Where is your hope? – Colossians 1:1-8
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
September 9, 2007
Text
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Colossae - the city, the people- (put map on overhead/PowerPoint)
- inland, built along the river Lycus, part of what is now Turkey
- on a major trading route, but eventually road gets rerouted and Colossae loses out
- significant earthquake centre – city is destroyed shortly after Paul writes epistle
- when it’s destroyed, it’s never really rebuilt like more important nearby cities of Laodicea and Herapolis
- a city which was once great before the Roman empire, but now in decline as other cities became more important
- Lightfoot - “least important church to which any biblical letter is written”
- good mix of Jews, Greeks and locals
- Diversity of peoples makes for a diversity of ideas,
and the struggle that the Colossians face is rooted in both Jewish and Greek ideas (more on that later in the book)
- not a church actually planted by Paul, but probably formed as a result of the gospel spreading from nearby towns of Ephesus and Laodicea
- may have been started by Epaphras,
a little known but faithful helper to Paul
Synopsis - quiet place, small town, out of the way, once important but soon to be forgotten
The Greeting
Since Paul has never visited Colossae, these are the first words they’ve ever heard from Paul
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
- establishes his credentials, introduces Timothy as a co-worker
- an apostle due to “the will of God”,
- God directly confronted him and made him one of the highest leaders in the early church
- He was not a self-appointed leader who tried to use his own charm to lure people to his own fan club, like others he had to contend with
- views Colossians as holy and faithful brothers
- masculine reference just writing form of the day, not intended to exclude women!
Holy – set apart, in our terms not “better then”
but rather intended for different things
Faithful – true to the message they have received and believed
Grace and peace
Grace - God’s provision and presence with them
Peace – God’s giving of wholeness of life,
being made complete by being restored to God
from God our Father – Paul is reminding us that grace and peace only find their truest form in God himself.
So in this simple greeting he has laid out for them who he is,
the authority he has to communicate with them,
and his desire that they truly know the God is able to give both grace and peace abundantly.
He now starts to build toward the reason he has written this letter to them.
The Gospel
Since he doesn’t know them personally, he begins the meat of his letter by building upon the importance of the gospel message that unites them in Christ.
He touches upon their faith in Christ and their love for all the saints (other Christians) and that these two things are rooted in the hope that they now have as followers of Christ.
And these are all vastly important things,
Faith in Christ is the key to our faith as Christians,
for our relationship with God is based on our faith
– our belief and trust – in Him and his word to us.
Christians can share many different beliefs,
but we are all rooted in a deep faith in the Saviour himself, Jesus Christ.
Love for each other grows out of knowing that God loves us, and is evidence of the true presence of Christ in our lives.
The Apostle John reminds us that love is not only key to knowing God, for God is love, but that in loving each other we learn to know God,
1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Hope is our gift from God
– a certain knowledge that our faith, our God, our saviour are genuine
and that God’s promises to us are both coming true and also waiting to come true
In our daily lives it’s easy to lose sight of this hope,
it gets crowded our by so many other things,
but to keep our faith vibrant we must leave room for this hope to be felt, trusted and expressed!
Now, after mentioning faith in Christ,
love for each other
and the hope that is “stored up for us”,
Paul bring his focus to the one thing that introduces this faith, love and hope into our lives:
which was rooted in them by the gospel that has come to them (vs. 5)
Without the gospel, the message of God’s love for the world
as shown in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
faith, hope and love would be as foreign to the Colossians
as computers, TV’s and rap music
They would know of the worldly versions of these things,
but they are dim copies compared to the real thing,
which comes directly from God through his Son Jesus Christ.
The gospel is described as “the word of truth”
It is truth, in that it is correct and trustworthy,
But it is also truth in that it brings us face to face with Jesus,
Who identified himself as “the way, the truth and the life”
As the passage continues,
Paul testifies to how it is making a difference all over the world,
All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth
He reveals to them that the message they have put their faith in
is making an impact far greater than they can see.
- they live in a small, out of the way town, and wouldn’t realize how far and wide the message is spreading…
They didn’t have media like we do today!
This would encourage them, to know that their church is not an isolated phenomenon but part of something much bigger than they can see.
Just one generation, after Jesus gave his life and rose from the dead,
this message had made a difference
from Jerusalem all the way to Rome,
and the power of the Gospel just keeps growing and growing.
I have always felt that this is one of the miracles that lends authenticity to our faith - the fact that despite our Saviour suffered such a humiliation on the cross, his message of love and salvation made such a powerful impact in the world so quickly.
It would be natural for a crucified religious leader to be forgotten by history, yet we have the exact opposite in Jesus Christ.
His life, death and resurrection are in part confirmed by the strength in which his message spread.
I’m going to share a reading about the life that our gospel teaches us about, to show how powerful the impact of the gospel has been.
One Solitary Life - Anonymous
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years, He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to a college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying... His executioners gambled for His garments, the only property He had on Earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this Earth as much as that..... One Solitary Life.
The gospel of Christ is the story of that One Solitary Life.
What can we learn from this passage today?
1. the message didn’t need the “top guns” like Paul or Timothy to have an effect, it just needed to be shared!
The same is true today!
You don’t have to be a paid professional to share the gospel message,
you just need to take the initiative and let God carry you through!
2. Our message is full of hope for a world that doesn’t see a lot of hope right now!
We don’t see a great deal of hopeful news on the TV or radio, much of our media lives by the by-line “if it bleeds, it leads”.
We need to know that God is doing good things all over, miracles are happening, people are giving their lives over to Christ, and the church is growing in places we may have never even heard of.
The gospel that we hold to brings us a reason to have hope,
for it’s promise of salvation to those who believe in Christ
3. The message is still spreading far and wide
We may feel out of the way of what’s going on in the world,
But just like the small town church that this letter was written too,
We too are a part of something much bigger than we can see!
If you have faith in Christ, be encouraged and strengthened in your faith.
Be ready to live out the message that anchors your hope,
Let people see in you what strengthens you,
and be ready to share the message that gives you hope
If you’re not sure about your faith, you can be today,
The gospel is not easy, but it is simple
1. acknowledge your sinfulness before God
2. admit you need for Christ as your Lord and Saviour
3. Give your heart over to Jesus in prayer, and begin to love for Him!
Where is your hope today?
It can be in Jesus Christ, the son of God.
The choice is up to you.
