Matt's Sermon Prep | Colossians 1:3–8
Notes
Transcript
Church good morning! Man what a fun day already, and we’re not done. If you’ve got your Bible’s open them up to Colossians 1. We kicked this series off last week and I can’t wait to dive into this passage. I mentioned last week that I had a rough outline for how this book was going to go, but that it was subject to change. Well guess what, it’s changed. As I studied these verses I felt like there’s just so much here to think about and look at that I decided we’d spend two weeks here. But, it’s awesome. This is one of those texts where I am painfully aware of my inadequacies in trying to explain to you the magnificence of this text, but am also thankful that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. So, I’m going to pick up all the way back to verse 1 and read, pray, and then let’s jump into it. Colossians 1:1-8
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
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 the 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, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
In the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers there’s this scene at the end of an epic battle. Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol are on there way to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. The was extremely destructive, yet against all odds they had survived. However, it had sapped Frodo’s spirit. He looks at Sam and says: “I can’t do this Sam.” Sam, the wise, encouraging friend responds:
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness & danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But, in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it will shine out all the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were to small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.”
Then Frodo responds with the all important question: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”
You see Sam was painting the picture for Frodo that there was something greater, there was something beyond them that was worth holding on to. That was worth pursuing. That was worth walking through the darkness and treacherous path that laid in front of them. So I want to ask you a question this morning…what are you holding on to? What is driving you to walk forward?
What we’re going to see in these verses is that Paul has heard of the church in Colossae and he hears of what’s driving them forward. Ultimately, it’s their hope. Their hope stirs up faith and that enables them to walk forward not just to survive, but to live in love. Paul’s response that is a prayer of thanks. So here’s the main application for us today: Give thanks as you grow in your hope in the gospel. This means that we have to grow in our hope in the gospel, right? As we grow in gospel hope, thanksgiving will be our natural response. I’ve got 2 observations this morning that show us that. Number 1:
Gospel hope grows prayerful thanksgiving.
Gospel hope grows prayerful thanksgiving.
Paul comes out of the gates and says, church at Colossae, your faithful minister, Epaphras has told me about you and my immediate response is to thank God for you. Why is it significant that Paul’s first words are prayers of thanksgiving? He doesn’t do that in all of his letters that are in the NT. In fact, if you go to Galatians the very first words out of his mouth are how could you forget? He opens rebuking, but here he opens with a prayer of thanksgiving.
Now, we’re going to spend the majority of our time today looking at the reasons behind his thankfulness, but, why is thanksgiving his first reaction. Look back to Col. 1:5-6
Of this you have heard before in the word of the 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
The gospel has come to the church at Colossae and it is doing what the gospel does. It is growing. It bearing fruit and increasing, but do you know why? What does Paul say at the end of verse 6-7? You have heard it, understood it, and learned it. The gospel has come to them and they have received it. As they receive it the gospel bears and increases in gospel fruit.
I think of walking a watermelon field. Y’all ready for the watermelons illustrations to start back up? I feel like it’s been a while…no I walk into a field the day after I’ve sprayed a foliar fertilizer on it. Now, the fertilizer has come to the plants, but what happens if the plants don’t receive it? They don’t bear fruit. But when I walk in a field the day after spraying a foliar and there’s 10x more blooms (blooms = fruit) today than there was yesterday I go woohoo! I’m pumped! Gratitude is stirred in my heart. Likewise, the right response to the gospel being received and bearing fruit is thanksgiving.
Now Paul doesn’t just look at the church and pat em on the back and go woohoo! You get it! No, the joy in his heart, the gratitude that he has for their receiving of the gospel & it’s outwork in them is turned to prayer to God—the one who has enabled their receiving of the gospel and empowered the outworking of it.
Here’s why I think that’s significant: In G.K. Beale’s commentary on this he points out that, “Christians impoverish themselves when they do not prayerfully consider how they have experienced God’s grace, and this theological impoverishment results in an unthankful attitude. To the extent that one has a prayerful attitude, to that extent one will have an attitude of thanksgiving.”
Spiritual impoverishment is what awaits a heart that hasn’t been prayerfully thankful. There’s two different ways to apply this then. The first is inward, so let me ask you this question: did you come this morning, did you show up to church already with a heart of gratitude for the work of the gospel in your life? Or did you just show up out of habit? Did you show up with an expectation that you get something out of this or you express out of your own heart a disposition of thankfulness?
Because here’s the thing, if we’ve prayerfully contemplated on the divine blessings, as Beale says, then what is our disposition when we walk into this room isn’t self-centered or self-serving but rather it’s God-glorifying. It’s a heart that’s already stirred for worship. So then, imagine how I’d treat you? I see you and because I see you as having received the gospel—we’ll dive more into that later—and sharing in the same fruit that I have, my disposition toward you is thanksgiving toward God, just like Paul for the church at Colossae.
Do you see how that affects everything of our life together on a Sunday, or a weekday? DO you see how it affects the way I preach and the way you listen? The way you sing and participate? The way you have patience and grace towards those who came in today with a bundle of problems and just survived? Church, what if, what if our first words when we encountered one another was, “I thank God for you.”
But Take it a step farther than that—now look outward: what if our first words when we encountered another gospel preaching church that’s bearing gospel fruit in our community was, “I thank God for you.”
In order for that to happen though, do you know what must happen first? 2 things must take place. First, we have to have tasted the goodness of the gospel ourselves. It has to be something that we’re grateful for. It has to be something that we see as the grace of God towards us. That’s the first thing.
Here’s the second: We must have eyes that are aware of the work of God among us and around us? Which means that we must be looking for it. Do you have eyes for the gospel bearing fruit in and around you?
When you truly get the hope of the gospel what grows in you is prayerful thanksgiving. Now that leads us to our next question: what specifically is it about gospel work in Colossae that is the cause of Paul’s thanksgiving? That brings us to our second point:
Gospel hope grows faith & love.
Gospel hope grows faith & love.
Look back with me to the text. Col. 1:3-5
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 the truth, the gospel,
Paul, thanks God because he hear of the faith in Christ Jesus & of the Love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. So, here’s the question for us…is faith the result of the hope laid up in heaven or is it just love that is a result of the hope? What is the relationship between these 3 things?
Now, I posted a link on our LBC Family page to John Piper’s Look at the Book series on youtube. He goes way deeper into these than I’m about to so if you want to dig further then go check those out. With that being said, faith, hope, love..we’ve got these 3 things and we’re asking how or if they’re related. Because because is at the beginning of verse 5 we have to start there. We have to start with the “hope laid up in heaven.” What is the hope laid up in heaven?
Now we could just be really brief and throw up our Sunday School answer and say, “Jesus!” and be right and done right now, but if we do then we’ll have failed to be prayerfully contemplative and in doing so missed out on the glory of the hope that is laid up in heaven and if we miss out then we won’t have hearts that are full of thanksgiving. So let’s work through this together.
Let’s start simple…what does laid up in heaven mean? The greek word for laid up means that it is reserved or being kept. In other words it is a present reality. That hope exists there now.
You go make a reservation at a restaurant for a table at 7 pm tonight. Your table is there now. It is being kept for you—at least you hope so, right? You hope to not show up and it not be available.
So what is the hope then that is laid up in heaven? Well, we continue reading. “Of this (being the hope) you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel.” The Word of truth, or the gospel, tells us what our hope is. The answer is in it.
So we press further…what is the gospel? Remember that this is the compound greek word euangelion which means…good news. So hope is good news…that makes sense doesn’t it? And what did we talk about a second ago, that good news has come to you like fertilizer to a plant. If you jump down to the end of verse 6 though you see how it has come to us. Col.1:6
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,
It has come in grace & truth. It is both of these things equally at the same time. Now, we’ve finally worked to the bottom of it…what is the grace & truth that has come to us in the form of good news that produces hope in us? Or maybe if I were to phrase it another way, what is the hope of the grace and truth of the gospel? Paul gives us the answer just a few verses later. Look with me to Col. 1:12-14
giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Share in the inheritance of the saints in light = grace
delivered us from the domain of darkness = grace/truth
transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son = grace/truth
in whom we have redemption = grace/truth
the forgiveness of sins = grace/truth
Now I’m going to skip the shared inheritance and come back to it towards the end of these five things.
Deliverance from Darkness
Do you know what this means? If we had to be delivered from darkness then we were living in the dark. Darkness reigned all around us and in us. What does the biblical language for darkness mean? You could go back to creation and see that in darkness the earth was without form and void. It’s not just that it had no structure, but that it had no purpose. Or you could jump over to Proverbs 4:19
The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble.
Darkness is equivalent to the wicked and their ways. Or 1 Jn 1:6
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
To walk in darkness is to lie and to not have fellowship with our creator. I could keep going but the point is what does all of this lead to? Death. Have you walked in darkness? Have you lied and not practiced the truth? Have you stumbled around through life just awaiting or fearing death? Have you wondered if all of this is worth it and it’d just be better for you to die and plummet into eternal darkness? If that’s you then hear the grace of the gospel, Jesus came to deliver you from darkness.
Transferred to the Kingdom of Christ
In delivering you he transfers you to His Kingdom. The Kingdom that he came and proclaimed when He walked this earth. The one in which he is Lord not just for a generation, but for eternity. That’s the grace, the truth is that He is the one who transferred us. It’s not something we were able to do like going through the citizenship process and becoming a citizen of another country. We couldn’t purchase this. We couldn’t earn this. He transferred us the kingdom of his beloved Son.
Redemption
That transfer is proof of your redemption. I hit Psalms 40 in my Bible reading a couple weeks ago and it’s just stuck with me. Ps. 40:2
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
We needed to be redeemed out of the pit of destruction, the miry bog, the kingdom of darkness, but that redemption came at a price. It was costly for our feet to be set upon a rock. 1 Pet. 1:18-19
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
It cost Jesus his very life. But in purchasing our redemption do you know what we had?
Forgiveness of sin
Now we don’t have to live life feeling guilt and shame for the wicked deeds we once committed or that we will commit. Condemnation no longer has a hold on us.
Now we could stop right there at those 4 things: deliverance from darkness, transferred to the Kingdom of Christ, redemption, forgiveness. We could stop there and go that is worth hoping in, but they’re not the best part. The first one was a shared inheritance of the saints of light.
Who do inheritances go to? Children. You see because of the Father’s work through His son He has qualified us to share in the inheritance as children. We talked about this last week, but this inheritance is proof of our relational transformation. That relational transformation, as we saw last week, is horizontal—it’s between you and me. Now we don’t relate to each other as church friends but brother’s and sisters who have been redeemed. We are saints.
But more importantly than our horizontal relational transformation is our vertical relational transformation. There’s two elements that Pauls discusses of our relational transformation. We saw one last week. Now because of Christ God is our Father. And as we saw at the end of v2 God is the giver of grace & peace. So now we have access to the grace & peace of God—one that surpasses all understanding— because of the grace & truth that has come to us in Christ.
But here’s the second element of that—our relation with Christ is now transformed. Look down with me to Colossians 1:27
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
What is different about our relationship with Christ? Now Christ is in me—that is the ultimate hope of all glory. It is the glory of all hope. All of those other things are wonderful and awesome but the most glorious of them all, the greatest part of the inheritance of the saints in light is Christ in us. Piper said this, “if we only want to go to heaven so we can be with friends and have health and prosperity and not suffer, but don’t really care about enjoying God then we aren’t Christians.”
The greatest & most glorious part of eternity is Christ. We can have tastes of him now, but the heart of our hope is to know him fullly. 1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Now here’s what this means: hope is not an emotion of the heart. It is an objective reality that is laid up in heaven. Deliverance from the domain of darkness. It may not feel like it, but it ultimately will happen because Jesus conquered the end of that domain when He rose from the grave. Transferred into the kingdom of his beloved Son who sits right now on the throne reigning in heaven. Redemption & forgiveness by the blood of the Son that was shed for us. Shared inheritance where all the saints will stand in the glory of the Son. You tell me, is that something worth hoping in?
These are incredible truths, but Paul wrote them specifically for the church at Colossae to hear or at least be reminded of. Remember, there’s some sort of sneaky philosophy or teaching that is creeping into the church that is saying you must add something to fully be satisfied. But Paul shows us here that you don’t have to seek for fulfillment or hope by adding something to your faith. Look to these things and in them you will find the satisfaction your heart is looking for.
What happens when you find an object worthy of hoping in? Hope awakens faith. What does Heb. 11:1 have to say about that?
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
When I become convicted that this is the best thing for me I begin to place my faith in it. Let’s illustrate it. As a husband I hope to provide for my family. My wife hopes to raise godly children. Ah, now we’ve come to a problem. We both have a hope. We’re both convicted about these hopes, but at the end of the day they are rivaling hopes. Which one wins out? If I think provision is the greater hope then what do I do? I forsake my family for provision. If my spouse think godly children is the highest hope then what does she do? She grows in anger and bitterness towards her husband. Do you see how our hopes drive us? But they not only drive us, they reveal where our faith is? What is faith? It is the assurance that the thing I’m hoping for will satisfy.
“Vincent J. Donovan tells of a conversation with a Masai elder about how the word for “faith” was to be translated into his language. The elder contended that the word chosen was unsatisfactory because it meant “to agree to.”” Don’t we often view faith as a mental ascent? Just a general agreement?
“[The Masai elder] said that it was similar to a white hunter shooting an animal with his gun from a great distance. Only his eyes and his fingers took part in the act. We should find another word.
He said for a man really to believe is like a lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelops it in his arms (Africans refer to the front legs of an animal as its arms), pulls it to himself, and makes it part of himself. This is the way the lion kills. This is the way a man believes. This is what faith is.”
Faith is to take ahold with all of you the hope that awaits you. So let’s look back to Col 1:3-5
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 the truth, the gospel,
Paul says, I thank God. Why? Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. We’ve looked at that. That hope, what does it do? It awakens in us a faith so we take that faith and we place in the object of that hope which is Christ Jesus?
For Paul, and for the rest of the NT writers faith, like a lion in pursuit of its prey always works itself out in action. Faith is never just mental ascent to hope, it is living out the reality of that hope. Gal. 5:6
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
What’s Paul telling the church at Galatia? He’s saying your religious works and religious tradition counts for nothing, but faith working through love. What does he tell Timothy? 1 Tim. 1:5
The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Timothy what I’m challenging you with in this letter is love that flows out faith. What does James tell the 12 tribes in the dispersion? James 2:18
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
I get this question often. People ask me how do I know that I’m really saved? How do I know that my faith is real? Col. 1 tells us that your faith is real when you see your hope as an objective reality and as you do that God grows in you faith, so you take that faith and place it in that hope & that is ultimately and always displayed in it working itself out in love. One simple assurance of faith is that I grow in my love for the saints—the ones I share an inheritance with—because of the hope that we share in. How do I grow in my love for the saints? This is a little bit of a circular argument, but I look too my hope. As I see my hope I’m free to love. Now I actually think there’s more we could squeeze out of that but for the sake of time let’s ask the question what does it mean to love all the saints? What kind of love is this?
Paul, as he has so far through this letter, anticipates our question: Col 1:8
and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
This is the only direct mention of the Spirit in the entire book of Colossians. There’s some allusion later, but this is the only explicit one. In it Paul is saying the love that you have for the saints is one that is in the Spirit. Piper says that word in can mean by the power of. So the love the Colossians have is a Spirit empowered love for one another. But isn’t that the kind of love it takes for the church to exist?
I need Spirit empowered love to be patient with one another. I need Spirit empowered love to be kind and not to envy or boast or not to be arrogant or rude. I need Spirit empowered love to not insist on my own way or not to be irritable or resentful. I need Spirit empowered love to not rejoice at wrongdoing, but to rejoice with the truth. I need Spirit empowered love to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things.
What is the love for all the saints? I love this definition by Joby Martin:
Love is your joy (hope) in the Lord expressed towards others at great expense to yourself.
It takes the Spirit to have that kind of love for one another. But the last part of the good news of the grace of God in truth is that He seals us with His Spirit as we place our faith in him. Eph. 1:13-14
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
OH man church do you see how gospel hope grows faith & love?! And it doesn’t just grow it; it enables it; it empowers it.
So what do we do with all of this? I think before we can do anything you have to answer the question have you placed your faith in the objective hope of the gospel? Have you relentless pursued and trusted in this hope? Maybe today is the first time you’ve seen this as something worthy of placing your faith in and if that’s true then praise God! Call out to him, ask him to deliver you from the domain of darkness, and know that that is what He loves to do. He loves to save. He loves to adopt. Right where you’re at right now, just ask God to save you. And he will.
Now when God saves us what happens to us? All of the promises of that hope become ours, yes, but more— we are radically transformed to be people who love. Do you know one of the best ways to love people? Be thankful for them. Give thanks as you grow in your hope for the gospel. For those who have believed, that’s the call for you today. I want to give us two immediate application steps for that. Upward and outward. That’s how I’m thinking.
Let’s start with outward. Here’s how we outwardly work out this main point. Today, when we wrap this service up and you get up to leave and you grab your kids from upstairs or you try to slip out the door you’re going to bump into each other. Instead of looking and smiling at each other and trying to get to lunch in a rush, look each other in the eye and in a prayerful attitude let the first words out of your mouth be, “I thank God for you.” Every person you bump into, “I thank God for you.” I see you here every Sunday, I may not even know or remember your name, but I’m thankful for you. Say it to encourage and say it in worship because the hope of the gospel has and is bearing fruit in them. That’s outward.
Upward. I want to go ahead and invite the music team on up and what we’re going to do is observe The Lord’s Supper together. We are going to approach this table and so often when we do this I try to take a more somber approach to the Table, but based on these truths I can’t help but be thankful and hopeful.
These elements—the cup and the cracker—are visual reminders of the hope laid up for us in heaven. They remind us that He was crushed to deliver and transfer; to redeem & forgive. Thanks be to God! This means that these elements are only for those who have taken ahold of this hope through faith. If you haven’t placed your faith in Christ then just pass this plate to the next person when it comes to you. But if Christ is Lord of your life, then grab ahold of these with great hope and love. Men you come on forward and as the music plays we’ll distribute the elements and then observe this together.
