Hope in the Gospel (Colossians 1:1-8)

Thank you, Ben, and good morning.

Welcome.

If we haven't met yet, my name is Chris.

And honestly, if we haven't met yet, I would love to learn your name.

I would love to meet you before you go today or any Sunday.

So please come introduce yourself.

We are starting the book of Colossians this morning.

So go ahead and turn there.

If you need a Bible, please raise your hand.

We'd love to bring one to your seat so that you can follow along with us as we're going through the book of Colossians together.

We go verse by verse, chapter by chapter through whole books at a time.

And so you've caught us as we're starting this book.

And I just want to remind you and encourage you, we really put an emphasis on God's Word in this church.

And not just on Sunday mornings.

It's actually the first value that we have in our list of values, which you can find on the website, by the way.

So one more reason to go there.

But is that the word of God is the compass that directs everything that we do.

And we try our best to do that.

And part of the reason that we teach through the word the way that we do is so that you know the word for yourself.

Not just like what my pastor said.

But you can take somebody and say, look, right here in Colossians chapter 1, it says this.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

I learned this, I understand this, because you're not just hearing this on Sunday, you're reading the word on your own at home, you're understanding it for yourself.

Um I encourage note-taking, underlining, highlighting.

If you're okay with it, I know some people do not write in their Bibles.

Uh I always I'm putting stuff in the margin so that next time I go through, I'm like, oh yeah, that's right.

I remember that, you know, some clarifying point or whatever it might be, um, so that you know God's word for yourself.

And that is a huge goal.

And we're actually going to be talking about that a little bit more as we do the intro here to this book this morning.

But with all that, we are in Colossians chapter one.

We're gonna be reading verses one through eight here this morning.

So if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word.

Colossians chapter one, starting in verse one.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's word, and Timothy our brother, to the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters, 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.

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 have 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, our dearly loved fellow servant.

He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you that you've given it to us.

We thank you that we live in a time where we can hold it in completion in our hands, and we can look to it for everything in life that we need.

Lord, we thank you so much for the power, as we just read, that is in the gospel, that is in your word.

Lord, so I pray that that power would be present here this morning.

Your power would be present, and you would do the work that you desire to do in each one of our hearts this morning.

Lord, do incredible and wonderful things we pray through your word.

Lord, use me, we pray, to bring forth this word, to introduce this book, to help us to understand your heart and why you wanted us to have Colossians chapter 1, verses 1 through 8 here this morning.

Colossians 1:1–8

So have your perfect way in us we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Who grew up saying kolossi?

Who grew up saying colossae?

Okay, yeah.

I looked it up.

The actual Hebrew pronunciation is kolossi, which I grew up saying kolosse, so I'm gonna try and say it correctly here this morning.

And if you're sitting there like, why is he saying it that way?

That's actually the Greek, uh I said, yeah, the Greek pronunciation of it.

Anyway, here we go.

We're gonna start this off.

It's universally accepted that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter, just like it says here in verse 1.

And it's considered one of the four prison epistles of the Apostle Paul.

And it's probably written very near 60 AD or somewhere in that area.

And what's interesting is that Paul had never met this church that he's writing to here in Colossae.

He had never been there before.

So he's writing to people that he largely had not met.

And we learn this in chapter 2, verse 1.

I'm gonna be referring to a couple verses throughout this book as we as we kind of introduce this book.

But chapter 2, verse 1, we learn that they had never seen him in person.

Also, Colossae is not mentioned in Acts as a church that Paul had planted or visited ever.

But if we kind of piece things together from this book and from other books as well, this church was planted most likely as a result of not Paul being there, but a result of Paul's ministry in Ephesus.

Remember, he was there for quite a long time.

So this is most likely a result of that.

And I want to show you a map here just to kind of give you an idea of what we're talking about here.

So here's Colossae down here, and here's Ephesus over here.

They're about a hundred miles apart or so.

And this is modern-day Turkey that we're talking about in this region, just to give you kind of a scope of things.

Here's Jerusalem over here, Rome's way over there.

We just got out of Philippians.

Philippians is uh Philippi is up there.

So we're talking about this region right here.

Like I said, about a hundred miles from Ephesus.

And it was most likely that Epaphras heard Paul during his long ministry in Ephesus and then returned to Colossae, preaching the gospel that he had learned from Paul.

You know, it says here, as we just read in chapter 1, verse 7, that Epaphras was the one that shared this gospel of grace to them.

You know, and most likely he's the one that shared the gospel of grace to Colossae's sister cities as well, which are Heropolis and Laodicea.

And we see that in chapter 4, verse 13, that he was most likely the one that did that as well.

And these two cities are very near to Colossae.

They're to the north and to the east of it.

So Paul most likely knows a few people in those cities because of his ministry in Ephesus, but he doesn't have a close relationship with them, like we just saw in the book of Philippians, where he knew them well.

He had spent time with them, they had this mutual love for each other.

Now, this city, along with Heropolis and Laodicea, were on a major trade route through the Lycus River Valley.

And Colossae was a great city in BC before Christ came, but it was actually in decline at this time as its sister cities were actually growing.

And we'll see that Paul will tell this Colossian church to share this letter with both of those sister cities, and then he's gonna tell them, and the letter I wrote to Laodicea, I want you guys to read that as well.

We don't know where that letter is, it's not in Scripture, but there was a letter he had sent specifically to them.

He wanted the Colossians to read as well.

So these letters that Paul uh were writing, they were meant for circulation, uh, most of them at least.

Now, all three of these cities were set up where East really meets west in this ancient world, as during the the time of the Roman Empire.

And like I said, they were on this major trade route.

So it was really a melting pot of ideas, a melting pot of culture, unfortunately, a melting pot of religion, as if you can do that.

So there's the paganism that you could imagine from the Roman Empire, um, the Greek gods were influencing them as well.

This was all probably mixed with Eastern mysticism and eastern ideas, along with, you know, you can throw in Greek philosophy.

It's probably just this huge melting pot of all these different things.

And there's probably also an element of legalism that came from the legalistic Judaizers of the day.

They were the ones that said, you need Jesus and the law.

Jesus isn't enough by himself.

You need to do this and be circumcised and follow this holiday and celebrate these feasts, and you can't eat this and you can't eat that, and all that kind of stuff.

But then we're gonna also see as we go through here that they're probably, the city is probably influenced by Gnosticism as well.

And that's believing that salvation comes from like the secret divine knowledge that only a few have, and that our world was made by a lesser divinity, and there's greater divinities out there.

Like, oh, well, yeah, Jesus made this world, but there's greater gods still out there.

Um, they're probably, well, they're actually we're dealing with asceticism.

We're gonna see that later in the book, and that's that idea of extreme self-discipline and rejecting really any pleasure that comes from the physical.

Like, only good is found in spiritual, and there was just this extreme form of self-discipline.

And we're not told exactly all of what Paul's addressing here in this book and exactly what their struggles are, exactly what's being taught to them, but we get a really good idea from what he is addressing of some of the things that they were probably wrestling with and maybe doubting at the time.

Because a lot of this letter, as we're gonna see, is dealing with twisted doctrine and dealing really with flat-out heresy.

He's addressing anything that teaches that you need Jesus and you also need this.

That's what all of this is going to come down to, especially in the first two chapters.

And we might think, oh, okay, yeah, we got that.

That's something they were dealing with 2,000 years ago.

But I think every Christian deals with this at some point in their life.

Because grace can start to seem too easy for us.

Or we feel like we've earned some of the grace that we're getting from God.

You know, we feel like we should do something to gain our own salvation, or at least help Jesus just a little bit with our salvation, right?

We start having these ideas of Jesus, you know, can't I add just a little bit of law to our relationship?

I mean, I would feel a little bit more holy, Jesus, if we did that.

So can I just add a little bit of law?

Or how about just a little bit of legalism?

You know, I want to feel better about myself than those Christians over there that are doing X, Y, and Z.

It would make me feel better if I was able to take just a little bit of pride, Jesus.

At least it would make me feel better about my salvation if I could have a little pride about what I'm doing to earn it.

Or maybe even, you know, I've been walking with you for 20 years, Jesus.

I think I deserve a little bit of the grace that I'm receiving.

So Paul's gonna combat a lot of the Jesus and argument in this book.

He's gonna be saying things like, in Christ and him alone, we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.

In him alone, being the key words there.

He's gonna address right off the bat here as we get going in this book, how Jesus is superior.

We use words like preeminence or supremity, um, and we're gonna see those things in chapter one.

He's gonna be mentioning that Jesus is fully God, he's not a lesser divinity and God's a higher divinity or something like that, or the father, I should say, is a higher divinity.

He's gonna address that Jesus is fully God and has been since eternity past.

He's gonna address, like I was saying, that he's not a lesser divinity in any way.

He's gonna mention that Jesus created everything and therefore is over everything, and he was before everything from eternity past.

So those ideas of superiority over everything, like I was saying.

One commentator that I was reading was saying that many probably in the city of Colossae, they probably believed in Jesus' prominence.

You know, that he's an important man.

But Paul wanted to make sure that he preached Jesus' preeminence, that he is the highest, that he is the greatest, that nobody is higher than him in that regard.

And how appropriate that is for us today in our American culture as well.

Because how many times have you heard, well, I believe Jesus was a good man?

You know, I believe that Jesus was a good teacher.

I believe that he did good things, but I don't believe that he's the only way to heaven.

Colossians is a book to let all know that Jesus is the only way to salvation and the only way to peace with God.

And that Jesus was the only one, the only one that could reconcile man to God because he is fully God.

He's the real deal, he's the authentic savior, and everything else is a counterfeit or a fake.

That's where he's going in these first two chapters.

You know, one of the things that I love about Paul's teaching in this book and other books that he's written as well, is he doesn't teach the Colossians how to defeat the arguments of Gnosticism and asceticism and the Judaizers and all those different things.

He teaches them about the supremacy of God, about who he is, and that how he is the real thing, the authentic savor, the only one and the only way to have peace with God.

You know, when I was serving years and years ago down at Calvert Chapel, Oxnard, we had this team of three people that every Sunday during the last service, they'd go in to our office administrator's office.

It's Eric, Alicia, and Jim.

And those three, every Sunday they would go in and they would count the offering, the checks and the cash that would come in.

This was way before Venmo.

So, but they would go in every Sunday at the same time, and they had this whole system, they'd break everything into like hundreds and twenties and tens and fives and ones, and they would each count it and they would write down the number and the total, and they'd pass you know the stack of 20s over, and the next guy would get the tens and you know stuff like that.

And one Sunday, Eric, the office administrator, he was counting through the pile of 20s, and he's just and he stops.

And there was a bill in there that just didn't feel right.

He's like, huh.

That's weird, you know.

So he gets his counterfeit pin and he marks the back of it, and sure enough, it's a counterfeit 20.

But he wanted to see if anybody else would notice, so he shoved it back in the stack and he handed it off to Alicia.

So Alicia's going through and she's counting and she's counting, and then she stops and she looks up at Eric, and Eric's like, shh, stick it back in, give it to Jim.

And she's like, okay, and she doesn't give it to Jim.

So now they're both watching Jim, and Jim's going through, and he was like, some doesn't feel right about this bill.

And Eric's like, yeah, look in the back, I use the marker.

It's a counterfeit.

These are three, one of them was on staff, but these are volunteers that were not trained to detect counterfeit bills at all.

But they became so familiar with the real thing that they could detect a counterfeit.

Not by knowing even what to look for, but by handling the real thing over and over and over again.

And they couldn't tell you why it was a counterfeit.

We're asking, like, how like something didn't feel right about it.

You know, I've been there with Bible teachers myself, I'm sure you've been there as well.

Or a video that you see, you know, and you're just like, something is off.

I can't even really put my finger on it.

They haven't even really said anything bad or heretical, but something's off with this guy or this gal or whatever it might be.

Something about this is not like Jesus.

And then sometimes you'll hear later, oh, that's why they were teaching this.

Oh, they fell.

Oh, they believed that, you know, whatever it might be.

So here at Abide, we try to do the same thing.

We can't, as pastors, we can't spend all day on YouTube.

We can't spend all day reading heretical books so we can warn you about them.

Because there's all these new wind of doctrines, especially with YouTube and podcasts and all these things.

It's impossible to keep up with.

But what we can do is we can do our best to teach you about the real thing here on Sunday mornings in our Bible studies, in our home groups.

And that's the hope of what we're trying to do here.

And that's why we're always encouraging you to know the word on your own, to read it and to understand it for yourself.

Because we can't follow you around all week and be like, uh-uh, no, no, don't watch that video, nope, that podcast, you know, whatever it might be.

Our hope and our goal is that you'll be so familiar with the real thing, like those three people that were counting the money, that even if you can't put your finger on it, you can detect a counterfeit from a mile away.

You know, and the amazing thing is, is God gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us to be our helper and to help us exactly with things like this.

And like I said, you might not even know why sometimes.

But if that's the case and there's the prompting of the Holy Spirit inside of you, and some alarm bells start to go off, just listen.

Just listen to those alarm bells, even if you can't put your finger on it.

The Holy Spirit is gonna tell you, hey, this is not like Jesus.

This is not authentic, this is not the real thing.

And the thing is, is Colossae had some counterfeits coming in.

They had some people that were coming in and mudding the water of their theology.

So Paul goes to the authenticity of Jesus.

He goes straight to it and he teaches them why Jesus is superior, why Jesus is supreme, why he is the only way.

You know, in chapter 2 alone, he's gonna tell the church in this regard in verse 4 of chapter 2 I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

And then down in verse 8, he says, Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

And then verse 16, therefore don't let anyone judge you, probably speaking about the Judaizers, in regard to food and drink, or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.

Basically, you know, don't let all this legalism be poured onto you.

So he's saying, hey, Colossae, you need Jesus.

And then don't add anything to him.

And that's really what the first half of this letter is, the first two chapters.

And then in the second half, much like we saw when we're going through Ephesians, that's when Paul's gonna instruct them really on what the daily life of a mature Christian should look like.

Really the ethics of a Christ follower and what that should look like.

So that's a little bit about what is ahead.

That's a little introduction to this book.

So we're gonna jump into these verses that we're looking at here this morning and just get through the little intro that we have.

So look at verse one with me.

So Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and Timothy, our brother.

So we just got done with Philippians, if you remember, where Paul's greeting was like, Hey guys, what's up?

I miss you, you know.

No mention of his apostleship, and no mention that his apostleship was a calling and came straight from the Lord because he knew the Philippians so well and they knew him so well.

But here he's establishing the conversation.

Calling from the Lord and in a way saying, Hey, you guys, I'm an apostle.

I was called by the Lord.

You really need to listen to what I'm about to say.

You need to heed what I'm saying here.

He's not trying to lord it over them, but he really wants them to know that they need to listen to this instruction because he is an apostle.

He is called by the Lord because he's never seen the majority of these people face to face before.

So he could be an absolute stranger to some of them.

Now look at verse 2 with me.

To the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters.

Now it's estimated that this church is probably around five years old, started with a bunch of new converts, a bunch of new believers in this church, and they don't have the entirety of the Bible in their hands like we do right now.

So it's not hard really to imagine what some of the struggles would be for this five-year-old church filled with new believers that don't have the entirety of God's word.

They maybe have an Old Testament, they probably have some letters in circulation that have been written.

Yes, Paul calls them faithful brothers and sisters here.

Yeah, I believe that this church wanted what was best, they wanted what was true, they wanted to do the right thing and truly follow Jesus.

But when others would come in and they would tell them, hey, yeah, Jesus, yeah, he's cool.

But you also need circumcision.

You also need extreme discipline.

You can't enjoy that.

That's of the physical.

You shouldn't be enjoying whatever this is.

You know, you need Jesus and some Eastern meditation, and then you will be complete.

They're probably like, you know, when those things would come, they're probably like, really?

We hadn't heard that before.

Well, we, you know, we don't know.

Like, we need to meditate, and we need to, you know, or whatever.

There's probably some confusion, there's probably some doubt coming in because of the position they're in.

So Paul's saying, hey, I'm an apostle, I'm gonna sent one from the Lord Himself.

Let me tell you about Jesus.

Let me tell you about doctrine, let me tell you about what you need to know to quench the lies that are coming in from the outside.

Then Paul goes on in the second part of verse 2.

He says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

So this is Paul's typical greeting.

It covers both the Greek and the Hebrew greetings here.

And it's always in this order.

We don't know for sure.

I like to think he always puts it in this order because you can't experience peace with God or from God if grace doesn't come first.

Look at verse 3 with me.

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

Kind of like Philippians, you know, this wasn't really a problem church for Paul.

And I wonder if part of the thanks that they give when they pray for this church is because the church was formed and it was growing, and it wasn't because of Paul or any other apostles' ministry.

God established this church using some other people, and Paul's simply writing to encourage him.

So maybe that part of that thankfulness is thank you, Lord, that you're doing this, you know, on your own, you're using different people, and you know, the planting of churches is not dependent upon me.

Who knows?

Verse 4.

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

It's easy to love some of the saints, isn't it?

It's quite another to love all the saints, right?

But how will people know that we are Christ's disciples?

It's by the love that we have for one another.

For all the saints.

Not some of the saints, but for all of the saints.

So, what is this church doing well?

They're loving God and they're loving others well.

And their ability to do this is found here in verse 5.

Look at it with me.

Because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

Just take a moment and think about what is reserved for us in heaven.

I always answer Jesus, right?

Just getting to be with Jesus, face to face with him.

But it's the forgiveness of sin.

It's the peace with God, it's the peace of God for all eternity.

It's a life spent in heaven in positional sanctification in Christ.

You know, this is the hope of an eternity in heaven.

And there's so much more we get to look forward to, but I think those are kind of some of the big things.

You know, the hope we have in heaven is the hope we have from the gospel.

Look at the end of the second part of verse 5.

It says, You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

So the word gospel, it gets thrown around a lot in Christianity in different circles, and sometimes I feel like it gets stretched a little too far.

But this word simply means good news in Greek, and I want to show you the definition.

So in the Greek, the word gospel means a reward for good tidings, good tidings, the glad tidings of the kingdom of God soon to be set up.

After the death of Christ, the term comprises also the preaching of Jesus Christ as having suffered death on the cross to procure eternal salvation for the men in the kingdom of God.

So, in the broadest form, gospel can refer to the entirety of Scripture, the whole message of Scripture.

And I think in the narrowest form, it can refer to the simple message of what Christ has done for mankind.

You know, and I believe it's important for all of us that call ourselves followers of Christ to have a simple gospel message memorized that we can simply share with others.

And you'll hear different formulas, it needs to contain this, this, and this, and it has to have all of these different steps and things like that.

Here's what I like: bad news, good news, action.

So this is this is what I like, okay?

Bad news.

That's Romans 3.23.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

That's bad news, isn't it?

If it just stopped right there.

But there's good news.

John 3.16, for God loved the world in this way.

He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

It's really good news, isn't it?

And then the action, Romans 10.11.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

This is not a magic formula.

Nobody has a magic formula.

But if you need help with this, we have something similar in the back, and it just details the gospel a little further than what we just covered.

They're back on the info table.

Just grab a couple of those if you want a little help or you want to read through it and kind of understand it a little better.

These are for the taking so that you can hand them out to whoever you want.

But they're made to give away to people, so grab whatever you need.

But if you don't have one of these cards with you, you don't have those three verses memorized.

Most of us have John 3.16 memorized.

That's the good news.

You don't need a slick presentation, you don't need a fancy argument, you don't need to be able to defend every question that somebody might have about scripture.

Because look at the second part of verse 6.

It says, It, referring to the gospel, is bearing fruit and growing all over the world.

That's because the message of the gospel holds the power of God for salvation.

Romans 1, 16 through 17 tells us this.

It says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

First to the Jew and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.

You don't need a compelling argument.

It doesn't hurt to have one, but you don't need to know how to answer every biblical question that somebody might have.

Doesn't hurt to learn those things and to learn those answers.

But the power of God for salvation is in the gospel.

We're simply asked to lay it out there and let God's power have its effect.

To let God do the work, let his power do the work.

Mark 16, 15, Jesus said in the Great Commission, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation with a slick argument and answers to no.

No, no, it stops right there.

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

That's it.

I always have this, maybe this is bad analogy, but I always have this thought when I talk about this of just having like this gospel grenade, and you just pull it and you throw the gospel out there, and it's like, okay, we're just gonna let God do the work, you know, just see what happens from the power of God to salvation.

But that's uh peek into my brain, you probably didn't want.

But in verse six here, right after he says it is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, he says, look at the next part of verse six.

Just as it has among you since the day you heard it, and came to truly appreciate God's grace.

You know, the longer I'm a believer, the more I appreciate the truth of the gospel.

The more I understand it, the more I appreciate what Jesus has done for us.

And appreciate God's grace that He continually pours out for each one of us.

The longer that I'm a believer, the more I appreciate God's patience with me.

As I grow to be more like Jesus.

You know, and Paul talks of the day that they came to truly appreciate God's grace.

God's grace is Him giving us something that we don't deserve.

It's the simplest way I think we can define it.

Giving us something that we have not earned.

Accepting the gospel is coming to a recognition of God's grace and appreciation for that grace.

And that doesn't end on the day that we accept it, does it?

He continues to pour it out on us, and I think we need to continue to really appreciate it more and more as we continue to grow to be more and more like Jesus.

Now, God's grace is gonna be a huge theme in this book, really, because the pagan influence, the heretical teachings that we're gonna be talking about, Paul's gonna confront all those things in this book, and all of those things, when you think about it, are anti-grace.

Because that's anything that says you need Jesus and is anti-grace, really.

Anything that is instead of Jesus as well is anti-grace as well.

So I want to ask you, especially if you're a mature believer, you've been following him for a long time, when's the last time you sat and thought about God's grace and then truly thanked him for it?

I want to challenge each one of us this week to simply take five minutes and consider God's grace and what that means for you.

Consider what that means for you, the eternal implications of what that means for you.

And where you would be without it.

You know, I think we will all come to a new level of appreciation if we simply do that.

You know, the longer that we walk with the Lord, the greater our appreciation needs to become.

But I'm afraid that sometimes the longer we walk with the Lord, the more we take God's grace for granted.

The more maybe even legalistic we can become because we want to add ourselves into the gospel message.

We want to feel a little bit more involved in our salvation.

Yes, Jesus saved me, but I'm enlightened more than most, right?

Maybe someday others will reach my level of enlightenment.

His grace, his unearned, unmerited favor should never cease to blow our minds.

And we should never cease to realize and truly believe that we have not earned it in any way.

You know, I want you to keep your finger in Colossians, okay?

We're coming back to it, but I also want you to turn to Luke 15, 11.

It's back in the Gospels, so take a left in your Bible sandwich there in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

This is a well-known parable that we're gonna read of the prodigal son.

And I want you to do two things.

Do not check out just because you know this story.

Okay?

Pretend like you've never heard this story before of the prodigal son.

And two, as we read this, it's kind of a trick question, I'll give you a heads up uh in the beginning.

But as we read this, I want you to ask yourself, which son are you?

as we go through this.

Okay?

So Luke chapter 15, starting in verse 11.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

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Luke 15, starting verse 11.

It says, He also said, so this is Jesus speaking, a man had two sons.

The younger of them said to his father, Give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.

So he distributed the assets to them.

Not many days later the younger son gathered together all he had and travelled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.

After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.

Then he went to work for one of the citizens of the country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food?

And here I am dying of hunger.

I'll go up, go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Make me like one of your hired workers.

So he got up and went to his father.

But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.

He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.

The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father told his servants, Quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him.

Put a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet, then bring the fattened calf and slaughtered it, and let's celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

So they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field, as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.

So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant.

Your brother is here, he told him, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf, because he has him back safe and sound.

Then he became angry and didn't want to go in.

So his father came out and pleaded with him.

But he replied to his father, Look, I've been slaving many years for you, and I've never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat, so that I could celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.

Son, he said to him, You are always you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

So when I asked you earlier to take yourself, uh to ask yourself, which son are you?

You know, like I said, it was a trick question.

We're all the prodigal son.

Before giving our lives to Christ, we're all the prodigal son.

You know, everybody should be able to read this.

Even if you gave your life to Christ at a young age, we could all say, I was in sin, I was lost.

It's only by God's grace that I've been saved and that the Father has welcomed me home.

We should all be able to say that if we're a follower of Christ.

And whether you're saved or not, we either were the prodigal son or we still are the prodigal son.

But if you are saved, how long has it been since you were the prodigal son?

From going from lost to found.

Because after a while, and I'm talking to the mature Christians in the room, myself included, we can start to feel like the older brother in the story, can't we?

Well, Dad, I've been faithfully serving you for over 20 years.

By now I should have earned your favor.

I should have earned some parties.

I should have earned a fattened calf.

I should have earned some celebration for how faithful I've been to you.

That's when we stop appreciating God's grace.

We have to realize that we can never earn it.

Just as the prodigal son didn't earn it.

He did the opposite of earning it, didn't he?

We need to have the attitude of the youngest son.

I'm a sinner.

I don't deserve salvation or my father's love or his favor.

But God, we thank you for your unearned, unmerited grace.

We thank you for not rejecting us.

We thank you for not taking us on as hired hands.

Thank you for welcoming us as sons and daughters, for giving us new clothing and celebrating us with a fattened calf.

Because of Jesus Christ.

It was all because of Jesus that we can say all of those things and experience God's grace.

You see, we are justified in Christ Jesus.

We're going to talk about that in Colossians a little bit later.

But we have this position before the Father as justified.

It's a little cheesy, but justified, just as if I'd never sinned at all.

That's how I remember it.

Because of God's grace.

Now, turn back to Colossians.

We're going to finish up with verse 6, uh 7 and 8 right now.

Verse 7.

You learn this from a Paphras, our dearly loved fellow servant.

So here's Epaphras, who we already talked a little bit about.

He's this faithful servant.

He's obviously loved by Paul and by this Colossian church.

He's the one that brought them the gospel in the first place.

He goes on, he says, He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.

And he has told us about your love.

That's agape, about your love in the Spirit.

So he's ministering to Paul in Colossae.

And he's, I'm sorry, on the Colossians' behalf, he's ministering to Paul while he's in prison in Rome.

And this is a way to not only honor Epaphras to this Colossians church, but to let them know, hey, Epaphras did a really good job ministering to me while he was there.

And verse 8 is interesting.

Notice it is a capital S spirit we're talking about here, referring to the Holy Spirit.

He has told us about your love in the Spirit.

We're incapable, remember I said that's agape love, that's you know.

The word that's used for God's sacrificial love.

He has told us about your love in the spirit.

We are incapable of loving each other with God's love, with his sacrificial love, without the help of the Holy Spirit.

What's the first fruit of the Spirit?

Love, right?

And in Romans, Paul talks about how God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

This church may have some doubts.

They may have some things they need to sort out with their theology and their doctrine.

But through it all, they're doing pretty well.

And they're loving each other with God's love through the help of the Holy Spirit.

That's what we need to be doing as well.

Filled with the Holy Spirit and loving each other, loving all the saints with the love of God.

So this is a quick glimpse, an introduction to the book of Colossians that we've done here this morning.

You know, this is talking about the good things.

This morning we talked about the good things this church is doing.

We talked a little bit about the struggles that they were facing.

Next week we're going to see how Paul is specifically praying for them, which is going to tell us even more about this church.

But that's just kind of a glimpse of what that is.

But for today, I just want to recap some things that we can take from this message and we can carry home with us that we can start to apply to our life.

So the first thing that I get from this book of Colossians and from these verses is let's become so familiar with Jesus and with the Word of God that counterfeits just become so obvious to each and every one of us.

The second thing, let's maintain the hope of the gospel while realizing the power of God in the gospel message to salvation.

It is powerful.

God just tells us to lay it out there.

So I want to encourage you, memorize those three verses.

Grab one of these, memorize these verses if you need to.

That's all we need to do.

And then the power of God for salvation is in that simple gospel message.

We're just simply asked by Jesus and the Great Commission to lay it out before people and let God do the word.

The third thing, I want to challenge you.

Take five minutes this week.

Just five minutes.

And just sit and consider God's grace and what that means for each and every one of us.

How that has changed all of our eternity if we are a follower of Christ.

And let's just make sure to never take it for granted.

To never interject ourselves into the gospel message or think that we have something to do with our own salvation.

And then the fourth and last thing, let's just continue to love each other with the love of God in the Spirit, as we just saw.

To love all the saints with God's love through the help of the Holy Spirit.

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, we pray for that.

Show us how to love each other as you have first loved us.

Lord, we need help in that.

We are selfish.

We're not very good at it.

But through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us, would you show us how to love each other with your love, with your agape, sacrificial love for one another?

Jesus, we simply need you.

We simply want you.

We thank you that you are the authentic Savior, the only one that could bring peace between God and man.

So as we sang about this morning, Lord, you came down, Jesus, from your heavenly position to walk among us, fully God and fully man, because you are the only one that can do that.

And we thank you so much that you did, that you sacrificed so much on this earth to the point of death, even death on a cross.

But Jesus, the message doesn't stop there.

You were buried, you were raised three days later, defeating sin and death for all eternity.

And we are so grateful that you did that for us and you made salvation a free gift by God's grace.

Something that we cannot earn even if we try to.

So wherever we have legalism creeping up in our hearts, wherever we think maybe we've earned your grace, or maybe we'll wherever we're trying to do that, or would you show us exactly how ridiculous that is for us to even think that we can under our own power?

We thank you that the it is finished, Jesus, as you said on the cross.

It is finished, it's done.

There's nothing we can add to it.

We thank you so much for that gift.

If there's anybody here this morning with all eyes closed and heads continue to be bowed, if there's anybody here this morning that wants to accept the message of the gospel, to accept Jesus Christ into their heart as their Lord and their Savior, accepting that forgiveness of sin that we've been talking about, accepting the fact that God gave his one and only Son for us in our place to die the death that we deserve.

Realizing that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, that's simply all we need to do, and we will be saved for all eternity.

So if that's you, just do that right now.

Accept him into your heart.

Lord, we love you.

We all need to continually hear the gospel.

We all need to continually be amazed by the grace that continually is poured out on us.

So we thank you for all of those things and your incredible love for each one of us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.