First part of Sermon LXXI. for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after
Trinity.
Col. i. 3-11. St. Matthew ix. 18-26.
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease
to pray for you.—COL.
i. 9.
We give thanks, says St. Paul at the commencement of his Epistle
to the Colossians, We give thanks to God, and the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ
Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints. There is nothing
more remarkable in St. Paul than his earnest and constant prayers for others;
so much so that we might suppose he did as much for the cause of the Gospel
by his prayers as by all his other labours. No doubt his labours and prayers
mutually assisted each other. But one great advantage in prayer is that
it can reach cases which nothing else can, as in this instance: St. Paul
was praying for a people from whom he was now necessarily at a distance,
and whom he had never seen. This subject of praying for our fellow Christians
is one of the greatest importance, and numerous are the ties and inducements
which in various ways should invite us to it, such as will influence every
one, more or less, according to the love which he bears for Christ and
His people. For own Church in this country (oh! how dear should it
be to us), for particular parishes and neighbourhoods, for the state of
the clergy, especially the bishops, for the great and crying want of more
ministers; our Lord has pointed out prayer as the great remedy for these
evils, in case of labourers wanted in His harvest. And how much does St.
Paul’s example urge upon us the same! It is a duty most pressing on us,
yet most neglected. And what a view have we here of an early Church, the
object of St. Paul’s prayers? For the hope, he says, which is
laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth
of the Gospel; which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and bringeth
forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and
knew the grace of God in truth. We may observe how full of a heavenly
mind breathes this prayer and thanksgiving; it is not for their outward
increase or profession that he prays, but “for the hope, laid up” for them
“in Heaven;" for their faith and love and the fruits of the Spirit. And
then he proceeds to mention the instrument of this their holy inter-communion
with each other. As ye also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow-servant,
who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; who also declared unto us
your love in the Spirit. This same person St. Paul again speaks of
at the close of this Epistle in these words, “Epaphras, who is one of you,—always
labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete
in all the will of God.” How very beautiful and impressive, my brethren,
is this picture of St. Paul and his friend earnestly contending in prayer
for those Christians whom the Apostle had never seen! Here is the secret
of the conversion of the world.
For this cause, he adds, 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 in 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. You see how enlarged
his desires are after all good; his hearing of their increase in grace
and fruits of goodness only renders him the more urgent in prayer that
such grace should abound, and such fruits should be an hundredfold. What
earnest spiritual love on both sides; how blessed this Communion of Saints;
what fervent longing in the Apostle for the everlasting good of those to
whom he was bound by no earthly tie! How poor, how confined and short-lived
appears all mortal love and friendship compared with this union which they
had in God.
That ye may be, he adds, strengthened with all might, according
to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness;
giving thanks unto the Father, Which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. And here he just alludes
incidentally to their being in a state of external tribulation, yet not
to deprecate or pray against such trials, but clothing the very mention
of them with the sublimity of divine hope and joy, according to his usual
manner of mentioning earthly suffering as put in the scale of eternity,
“strengthened, unto all patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness, giving
thanks unto the Father.”
But now let us ask what is it gives life and power to such marvellous
love and faith as all this expresses What is it that kindled such prayers
in St. Paul, as to embrace so fervently in spirit, and to bring down such
blessings from the Father of lights upon those from whom he was “absent
in the flesh,” and had never seen in the body? Where is the hope and strength
of such confidence? it is all in the knowledge of God, which is learned
from the manifestation of Jesus Christ, and confirmed by habitual prayer,—the
Word made flesh dwelling within and bringing forth fruit in mutual intercessions
and prayers, “strengthening with all might according to His glorious power.”
It is therefore in the Gospel itself that we learn this strength. We have
this day a remarkable instance of our Lord’s readiness to answer the intercessions
of love, so as to raise even from the dead; and also, at the same time,
of the exceeding virtue going from Him on the touch of faith to cleanse
and to heal....
.... (for the second part, on the
Gospel.)
