In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Paul introductory words in Colossians 1:3-8. Pastor Babij explains how, in Paul’s words of thanks, Paul clarifies how the gospel of Jesus transforms believers to progress in three areas of living: thanksgiving, hope, and steadfastness in the one, true gospel.
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Summary
This passage from Colossians 1:3-8 reminds us that the gospel produces genuine, observable transformation in the lives of believers. We are called to examine whether the newness of Christ is actively at work in us through thankfulness, hope, and love for all people.
Key Lessons:
- The gospel breaks down every social, cultural, and racial barrier, uniting believers from all backgrounds into one family in Christ.
- True salvation produces an overflow of thankfulness — gratitude is a reliable spiritual barometer of our walk with God.
- The believer’s hope is not wishful thinking but a mighty certainty, grounded in the resurrection of Christ and an inheritance securely reserved in heaven.
- The gospel is the one superior source of all spiritual life — it is universal, unstoppable, and fruit-bearing, unlike any localized false teaching.
Application: We are called to actively examine our lives for the marks of genuine salvation: overflowing gratitude, love for all the saints regardless of background, and a firm clinging to the gospel rather than drifting back to old ways of life.
Discussion Questions:
- How does your level of thankfulness reflect your spiritual health, and where might ingratitude be quietly hiding in your life?
- What barriers — cultural, racial, economic — does Christ still need to break down in your heart toward fellow believers?
- If the gospel produces fruit, what fruit is currently visible in your life, and are there areas where growth has stalled?
Scripture Focus: Colossians 1:3-8 teaches that faith, love, and hope are the three marks of a genuinely transformed life. Supporting passages include Colossians 3:11 (no distinction among believers), 1 Peter 1:3-4 (a living hope and imperishable inheritance), and Romans 6:23 (salvation as a free gift).
Outline
- Introduction
- Background: False Teaching in Colossae
- The Gospel Makes All Things New
- Progression 1: A Life of Thankfulness
- The Radical Unity the Gospel Creates
- Reasons for Thanksgiving: Faith and Love
- Faith in Christ, Not in False Teachers
- Love as the Bond of Unity
- Progression 2: A Life of Hope
- Progression 3: Clinging to the Superior Gospel
- Conclusion: Are These New Things Happening in You?
Introduction
Because take our Bibles again this morning, and we’re looking this morning at Colossians 1. Colossians 1, we’ll be looking today at verses 3 through 8.
Let’s pray. Lord, thank you this morning for bringing us here today, and Lord, allowing us to have another breath to be able to be with your people in your church. And I pray, Lord, as we think of that, I pray, Lord, that we would always have joyful thoughts when we think about the gathered church and the word of God.
And how, Lord, we have very special things given to us from our Lord. I pray, Lord, we’d never think lightly of those things or take for granted those things, but always it should well up in us, Lord, a joyful and a thankful and a humble heart.
Lord, today make us people who are ready to hear and ready to put into practice the word of God, and I pray this in Christ’s name, amen.
So Colossians 1, and I want to read verses 3 through 8. It says, we give thanks to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and love what you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
Of which you previously heard the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you’ve heard of it and understand the grace of God and truth.
Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf. And he also informed us of your love in the spirit.
Background: False Teaching in Colossae
Now, as I’ve been mentioning all along, there are some troubling things going on in this church. Philosophical Hedonism in Judaism and elements of Christian teaching have been mixed together in one pot, usually from just one teacher. That teacher was causing people to stray away from the faith.
Epaphras comes and tells Paul what’s going on, and then Paul writes the book of Colossians. One of the main things happening in this book is that the root doctrine being attacked is robbing Jesus of his central place and his first place in the church.
Paul dismantles this false teaching throughout the whole book. He’s not shooting from the hip; he’s coming around the corner. It’s like two machine guns constantly being fired at this false teaching, and he dismantles the whole thing by the time he gets to the end of the epistle.
The Gospel Makes All Things New
Now, Christ is living in the body, this new body called the church, and this church forms a new humanity. In this new humanity the Lord is transforming us, so that all the old ideas about life, about God, about everything actually, and the way of salvation, is being turned over, and God is replacing it with all things that are new.
The gospel really does make all things new. If you’ve experienced that already in your Christian life, then you will continue to experience it the rest of your Christian life, because it is that miraculous when the Lord does that.
From last time, just to bring you up to speed, we saw that the gospel instructs us in our new position. Our new position is that we are saints, that we are set apart inwardly, we are set apart outwardly, that in our new position we are faithful brethren in Christ, verse 2.
Because we are saints, we have a manifold grace that is heaped upon us as believers. As saints and faithful brethren, we have also been granted multiple facets of God’s peace, that it is available to us, where we get the sense that God is our friend, not our enemy any longer.
We have the peace now in this world and during this time of living, and we also will have it in eternity. That is something that brings great comfort.
Our new positioning in Christ is that we have a new source, and that source is in Christ. Our new identity, in verse 2, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colosse: grace and peace from God our father. The source of this new identity and this new creation is God himself.
All things are passing away, and behold, all things become new. In Christ we find ourselves in a new position, in a new sphere, in a new way of thinking, in a new lifestyle, and God is not simply patching up the old, he is creating new.
He is discarding old things, and we are too. It means that we are casting it aside, so we no longer want it to be part of our life anymore. We have left and turned from our old way of life, and now we’re walking in this new way of life. We’re newly created in Christ, and that continues our whole pilgrimage throughout this world.
This false teacher and his teaching has made it possible for people to be comfortable in their old life, in their old Adamic nature, so that they still remain in Adam. They’re not in Christ. There is nothing new going on for the disciples of this false teacher.
To be lured away from something new back to something old could be very destructive. That’s the sense that we’re looking at in Colossians: these people are being tempted to go back to the old way of life, the old way of doing things.
He was writing and saying to them, no, you have new things going on. Don’t go back to the old garbage heap. Stay walking on the path that God’s given you.
“You have new things going on. Don’t go back to the old garbage heap. Stay walking on the path that God’s given you.”
We see today that the gospel really induces a new progression to life. Progression means that there is spiritual movement going on in our life, there are new developments going on in our lives, since we came to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Some of the new things were surprising to me. I remember when I first came and got involved in ministry, you have your little groups of people that you hang out with and you’re close to, when you do a lot of things with. But when you come into the church, all of a sudden there are all kinds of groups of people, there are all kinds of cultures, there are all kinds of people that come from different races.
For most of us, that’s new. Usually we don’t necessarily mingle with people that are different from us. It’s not that we consciously say, oh, I’m not going to do that. It’s just that we naturally just don’t do it. We gravitate to people that are like us.
One day I get invited to a meal from a family that was from Ghana, and I never had plantain, and I never had a meal from somebody who lived in Ghana. That was in the United States, and they’re believers. I’m sitting there and I’m thinking to myself, wow, this is new. I’ve never had this before.
I never thought the Christian life would bring those kind of new things in it, to meet people I would never have met, or even had anything to do with somebody from Ghana, because I don’t even know anybody from there. Now I come to the church and I meet people from this culture and from that culture and from this background and from this race.
That’s exciting. That is new. That is part of the newness that comes into the church: we have relationships with people now we would never have had if we didn’t come to Christ.
Christ breaks down all those barriers. We don’t see each other as, oh, you’re from that culture, and you’re from that race, and you do those things, and you have that kind of dress. God breaks all that down.
We look at people as just people who have red blood running through their veins. They were sinners just like us. They met Christ, they were changed, we’re changed, and now we’re family. We’re brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s new, and that’s radically new. What that brings to us is a thankful heart.
“We’re brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s new, and that’s radically new. And what that brings to us is a thankful heart.”
Progression 1: A Life of Thankfulness
The first progression that happens when somebody truly gets saved is they progress into a life of thankfulness. Look what it says in verse three. It says, “We thank God. We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.”
On the surface, that would seem like a regular greeting. The main verb of that text is “give thanks,” and the present tense points to the ongoing nature of the gratitude. This is not just giving thanks once. This is giving thanks all the time, every day.
Ingratitude is a great sin. Gratitude is also a good test to examine how well you and I are doing spiritually. Saints are distinguished in their character by giving thanks for all things.
“Gratitude is a good test to examine how well you and I are doing spiritually. Saints are distinguished by giving thanks for all things.”
When I was in Hobby Lobby, I saw a sign that says, “Whining, five dollars.” I bought that. I point that to my grandkids. Some people are going to be broke because all they do is whine.
That’s one thing you ought to cut out of your dictionary as a Christian, because there’s no room for whining.
The Radical Unity the Gospel Creates
It’s quite amazing when you have a group of people that have such extreme differences in their social, economic, cultural, and religious standing in this world, and then you come together as one unified group which holds to one common faith because of Jesus Christ. That is impossible in a sinful world.
What groups am I referring to? I’m referring to groups so different they most likely would have nothing at all to do with each other if it wasn’t for the gospel. Groups that go out of their way to make very distinct boundaries among themselves, so that they will have no dealings or contacts with another group of people.
If you look at Colossians 3:11, I want you to think this morning about how radical this scripture is. This scripture remains radical even in any culture where there’s a melting pot of different people groups.
Look at verse 11. It says, “A renewal in which there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.” Are you kidding? Jew and Greek? They never come together.
I read the passage of scripture this morning in Acts about Paul going to Macedonia. A lot of work had to be done on Paul before he would go there and bring the gospel to Gentiles. Paul was a work of God.
And then again in our passage: circumcised and uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but all are in Christ and in all. This shows how radical and how powerful and how miraculous and how superior the gospel of Jesus Christ really is, and still is.
This very thought goes against this false teacher and what he’s teaching. To make these one unified body in Christ is impossible. So what does the Apostle Paul do? The Apostle Paul gives thanks and he prays for people he once hated, he once dragged to jail, he once approved of if they were being sentenced to death.
He stood by watching the people’s garments as people threw stones at Stephen and stoned him to death. That was in the approval of the council, and Paul was driving their method of how to get rid of the way, or the church.
How does such a change happen in someone? It surely doesn’t happen by itself. There has to be a power that can change the dark and the dead human heart into something that is living and something that is newly thankful for things they would have never been thankful for before.
That is especially in the area of people being thankful for people created in the image of God, now newly brought into the family of God. Your whole mindset has to change. There is no room for racism in that mindset. It must be cast out. You cannot hold on to that at all anymore. We are all one in Christ.
“There is no room for racism in that mindset. It must be cast out. We are all one in Christ.”
You would think that to be thankful should be something easy to do, but it is not. It is easy when all is going well. But what happens when the bottom drops out and it’s not going so well?
There’s a famous painting depicting a subject on it: ingratitude. It shows a large statue which has inscribed at the base of it, “ingratitude.” Surrounding this gigantic statue are men and women throwing stones at it.
Yet if you look closer at this painting, you’ll notice that each of the people that are throwing stones at this statue named ingratitude has cradled in their left arm a tiny replica of the statue, also marked ingratitude.
In other words, the lesson of this picture is that each of us may detest ingratitude in general and in principle and in others, but there is an element of ingratitude in all of us. The spirit of God is going to drive this from us, and he’s going to replace it with something quite new: being thankful.
We may need to conclude that there is much more ingratitude in our life than there is genuine gratitude. But be sure of this: the gospel received by faith and rightly understood causes one to be thankful in ways that are not common, that it’s not common actually to sinners, especially in areas that we once were hostile in mind and in conduct.
The Apostle Paul, being a great example of this, had a new heart. He had new eyes to see. He saw people differently now. He no longer saw people through the lens of social and economic and cultural and their religious standing in the world.
Since he met Christ, he saw people as lost people who needed compassion, because they were helpless, they were in darkness, and they needed the glorious light of the gospel to shine in their hearts. That’s how he saw the lost.
That means there were no more categories to put them in, because the scripture said to us there’s no more distinction. He began to understand that. That’s why he’s writing this.
It seems like the false teachers were keeping those distinctions, not allowing other groups to be part of that group. Paul is obliterating what they are teaching.
When he saw genuine evidence of the transforming results of the gospel in a person’s life, no matter who they were or where they came from or what their background was, he had one response: thankfulness.
“When he saw genuine evidence of the transforming results of the gospel in a person’s life, he had one response: thankfulness.”
This is a changed person. This is a new person. This is even new for Paul, and it’s new for us too.
Reasons for Thanksgiving: Faith and Love
And so here are a couple of good reasons to offer up thanksgiving to God. We find them right here in our text. Verse 3 says, “We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.”
In other words, evidence of the continuous work of the Father is good reason to give expressions of thanks to him. That gratitude is directed to God, the giver of all good gifts. As Father, he delights to give good things to his children, and the gift of his Son is the ultimate expression of goodness.
That should produce in anyone’s heart, in ourselves, and when we see it in others, thankfulness for saving that person. It’s a frequent theme shared by the Apostle Paul and Timothy and others, since they all became Christians.
Because all things become new. Look at chapter 1, verse 12. It says this: “Giving thanks to the Father who qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”
The Father is receiving this thanks from these newly born-again believers, and they are thanking him because he has given them life, he is maintaining their being, he has saved their souls, he has brought them out of darkness into light and into the church, and now they’re his children. He gives them the inheritance of eternal glory. Nothing to be whining about there.
Notice in chapter 2, verse 7. It says, “Having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”
Just think about that in your own life, to be so thankful it’s running over the cup. There’s no room in that cup for anything else but thankfulness. Is that going on in your life? Or do you find yourself often grumbling and complaining and whining about what’s happening in your life?
This is new to us, and it is so new to us that we desire to have it in our heart.
“To be so thankful it’s running over the cup — there’s no room in that cup for anything else but thankfulness.”
Look at chapter 3, verses 15 through 17. This is the passage of scripture in Ephesians that talks about being Spirit-filled. Here it’s talking about being word-filled.
Look what it says in verse 15. It says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.”
Verse 16: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
Can you sing without thankfulness in your heart? If you do, it’s probably all wrong. You’re just mouthing words. You’re just pushing air around the room.
Notice in verse 17: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks through him to God the Father.”
In other words, you have an inward thankfulness that’s working out in outward evidence. I’m doing this thing, whatever my hands are finding to do, I’m doing with a heart that’s thankful to God that I’m able to use my hands and do this work, no matter how dirty and messy it is. God’s given it to me so I can pay the bills. I can dig the ditch and pay the bills. That’s what God does.
For a Christian who’s new, there’s something going on inside of them. They are thankful, and their thankfulness is running over the top. That’s what we ought to be. That’s the newness of the Christian life.
Notice back in chapter 1, verse 3. At the end of verse 3, he’s now praying for them always, meaning that thankfulness and dependence on God in prayer are closely linked together. If you are thankful about something, you are going to be praying for something. If you are thankful about someone, you’re going to be praying for them.
A second evidence that we find in verse 4 of the reality of the new life that we have in Christ, and the second good reason to be thankful, is this: it is the sign of faith and love in them.
It says, “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints.” He’s actually saying, listen, what happened to me is happening to you. You have now love for Christ, and because you have love for Christ, you have love for all the saints. There’s no distinctions anymore. It’s all the people.
All the people get saved, no matter who they are, no matter what color skin they are, no matter what culture they are, no matter what social economic stratum they’re in. All of it is obliterated.
What he saw in him he’s seeing in them. What he’s saying is, this is God’s work, because nobody can do this. No religious system could do this. Only God can do this. God is the only one who could break down the barriers.
Faith in Christ, Not in False Teachers
And notice what it says here. He’s thankful for their faith because their faith is Christ-centered, not false-teacher-centered. Because everything depended on what the teacher said. Most religions pretty much can actually function without their main teacher.
But in Christianity, you must have Christ as center, or you don’t have Christianity. Christianity is Christ. He is the center of it all. You don’t need an endless list of angels that you have to go through to be between man and God, as the false teacher here taught.
No, Christ can bring you to God because he is God, and Christ will give you a thankful heart.
“In Christianity, you must have Christ as center, or you don’t have Christianity. He is the center of it all.”
Love as the Bond of Unity
So he’s thanking them always for their faith in Christ. Secondly, he is thanking them for their love, because their love is practical. And that’s what love is. It’s a verb. It’s an action word. That love which you have for all the saints.
Love is the identifying mark of God’s presence in those who have come to experience God’s salvation in Christ Jesus. As John wrote in 1 John 4, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
Love is divine. It holds people together. It holds the church together. That’s what holds the church together. Jesus said, “You will know them by their love.”
That means something different than what we think in America. Love has been so abused, that word, in America. Nobody even knows what it means anymore. But here, the love is going to mean that they love Christ and his way of salvation, and they love people. My heart’s been changed to love people. See, that is the work of God in the heart.
“Love is going to mean that they love Christ and his way of salvation, and they love people. That is the work of God in the heart.”
If you look at chapter 3, verse 14, it says this: “Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” I like it better what it says in the ESV. It says, “which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
What does love do? Love takes all this disunity and discord and these differences and makes harmony. Everybody’s in tune because of what Christ has done.
“Love takes all this disunity and discord and differences and makes harmony. Everybody’s in tune because of what Christ has done.”
And then we find in verse 5, it says faith and love have one great basis, and that is the believer’s hope. Now, if you notice this morning that Paul is dealing with what is called the triads of virtue. Here, what the triads of virtue are: 1 Corinthians 13:13: “Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love, right?”
Progression 2: A Life of Hope
But in this epistle, he does not use that order. He uses faith, love, and hope. Secondly, we see that those who are in Christ have a progression of a life of hope.
We sang about hope this morning. But if you notice in verse 5, what it says is: “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel.”
We must believe before we can have hope for the enjoyment of heaven. No person can hope for that which he does not believe. So hope is the basis for faith and love, and it is the third of the triads of virtue that Paul mentions in a different order.
Because of what he is attacking against these false teachers, the cause of the apostle’s thanks is the hope that awaits the believers in heaven. The objective hope of eternal life in God’s presence in heaven is the fertile soil in which faith grows.
Hope here is defined as a mighty certainty, which makes Christian hope so strong that it cannot be broken, and it gets stronger as we grow in the knowledge of God. That hope is the realization that you have been called to be saints and faithful Christians, and the call came from the offer of the gospel, in which you responded and repented in faith.
God brings his children from an empty, false, deceptive, dead hope to a strong, active, living hope. This hope rests on God’s power and God’s promise. Because Jesus was raised to life, we will live with him. Because of that, not only now receiving good things from him, but in eternity.
Hope speaks of our response to God’s promise. In other words, he offers us hope, and we can have hope in him and his guarantees that go with the hope.
Hope here is not “I hope so, I hope it happens.” That’s just wishful thinking. Biblical hope looks forward with conviction and expectancy. It is not a hope mingled with uncertainty and doubt.
“Biblical hope looks forward with conviction and expectancy. It is not a hope mingled with uncertainty and doubt.”
Those who live in doubt, which is the opposite of living in faith, are essentially denying the hope that God gives. That is actually true.
Some might have hope in purgatory, if there is such a place. There is not. There is only heaven and hell. For the real Christian, there is no need to fear heaven or purgatory, because heaven awaits all believers.
Hope always has the future in mind. It points eagerly ahead to the consummation of salvation’s plan. A Christian’s hope is connected with the first end-time event that has already taken place.
You say, well, what’s that? It says in Peter, “to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” That’s the first end-time event. Because he is the first fruit. What’s going to happen? We’re raised from the dead and we’re going to be with him forever.
Jesus, who voluntarily left his home and descended to an earthly existence on this earth, alien and a stranger here, accomplished his redemptive work on the cross, defeated Satan in death, and has returned to heaven. Where he is, we will be also. That’s the promise and the hope that we have.
It’s a reminder that our ability to arrive safely at God’s home is rooted in God’s mercy, and it is grounded in this great truth, again in 1 Peter 1:3. We are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3: “We are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
This past end-time event, accomplished solely by the power of God, helps us to hold fast to our hope for the future, the hope of complete salvation. The author of that hope is God himself.
The Inheritance Laid Up in Heaven
Now, turning back to chapter one again, looking at verse five. But did you know you probably didn’t know this as a believer? You’re enrolled in a layaway plan. Did you know that?
A layaway plan may be dating me a bit. But a layaway plan—and the reason why I know about it is because I went to the store with my mother and she did this often. They were offered by stores to those who usually had good credit.
I remembered my mom had a layaway plan in the store called Corvettes. That’s really dating me. And it is similar to today’s Bradlees or Targets. She would drag me to the store, and she would go and put a down payment.
Let’s say she bought a comforter for a king-sized bed. After the down payment was received, the store would store it away in their layaway storage area. Once the last payment was made and the purchase item was paid in full, you would take your receipt, and it would be stamped paid in full.
The store would retrieve your goods from the storage area and bring it out to you, and you would become its new owner.
That is a long process. Today we have credit cards, and it’s right there the next day, or even the same day sometimes with Amazon, right? It doesn’t take this long.
But there’s a vast difference between a store layaway plan and God’s plan of salvation. You don’t pay for anything, and you don’t pay anyone. Salvation is a free gift. Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Why’d I bring that up? Look at our passage this morning, right here in scripture. It tells us that God stored away an inheritance for us in heaven. Verse five: “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” That means it is set before us, it is awaiting us, it is kept for a later unveiling and for our future joy.
This is not the only place that the apostles mentioned this in scripture. I think of Second Timothy 4:8. It says, “In the future there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. But not only for me, Paul says, for all those who love his appearing, who are waiting and anticipating this inheritance that we have.”
If we are joint heirs with Christ, as Romans says, we have this inheritance. In other words, Christ owns everything, we own everything. It’s reserved in heaven.
First Peter 1:4 says, “To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.” And then he goes on to say, not only reserved there, but it’s protected by the power of God.
This is the power only the Godhead shares. God is the one who guards and keeps our inheritance for us. God is the guardian who keeps it safe for us and keeps us safe to receive its fullness. It is treasured, it is perfectly secure, that no enemy or thief can reach it.
It is laid up where none of the changes of time can ever affect it. The Lord knows that if we were to carry it, we would probably lose it. But no, it is safe in heaven, out of reach of all that could do it violence. It’s protected there.
“No enemy or thief can reach it. It is laid up where none of the changes of time can ever affect it.”
Heaven is a holy place, and God is holy. The inhabitants of heaven are holy. You must be holy in heaven, or you’ll not be there. If you are not holy, then you will not receive what is reserved for you there.
This is the progression that’s going on in the newness of the Christian life.
Progression 3: Clinging to the Superior Gospel
And then there’s one last thing that I’ll mention, and it’s this: the progression, a third thing, for those who are in Christ, a progression of life that clings to one superior source. And what is that source?
Colossians 1:5 says that the believer’s hope has one great superior source. And what is it? Look what it says. Let me read the whole verse. It says, “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, here it is, the gospel.”
That is it. That’s the superior source. For all this stuff comes to us—the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The superiority of the gospel is seen in several ways in scripture.
The Gospel Is True and Universal
It is seen in the whole subject and content of it. And what is that? It is true. The gospel is true. It is not a word of a guess. It is not a probable inference. It is not anything but infallible truth. That’s what we have. That is the basis of everything we believe.
There may be other things in the world that are true, but God’s word is the essence of everything that is true. And the gospel reveals to us the truth of God’s grace.
“The gospel is true. It is not a word of a guess. It is not a probable inference. It is infallible truth.”
These believers at Colosse heard the gospel before they heard the false teaching. The point is, abandoning the gospel that they have heard, that they have believed, that they have embraced, would be completely disastrous and foolish.
Why would you do that? You have these new things going on in your life. Why would you go back to the old way, unless there was nothing doing in you in the first place?
These Colossian believers, having experienced being transformed in mind and knowing the good and the acceptable and even the perfect will of God, had the gospel already take root and bearing fruit in their life. To abandon it would be eternally foolish.
It’s sad to see when somebody walks away from the faith, is it not? Have you not all seen that in your life, sometime or another? You saw somebody, it looked like life was there, they were coming to church, they were studying the word of God, things were changing, and all of a sudden they’re gone.
And then you find out they went back to their old system, their old church, their old life. It’s sad to see. It’s heartbreaking, actually. But we see it all the time.
But it does prove and does show that if there is no new life there, and it has just little root in the ground, when the troubles of life, the trials of life come up, it shines on that, and that new green shoot just withers away, like the parable of the sower says. And there’s no fruit. At last, they were never saved. They were never saved.
They felt the power of the gospel, they felt the newness, but there was no change in the heart. There was no repentance where God’s spirit lived in them and now was giving them new life.
And then notice back in Colossians 1:5. The superiority of the gospel is also seen in individuals. Notice what it says: “of which you previously heard the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you.”
That pivotal moment when the spirit of God illuminates the heart of a person, and they not only hear the gospel but they begin to see the kingdom of God, and the spirit of God comes in them, grants them faith and repentance, and they believe the gospel. That’s the effectual call of the gospel, where you cannot resist it, and you come. At that moment, someone becomes a real believer, and then everything changes about that person.
The Gospel Bears Fruit Everywhere
And then there’s a third thing about the superiority of the gospel, and it’s seen in its universal outreach. Notice what it says in verse 6. It says, “which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing.”
In other words, the superiority of the gospel, as opposed to the limited nature and local nature of false teachers, is that the gospel is going everywhere. It’s universal. It’s all over the world.
It’s in tribes you’ve never heard of. The Moke tribe in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, one of them. But these people never heard the gospel. New Tribes missionaries come in there, it takes five years to get the language, get an alphabet first of all, and then to get the language, and then teach them their own language, and then preach the gospel, and the whole tribe gets saved.
God’s gospel is going everywhere. Don’t think the gospel is limited. You cannot put a cap on the gospel and hold it down. It explodes all throughout the world. It’s still doing that right now.
The gospel was never contained to one locale. Biblical Christianity spread rapidly through the known world at that time. That’s when Paul says, “Go into all the world, go into all the world with the gospel.”
The world was smaller then—it wasn’t the whole globe yet, because the whole globe was unpopulated yet. But Rome and probably all those areas around the known world were infiltrated by the gospel of Christ. It went everywhere, to everyone, as it does today.
It’s not restricted to a culture, it’s not restricted to a tribe, it’s not restricted to a nation. It is a powerful influence on all sorts of people groups, past, present, and future.
“The gospel is not restricted to a culture, a tribe, or a nation. It is a powerful influence on all sorts of people groups.”
We know historically that all schisms and heresies are partial and local. That’s how they start. They stay local usually. They may transform, but it’s under one false leader, and everything that leader says you must follow. And then you add another book onto it—the Bible plus something else.
We don’t throw the Bible out completely. We’ll just put the book of this and the book of that, and the traditions of that church and the traditions of these people, and they added on. No.
The true gospel of Jesus Christ is going out. It is not localized. It’s not kept and contained in one place. It’s going throughout the whole world.
This gospel goes through the whole world and draws all kinds of people. The gospel is intended for everyone, not just the educated or the religious elite, or some special group with special or superior knowledge. It’s even for the great thinker and the philosopher and the fool and the naive and the scoffer. It’s for everybody, and it should go out to everybody.
The Gospel Versus False Teaching
But the gospel truth is in direct opposition to the false teachers. Their teaching is just the same old reheated, repackaged religious system, infiltrated with and synchronized with commandments and teachings of men, filled with philosophical mumbo jumbo nobody can really understand, and packed with empty deception and laced with notions of dietary rules and harsh treatment of the body.
This is what you do to make it to God. Like a big air balloon, all one needs to do is take the gospel pin and prick it once, and it will slither through the air and finally come falling down to the ground in a thousand and one pieces, only to be placed in the scrap yard of the enemy, awaiting the next repackaging and the next renaming of some other novel and cool religious and political project.
And he’s really good at that.
That’s why when we come to Colossians, we find that Paul says to them, “Let no one take you captive by philosophy and empty deception.” And then he says, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, which people who are inflated in their mind by visions.” And then he says to them, “Listen, don’t obey the commandments and the teachings of men. They will just lead you to hell.”
The gospel is the old message, one that we should never get tired of hearing. The only way to be saved, to be forgiven, is to believe this message, to believe on the Son of God, and that justification is by faith only. Our works will never save us. All our good deeds are not enough. It is the gospel.
“The only way to be saved, to be forgiven, is to believe on the Son of God. Justification is by faith only.”
There’s one other thing the gospel does, in verses five and six. What it does—of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing. It produces fruit in your life. That’s the power of the gospel. That’s the progression. That’s the newness.
Holiness and godliness, Christian character, good works, passion for others to come to Christ, the use of spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ, the giving and sharing of what you have with others, and thanking and praising God, and even sinning less, and persevering in your Christian walk no matter what happens.
“The gospel produces fruit: holiness, Christian character, passion for others to come to Christ, and persevering in your walk no matter what.”
I’m not walking away from this. Because as the disciple says in the gospel, “Lord, you have the words of eternal life. Where are we going to go? Back to Judaism? No. There’s nowhere to go but forward.”
That’s the best place to be, because if you have the truth, where else is there to go? There’s only one other place you’re going to go, and that’s heaven. And there you have an inheritance waiting for you.
Conclusion: Are These New Things Happening in You?
See, these are the new things that are happening. Are they happening to you? Are they still happening today? They should be, because that shows that you’re really a Christian.
If they’re not happening to you, you may have to work on some of these things. Nobody’s at the same place spiritually. But if they’re not happening to you, then you may have to say, maybe I’m not a believer, and I need to become one today.
“If the new things of the gospel are not happening to you, you may have to say, maybe I’m not a believer, and I need to become one today.”
If that’s you, I want you to talk with me after the service today.