Continue Praying and Watching Colossians 4:2-4

2 Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; 3 meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, 4 that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.

Pray Continually

Do Not Give Up or Faint (Luke 18:1)

Our household responsibilities should lead us to pray. From where do we obtain strength and perseverance to love our wives, submit to our husbands, obey our parents, and submit to our earthly masters? We obtain that strength from heaven. It is hard for us to be convinced that all holiness comes from heaven. Faithfulness in even one duty, for even one moment, comes from the Lord. Specifically, the Spirit sanctifies. It is his work. We can do nothing good without him. This is the reason that ancient pagan ethics and their modern-day revivals are doomed to the grave again – there is no strength in man. There is no strength in nature, in man’s reason, in common grace truths. Man is fallen, broken, condemned, dead in sin. And this is the reason Christians are constantly exhorted to pray. We must not give up praying. If we felt our need as we should, we would hardly need this exhortation. We would be crying to our Father in heaven constantly. Sadly, few of us have become like the little children our Savior said we must be if we are to enter heaven. We do not see ourselves as needy and our Father as “willing to hear, ready to forgive, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.” Our Savior told his famous parable of the widow to rebuke our presumption. We must never stop praying. When someone asks us, “Have you prayed today?” and we must answer, “Well, no, I have not,” or, “Not really,” then we do not know ourselves at all. We have not understood our privileges as God’s adopted children, our need, and his willingness to hear and help us. It may be laziness, pride, or apathy. Whatever the reasons, examine your heart. Be honest. Confess your sins to the Lord. At the top, it is disregard of this most basic command to seek from him all that we lack.

Watch at All Times, for Everything (1 Thess. 5:18)

And since we lack everything good and must receive it from the “Giver of every good and every perfect gift,” we must pray always. I fear this is one place we act more like atheists than like Christians – we live as if there are some places our natural gifts and wisdom are sufficient, some places in which we do not need as much help as others. We are self-deceived on this point. “Without me, you can do nothing” was our Savior’s plain statement. To encourage us to fight against our evil self-reliance and prayer avoidance, the Father gives us a guide in prayer – his precious promises. He gives us a powerful advocate – his resurrected Son interceding for us and holding open the door to the throne room of grace. He gives us a helper – the Holy Spirit and his omniscient intercession “according to God’s will.”

Since we have in union with Jesus Christ all these encouragements to prayer, we must watch. Watching adds the idea that prayer is no idle pastime or female spirituality. It is by prayer that we watch against the Tempter, watch for opportunities to serve our Lord wherever we are, and watch against the sluggishness of our flesh. I dare say that every saint since our Lord’s ascension has known when his desire for Christ has lagged – no praying. Every one of us knows that one reason we fall into temptation and then into sinning is because we are not actively, constantly praying against sin, praying in dependence upon Jesus Christ, praying to know and love him. It is by prayer that we dig up the treasures that are revealed to us in the gospel, as Calvin wrote, keep up steady communion with our Lord, show ourselves his willing and ready friends and servants, and set our affections on things above.

Remember Gethsemane, Obey the Lord (Matt. 26:41)

We need every encouragement to repent of our worldly thinking about prayer – God is my lifeguard. I’ll scream when I am drowning. Look at our Lord. From one perspective, he likely prayed more than he slept. At least, some portion of most nights was spent in prayer. The days were too busy – do we not feel more and more like this? But his schedule and activities did not push prayer to the background, as if he could get to that later. It brought prayer to the forefront. He would not give up his serving, nor would he give up his praying to the Father for strength. And he was in our flesh, so he felt the same bodily need for sleep as we do – perhaps more intently, for he lived in constant service and constant combat with Satan. So, he prayed the only time when he could – in the night. His praying and watching is our example. He told us so. He did not say, “I am living like this, so that you do not have to pray so much.” When his disciples fell asleep in Gethsemane, and for good reason from a physical, emotional, and day-night cycle perspective, he rebuked them. We must receive and apply this rebuke. He expected them to be awake, in the middle of the night, praying with him. There were other times when they slept, but the need was great. His hour had come. There are related needs and hours in our lives – a particularly fierce temptation, a deadly illness, the plague of national blindness and government evil threatening to blow up our entire world because of the hubris and greed of a few men, and the spread of the gospel by a church joyfully consumed with the glory of Jesus Christ.

Constant Thanks for Past and Future (1 Cor. 15:57)

To keep up this kind of praying requires grace and strength from heaven. Let us frankly confess that we lack this sense of urgency and would much rather have our 7 or 8 hours of sleep than lose even half an hour of that praying. Where is strength to stay up a bit later or a rise earlier to pray? He mentions thanksgiving. If thanksgiving were a person, we find him in Scripture weaving his way almost into every one of Paul’s epistles. Rarely does he have the spotlight, but he is always present. This is because true thanksgiving motivates prayer. If we are struck at all for our past blessings, how good the Lord has been to us and how undeserving we have been of the least of his blessings (Gen. 32:10), the fuse of thanksgiving will be lit. We must blow on it by a daily recounting of God’s gifts – food and health and clothing, homes and work and family. If we lack one or parts of these, he gives other gifts for which we must thank him constantly – sustaining hope and faith, help and encouragement from the saints, placing us in the body of Christ so that we can bear one another burdens. No Christian ever lacks reason to spend some time each day giving the Lord thanks. Yet, few do. Thankless Christians are a plague upon our land far worse than Marxists and perverts. We also have future blessings for which we should give the Lord thanks constantly – our victory in Jesus Christ over the world, the flesh, and the devil (1 Cor. 15:57). Our resurrection from the dead – death shall not win! God shall raise me from the dust! Without a thankful heart, we shall not continue in prayer and watch in prayer. With a thankful heart, prayer becomes more natural, more childlike, and thus more satisfying.

With all these encouragements to pray and watch with thankfulness, we must not forget that prayer and praying like this are duties. We are not told to feel this way and then start praying this way. While right praying is from the heart, the lack of a heart to pray is a sin. When we do not feel like praying, which is often, for our sinful flesh constantly entices us not to do what will kill the old man, we must turn to Jesus Christ as our only peace and pardon. We must ask the Father to give us the grace of his Spirit to pray as we should – all the time, watching, with thankfulness. Too often, calls to pray are interpreted as calls to feel like praying. They are nothing of the kind. If we come to the Father in recognition that our hearts are cold and wayward, but we come trusting in his promise of mercy and our Savior’s worthy meditation, he will hear us. Even if these things are murky in our minds and distant to our faith, still we come to him as our Father, who knows our weak and worldly frame. But let us come in faith, like the lepers, cripples, and blind – conscious of our lowness, humbled by our unworthiness, and trusting his mercy alone. The Lord does not hear our prayers more because we feel like praying. Part of his adoption grace to us is to pray even when we do not feel like it, when we must pray because our hearts are cold and when we need cleansing from worldly, prayerless hearts. For example, if we are unthankful and complaining, we must immediately repent and begin thankful praying now, this hour. If we are not watching in prayer, we are sinning, for we are breaking our Savior’s command in these words and not following his example, which we have pledged to do.

Pray for Christ’s Gospel Kingdom

Ask God for Open Gospel Doors

The Lord through his apostle gives us outward looking motivations to continue in prayer. Paul asks the Colossians to pray for an open gospel door. “Open door” is a common metaphor for gospel opportunity and success (Acts 14:27; 1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12; Rev. 3:8). We should pray for opportunities to share the gospel, yes, but we must also pray for the Lord to work through our witness and actually save sinners through his word. This is God’s purpose for history – not to save a few here and there, but to save multitudes, for the glory of his Son. Paul asked them to pray that his prison doors would be open so that he could resume his part of the discipleship of the nations. Even in prison, Paul prayed and planned for growth of the gospel kingdom of his dear Savior. And so must we be – praying earnestly and constantly that the Lord would open gospel doors in our area and throughout the world. Remember that he alone can open hearts, and his pledge to his Son is “ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.” The Father uses our witness to bring in our Savior’s promised inheritance! Thus, we should be praying for our neighbors that the Lord will save them and use us to save them. Lord, give us an open door. We are not apostles, but we are Christians. As we lead quiet lives, doing our work and minding our own business, we must also watch outwardly and pray specifically for the Lord to save those around us and to use our witness to save them.

Ask God to Speak the Mystery of Christ

Notice that the prayers are for Paul and the apostles to speak the word: for utterance and for plainness of speech. Paul asked the Colossians to pray for open mouths. We need to pray for open mouths and plain mouths to speak the mystery of Christ. Too many think they are defending Christianity by defending a certain reading of history, or identifying the culprits of our present historical situation, or urging people to defend a defunct and God-defeated view of Christendom based upon apostate Roman Catholicism. To hear some speak, Aristotle or Plato, or pope so-and-so, or internet pundits are God’s great mystery. They are not. Jesus Christ is God’s great mystery. A mystery is a truth knowable to man only by God’s revelation in Christ. One part of that mystery has already been mentioned in this letter: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27). Beyond Christ’s personal indwelling by the Holy Spirit, God’s great mystery of redemption is his gathering of all things under Christ’s headship (Eph. 1:9-12). And this mystery is to be accomplished not by philosophical movements and political crusades but by open mouths proclaiming the glory of Jesus Christ. When you pray for gospel utterance, do not think this is the ability to answer all possible objections, or enter into the philosophical harangues of the dead in our day. Too often Christians are utterly stymied in their witness because they think they have to begin with a philosophy of history, critique of current events, and assessment of political parties and movements, past and present. This is nothing but elitist blather in the church. It is not the mystery of Christ. It is the mystery of man. It is Satan deceiving us into not sharing Christ but sharing ourselves and our own views and fears and agendas.

Ask God to Help Speak Plainly, Openly

We need to speak of Christ plainly. Tell others how his death on the cross atoned for your sins. Tell them he is Lord and Christ. Urge them to repent and to turn to him.  Notice that Paul asked them to pray that he might “make it plain, as he ought to do.” Even in bonds for that gospel, our apostle longed to speak plainly of Christ to many others. In our liberty, do we long to speak of Christ? In our homes? With our spouse? The world does not need more hiding the light under the bushel basket of social theories and kingdom schemes. The gospel is also hidden when we try to get others, even in the church, to have our same experiences of Christ, which can be more normative and important to us than Christ himself. We are never called to pass on our feelings about God to the next generation, or our social theories, but Christ himself, plainly and openly declares as the Son of God and Savior of sinners. When we have other agendas, the sheep are led astray, and the church is held in the paralyzing grip of “vain wrangling” and disputes about things that simply do not matter in the light of God’s mystery – which is to make Jesus Christ, the Son of God plainly known to all men. We must pray for plain, gospel speaking. It tests what is important to us. It keeps us Christ-focused. It humbles our pride so that we do not equate “becoming a Christian” with “sharing a particular view on race or culture.” Speaking the mystery of Christ plainly and openly pushes these purely earthly concerns far into the background. Why do we like a particular time in history? A particular historical figure? A philosophy or philosopher? Was it because they scratched our worldly itching or because they upheld the glory and name of Jesus Christ as the only wisdom and righteousness of God? All else is foolish chaff in God’s eyes.

Pray beyond Ourselves

Right praying is so much higher and holier than asking for things we want. It is not looking to our Father as our personal assistant in life or the genie who meets all our needs. He is faithful and provident, but right praying, we might say, successful praying, considers Christ’s exaltation as its highest motive, even when asking for personal needs. When praying for our children, is it for our peace or Christ’s exaltation in their lives? When praying for our nation, it is to be left alone and prosperous, or so that Christ’s gospel goes forward with power? Desire for the exaltation of our Lord fuels the flames of right praying, fervent praying. Do you seek healing? Seek it for Christ’s exaltation. A godlier marriage? Seek it for Christ’s exaltation. He is the great, personal, all-consuming center of this present age. Pray for gospel faithfulness, to open your mouth so that Christ is exalted. All God is doing in the world is to manifest and praise the glory of his grace in Christ (Eph. 1:6,12). Pray to know the mystery of Christ, to speak it plainly. Pray for gospel growth in the world, on our streets, where Christ’s name has never been named, where it has been forgotten. Pray for Christ’s gospel kingdom. God’s will is that He conquers all.