Gospel Gratitude
Notes
Transcript
Recap
Paul author
In prison
Didn’t plant church
Writes to Colossians
Small city, small church
Writes it to address the worldly teachings in and around the church
After his initial greeting, Paul will now break out in thanksgiving & prayer
Today we will look at his thanksgiving, next time we will look at his prayer
(JOSH DISCLAIMER)
Colossians 1:3 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,”
Will spend the rest of this time looking at what it is that Paul is thankful for and then explore why they have it
We - Paul & Timothy, perhaps others with him in the ministry
Always - some translations “we thank God… praying always for you”
Not every minute of every day but rather continually, ongoing, day and night, without ceasing
How often do we spend praying for churches/people/things that don’t pertain to us?
Praying for my own sermons
Praying for my needs
Praying for my own desires
How often do we pray, and what are we praying for?
“The father of our Lord Jesus Christ”
Interesting language for Paul
Romans 1:8 “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.”
1 Corinthians 1:4 “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,”
Ephesians 1:15–16 “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,”
Philippians 1:3–5 “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
The father of our Lord Jesus Christ
In a book that so highly exalts Christ, it appears Paul is rightly distinguishing the father from the son
Later he will say
Image of the invisible God
All things were created through him and for him
He is preeminent
Fullness of God dwells
But I think even more than that, we need to remember the reality of what the father has done.
Given his son
Not any son
“Lord”
THE SON
His only begotten son
His perfect son
His Beloved son vs 13
Murdered
Crucified
Bearing under the wrath of the father
How easy it would be to say I will leave them in their sin and hell will come
But no I will send my son.
And the son said, father I will go
“Since” - for, because
Some translations skip straight to “having heard”
“Heard”
Paul didn’t plant the church
Paul is going to list out 3 common graces among Christians
Faith - Love - Hope
1 Cor 13; Rom 5; Gal 5; 1 Thess 1; 1 Thess 5; Heb 10; 1 Pet 1
Not isolated - Paul develops theses thoughts of faith hope love in the book
Colossians 1:8 “and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”
Colossians 1:23 “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
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.”
Colossians 2:2 “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ,”
Colossians 2:7 “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
Colossians 3:14 “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Let’s look at each one quickly in detail and then look at their relationship
Faith - Trust
Object?
My faith is directed toward Christ
Sphere in which faith lives?
Living out a faith located in Christ
Either way the core centrality of faith is 100% focused & grounded in Christ
OBS
It is not your faith that saves you
But Marcus
Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
Galatians 2:16 “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Acts 16:31 “And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.””
Lot’s of people have “faith”
“Faith in yourself”
“Person of faith”
“Faith in humanity”
It is not your faith that saves you but rather the thing you have placed your faith into
faith in worldly philosophies
Second grace
Love
Paul is grateful to God for hearing of the love of these saints for one another
This is huge in the Bible
John 13:34–35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””
1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:20 “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
Matthew 22:36–40 ““Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””
1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Colossians 1:8 “and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”
Love - Hijacked by culture
Worldly love - Affirm me in all I do
“No hate like christian love”
Johnathan Edwards
Love of complacency
Qualities that draw affections
Love of benevolence
Based on good will toward the object
Love - more than emotion but it is not divorced from emotion
agape love - Choosing to seek the greatest good for another, even at great cost
Even if you receive nothing in return
Even if the person “doesn't deserve it”
Love is rooted in the gospel
Run your love through the grid
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
These Christians love one another.
NOT JUST THEIR CHURCH - ALL THE SAINTS = those who come into their path
They serve one another
They care for one another
How is this possible?
In the spirit
Colossians 1:8 “and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”
Evidence that one is a saint is a love for the saints
Finally, the third grace we see is hope
When we say hope we think of a desire for a potential outcome
I hope the packers win
I hope I get the job
Christian hope is not that..
It is sure -
1. You didn’t earn it
“Of this” - hope
They heard this hope in the gospel
Word of truth, the gospel
Grace of god in truth
Gospel - Define
The grave is empty and we have hope - RIFF
2. You don’t secure it
Language is similar to that of 1 Peter
1 Peter 1:3–5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Paul emphasizes it’s truth
Word of truth, the gospel
Grace of god in truth
Postmodernism - no objective truth…
Our hope is a certain hope
We live in a state of current hope looking forward to an eternal hope
Hope - is all we get to look forward to in heaven
No more crying, mourning, sickness, disease, addiction, loss, grief, pain, sin
Namely God
The hope of gospel is you get God
In a culture that is competing for your hope in its worldly philosophies & empty deceit, the gospel is the hope they so desperately need
They had no hope
Ephesians 2:12 “remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
The hope of a Christian is not an anxious wanting of what may come but rather an eager anticipation of what is sure to come
How different might our lives look if we lived with that hope in mind?
Our finances
Our time
Our attention
In Pauls mind, it is the reality of the hope of the gospel that fuels the other two graces
Thank God… of your faith… and your love
BECAUSE
Now that Paul has reminded them of the gospel graces at work in them, he’s going to tell us the origins of how it got there of the power of these graces
First it’s origins
But church God chose to spread it by his saints
You learned it from Epaphras
God uses saved people save people
God uses his church to herald the good news to the world
I mentioned last week the incredible reality that this man Epephras most likely traveled to Ephesus and hear the gospel and was saved.
And came home and preached the gospel and people were saved.
And those people preached the gospel and people were saved.
Perhaps one day you’ll receive a report…
That the gospel message. the message of hope for the sinner that you proclaimed took root. and faith and love sprung forth from it
And you like the apostle paul, erupt in thanksgiving to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for what he has done, and what he is doing in the world
The gospel power
Whole world
Not everywhere
All peoples
Spreading throughout the world
You know how this gospel came to you and flipped your world upside down?
It’s happening everywhere
The same thing thats happened to you, is happening all over
The faith you have in christ
The love you have for one another
The hope that is laid up for you. the hope you heard about in the gospel
That’s happening everywhere
There are no borders it can’t cross
Tribes it can’t reach
Barriers it can’t break
Races it isn’t for
Languages it can’t speak
This is an encouragement to them
The gospel has global power and its spreading
OBS
Notice Paul doesn’t thank them for what they have but rather he thanks God.
He thanks God because its all a gift from God
So let us, with Paul, give thanks to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ for what he has done and is doing across the world in the gospel
Communion
1 Corinthians 11:23–29 “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
