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Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the Internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for us to be able to help you. for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleinemenistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

All right, good to have you here tonight. We’re studying in the book of Colossians, So take your Bible, turn to the book of Colossians page 1262 in an old school Phil reference Bible. And we will begin in Colossians chapter 1 verse 9. Verse 9. So follow me as I read. Colossians chapter 1 verse 9. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patient and long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which yet made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance

of the saints in light, who have delivered us from the power of darkness and have translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Let’s pray, shall we? Father, as we read your word and seek to explain some of the things that really are not that difficult. But Father, there’s some things that we don’t always grasp. There’s deeper meanings and sometimes it seems like there’s hidden truths.

But Father, we know that in order to build a great church, you have to build great individuals. And Father, I want this to be a great church. It doesn’t have to be a large church, but I want it to be a powerful church because these are your people. They know you, they love you. And Father, we pray that we go from childhood to maturity, looking to you and walking with you, concerned about each other, praying for one another. So we commit this night to you and the study of your Word.

Help our minds to be clear. And I pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit will help me to know where to pause and where to move on. We commit this night to you in Christ’s name, Amen. Book of Colossians in chapter 1, the Apostle Paul is going to reveal to us what he prayed while he was in prison. He had heard about this church through in verse 7, he pappers who was, I believe, the pastor at this church. Well, they’d come all the way just to see the apostle Paul.

We know that he was a fellow laborer together and that there were some things that needed to be explained in this book because there were problems in the church. And not so much that the problems had taken hold of the church, but they were swarming around, you know, doubt the city of Colossia. And he didn’t want this teaching in the church. And there’s different ways in which people bring in. Damned-able heresies. As you study the Scriptures, you’ll find out the devil has his ministers, and the devil’s ministers are preachers of righteousness, believe it or not, but preachers of human righteousness, man’s righteousness, and trying to deceive from the truth so that people don’t really trust what God has to say.

But I want you to look there at this third word in this sentence in verse 9. this cause and take the word cause and underline it because there’s a reason for the rest of the book because not only as we mentioned this morning had they trusted Christ as Savior, but they’ve also shared the gospel with others so people were coming to know the Lord and And he says, they had fruit among them. And he says, for this cause, because of not only winning people to Christ, but to go further than that, to get people that trust the Lord, to grow in the Lord, to be strong.

And the first part of this verse kind of lets you see, as he says here, for this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you. Now, you think of how many people we have here in the ministry, and there’s probably a lot of days to go by in weeks and maybe even months. And we really never pray for some people. We may have our select few that we pray for. And it’s difficult because sometimes we don’t know everybody’s name.

We don’t know what everybody needs. But I want you to know some about the prayer that’s mentioned here. It doesn’t say Paul says, you know, I’m praying that every one of you will be blessed financially. I want all of you to have a nice home. I want you to have nice clothes to wear. I want you to be problem-free. That’s not what Paul prayed for. If you’ll notice what he prayed for, it was the Lord’s will to be done in their life.

that they might be feel all the wisdom, the knowledge of the Lord, so that they might walk worthy unto all pleasing, meaning to please God in all that they do, every area of their life and every work. This is the will of God. But when he says here in verse 9 for this cause, I want you to take your Bible, just look at this word, don’t lose your place here. But You look there in the book of 2 Corinthians 4, 2 Corinthians 4, and just look first of all there at verse 1.

He says in verse 1 of 2 Corinthians 4, therefore seeing we have this ministry, and as we have received mercy, we faint not. And he says, we faint not means we don’t quit, we don’t stop. Now there’s a lot of things that happens in your life that it seems like they were designed to get you to quit, to lose hope, to get discouraged, to get down. And he says, because of this ministry, we don’t faint, we don’t quit. If you will, look there in verse 15, for all things are for your sakes, for your sake.

The reason that I do, what I do is so that you’ll benefit from it. You see, when you seek to try to influence other people’s lives, you’re very careful how you influence them. You have to watch what you say and how you say it. You have to watch yourself at all times. He says that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many, read down to the glory of God. In other words, God is pleased by your faithfulness. God is pleased by your obedience.

God is pleased by your sacrifice. God is pleased by your giving. And when you seek to please the Lord, He says, I want you to know all that God wants you to know so that you can please God in all things, all areas of your life. Well, there may be some areas in your life you’re doing a really good job. That’s not to annul that. Just like when Christ was talking to the Pharisees one time, He says, He says, you pay ties, you do alms, you do all these certain things, but mercy and grace.

He says, you kind of forgot about those. Those are important too. You need to add those in. You’re reading the book of Peter. It talks about adding to your faith. Not that you know Christ is your Savior. You’re going to have an add to your faith. Be stronger than what you are today. Be stronger tomorrow. And every day seek to get a little bit wiser by continuing to study the Bible. Don’t think you have to be a little bit wiser.

by continuing to study the Bible. Don’t think you have a, you’ve reached the place where you don’t need to study anymore and you can just coast in on what you know. God has designed it where you need Him all the time. Regardless of how old you get. Boer my glad when I finally hit 70, I don’t have to worry about pressures anymore and temptations anymore, no more trials. Coer when you hit that magic number, It’s all over, you just coast from here on in, right?

No, there’s no magic number, no magic number. By the way, remember this. Moses troubles really started when he was 80 and lasted about 40 years. You remember that? Yeah, boy. Now look what he says here in verse 16, for which cause we faint not, we don’t quit. Now here’s the apostle Paul in prison and he’s talking about we have a cause, we have a reason to do what we’re doing. And see when you understand that, you see why Paul’s not focused upon his problem in a prison, he’s focusing upon this church.

And so thankful to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because through the Holy Spirit, He’s revealed to them how to be saved, and they trusted the Lord. Not necessarily by Paul. See, Paul didn’t have to always steal the limelight. Have you been around certain people and they strive only for the limelight? If they can just, you know, Be the head hunch on everything. Now, I do the leadership job that I do, but like I said before, if it wasn’t for the Lord, I’d be just as satisfied in the backside of a mountain someplace with no people.

And so my wife says that ain’t going to happen. But knowing the Lord and knowing God’s Word makes you do some of the things of what you wouldn’t do. You really don’t know how shy I really am. Don’t you feel sorry for me? little bit. Oh well, it’s the way it goes. Go back to the book of Colossians in chapter 1 verse 9. For this cause we also sense the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will.

You see, that’s why we try to teach all the counsel of God, but don’t try to leave out anything. By going through book after book after book after book eventually will cover everything God said. And if you stick around long enough, we’ll even get through the Old Testament and some of those other books because after a while, you know, we’re going to run out of books in the New Testament. I haven’t been to a lot of them already. You know, we’re going to start in some of the Old Testament books.

I’ve already hear a couple of them, but it’s important that we go through the Word of God to know the whole counsel of God because you see, I have to believe this. I believe that the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you knows what you need. I may say certain things, but the Holy Spirit says, you need a little bit of this, and you need a little bit of this, and you need a little bit of this. So that’s why at times, though it’s not always perfectly designed by the preacher, he goes on a rabbit trail.

You ever heard of preachers going on rabbit trails? Well, that’s because sometime he thinks to this, I said that. Well, he don’t know it, but there was a person sitting there that probably needed that on that rabbit trail. And then somebody else, wouldn’t it be great if everybody just lived on the main highway? But everybody don’t. Everybody lives on that little roads and somebody lives down in that little road down to there and then down to the little dog leg left on there and that old dirt road down to there and there’s an old path over here.

But everybody don’t live on the same road. Everybody’s got different stages in their life that they’re going through on a spiritual level. And some people can understand this, some people can’t understand that. And everybody gets a little bit of different stuff. And sometimes you say, well, I didn’t get anything out of that. And there’ll be days that you’ll think, well, man, I didn’t get anything. And there’ll be other times that one, then I really enjoyed that message. And sometimes it’s because you’ve never heard that before, but 90% of the other people, they didn’t heard it before.

Sometimes we figure out, well he’s feeding me if he’s telling me something new. When you go to eat and we ate today, was everything that we ate today, totally something that we never ate before? Or was it perhaps the same thing we’ve always had? We’ve had them all before. You know one of the best meals that I like back there? Anybody got a clue?

Huh? The beans and wannies. We got all this good food. Man, just give me some of the banywainies. I’ll eat them. And somebody said, well, I can’t say, well, you know, they didn’t feed me today. The only reason I wasn’t a God fed today is I didn’t sit down and eat, but the food was there. The word of God is different for different people. To one person, it’s meat. To another one, that’s just milk. what we base it upon what we already know, or what we need.

Well, I didn’t need that. I didn’t need that. And then when the preacher hits you right between you, I didn’t need that either. But what I want you to see, there’s a few things down through here that talks about in verse four. He says, since we heard of, and here’s those two words, your faith, your faith. And then there’s done in verse eight talking about your love. Now, isn’t it good that people hear about your faith? You trust the Christ as your Savior, you’re going to heaven when you die.

Isn’t that a wonderful thing for people to know and to share with others? But if people talked about your love, do you love the Lord? Do you love your husband? Do you love your wife? Do you really love your kid? Do you love the preacher? Do you love the church? Do you love one another? But he says they had a testimony that not only about their faith in Christ concerning the gospel, but also about their love for one another.

Let me just show you another verse. Look what he says there in chapter 4, and you’ll notice there’s another word here about Verse 6, it says in verse 6, Let your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man, how you ought to answer every man. And we’re talking about how that, you know what you know and your speech is to be seasoned, your speech. See that verse six? Let your speech.

So we’re talking about your faith that you have. We’re talking about the love that you have. And that is what affects your speech that you have. Seasons with salt. We talked a little bit about that this morning. But now go back here to Colossians in chapter one and verse nine. The last part of verse nine says that you may be fill with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. See, not just knowing what God wants you to do, but understand spiritually how you’re going to fulfill the will of God.

Now you may read from the Word of God these general things, and there’s general principles that are laid down here about what God wants you to know. Then it says in verse 10 that you might walk worthy. So what you know and how you walk should be compatible. So what we believe and how we live should be in agreement. But you see, whenever you read verses like this, you will not see in these verses. In verse 10, that angel, I want you to go to Chicago.

I want you to go to Day Spring Bible College. See that’s not in there. Yankee, I want you to marry Betty on June the 8th, 1960. Well, that would have made it easy, wouldn’t it? I mean, that would have just made it so much easier. But you don’t find the details, but we find the principles. And you take those principles, and God has given you the freedom a choice within his will. See, there’s boundaries that God has. So within the will of God, just think there could be two billion women on this planet.

Find one. Just one. But find one. That meets the standards of what the Word of God says. And trust the Lord to lead and to guide in all these things. And you can trust the Lord to bring you to the right person, all that. But after you get married, don’t blame God for the one you married. God, I did what you wanted me to do. I married that woman. But that was a mistake. Thanks! God did not hold a gun to anybody’s head and made you marry that man.

God didn’t force you to have those 15 children. There’s jobs that you have. There’s things that you do for your life. There’s homes that you have. There’s clothes that you wear. Don’t blame everything. God gave you the right to choose, the freedom to choose. So don’t go through life being guilty because I want the suit instead of the other one. I don’t get up in the mornings and stand before my suits and my shoes. God, which one do you want me to wear?

I don’t want to wear a suit you don’t want me to wear. Lord, help me to find the right tie. I only want to wear the kind of tie you want me to have. But it says, what are you doing at Purple Tie? God chose it for me. So we get bitter at God because of, look what God did to me. You see, there’s the will of God and it’s revealed about the righteousness of God, how He wants you to live righteously.

But God didn’t make you sit down and at the tables in there the day that we had. And look at all those choices. Now wouldn’t it be a terrible thing for everybody to be standing there? Lord, what kind of meat do you want me to eat? 15 people standing there, I’d say, just get out of my way, I’ll take anything. I’ll take the beanie winnies, if there’s any left. Lord, look at all this dessert. How many do you want me to have?

Thank you Lord, God is good. Oh, it’s God good. You can make some decisions for yourself. But there’s general principles that are found in God. There’s some things that you won’t find in the Bible. You won’t find them in there. Thou shalt not drink coars. Is that in the Bible? It isn’t in the Bible. Thou shalt not go to movies. Is that in the Bible? It’s not in the Bible. There’s a lot of things not in the Bible. Wouldn’t it have been something wrote in here?

Thou shalt not attend movies. Everybody trying to figure out what is that? Do you know what one is that? What is a movie? I guess it’s when you’re moving. What’s the movie? Nobody knows where to move. 2000 years! Nobody knew what one was. Right there. Even Rebekah. I guess it comes the closest when the Bible says that Isaac saw Rebecca and she lit off a camel. Well, it says that. She lit off a camel. But who in the world wants to kiss your husband and smell a camel?

And we’re getting serious here. You see, years ago, you know, one of the things that helped hold the families together is that they didn’t have all these things they could have gone to. I mean, here’s a guy, a farmer. He’s out there and he farms all day and he’s plowing behind this mule and all you see is the backside of this mule all day long. Well when you go home and you see your wife, anybody will look good. I don’t feel what she looks like.

She’s going to look good. . . . . . . . How did we get off into this? I have no idea. Verse 10, verse 10, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful and almost every good work every once in a while. Pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. You see, as long as you live, God wants you to keep increasing in your knowledge in the wisdom of God.

Hold your place right here and look there in the book of Ephesians in chapter 4 and verse 1. And you’ll notice a little similarity here, but it’s good to see. In verse 1 he says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord. Now the word prisoner comes from a Greek word, do lost in the Greek and it means to be a love slave or a bond slave, a prisoner, a bond slave, a love slave of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation or the calling wherewith your call.

In other words God is called every one of us to a ministry, be found faithful, be found faithful. And then it It kind of shows you a little bit about the attitude that you’re supposed to have in the following verses. And it says in verse 2, with all lowliness and meatness, with long suffering, for bearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. You see, there’s some wonderful things that God has in his word, and he’s talking about to his children, now that we know the Lord, God wants us to be filled with the knowledge of his will so that we can do the things that God wants us to do.

Why are you right here? Look in Ephesians chapter 5. In the book of Ephesians and chapter 5, I want you to see there in verse 15. Verse 15. See then that you walk circumspectly because we’re talking about not only what you know but what you do. And how you live is what reveals how wise you are. So he says in verse 15, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, demon the time because the days are evil.

Wherefore be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Isn’t that a powerful verse? Isn’t it a wonderful verse? God says, if you don’t understand the will of God, you are a fool. Because you’re not wise. You either wise or a fool. It’s a fool that doesn’t know the will of God. Because if you don’t know the will of God, what God wants, then you’re going to do what you want. That’s why we’re always seeking the will of God.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, You can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.