Colossians 1 this morning. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
The Bible says that the gospel is the power of God. Romans 1:16 says:
[!Bible] Romans 1:16 - KJV 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
The gospel is the power of God. Have you ever thought about what that means?
Do you know what this is? (Hold up walnut)
About fifty feet behind me stands a walnut tree. “Old ugly” as I like to call it. That tree has been “blessing” us with walnuts for at least thirty years. A few years ago, we got sick of it and decided to cut almost the whole top of the tree off - well, we should have cut the whole thing down because now it’s back and back to it’s old walnut giving ways.
Here is a question - how did that walnut tree get there? Where did it come from? Somehow, at some point, one of these seeds got planted in the ground and took root and before you know it that root became a shoot and that shoot sprouted leaves and started giving off it’s own fruit. And now it a great big walnut tree.
There is amazing power in just one of these seeds. There is hundreds of board feet of wood in here. There, if anyone wanted to eat them, a lifetime supply of walnuts in here. There is shade in here. There may be fire wood to keep a family warm in here. There is a whole forest in here.
The gospel is the power of God, and every time the gospel goes out it is like a seed - and what is that gospel seed? Everlasting life. Not just for one person, but potentially for the hundreds or even thousands of people that person reaches. Peace and purpose for that person. A changed life and a changed family. Children, potentially grandchildren raised in the faith.
The gospel is the power of God to salvation. This morning we are starting a new book series - we are going to be looking at the book of Colossians, which is a book about the power of Jesus. It’s a wonderful little book and this morning we are just going to dip our toes in it. Just look at the introduction. But in that introduction we are going to see the power of the gospel.
Let’s get started by reading Colossians 1 verses 1-8:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:1-8 - KJV
- Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,
- To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- 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,
- For the hope 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:
- As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
- Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
Look at verse 6 there again:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:6 - KJV 6. 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:
The gospel had come to the people at Colosse, and it had (like a seed) brought forth fruit. The gospel took root in Colosse and God did some amazing things there.
So I want to talk this morning about what God does through the gospel.
The gospel is the power of God to salvation. God works through the gospel. When the gospel does it’s work, it brings forth fruit. So what is the fruit of the gospel. What does God do for us through the gospel?
Let’s look at this passage and see four things the gospel does:
The first thing I want you to see about the gospel is
Look at verse 2 again:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:2 - KJV 2. To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse:
The most obvious thing the gospel does is to turn people into saints. To turn people into Christians.
The word “saint” as it is used in the Bible is not like “saint” as we think of it. It’s not like “Saint Paul” or “Saint Benedict.” We tend to think of saints in the Catholic sense. But that’s not at all what it means. It just means “set apart ones” and in the Bible it just means saved people.
If you have trusted Christ as your savior and believed the gospel, then you too are a saint. You are set apart for God. You have been plucked out of the world and you have a special status.
There were lots of people at Colosse - but not all of them were saints. Most of them were pagans, trusting in their Roman gods. But some of them had believed the gospel and the gospel had made them something else altogether - the gospel had set them apart and given them a new identity - they are saints.
Now, you might want to know a bit about the people Paul was writing to here, as we are going to be talking about them for several months.
Colosse was a city - a little town really - in Central turkey. A ways away from the big city of Ephesus. There were two bigger cities near it: Laodicea and Hieropolis and those cities tended to overshadow Colosse.
Paul never made it to Colosse. He didn’t know these people he was writing to. So how did a church show up there?
Well, Paul had stayed and preached in Ephesus for a couple of years, and during his time there God worked mightily and as people got saved, they spread from Ephesus and shared the gospel - and so the gospel had found it’s way to Colosse and a church had been established there. (We’ll come back to that later.)
The point is that the seed of the gospel was carried there, the gospel was preached there, and because the gospel was preached there - there were saints there.
Now, are you a saint? Have you heard and believed the gospel? Have you trusted Christ for your salvation? Have you been born again?
Knowing about the seed doesn’t make you a plant. You have to receive the seed of the gospel and believe on Christ. Have you done that?
The gospel creates saints.
But that isn’t the only thing the gospel does. We see a second thing the gospel does in this verse:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:2 - KJV 2. To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Grace” means “unmerited favor.” When we believe the gospel, we become the recipients of God’s unmerited favor - which means we don’t deserve it, we don’t deserve all of the good things God gives to us.
I was riding my bike through the neighborhood last night with Noah, and we rode through that little subdivision behind the hospital with all of the big new houses. Beautiful homes. Some of the nicest homes in town. Most of us couldn’t afford one of those homes right?
Imagine if we went to the homeless shelter, and we found someone who was just awful. The awfulest and meanest person there. I mean, they have no desire to work. They are addicted to drugs. They have psychological problems. They may even be guilty of some terrible crime. (I’m not saying all people at the homeless shelter are this way, but we all know there are some like this.) Imagine we found one of those people and we just gave them one of those nice homes, and we gave them a large weekly stipend, we just paid them to live there, and we furnished the home for them with beautiful furniture, and we stocked the pantry all the time with wonderful food and the closets with respectable clothes.
Now, that is what God does for us. He gives us His unmerited favor. He gives us His undeserved gifts. He showers us with blessing we do not deserve. And more than that, He transforms us so that we are becoming more and more worthy of those gifts.
That’s grace. And the gospel also brings peace.
The Romans had there idea of peace. They loved to put the word “peace” on everything. But there idea of peace was peace at the end of a sword. It was peace through brutality.
God’s peace is so much more real than that. It is peace that passes all understanding. It is the perfect peace that comes when our mind is stayed on God.
One author described the peace of god like this:
It is a settled and contented wholeness and flourishing that inevitably results from God’s work in the world.
Christ is the Prince of Peace, and when we meet Him through the gospel He brings us real peace.
Have you met Christ? Are you experiencing the grace and peace through the gospel?
So the gospel makes saints and then gives those saints grace and peace in Christ.
But there is another work of the gospel here. Look down at verses 4-5.
[!Bible] Colossians 1:4-5 - KJV 4. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, 5. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
Paul mentions three things here: Faith, Hope and Love.
Faith, hope, love. If you pay close attention, you see that these three things are all over the new testament. Couple examples:
[!Bible] 1 Corinthians 13:13 - KJV 13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
[!Bible] 1 Peter 1:21-22 - KJV 21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. 22. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:
There are half a dozen other places in the New Testament where these three ingredients are spoken of. One writer said that “faith, hope and love” are kind of a shorthand for the genuine Christian life.
So the gospel makes saints, the gospel brings grace and peace, and…
Chef’s use ingredients to make a flavor base for a lot of different foods. If you are going to make a pot roast or you are going to make braised ribs, or you are going to roast a turkey - there are three traditional ingredients that you use as a flavor base: onion, celery and carrots. Chef’s call this mirpoix. And it is amazing.
I don’t know what your Christian life is going to look like - but I can tell you that when we believe the gospel, God starts to build our lives on three ingredients: faith, hope and love.
The text says “Faith in Christ Jesus.“ Faith itself is a pretty useless thing. What matters is who or what you put your faith in.
A lot of local people put their faith in Clyde Hood and Omega Trust - and a lot of people lost a lot of money because of that faith.
Billions have put their faith in some other god, or some other hope - they are certainly people with faith - but that faith ultimately left them empty.
Church, we who have believed the gospel are people who are trusting in Jesus. Our faith is in Him. It is not in ourselves. It is not in our works. It is not in our keeping of religious rules and ceremonies. It is in Christ. And our faith in Christ should grow and grow as we walk with God.
Then our text says “and the love which ye have to all the saints.” The gospel does something else to us - it gives us faith and it results in love. Practical love that is shown to “all the saints.” Love for other Christians. Love that shows up in the way that we care for each other. The way we love each other. The time we spend for each other.
Faith, love and hope. It says “the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.” Christian hope isn’t a wishy-washy thing. It isn’t hope like we think of it today. Like I say “I hope the Patriots have a good year this year.” No, Christian hope is settled. Christian hope is based on things that cannot be changed. Our bank account may be ensured by the FDIC, but our hope is insured by the bank of heaven - it is laid up for us in heaven.
And that hope - that settled hope - it allows us to live differently. It allows us to get through the storms of life.
Faith, hope and love. The three ingredients our Christian life is based on. The flavor base of the gospel-centered life.
Has the gospel done it’s work in you and resulted in a life of faith, hope and love. Do you really believe the Bible? Do you really believe in Christ? Are you looking in faith to scripture for guidance in your life?
Do you show the love of God to others? Do you want to be with God’s people?
Do you have hope or are you a cynic like so much of the world. The world may really be trash. People may really be awful. But the gospel lets us have hope that is settled in heaven and based on God’s work on this earth.
So the gospel makes us saints. The gospel brings us grace and peace. The gospel results in lives of faith, hope and love. One more thing:
Look at verses 7 and 8:
[!Bible] Colossians 1:7-8 - KJV 7. As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; 8. Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
Epaphras was a man who probably went to Ephesus while Paul was preaching there, heard the gospel and got saved and God called Epaphras to go back to his hometown of Colosse and start a church. It seems like Epaphras is their pastor in the church at Colosse and Epaphras went on a little mission trip to his friend Paul (who was in prison in Rome) and told them about some things going on in the church - that is the background of this book.
But here is the point I want to make about the gospel - when people get saved, inevitably, they form churches. Inevitably, God raises up pastors among them. This happens over and over again in the New Testament and it has happened over and over again since the time of the New Testament.
God’s plan for the advancement of the gospel is local churches with faithful pastors that are preaching and teaching the truth. Those churches need to be everywhere. Those churches are an essential part of living a gospel centered life.
Jesus last commands were to go and preach the gospel. But that wasn’t the whole thing. The last part of His commands were to take the people who believe the gospel and baptize them and then teach them. They are baptized into local churches and taught with local churches.
Then you read the rest of the New Testament and churches are the context of it. Listen, Paul didn’t write this book to a bunch of randos in Colosse. He didn’t write it to a coffee shop men’s club in Colosse. He didn’t write it to a specific family. He wrote it to a local church. Just like Ephesians was written to a local church and the letters of Corinthians were written to local churches and the book of Philippians was written to a local church - because local churches are the context for living the gospel centered life.
So inside the gospel are not just individual benefits - but benefits that could result in churches being planted and more people touched by the gospel.
So the gospel came into this town and bore fruit: It created saints, it gave those people grace and peace, they started living lives of faith, hope and love, and they lived their lives in a local church.
There are millions of stories of the gospel’s work in people’s lives. I could tell you the story of my family, how someone shared the gospel with my stepdad and he got saved. He trusted Christ. Our life changed. Our whole family changed. It became centered around the gospel, and centered around church.
I could tell you of my father in law, sitting in a jail cell in Dalton, GA. Leader of a drug gang. Dropped out of school as early as possible. Kicked out of his own county before he was 15 for causing trouble. Addicted to drugs. Addicted to alcohol. Then someone came by his jail cell and told him about Jesus and God changed his life and the whole direction of his family.
I could tell you about how God turned my young life around when I believed the gospel and trusted Christ. How my life has changed.
The gospel changes lives. That is what the gospel does. It is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes. It is God’s plan for this world. So let’s apply it to you:
What is your gospel story?
Have you received the gospel? Has the gospel taken root in your life? Jesus died for you. For you. He gave His life to save you. Have you believed in Him? Have you been born again? Have you been made a saint?
If you have received the gospel, are you living in grace and peace? Would other people look at your life and say it is a life of faith, hope and love? Are you active and faithful in church?
What is your gospel story? Let’s stand for invitation and prayer.