The Real Thing – Colossians 1:1–8 (Aug. 16, 2026)

Well, if you've got a student in kindergarten to third grade, they can go ahead and head out to their class now.

The rest of us, if you would, go ahead and open up your Bibles to the book of Colossians.

If that sounds different, it is.

This is our first morning in this book of Colossians.

If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be one under a chair around you.

We'd love for you to use that.

You can even take that home with you if you don't have a good Bible.

But you can also open up your bulletin and find the passage there.

Over the next three or four months, we're going to be making our way through this letter that the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Colossae.

Maybe if you're new to the fields, this is what we do.

We walk through books of the Bible, verse by verse, passage by passage, and that's exactly what we'll do over the next three or four months, Lord willing.

This morning we're going to look at the very beginning, the first eight verses.

So Colossians chapter 1, verses 1 through 8, and we're going to look at and consider the real thing.

Colossians 1:1–8

You know, there are a lot of questions in life.

Big questions.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Those are ultimate questions.

Big, big life questions, and they're really great questions.

But you know, I think there's sometimes a question that doesn't get enough airtime.

And the question is, is it real?

Here's where I started to understand that this was a significant question.

It was when my boys began to switch from animated movies to, in some sense, live action movies.

And there were a whole host of is it real questions?

And I remember our kids going, Dad, is that happening now?

Like trying to figure out what's happening on the TV that looks so real.

Is that happening now?

Well, no, that was filmed.

Well, is that a real place?

Sort of?

Sometimes?

Kind of?

Is that uh actually like, did this really happen?

Well, yes, it did.

Really happen.

It was filmed.

Is that the real Jackie Robinson?

That's a very specific movie, but still.

It clarifies.

Well, no, it's an actor.

Is there a real Jackie Robinson?

Yes.

Questions just over and over again.

Is any of it real?

Yeah?

I mean, sort of, yes.

And kind of no?

There's a whole sort of questions there.

And some that we might think, well, that's, you know, kind of humorous.

Kids are young trying to figure out things.

And yet, recently aren't we starting to ask a lot of these questions too?

Is that news real or fake?

Is that picture or video I just saw on social media media, did that actually happen?

Does it actually look like that?

If you're a teacher in here, did you really write that?

Maybe you got an employee or a boss.

Did you actually do that work?

AI has brought a whole host of is it real questions?

It's hard sometimes to know what's real and what isn't real.

But you know what?

In some sense, that's always been the case.

I think, especially in matters of faith, if you're a Christian, here's a question I'm almost certain you've asked.

You could be asking it right now.

You might ask it soon.

Am I a real Christian?

I think sometimes we're embarrassed to ask that question, or at least admit that we ask that question.

But I guarantee you, I need you to know this morning you're not weird if you ask that question.

That's a very normal question of the Christian life.

Am I a real Christian?

Within that question are a lot of other real questions.

Is Christianity for real?

Is God real?

Is Christ real?

Did Christ really raise from the dead?

Did Christ really do so to save us from our sin?

Have I really been saved?

Is this really the Christian life?

See, my guess is, unless you've been dragged here unwittingly or unwillingly, you are thinking at least something about those questions.

And here's my encouragement for you this morning.

We're not the first to ask them.

In fact, I'm pretty certain that the church in Colossae was asking them to.

I think that's in part why Paul writes this letter.

See, here's a people who are trusting in Christ.

Paul even says they're faithful.

You can look at verse 2 in the intro.

Here's how they describe how he describes them to the saints in Christ at Colossae who are faithful brothers and sisters.

Paul calls them saints in Christ.

If you're not familiar with that, that's just theological code for belonging to Christ.

Paul is writing to a people who belong to Christ and who are faithful.

And yet there are temptations.

There are questions.

There are doubts.

There's false teaching.

It seems like there are some, maybe even within the church, that are beginning to say some things like this.

They're beginning to declare that there's something past the gospel.

There's something more than Christ.

Starting to declare and say things like there's something greater, something more fantastic that you haven't experienced yet.

They're telling these faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, you know what you need to do.

You need to move past this level one that you're on.

There are actually higher and higher levels that you can get to, and we can tell you how you might get there.

How you can experience more that you haven't yet.

You can see how that would be tempting?

How that might lead to some questions and doubts?

Maybe you can even see how that might play out in your own heart.

I think sometimes we're tempted to think, is this it?

Is there more to the Christian life?

Is there another rank that I can get to?

Is there something else that I can do in order to kind of raise up and experience more?

Are there better, higher levels?

Am I missing out on something?

See how that can lead to the question: am I the real thing?

Am I a real Christian?

Is this the real Christian life?

See, Paul doesn't hesitate or wait to answer those questions.

He is going to spend this entire letter of Colossians really describing the answers to those questions in full, but he starts building the foundation in our passage this morning.

Here's our main idea this morning.

The gospel is real, and it's really at work in us.

Church, here's what I think the Lord has for us this morning in his word.

The Lord wants us to know two things very clearly.

The gospel is real, and it's really at work in us.

Let's look at the passage, Colossians 1, and we're gonna dig in verses 1 through 8.

Most of our time we're gonna spend on 3 through 8, but here's what it says: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by God's will.

The apostle Paul writes this, and the apostle Paul did not become an apostle by his own will, his own decision, his own choice.

God made him an apostle.

God saved him and made him an apostle.

Now he writes this letter, and he writes it with Timothy.

Timothy is like the robin to Paul's Batman.

It's the guy that's always alongside Paul, co-laborer in the truth.

And they write to the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters.

Paul's actually writing this from prison to this church in Colossae.

And here's the, in some sense, his goal: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

Here's what Paul prays for, wants for us as we make our way through Colossians.

He wants us to know the grace and peace of God.

Friends, I hope we want to know that grace and peace.

Here's now more to the heart of our passage.

He says, We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.

For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

You've already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God's grace.

You learn this from Epaphras.

If you don't know who Epaphras is, Epaphras likely heard the gospel through Paul's ministry in Ephesus.

If you remember Acts, it tells us when Paul was preaching in Ephesus, the gospel went to all Asia.

Well, Epaphras, likely saved through Paul's preaching, went back to Colossi, preached the gospel, and planted this church.

And now he has gone to Paul in prison and given a report.

And one of the things that Paul says is that he is our dearly loved fellow servant.

He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.

And what has he told them?

He has told us about your love in the Spirit.

Friends, we're going to look at two points from this passage.

And the first point is the real gospel.

The real gospel.

See, the main point, the crescendo of this passage is actually verse six.

And maybe you think that's a little bit weird.

Because most of the time we think that the main idea should be in the beginning or the end.

Right?

I mean, when we read, we're already ingrained as a people to sort of think, oh, everything's supposed to rise to this glorious point at the end of the passage.

But Paul here is using something that maybe you've heard of, maybe you haven't, called a chiasm.

And I don't really care if you know that word at all, but what you need to know is that it is a device that a writer would use to emphasize the very center thing.

To say that the most important part is actually in the heart of the passage.

And the way that they would do this is they would almost build these layers into this point.

So if you're astute, you might notice that verse 3 and verse 9 both talk about prayer.

Verse 4 and verse 8 both talk about love.

The beginning of verse 5 and the end of verse 6, verse 7 both talk about hearing and learning.

And in the very center is verse 6.

See, look at the end of verse 5, into verse 6.

Here's what Paul wants us to know most centrally: that the gospel has come to you.

Paul wants this church to know at the deepest, that the real gospel has come to them.

And he wants them to know this.

Look at how he talks about what this gospel is.

Look at the just right before in verse 5.

He calls it the word of truth.

Friends, I need you to know this morning that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ isn't a fiction.

It's not a fable, it's not a story, it's not some sort of fantasy.

The Bible authors are so clear, Christians throughout history are so clear.

No, this actually happened.

This is truth.

See, Paul wants these Colossians to know that what they've heard and what they've been taught and what they've believed is the real gospel.

Now, I'm using that word gospel a lot, and many of us probably know what I'm about to say, but some of us maybe don't.

And even if we do know, it bears repeating that when we use the word gospel, what we mean to say is good news.

Now that is so important because this is why Christianity is unique to every other religion and philosophy that you know of or have heard of.

Because every religion and philosophy is giving you good advice, it's telling you how you should live.

But the Bible, Christianity is not first and foremost ethical instruction.

It's not telling you what you should do, it's telling you what God has done.

Friends, there is good news.

You know, I've been an old man since I was about eight years old.

Pretty sure that was around the time that I began reading the newspaper every morning with a bowl of cereal.

I do think it was funnies then.

I mean, I think it was Garfield and stuff like that, but it was still the newspaper.

And to this day, I do the same thing every time I wake up in the morning.

I get a bowl of cereal and I read the newspaper.

And when I read the newspaper, do you know what I read?

Well, I read about a storm that has come through recently.

I read about a crazy finish in the fever game.

I read about a new restaurant that's hit the scene.

I read about all the details that are happening in the Colts training camp.

These are the things that hit my interest.

What do I read about?

Things that have happened.

That's what news is.

Friends, that's what we need to understand this morning.

Whether you're a Christian or not, it is paramount that you understand that what God most wants you to know is news.

Good news.

What he has done.

News that is true.

So what is that good news?

Well, our text gets at it, but kind of from around the corner.

Because look at what verse 5 says.

Because of the hope reserved for you in heaven, just leave that on the side for a second.

Focus in on this.

You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth.

What is the word of truth?

The gospel.

Paul is saying that this gospel contains our hope.

That what is the good news?

It is actually the declaration that we have hope.

And notice even more, we have hope that's reserved for you in heaven.

That word reserved is incredible.

In this context, as we start to think through this, I want you to just keep that word over here because think about how we use the word reserved.

If you reserve a book at the library, what does that mean?

It means it's there waiting for you.

It's yours.

If you make a reservation for a table at a restaurant, or you reserve a flight, or you reserve a rental car, in theory, hopefully, most of the time, if things are working right, that table, that car, that flight, it's waiting for you.

It's yours.

Paul is telling these Christians, there's something waiting for you.

There's something reserved for you, ready for you right now in heaven.

And what is that thing, Paul?

Hope.

Maybe that's where we go, well, that's kind of vague.

How can hope be reserved or stored up or waiting for us?

What do we think about when we think about hope?

I think we think about an expectation.

Right?

A desire.

In some sense, if you have hope, you're awaiting, you're waiting for something.

Is Paul saying, guess what awaits you in heaven?

More awaiting.

I don't think so.

Because there's actually a different way that this word can be used.

And that's exactly the way that Paul is using it.

See, Paul is telling us about the thing that is hoped for.

That what actually awaits us in heaven is the is hope fulfilled?

Hope satisfied.

Friends, this is so important.

In heaven, reserved right now for us in the gospel is all that will fully, finally, and forever satisfy our hope.

All of our anticipation, all of our waiting, all of our expectations, all of our desires.

Their fulfillment, their satisfaction is reserved waiting for us right now in heaven.

But I wonder if maybe even if you're with me, you're like, yeah, but I mean, what does that mean?

Like, how can that be true?

Well, let me tell you about a little scene from maybe it is.

It's the second most purchased book in history next to the Bible.

It's written by a Puritan named John Bunyan.

It's called The Pilgrim's Progress.

Some of you are going to be very familiar with it.

Some of you may not be familiar with it at all.

And the Pilgrim's Progress is a brand new sort of idea when it hit this kind of scene in the 1600s.

And what the Pilgrim's Progress is, is it's a story about the Christian life.

Its main character is Christian.

It's an allegory.

It's trying to show us what real life looks like, but in a story.

And Christian is walking through Christian life his life, and he's journeying to heaven, to the celestial city, and it's all about all the sorts of dangers and temptations and hardships as we walk through the Christian of life.

And our staff is actually reading it.

We just began it this past week.

And I was struck by this conversation because Christian actually meets a neighbor.

And the neighbor's name is Pliable, and Pliable wants to journey along with Christian.

And you know what Christian does?

Is he tells Pliable about heaven.

Here's what you need to know.

You need to know where we're going.

Look at the conversation.

I have it on the screen with you for you.

It's a little bit long, but follow along with me.

Pliable says, Come, Christian, tell me now further about where we are going.

Christian says, there is an endless kingdom to be inhabited, and everlasting life to be given us, that we might actually inhabit that kingdom forever.

Pybels like, well said, man, that's awesome.

Tell me more.

There are crowns of glory to be given us and garments that will make us shine like the sun in the skies of heaven.

One day we will be pure and right and holy.

Pible's like, this is incredible.

Tell me more.

There shall be no more crying nor sorrow.

For he that is the owner of the place, God Himself, will wipe all tears from our eyes.

Who's gonna be there?

Pible asks, tell me, tell me more.

Who's gonna be there?

Well, there you shall meet with thousands and ten thousands that have gone before us to that place, and none of them hurtful.

No one who hurts you, either in word or deed, none of them hurtful.

No, they're loving, made holy.

Everyone walking in the sight of God, doing what is right in God's eyes, being who they were created to be.

They stand in his presence.

God is presence there, present there, and they stand in acceptance, knowing they're his forever.

And they're all clothed with immortality as with a garment.

They're wearing immortality.

Bible says that is crazy.

That's amazing.

How do we get there?

Friends, I don't think we think that way.

An endless kingdom, everlasting life, crowns of glory, shining garments, the healing of all sorrow and pain, no death, a vast company, vast family of loving brothers and sisters in Christ.

And those are merely the decorations.

Because the real prize is God Himself.

Here's what Paul is saying: all of that, Christian, awaits you right now.

It's already reserved.

It's as good as yours, brother and sister in Christ.

See, friends, how though?

How can that be true?

How can that be reserved and waiting for us?

Well, he's gonna get to the point in verses 15 through 20.

We'll see it in a couple weeks, but let me kind of get there a little earlier.

Jesus.

Friends, this is the very heart of the gospel is that God the Son became a human being.

God became a man.

And Jesus, in every way that we are, is human, except without sin.

He went through every single thing, every hardship, every temptation, every hurt that we go through, except without sin.

And he obeyed, he lived rightly, loved rightly every single place that we have not.

And then he went to his death.

Death on a cross.

Not because of anything he had done.

No, on the cross, he actually took upon our sin, our rejection.

Of God, our ignoring of God, our trying to be our own gods, every single failure that we've ever had, every single offense we've ever committed, Christ took that on himself and he died the death that we deserve.

He paid our penalty in full so that there was no more.

And then he got up out of the grave.

He rose to new life, promising that all who would follow him would have that same life: new, full, true, eternal life forever in him.

He said, Do you want to know how you can know that?

Because he's ascended to heaven.

Do you want to know how all of this hope is reserved for us right now in heaven?

Because that's exactly where Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, is.

Friends, this is our hope.

See, here's the real gospel.

This is the real good news that this life is not all there is.

That sin and suffering is not all there is.

That death and despair is not all there is.

Friends, Jesus came to rescue us, redeem us, renew us, to give us life and that life abundantly.

Church, to move past the gospel is to move past Jesus.

And may we never do that.

See, here's what Paul is going to hammer home for us week after week as we make our way through Colossians: the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus.

That Jesus is the greatest and the only Savior and King.

And he is the Savior and King that we need and a greater Savior and King than we could ever want.

But let's not forget that last question that Pliable asks.

How can that be true of me?

How do we get to share in that?

How do we have Christ as our Savior and King?

Well, look at verse Paul, verse 6, not verse Paul.

Verse 6.

Here's what Paul says.

He says, it, what's it?

The gospel.

That this is what he's just said.

The gospel, the word of truth, it is bearing fruit and growing all over the world.

That's true, it's true today.

This real gospel is bearing fruit right now, all over the world.

But notice what he says after that.

Just as it has among you.

It's already started working in you, Colossians, when?

Since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God's grace.

When did the gospel begin bearing fruit in the Colossians?

Paul says, when you first heard it.

Now, when he uses that word hearing, he uses it in a very specific way.

Because there's a way to hear and not actually hear.

Right?

If you're a kid in here, I'm just gonna go ahead and say, at some point in time, your parents have told you to do something and you've said, I heard you, I know, I got it, and you didn't hear it all.

Husbands, we've done that a few times.

Every single one of us know that we can hear something and not really hear.

Paul's talking about really hearing, considering, perceiving, grasping.

See, friend, I wonder if this might be you this morning.

I wonder if maybe you're here this morning.

You've actually heard the gospel a lot.

Maybe you walked in, and even as I'm talking through this, you're like, I know this.

I've heard it.

I get it.

But maybe this morning it's different.

Maybe right now you're beginning to really hear.

I grew up in a Christian home, grew up going to church.

I heard the gospel so many times.

I still remember when I first really heard it.

I remember when the Lord opened my heart and I realized, oh, this gospel is for me.

I remember thinking, wait, I'm the sinner.

Like, I'm actually the problem.

And that's a significant problem.

And then honestly, I was young when I had this realization.

As I've come and gotten older, what I've realized is that problem was so much worse than I thought.

Because my sin is so much deeper than I thought.

I thought, oh, wait a second, I need Jesus.

Jesus came to save me from my sin.

Friend, I pray you would hear this morning.

That you would hear that this gospel is for you this morning.

But I pray also verse 6.

Look at the thing that follows that.

It says, not only did they hear, and came to truly appreciate.

Isn't appreciate a great word?

See, to appreciate gets to where hearing gets to.

It means to understand with the heart.

Appreciate is a whole person sort of things.

And what does Paul say that they appreciated?

They appreciated the grace of God and truth.

Or the grace of God in the gospel.

Remember, the word of truth is the gospel.

Here's what Paul is saying.

He's saying to these Colossians, friends, you've heard that this good news of Jesus is for you.

And now you stand in awe of the gift that is yours in Christ.

Friends, that's what grace is.

It's unmerited, it's undeserved.

It is the gift of God.

Two questions for us this morning.

Have you heard the good news?

Truly heard the good news of Jesus?

Have you truly appreciated the grace of God in Christ?

See, the true gospel had come to the Colossians.

And praise God, it's come to us as well.

See, the gospel is real, and it's really at work in us.

See, that leads us to our second point, the real fruit.

Not only the real gospel, but the real fruit.

Because maybe you're sitting there and you're like, but how do I know the gospel's real?

How do I know that it's really at work in me?

In us?

Well, if you look back at the center of this passage and Paul's primary emphasis, there's actually a little bit more that he writes with it.

Because look at what comes next in verse 6.

He says, we just looked at this, it, the gospel, is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you.

Paul is telling the Colossians, the gospel is bearing fruit among you.

It's bearing fruit in your own lives.

And he knows that because Epaphras has told him of this fruit that has come.

Note how Paul starts verse 3.

This letter, the main part of this letter, he starts it with thanksgiving.

He thanks God.

This is why, because this fruit is being born, it's coming from God in their midst.

And every time he prays for them, Paul thanks God for them.

Because the real gospel is bearing real fruit in their lives.

Now, what is that fruit?

Because that's really important.

Look at verse 4 into verse 5.

For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

Faith, love, hope.

Have you heard that before?

It's a little out of order.

But this is, in some sense, the key trio of the Christian life.

I think this is so helpful.

What is real Christian fruit?

What is the portrait of a genuine Christian?

Faith, love, and hope.

That's what the Spirit is bringing forth in his people.

Let's look at these just briefly.

First, faith.

Now, faith does not mean faith for faith's sake or faith in faith.

The gospel doesn't make us irrational, it doesn't make us undiscerning.

It doesn't make us make believers.

No, Paul is talking about a very specific faith, a faith in Christ Jesus.

And maybe that doesn't say much to you, but remember, Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ isn't his name.

It's not his first and last name.

Paul isn't calling Jesus like a mom calls down a son who's in trouble.

He's not using his full name.

No, Jesus is the Christ.

Christ is the title.

And that word Christ means Messiah.

See, here's what it means to have faith, real faith.

It's to have faith that Jesus is the promised one of God who has come to save us from our sin.

That Jesus is the promised savior and king of the entire Old Testament.

See, to have faith is to receive and rely on Jesus Christ alone for salvation and life.

So how do you know that the real gospel is at work in you?

You're clinging to Christ.

That's a fruit of the gospel.

Not perfectly, but genuinely, increasingly by God's grace.

Friends, don't forget that this faith is a fruit.

And if it's a fruit, that means even faith is the gift of God.

Do you know how I know that?

Look again at the beginning of verse 3.

Paul says, we always thank God.

What are you thanking God for, Paul?

Look at verse 4.

Your faith in Christ Jesus.

Why does Paul thank God for the Colossians faith?

Because it's the gift of God.

That their faith is by the grace of God.

Now I think that means two very important things for us this morning.

First, where we see real faith in Christ, we really see God at work.

But secondly, and I think this is so encouraging, if you struggle to believe, maybe you're here this morning and you're like, I'd love to believe.

Jesus sounds amazing.

I just can't get myself there.

Friends, you see how helpful this is?

Ask God for faith.

One of my favorite stories is the man who cried out, I believe, help my unbelief.

Whether you're a Christian or not, you can pray and ask that God would give you more faith, would help you to believe.

And friends, maybe you've got a neighbor or a family member or just a really good friend who you would long for them to know, Jesus.

Don't give up.

Pray.

Friends, if if faith is the gift of God, if God works faith in us, then that means it is not impossible for anyone.

No one is outside of the bounds of faith.

That's why Jesus says, yeah, with man this is impossible.

But with the Lord, all things are possible.

Friends, God can save.

See, do you see what Paul is doing?

This church in Colossae, faithful, is being tempted to think maybe there's more.

Maybe we're not enough.

Maybe we're not real.

And Paul is saying so encouragingly, are you trusting in Christ?

Are you clinging to him however feebly?

That's the real gospel really at work in you.

But it's not always says faith and then love.

Because maybe you're sitting there and still thinking to yourself, this is how our mind and heart work.

Well, how do I know if I have real faith?

Well, there's another layer.

Look at verse 4.

He says, And of the love you have for all the saints.

Faith and love, real faith produces real love.

But what is love?

Well, I promise you, it's not the song that might have just popped into your head.

And if you're singing that song, you probably just need to stop for a moment and get back in.

Because it's not the song that's popped in your head.

It's not what our culture thinks.

It's probably not even what we most often think about when we think about love.

It's not attraction, it's not just the mere enjoyment of another person.

It's not some weird, mysterious, inexplicable thing.

No, I remember when we were, first summer, we were going through the fruit of the fruit of the Spirit together as a church.

And I remember when we were looking at the fruit of love and just thinking how simple and helpful the Bible's teaching on love is.

Here was the summary definition I gave us back then.

Love is the want and willingness to give ourselves for others' good.

Isn't that so helpful?

Just simple?

What does it mean to love?

It means to genuinely want another's good and to sacrificially work for that good.

That's what love is.

That's real love.

That's what marked the Colossians.

And why did it mark the Colossians?

Because the gospel took root.

But maybe you think, well, do you have to have the gospel to have real love?

Maybe you know of parents who aren't Christians who love their kids.

Maybe you've got friends or neighbors who love you that don't know Jesus.

Isn't love just a natural, maybe even a common grace thing?

Do we need the gospel to grow love in us?

Well, look at what verse 4 says, because maybe you missed it.

The love you have for all the saints.

All.

A lot of us love certain people.

Some people are pretty easy to love.

Sometimes it's more natural for us to love certain people.

But Paul is saying that these uh Christians, they genuinely wanted and worked for every brother and sister's good in Christ.

And maybe that for you sounds not that impressive.

But think about what that meant in the context of a local church, especially in the early church.

Think about the fact that you're talking about a culture in which the rich had nothing to do with the poor.

In fact, the only reason the poor existed was to serve the rich.

And yet in the church, the rich Christian would serve the poor.

The rich Christian would even bow, humble themselves, even submit to the poor sometimes.

Think about a culture in which they cared almost nothing about the sick or the needy or the widows or the orphan.

They would have seen the sick and the needy as outcasts, as unclean, the widows and the orphans as mostly forgotten and forsaken.

But in the church, Christians took care of the sick even at great risk to themselves.

And in the church, Christians took in widows and orphans, even at great costs to themselves.

See you're talking about a culture also of deep divisions, of sworn enemies, Jew and Gentile, Roman and everyone else.

Here's what that means.

In the church, the Jewish Christian ate with the Gentile Christian.

The Gentile Christian brought and invited the Jewish Christian into their home.

It means on a Sunday morning, you might be gathered in the early church right next to, alongside someone you hate, or at least used to hate, or supposed to hate.

See, the early church's genuine expression of love was dumbfounding in the cultural context they were in.

People would have been asking, why are these people together?

And why are they together all the time?

And why do they care so much for each other?

What are they getting out of it?

It looks like they're getting nothing out of it.

See, friends, it is a profound thing to work and want the genuine good of someone that the only thing you share with them is Christ.

You know, I remember when Steph and I we went to Miami this past winter, and we went out one night for dinner and actually just like little fancy popsicle place afterwards to get dessert, and we were walking around in this thoroughly Jewish neighborhood.

It was incredible.

I mean, there were synagogues and schools on like every corner.

Everywhere you looked, there were these massive Jewish families, multi-generational, tons of kids.

Uh there was every their culture marked every sort of uh place you looked.

They had clothing shops and stores, even the popsicle shop.

Some popsicles were labeled as kosher, which I actually had to look up to figure out how a popsicle could not be kosher.

But everything reflected who they were and what they believed in their community.

And I remember numerous times, Steph can tell you, I was like, this is awesome.

Like, I want to move here.

Like, this is this is so cool to just see how rich this is.

But you know what?

The more I've thought about it, the more I've realized what it lacked.

Because every single place I looked, everybody looked the same.

Every single person had the same upbringing.

They all had the same heritage, they all came from the same place.

See, here's what's so unique about Christianity.

Here's why this is gospel fruit is that we are a very diverse people made one in Christ.

We're all different backgrounds and heritages and cultures and ages and interests.

Made one in Christ.

See, what the gospel does is that genuine strangers become friends.

Real love spreads across even the deepest of divisions in our society.

That's why Paul thanks God for this love.

That's why Epaphras attributes this love to the Spirit.

This is what God is doing.

Such love only comes when the real gospel is really at work in us.

See, here's what real gospel fruit is faith and love and hope.

Now, I'm not gonna talk too much about that because we already have, but so often I feel like hope is sort of the ignored, forgotten middle child of the trio.

But notice that Paul puts it as the eldest child.

Paul actually puts it as the backbone.

And here's why it's the backbone.

Not only because when he talks about hope, this is that which is laid up for us in heaven.

But that also means if everything that we desire and hope for in this life is actually reserved for us in Christ in heaven, well then that means we should be hopeful now.

And one sense that means we must be hopeful.

If we understand the good news of Jesus, we will be hopeful.

Friends, I think this is so important.

There are so many around the world who think that real Christianity looks like changed circumstances.

Might even be you this morning.

That real Christianity looks like more success and less suffering, more happiness and less sorrow, more wealth, more health, more blessing.

But here's the real fruit of the real gospel: it's hope in the midst of hardship.

It's hope that actually sees through the suffering and believes the good that's to come.

See, real hope actually remains when everything else is lost.

Thomas Watson says it this way: a Christian is always rich in hope, though he has not always a penny in hand.

We might have nothing in this world, but we have hope in Christ.

See, friends, the gospel is real and it's really at work in us.

And here's how I want to conclude.

I want to conclude by that in us.

See, church, the real gospel has come to us and it is really at work in us.

Like as I think past these past four years, I can actually look around at different folks in this room who we've seen baptized.

And we've actually got to see them confess as they were baptized in their testimonies the hopelessness of life outside of Christ.

How they came to see that they were indeed a sinner and had no hope of saving themselves.

And we got to see the joy and the awe as they realized that Christ had come to save them.

As they testified through that in baptism.

Friends, we've seen the real gospel work.

Working in real faith.

In fact, if you just looked around right now, I encourage you to do so.

Maybe a little bit awkward.

As you look around at other people, you're gonna look and see people who have grown in faith over the last one, two, three, and four years.

A lot of people.

And in fact, if I was to ask you, haven't you grown in faith?

Now, that's a lot harder to see.

And maybe you're like, I don't know.

But can I tell you what's so encouraging?

Someone looked and thought of you and said, Yeah, I've seen them grow in faith.

It's much harder to see in ourselves, but that's part of why God gave us the church.

The real gospel is really at work in us.

And I think that's nowhere more evident than in the love the Spirit has given us for one another.

Friends, we don't have the diversity and division of the early church.

But the relationships, the community that we have, the family that we have in this room is just as confounding to our culture.

I mean, I can think about even these past few years, and every single time that I can remember a need being expressed, it was met.

Met immediately.

We've seen vehicles loaned out to others.

We've seen basements turned into apartments.

We've seen meals delivered, a lot of meals.

We've seen folks helped, moved, which is like one of the worst things to help somebody move.

We've done it.

We've seen it done.

We've seen kids cared for at a moment's notice.

We've even seen finances gifted, not even knowing who gifted.

People not even wanting people to know.

In fact, every single week we ask and receive from one another things that we probably wouldn't even ask from our own families.

Church, we see this all around, and that's not it.

One of our staff members just remarked earlier that she has a friendship.

She was realizing she has a friendship with a 70-year-old and a 17-year-old.

That's unheard of.

That's happening every single week in our midst.

Friends, I think about things that maybe you've had an experience like this.

Happens to me so often.

Fellow member of the fields will come up to me on a Sunday morning or during the week, and they'll be more excited about a good in my life than I am.

They'll just be so excited to celebrate something.

Or maybe on the flip side of that coin, there have been hardships that I've expressed that will people will follow up with me weeks and even months later.

Hey, I just want you to know I haven't stopped praying for that.

Wanting to hear updates.

Friends, we're only at a four-year-old church.

We're four-year-old.

Like this fruit is small, it's just beginning to grow.

Think about what the Lord might do in the years to come as the plant gets bigger, the tree gets bigger, the fruit gets bigger, as the Lord works in us.

The real gospel is really at work in us, even in our hope.

But as I look around right now and I see brothers and sisters across this room who are walking through really, really hard seasons.

Friends, as we think about some of the most awful hurts this world knows, we've seen a lot of them in the last four years.

We've seen miscarriages, we've seen death of loved ones.

We've seen debilitating disease.

We've seen divorce.

But you know what I see?

Hope.

I see a people whose eyes are not fixed on this world, but are fixed on heaven.

Friends, that's the real gospel really at work in us.

See, we're four years in, and I imagine there is a temptation for many of us to think, is this it?

Is there more?

Is there something else?

Maybe even have a little bit of an itch for something new.

Here's what Paul is saying to the Colossians, even in this first passage, that the Christian life is not a ladder that we climb from one level to the next level.

No, it's an ocean in which we wade deeper and deeper.

We don't move past the gospel.

We don't move beyond Jesus.

We just move deeper.

Friends, there's actually so much more in store for us in Christ as a church.

More faith, more love, more hope, more of Christ.

Why?

How?

Because the gospel is real, friends, and it is really at work in us.

Let's pray.