of union with God, that in the eyes of God you are legally declared righteous through Christ. There's nothing you can do to make Jesus love you anymore, that you have received the fullness of God in Christ, but then this other idea of communion with God. Nothing can ever harm your union with God. It is permanent.
But fullness of Christ through communion of God, that has to be cultivated. That your life with Christ, and you know this, that your life with Christ must be cultivated. Who here has ever had a garden? You might throw some stuff out in the garden. It might grow, but unless you cultivate that garden, it's not gonna grow to its full potential. That you need to guard the garden, that you need to weed the garden or the weeds are gonna suffocate the plants. And I would just wonder how many of us have spiritual gardens that are full of weeds, that have no boundaries, that let our work just get into our our personal lives, that get into our spiritual lives, that we just let the world overtake our spiritual communion with God. We don't know how to sit in silence with God. We don't know how to stop working and be with God. We don't know how to Sabbath with God.
And so look, I can give you a list of all the different ways that you might commune with God, but I have to be careful because again, I'm not telling you, just go drum it up, make it happen. God has to bless you with his with his presence. And the first step you have to go is you have to go with God and you have to confess and say, I haven't taken care of the garden of my heart. Father, would you fill me again? Would you start me anew? I've let it get run over again. I've let the weeds grow up everywhere. Would you just, would you come in again, God? Would you do it again? It's the spring, let's do it again. Maybe you could join me in that prayer today. Would you do it again, God?
I want to get right back to the beginning of this passage. What does Paul pray for? He prays And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
I was racking my head for a good example of what it means to be filled with the spiritual will of God and all knowledge and understanding. And the best example I can come up with was Paul himself. He's writing this from a prison cell. He's probably writing a letter to the Philippians from the same prison cell. And as he's in that prison cell, writing to the book of writing to the people in Philippi, he says this, I want you to know, brothers, that what's happened to me really has served to advance the gospel. That this imprisonment that has become known throughout the whole prison guard and to all the rest. That my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
And so do you see how he's able to see his regular everyday life? And to say that my sufferings are not speed bumps on my life, but rather they are opportunities for me to look for God's will in this moment. That I can have an awareness of what God is doing. It would have been easy for him to be locked up in a prison and say, oh well, I tried, I tried my best. I did everything I could to make Christ known. They locked me in prison, what am I gonna do? But instead he's able to say, even in the valley of the shadow of death, even in prison, I'm able to see the spiritual will and understand it, because I have a loving communion with God.
Friends. This morning, if you're walking in this room, feeling like you are running on empty, as many of us undoubtedly are, there is no shame. There's no shame Is just an opportunity. It's an opportunity for the Lord to remind you. Of what he has for you. It is an opportunity for you to come to him again, for you to receive his fullness once again. Our empty souls need to be filled with the fullness of God.
In just a moment, we're going to take communion, but I just wanna invite us. To have a moment to reflect with God this morning. Some of us came in here on empty. And maybe you just need to start with a confession. So I invite you to, to bow your heads if you'd like, and to pray through some of these things.
God, I've been spiritually disconnected for a long time. God, I've looked everywhere. But you for fullness. God, I've been living exhausted. I've settled for distraction instead of communion with you. And so would you join me in in praying that the that the Lord would fill you again? Would you fill me, Lord? Would you fill me with strength to endure? Would you fill me with grace for those who hurt me? Would you fill me with the fullness of Christ? That I might experience his love more deeply. That I might bask in his glory more regularly. Would you change the way I'm living? Give me perspective and fullness.
I'm gonna invite you to pray a corporate prayer with me. I'll have it on the screen, I'm reading the underlying sections. Father, we confess that we often live disconnected from you. We fill our lives with noise, distraction, productivity, achievement, entertainment, and endless striving. Yet our souls feel empty. We confess that we look to created things to give us what only you can provide. We confess that we often try to manufacture spiritual life through our own effort rather than receiving it from Christ. Forgive us for settling for spiritual survival when you have invited us into communion with you. Fill us again, Lord, with the fullness of Christ. Strengthen us with your power. Teach us to be, to abide in you. Amen.
And as we confess these things, I just want to give you a word of assurance. That the work is over, that he's done it for you. Hear this from our passage today. 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. And so friends, if you are coming today as a Christian, you're already there. And he can do it again.
Yeah, in just a moment, I'm gonna invite you to participate in a sacred meal. And we participate in the sacred meal each week to be reminded that Christ's body was broken for us and his blood was shed for us. And we do this, and we're reminded in a spiritual kind of way of the physical aspect of the gospel. In this physical way of the spiritual aspect of the gospel. That the bread represents his body, broken for us, and the cup represents his blood shed for us. And so if you're a Christian here today, we invite you to come and receive this meal over the next song. This is just a small appetizer of the meal that we'll enjoy with him forever in heaven.
If you're not a Christian though, this morning, we instead encourage you to receive Christ, that you can receive this spiritual power in full today. And we'd invite you to pray with someone in the back, that we'll have some prayer counselors in the back corner that you're welcome to pray with. And anyone today can pray with those prayer counselors. We invite you that if you would like someone to pray over you, that if you've just been feeling empty for a long time and would like someone to place a hand on your shoulder, and just to pray that the Lord would fill you, man. Simple prayers, but powerful moments. And and you can receive that today. So would you please stand as we prepare our hearts to receive this communion meal? And pray with me.
Father, we thank you. For your grace that's new every morning. We thank you that you haven't given up on us, that it's not too late. That even though we run on empty, we pray that you would give us a fullness, that you would give us perspective, that you would give us joy and thanksgiving, that you would help us to endure through life, that you would give us this spiritual fullness that Paul is praying for. God, we pray for it right here, right now in this room, that you would be changing our hearts to walk in a loving union, a loving communion with our Father in heaven. You, God Almighty, would you give us a heart to see our lives through your lenses that you would help us to understand what you were doing for us. And we ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.