Faith, Hope, and Love

Faith, Hope, and Love

Good morning to all of you saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ here in Upton.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father

· Normal greeting by name

· This greeting by position

Prayer

What we believe to be true and what we put our faith in determines our behaviors, the way we live our lives

They determine how we spend our time and our resources

Our beliefs will determine the way we treat others

What we put our faith in will effect the way we react to the challenges we face in our lives

Things like:

· Our angerbecause our country is extremely divided today

· Anxietyabout the future of our country and what it will look like for our kids

· We can be confused as to what is true and what isn’t as we are bombardedwith all the many truths people and pushing on us

· We have times in which we feel like we have no hope with everything we face on a daily basis

· We also may have many worries in our life

· Worry about other’s perception of us

· Worry about money

· Worry about our own future

· We may be facing many troubles in our life

· Maritaltroubles

· Trouble because we aren’t married and want to be

· Trouble as we raise our kids

Just a few – You can fill in the blanks

Our beliefs and our faith boils down to whom we serve

· Do we serve the world or do we serve God

· Faith in worldly things will ultimately fail us

· But when the knowledge of Scripture and belief in the Gospel drives our thinking and behaviors…

· We experience life transformation that leads to the best life we can have here on earth

· As disciples of Christ, we are called to be contrary to the world.

· Our focus should be on the things above where Christ is, not things on earth.

Today we are going to see the outward expression of a church body who has come to faith in the Gospel message

· Specifically, the expression of faith, hope and love – the title of today’s sermon

Colossians 1:3-8 (NASB)

3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;

5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel

6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;

7 just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf,

8 he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

Introduction

· Before we study these versus

· Notice Paul identifies the Triune God in these 6 versus

· God the Father who initiates all things according to His will

· God the Son who fulfills all things

· God the Holy Spirit whose power carries it out to completion

Exegesis

Let’s turn to our versus and answer the WHO, WHEN, WHAT, and WHY for the thanksgiving Paul has for the church

VS 3

· 1st, Paul tells us WHO he is thankful to: To God

· Paul give all the praise and glory, and giving all the credit to God the Father of Jesus Christ

· God our Father is the object of all Christian thanksgiving

· God is also the object of our prayers

· In this context, when we pray for each other

· Next, he tells us WHEN to pray as well WHEN to be thankful.

· The answer is ALWAYS

· Now I want to Pause for a moment

· Notice I said that we should always be thankful.

· However, the text doesn’t say outright when to be thankful

· It tells us when to pray

· I mentioned last week that a secondary purpose as we study the book of Colossians is the learn to be a better reader and interpreter of the Bible

· One way we can do this is through the use of different translations

· Compare NASB: Paul says “Praying always for you”

· But if we look at the NET: He says, “We always give thanks to God”

· When translations differ, we can sometimes determine 2 things are true based on what we know of the Bible as a whole

· If we know our Bibles, we know that in other parts of Scripture we are commandedthat we should always give thanks and that we should always be praying

· This is how we determine that both are true

· Othertimes we must determine the correct interpretation when translations differ

· Often, we must turn to outside resources for this

Moving on to VS 4 as well as 8

· Here we learn WHAT Paul is thankful for

· It’s for the church’s expression of the Christian virtues and qualities of faith and love

· Faith and love vertically and our love horizontally towards each other

· Notice Paul says “ALL THE SAINTS” not just the saints…..we agree with….

· Now it’s important to understand that Faith and love only come from God

· They don’t originate in us

1 John 4:7 makes this clear

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

· Faith and love are from God

· Let’s take a closer look at love

· The Bible teaches us that Love is the greatest of all Christian virtues

· But we use the word “LOVE” loosely in our society….I love ice cream – I love my wife

· In Greek, there are different words for love

· One is Phileo Love: Refers to fondness.

· Phileo refers to a relationship between two friends

· This is where Philadelphia derived its name: City of brotherly love

· Then there’s Agape Love

· Which is a much deeper love

· Agape love describes God’s love fully revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which made salvation possible for all humanity

· We are called to show this Agape love to each other just as God the Father has for the Son

· Agape love is a Supernatural love from the Holy Spirit- as we see in VS 8 – “Love in the Spirit”

Romans 5:5

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

· The Holy Spirit also empowers us to live by faith and love

· These virtues are a true test of a genuine Christian, true disciples of Jesus.

· Jesus says, “By this you will know My disciples, if you love one another”

· I wonder if we are expressing our faith and love in our daily lives?

VS 5-6

· WHY is Paul thankful

· Because of the hope of Salvation

· The salvation we receive when we come into a saving faith in Jesus

· We see this in VS 4: Heard of your faith in Jesus Christ

· The prase, “Because of the hope” is written in the perfect tense

· Perfect tense includes both past and present tense

· This means that not only do we receive hope upon being born again, but we also maintain our hope in our lives expressing itself in faith and love

· Biblical Hope: The confident assurance and expectation of God’s blessings that have yet to be fulfilled until we are raised into to eternal life

· Hope is assured because God never changes and always fulfills His promises

· Paul says that our hope is laid up for us in heaven

· We could also use the words kept or reserved for you in Heaven

Ilustration

· Christmas Eve reservations a month in advance

· 1 Peter goes into more detail in this hope laid up for us in Heaven

1 Peter 3-5

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In VS 5-6, Paul gives us how our hope came about

· We “Heard the word of truth, the gospel”

· And we “Understood the grace of God in truth”

· Let’s start in VS 6 – Understood the grace of God

· Our understanding of God’s grace is understanding that our hope of Salvation comes to us when God takes the initiative by his sovereign grace, reaching out to lost souls through Christ our Savior.

· As for VS 5: “Heard the Gospel truth”

· Our assured hope is revealed to us through Scripture and the Holy Spirit when we heard and believed in the Gospel truth

· The foundation of our hope IS THE GOSPEL

· Hearing and believing the truth of the Gospel is the power that leads to eternal redemption and salvation

· Paul says in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation”

· In reality, All of scripture is the power of God to walk worthy of Christ and the Gospel; power to live obediently and fully devoted to God

· In the context of Colossians, the Gospel truth stands in contrast to the false teachings from some in the church that Paul addresses in the letter

· Well, this link between faith in the Gospel and our eternal hope gives us something to think about

· If we find ourselves wavering in our hope, it affects our faith and love.

· If so, it is time for us to dig into Scripture to remind us of our salvation through faith in the Gospel

VS 7-8

· “On our behalf”:

· In essence, Paul is saying, What Epaphras proclaimed and preached to you is exactly what we proclaim and preach; what we would have also said to you

Let’s try and land this plane

· The underlying foundation for Paul’s prayers of thanksgiving, the Christian virtues the church was expressing, and their hope of salvation lies in the FOUNDATION OF JESUS CHRIST

· Remember from last week, the main theme of the whole letter is THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST

· Jesus is all sufficient for our redemption and salvation and for living out our Christian lives as a whole

· We find this foundation of Jesus in these 6 versus when Paul writes:

· “We give thanks to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”

· “Your faith in Christ Jesus”

· And “Heard and believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ”

· For us, to be “In Christ Jesus” is the very essence of our FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE.

Application

· May have noticed that I ask questions for us to answer for self-examination rather than tell you what we must do?

· Why? Usually the application is obvious

· Always give thanks, Pray always, love each other

· I believe self-examination makes us look deeper into ourselves

· To examine whether or not we are living out our Christian lives obedient to Scripture

Let’s use VS 6 for self-examination

“In all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth”

· 1st, do we believe whole heartedly in the Gospel of Christ?

· Because of this, are we bearing fruit?

· Or put another way, are we showing evidence of the gospel’s impact on the lives?

· Are we living in a way that exhibits love to all others?

· If not, we are not obedient to Christ’s commands

· Remember that LOVE is the ultimate test and examination of whether we are in Christ, living worthy of Him, and walking in Him

· Our love is the reality and evidence of Jesus abiding in us through the Holy Spirit

Other questions to ask ourselves

· Do non-believers see our love for others-evangelism?

· Do those who come to our service seeour love for God and others?

· Are we thankful for each other?

· Is God the object of our thankfulness and our prayers?

· In 3 different Psalms, the writer says to “Give thanks to the Lord” because “he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”

· Are we thankful for all God has done for us through the life and work of Jesus?

· Are we praying for each other?

These are the questions we must ask and answer for ourselves often

Prayer