Colossians 1:9–14 (ESV)

9 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, 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; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

It is a very precious thing to hear the prayers of a saint for his friends; and that is what we hear in this passage.  It may well be said that this passage teaches us more about the essence of prayer requests than almost any other passage in the NewTestament.

From it, we learn that prayer makes two great requests:

1. It asks for the discernment of God’s will,

2. and then for the power to perform that will.

Let’s examine the first request…

1.  TO BE FILLED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD’S WILL  (V.9)

The word knowledge was a favorite word in the later letters of Paul. The word is epignosis.

It is a combination of two greek words:

“epi,” which means FULL and “gnosis,” which means KNOWLEDGE.

It means to have a thorough “knowledge, or discernment,” “to recognize a thing to be what it really is.”

In all four of the prison letters from Rome, it is an element in the apostle’s opening prayer for the well-being of his readers.

Philippians 1:9 “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,”

Ephesians 1:17 “…remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,”

Philemon 6 “and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.”

Paul uses this word several times in this letter.

He speak of “increasing in the knowledge of God”  1:10

He has a desire for them “to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ,”  2:2

He says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”   2:3

Why the use of this word “knowledge,” which means to have a full, thorough, deep and accurate understanding?

Do you remember in our introductory passage last week that I stated that the occasion for Paul writing this letter was to correct theology and heresy?

I told you that the heresy contained elements of what later became known as Gnosticism. The Gnostics got their name from the word gnosis. Gnosis, gnostic

So, Gnosticism comes from the word knowledge or to know. The word epi gnosis was a favorite word of the Gnostics. Because they said that you still needed a fuller knowledge of what they were teaching.

Remember, they taught that God is good, but matter is evil, that Jesus Christ was merely one of a series of emanations descending from God and being less than God (a belief that led them to deny His true humanity), and that a secret, higher knowledge above Scripture was necessary for enlightenment and salvation.

So, Paul uses the gnostics’ favorite term to instruct the Colossians on what they really needed to know.

They needed to know God’s will.

They needed in increase in having full knowledge of God.

They needed to have full knowledge of God’s mystery, which is in Christ.

They needed to know that all full knowledge is found in Christ.

To be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, that is, to have a thorough, deep, and accurate understanding of God’s will is the foundation of all Christian character.