Gospel Growth in Me (21 Days of Prayer #1)
Happy New Year.
If 2022 was a bad year for you — here’s your chance. And if 2022 was a great year, then hopefully you’re carrying some momentum into this one.
Today we begin our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. And because of that, we’re doing things a little differently. I’m splitting this message into three parts.
Part one we’re calling the gospel planted in me.
Part One: The Gospel Planted in Me
Open your Bible to Colossians. We’ve been in this book for a while, so for our regulars it’ll probably fall open there on its own.
We started Colossians back in August, and the first message covered some background plus the first eight verses. There’s a section in there that I think is genuinely key to understanding what our elders and I are praying and longing for during these 21 days. So I want to take you back to it.
Heavenly Father, we come now to Your Scriptures. I believe You wrote these words through human pens long ago for an original audience — and because You are who You are, You embedded truths in them that we still need today. So open our hearts. Open our minds. Help us hear what You want to say. Let this not be about what I’ve prepared, but about what You have for Your people and what You want to do in them, so that You can then do something great through them. We humble ourselves and ask You to be our teacher — that even words some of us heard last August would still shape us. Do in us what You need to, for Your glory and our joy. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.
Who Wrote This
In case this is your first time approaching Colossians: it was written by Paul, whom the global church calls either the Apostle Paul or Saint Paul — which is where the Lutheran church in town gets its name.
Paul’s story begins in the book of Acts. We meet him at the end of chapter 7, and he’s on the fast track to becoming one of the most influential rabbis in all of Judaism. He’s deeply respected and admired. Which is why, when Stephen — a Jesus follower — is being stoned to death, the people throwing the stones lay their coats at Paul’s feet.
Out of that zeal he gets authorization from the religious leadership to go arrest people in another city. He’s on his way to Damascus to arrest any Jew proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah.
And on the road he meets Jesus. The resurrected Christ, who had ascended to heaven, comes down for that moment and essentially says: you’ve got this wrong.
Paul had assumed this whole Jesus of Nazareth business was fabricated — nobody rises from the dead — and that it was ruining Judaism. And in that instant he realizes he’s wrong.
That moment radically changed his life. Instead of traveling to arrest Jesus followers, he began traveling to make Jesus followers. The gospel became the single most important thing to him.
Which is why, when he hears about a brand new church in the small city of Colossae, he wants to write to them. Most of the letters he wrote were to churches he planted, where he knew the people personally. He’d never been to Colossae. He doesn’t know these people. And he’s still thrilled — and he wants to be sure they truly understand what they’ve heard, and to bury these truths deep.
Those of you familiar with 1 Corinthians know Paul had to address a long list of problems there. He wants the Colossians to avoid the same issues. So this is a letter of guidance and protection.
After his typical opening, he shifts into thanksgiving — and I want you to see what he’s thankful for.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing — as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. (Colossians 1:3–6)
The Word of Truth
The heart of this is at the end of verse 5, where he names the gospel.
The word “gospel” means good news. It’s the good news that humanity, born in sin, can be forgiven of that sin — that God loved the world so much He sent His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him, whoever believes the story that Jesus went to a cross to die in their place and rose again from the dead, would not perish but have everlasting life.
That is good news.
But notice the phrase right before it: the word of truth.
Jesus said in John 8 that when you know the truth, the truth will set you free. Paul wants them to know they are freed — from their sin, from their past, from their mistakes. There may still be consequences, but those things will not be held against them. God forgives. It’s the word of truth.
It Came to Them
Now notice the next phrase: this gospel “has come to you.”
They didn’t discover the gospel through meditation or scientific reasoning. It came to them.
Verses 7 and 8 tell us it came through a man named Epaphras. Many scholars believe Epaphras met Jesus through Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, where Paul planted a church. Later, after Paul moved on with his missionary journeys, Epaphras went home to Colossae and shared the gospel there, and people believed, and a church formed.
Eventually Epaphras had the opportunity to travel to Rome, where Paul was under house arrest. And he got to tell him: I did exactly what you did in Ephesus. I shared the gospel, and a church has formed.
That’s why Paul is so excited, and why he writes this letter.
So the gospel came to them. And that matters, because the gospel comes to people. Which raises the real question for you: when it comes to you, will you receive it? And will you believe it?
Back in verse 4 Paul says they have faith in Christ — meaning the gospel came to them, and they didn’t just receive it, they genuinely believed it. They put their trust in the story of the crucifixion and resurrection.
So as we start this year: if you’re not a follower of Jesus, would you let the first day of a new year become your first day? Will you put your faith in Jesus?
You may think you came to church today, or that you’re listening to a podcast. But really, this is God bringing the gospel to you. Will you receive it? Will you believe it?
That’s an act of surrender. Confessing your sin. Believing God paid for it through the cross. Realizing you cannot save yourself and cannot have a relationship with God except through Jesus.
Which means surrendering. You surrender your efforts. You surrender everything. And realizing Jesus gave everything for you, you say: I surrender. I give it all to You. My wallet. My schedule. My relationships. All of it.
Not Just the Beginning
But that isn’t only the beginning of the Christian faith.
As one theologian puts it, the gospel isn’t just the ABCs of the Christian faith. It’s the A to Z.
The gospel doesn’t merely start your relationship with God. It’s the very vehicle God uses to grow you.
For a married couple, the culmination of their love isn’t the wedding day. That’s the declaration of love. A healthy marriage keeps loving, surrendering, and sacrificing, and the love deepens and deepens.
Likewise, the gospel begins your union with God — and that isn’t where it stops. The gospel is what God keeps using to draw you deeper.
Which is what he means later in verse 6: this gospel is “bearing fruit and increasing.” That increasing could mean the gospel spreading around the globe — and it was, just as it is in our day. But it’s also increasing in depth within people, to the point that it bears fruit.
In Colossians 2:6–7 Paul talks about becoming rooted in the gospel.
A tree doesn’t have to concentrate on producing fruit. A tree simply gets its roots down as deep as it can and reaches for the sun so photosynthesis can happen — and the fruit comes.
God wants you to bear fruit. But your focus isn’t meant to be on the fruit itself. Your focus should be on God, and on getting your roots down into this gospel. When you lean into it, when you let it be planted in you and grow, you will begin to bear fruit.
And just as your journey with God begins with surrender, the way gospel growth happens is through continual surrender — letting the gospel keep taking root in you, which means letting God remove whatever He needs to remove.
A Prayer of Surrender
Which makes it appropriate to begin these 21 days with a prayer of surrender.
Loving Father, I surrender to You all my heart and soul. I open all the secret places of my heart to You and say: come in. I surrender my time, my treasures, my talents, my health, my family, my resources, my work, my schedule, my successes, and my failures. I lay it all down.
Gracious Jesus, You are the Lord of my life. I believe in You and receive You as my Lord and Savior. Thank You for loving me, for coming to earth for me, for dying on the cross for my sin. Because You held nothing back to save me, I hold nothing back.
Holy Spirit, help the gospel to bear fruit in my life so I might be more like Jesus. Help me daily surrender my weaknesses and my strengths, my insecurities and my celebrations, my emotions and my fears.
God, I surrender my whole life — my past, my present, and my future. Help me trust You with all things, because I belong to You. Thank You. Amen.
Part Two: The Gospel Working in Me
In the Psalms, David asks God to search him. And in the searching, we tend to stumble on things.
As you go through this act of surrendering, you’ll occasionally come across something and realize: this isn’t good. This isn’t right. Something in the darkness. Something you’re embarrassed by. Some sin.
And you need to go a step further. Part of surrendering is moving into the act of confession.
Open your Bible to 1 John.
First John was written by the Apostle John, who wrote the Gospel bearing his name as well as three short letters. Throughout his writing you can tell John was probably Jesus’s closest friend. At the Last Supper, when Jesus announces that one of them will betray Him, it’s John who leans against Jesus and asks, “Who is it, Lord?” He’s right there beside Him.
Which is why it genuinely wounded John to hear the lies circulating about Jesus.
One of those lies was that Jesus hadn’t really come in the flesh. The reasoning went: flesh is evil and corrupt, but Jesus is good, therefore He must not have come in flesh — He must have only appeared as spirit.
And John is thinking: No. I leaned against a physical body at the Last Supper. I watched Him physically die on a cross. After He rose from the dead, I touched the scars. He was a physical person.
He knew these lies were confusing Jesus followers, so he wrote to encourage them. But he didn’t want to hand them fluffy encouragement. He knew what they needed was truth — and it was John himself who was there when Jesus said the truth will set you free.
So he writes to encourage, but the truth in it can sound a little harsh. As we read it, I hope you’ll see he isn’t building a wall between people and God. He’s showing them the doorway into freedom.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5–10)
God Is Light
Read John’s Gospel and letters and you’ll notice a recurring theme of light. John was there when Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world,” and that clearly penetrated his mind and heart.
So it’s no surprise that verse 5 describes God as light. But notice how he clarifies it: “in him is no darkness at all.”
In other words, God is pure. God is consistent. He is full of integrity.
And as we study Scripture, we see this is what God desires for us. If we’re made in His image, we should reflect that character — consistent, full of integrity, pure.
The problem is we aren’t. We’re full of hypocrisy.
Nobody likes a hypocrite. Have you noticed how our culture’s values are constantly shifting? What’s celebrated one decade is condemned the next, and vice versa. But one thing has stayed consistent: our culture does not tolerate hypocrites. If someone says you shouldn’t cheat on your spouse and then repeatedly does, nobody respects them. If someone scolds you for gossiping and then turns around with “but you know what I heard about her” — we don’t respect that.
And yet we are all hypocrites.
Has anyone here ever said you shouldn’t lie? And how many of you have lied? If your hand didn’t go up, you were lying just then, weren’t you?
We all lie. And we all know it’s wrong. We’re hypocrites.
That’s why John writes such blunt words. He confronts our hypocrisy, because he knows it isn’t what God wants for us. God wants us living a different life, a better life, one that reflects His glory — because He knows that’s where our greatest joy is found.
Bringing It Into the Light
Look especially at verses 8 and 9.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Basically: I’m good. I’m fine. I don’t really need God. And John says you’re fooling yourself. You’re hurting yourself. The person with no sin is right — they don’t need God. The problem is we all have sin, so we all need God.
Then verse 9: “If we confess our sins…”
Confession means taking that sin and acknowledging its reality. Acknowledging it exists. Bringing it out of the darkness and into the light.
And that’s frightening. Taking this disgusting thing you’re embarrassed by, the thing you’ve packed away in your internal closet because you don’t want anyone to know — and now bringing it out and laying it before God.
Then you go a step further and confess: God, I acknowledge this is wrong. This does not glorify You. This is not Your best for me. So I confess it and give it to You — where it gets nailed to the cross with Christ.
And what happens when you bring it out? He says God is faithful and just to forgive you.
Which might make you pause. Wait — why is bringing my sin to God “just”? Shouldn’t my sin be punished?
Yes. Your sin should be punished. It’s just that it has already been punished, through the cross. So your sin is forgiven. That’s precisely why He is faithful and just to forgive.
But notice He also cleanses you from all unrighteousness. As we saw in part one, that gospel is meant to be active and at work. So if you want the gospel active in your life, you have to bring your junk before God. You have to say, yes, I know my sin is forgiven through the cross — and I keep returning to it. So God, again, I bring it to You. I confess this.
For us to see the gospel growth I’m praying for — in you, and in us as a church — it’s going to require not only surrender but genuine confession.
A Prayer of Confession
Almighty God, we acknowledge and confess that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed. We have not loved You with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Give us genuine sorrow for the wrong we have done and the good we have left undone.
Lord, because You are full of compassion, slow to anger, full of mercy, faithful and just — knowing You and You alone are able to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness — restore to us the joy of Your salvation. Bind up that which is broken. Give light to our minds, strength to our wills, and rest to our souls. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.
And then take a minute of silent prayer, confessing your individual sins. My encouragement is to get very specific. Whatever the Holy Spirit brings to mind right now — name it. Identify it. Acknowledge the wrong of it. And then take a moment to thank God for the forgiveness.
Heavenly Father, I’m so grateful we can come to You — that even though our sin is against Your very nature, You allow us into Your presence to bring these things to You, because You have eliminated them. You have forgiven them. They are vanquished through the cross. Help us live as forgiven people. Holy Spirit, cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Help us not be arrogant enough to think these things aren’t a big deal, but to realize You are a far greater deal, and that You long for us and want us. Thank You that we can bring these things before Your throne of grace with confidence — confidence that You won’t throw us out, but that You’ll work in us. Amen.
Part Three: The Gospel Growing in Me
The gospel was planted in us when it came to us and we received and believed it. We see the gospel working in us as we surrender and confess. Now I want us to see the gospel growing in us.
Turn to 2 Peter. If you’re still in 1 John, just scroll up — 2 Peter comes right before it.
I’ve noticed a tendency in a lot of people, and honestly in myself, to skim over the beginnings and endings of the epistles. The word “epistle” simply means letter — usually a formal letter, often written to a group, sometimes to an individual.
The biblical epistles follow a similar pattern: the author introduces himself, names who it’s to, offers grace and peace, gives a section of thanks, and then gets to the meat. And at the end there are often greetings — so-and-so says hi, send my regards to this person — full of names we don’t know how to pronounce. So we skim. We prefer the meaty middle.
But if you believe, as I do, that all Scripture is God-breathed, then the beginnings and endings matter just as much. Because when we skim them, we miss beautiful little nuggets like the very last verse of 2 Peter:
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18)
Second Peter 3 has a bit of fame among apologists — and apologists aren’t people apologizing for the Christian faith, they’re people defending it. When the question comes up of whether the Scriptures really are the word of God and whether they’re reliable, they’ll often point here. Because a few verses earlier Peter says plainly that Paul’s letters are hard to understand, “as they do the other Scriptures.”
He’s saying that his compatriot’s letters aren’t merely wise words from Paul, or good things to consider. This is Scripture. This is God writing to us.
And what does Peter want us to do? Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s what God desires for you. He wants you to grow — spiritually, and in understanding. And when you realize that the grace of God is displayed through the gospel, what he’s really saying is: I want to see gospel growth in you.
Growing in knowledge of these things. And growing in your heart, your emotions, your experience. Full growth. Because again, God’s goal is to make you like Jesus, so that you will love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.
How to Spend This Week
Which is why this week’s daily devotionals focus on your personal growth as an individual. Next week we’ll look at what it means for us to grow together as a church. And the third week we’ll look at what all this means locally and globally.
But this week, focus on you. More importantly, focus on God and the work He wants to do in you.
For some of you this could be a genuinely significant week. I’m not going to make promises — I have no idea what God is going to do. All I know is that if you approach this half-baked, you probably won’t see God do great things.
But if you give yourself to it — truly seeking God through the Scriptures, truly committing to prayer, doing these things daily — that’s different. Some of you aren’t in this habit. You may need to set an alarm, or find some way to remind yourself every day to pull out the devotional or open the email, get into the Scriptures, and pray.
If you give yourself wholeheartedly, I won’t promise God will do something spectacular. But I will tell you that you are at least creating the opportunity for God to do wonderful and amazing things.
And I would love that for you. Because I long for you to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ — and I know that means great things for you. In your joy. In your relationships. At work. At school. With your siblings. With whoever.
Because God wants to work through you. But so often, before He does that work through you, He wants to do the work in you.
So this week, give yourself to this. Let God have every opportunity to speak to you through His Scriptures and His Holy Spirit. Keep surrendering. Keep confessing. And let Him fill you with His presence, His love, His grace, His goodness, His Spirit.
A Prayer
Heavenly Father, I pray You would do something great for Your glory this week — that You would do it in us.
For some of us, this is going to be a fantastic week, and we’ll come back next Sunday genuinely excited about what You’re going to do this year because of what happened this week.
For some of us, this will be a hard week, because we’re going to confront things that are deeply uncomfortable. So give us courage and strength to face those things. Let Your grace break through them, and let us understand Your love in deeper ways.
God, comfort us. Surround us. Saturate us with Your grace, Your love, Your presence, Your power — so that we find ourselves eager to gather next week just to declare Your glory and sing Your praises, because we’re excited about what You’re doing in us individually and about what You’re going to do in us together as a church.
So use this week for Your glory, our growth, and our joy. In Jesus’s name, amen.
