And I would invite you to turn to the book of Colossians in your Bible and look with me at the first chapter. So, you know what God did? Fruit is good deeds. I mean I was real, real little. We’re skipping a lot of good material. Five fantastic things are going to take place in your life when you’ve got a grip on God’s absolutes.Number one, “You will walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” – stop right there. That’s in chapter 12.Exactly. It’s – isn’t this great what God’s doing? Right? But you are departed out of the way.
The application: when you see your brother have a need, meet his need. And by the way, because we know you can’t do it, God says, “I’ll live in you, and I’ll walk in you.” Isn’t that great? Then I started seeing genuine prayer. That is, the physical fruit may have contained some vitamin C and some beneficial fiber, but it was not spiritually nutritious. Verse 2, “Be likeminded” – okay? Some Christian scholars believe – “deed and truth.” Now, God loved that way. You don’t even need to do anything but stand up and preach that. Walk like Him. In Romans 7, verse 7, “What shall we say then?
I call it principalizing the Bible. Oh, that’s a beautiful concept.Listen, “To be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom” – let’s stop there.Now I say, “All right, John, the objective for me, as a Christian, then, is to get into this Bible and learn it.”That’s right. It’s all there. The longest chapter in the Bible is dominated by that idea. And unless a believer understands that revealed truth, then he’s going to have a difficult time trying to determine what moral behavior is really all about.And this is the basic thought that Paul has here in Colossians chapter 1, “I’m praying that you might know God’s truth, because that is the basis of behavior.” He doesn’t even get into the behavior till chapter 3, verse 5, where he says, “Mortify, therefore, your members” – and he gets into how to live – “laying aside fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil desire.” But it takes him three chapters to get to that, laying the foundation.All right, the basis, then, of behavior, beloved, is simply knowledge of God’s truth. What is it that God is saying there?So, Paul prays that we would be totally dominated by knowledge, because knowledge alone controls behavior. But when you’re saved, God just begins what for all of your life has a sustaining power. Because there is an absolute, and that absolute is shoplifting is a crime. Now, here’s the principle.
Is that your testimony? Knowing God’s truth. To know it.Do you know that the longest chapter in the Bible – now, there must be a reason that it’s the longest – what is it? Eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this and thus was born the yetzer hara, the evil inclination. And when Paul has laid out eleven chapters of absolutes – you know, you can read the first 11 chapters of Romans and do nothing? “I want you to be totally controlled with the knowledge” – epignōsis, deep, thorough knowledge – “I want you to be totally dominated” – not by a superficial understanding, but – “by deep knowledge” – knowledge of what? Boy, that is such an important biblical concept. You’ll walk worthy of the Lord. How do I know how to be born again if I don’t follow the absolutes of the Scripture? They weren’t singing, “Ohh, Lord, we’ll soon be done with troubles of the world.” No, they were just praising, having a terrific time.Because that jailer wouldn’t have come running in there and want them to tell him what they knew if they hadn’t have been happy. When I think about what the Lord is, and I think about His greatness and His grace, and the wonder of His character, and then the Bible tells me I could be worthy of Him, that really kind of – that’s kind of hard to believe. What’s the longest chapter? We could go on and on.Point two, another one of the benefits – this is great -when you’re filled with knowledge, not only do you experience a worthy walk and please the Lord and everything – boy, I love this – “being fruitful in every good work.” Another thing that results from knowledge is fruitfulness. It sounds impossible. That’s the bottom line of absolutes.
– growth. And consequently, behavior is extremely relative. Being fruitful so that others are blessed, growing so that I am becoming more like Christ, are all results of – what? Malachi chapter 2, verse 7. That’s right. - “‘walk in them.”Do you know what the Bible says? Oh, it’s exciting.Listen, beloved,” Paul prays, “I just want you to know God’s truth. Some passages you get two of them.For example, there are some where you get knowledge and the principle. You’re going to walk worthy. And then you will be charged with a crime because your behavior has been unacceptable. And those are terrific. Oh, He’s walking on water. So, the result? Sometimes – and the passages I’ve given you now have been just kind of stories.