Now can we turn together in our Bibles to Paul's letter to the Colossians.
And we're going to spend the next few weeks working through Colossians 1.
Thinking about some of the wonderful images that we find to help us to see the glory of Jesus there.
So this evening we're going to read and concentrate on the first eight verses.
Especially from verse 3, Paul's Thanksgiving section.
So Colossians 1 from the beginning.
From God our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.
Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people.
The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven.
And about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.
In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.
Just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace.
You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant.
Who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf.
And who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Amen.
So this evening we're going to concentrate on verse 5 and the wonderful picture of hope that we have there.
Jesus Christ, our heavenly hope.
I guess it's been apparent to us that the notion of hope is something that's important.
Not just personally but on the world stage.
Colossians 1 and this good news of hope is something that connects with our hearts and our longings.
And we've just been, I'm sure, all sort of catching up with what's been happening at COP26.
And people have been sort of swinging between a sense that there is a hope, though it is fragile.
But perhaps others feeling that there is a sense of hopelessness.
People experiencing a new sense of eco-anxiety.
People being questioned on the streets of Glasgow.
And no doubt you could replicate it elsewhere.
What world are our kids going to enjoy?
What world is going to be left behind for our grandkids?
There's that wanting of hope but sense of growing hopelessness.
We see it too in the world stage.
It's the other thing that's been capturing the news.
The migrant crises.
You know, we are used to seeing those desperate attempts to cross the water to find a better life in southern Europe.
But now we're seeing people trying to get through Belarus into Poland and beyond.
We're seeing it in South America.
And we understand that there are those who will risk everything and pay everything for even just the slight chance of the hope of a better future for them and for their children.
But of course, it's not just something in the headlines.
It's something deep in our hearts.
We all have hopes and dreams, no doubt, for the present and for the future.
Those dreams often serve to motivate and energize.
But sometimes when hopes are dashed, we can find despair growing.
Hope is important.
And Christianity then presents us with good news.
When Barack Obama wrote his biography, he wrote of the audacity of hope.
And that big dream of better race relations.
Well, the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us a far more audacious hope.
A mind-blowingly epic hope of glory.
It's central to the gospel and crucial to our hope, as we'll see today, is the coming of Jesus and his personal work.
And the eternal hope that is wrapped up in what he came to do.
And so perhaps as we think about this theme of hope, and we find ourselves at the school gates or in a coffee shop, or we're talking to colleagues,
and perhaps this is a talking point for us.
Hope streams longings for the future.
Perhaps opportunities for us to weave the hope of our Creator and Redeemer into those conversations.
But let's take a look with Paul to see how hope fits into the gospel message.
So let's read again verse 5, or verse 4 as well.
Because we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, the love you have for all God's people,
the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven,
and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel.
It's by way of background.
Paul is writing to this church in Colossae, and it becomes clear in his thanksgiving, verse 7 and 8,
they've heard the message of the gospel of grace through Epaphras, and they have believed.
And so Paul wants to encourage them to keep on in their faith in the Lord Jesus.
But he's also very aware, and if you read the letter, and please do read the letter,
you find lurking in the shadows there are false teachers.
That seem to be suggesting perhaps that all we have is now,
and so Paul will deliberately draw attention to future hope.
But certainly these false teachers saying, yes, you need Jesus,
but you also need this special knowledge that we and only we can provide.
Yes, you need Jesus, but have you heard of these other ceremonies that you need?
And so what Paul does to answer that is to focus on Jesus as supreme, unique, and all we need for salvation.
And so that kind of underpins the letter.
The section that we have just read is Paul's thanksgiving.
You notice in verse 3, he's thankful to the Father for the church and for God's work in the lives of his people,
and especially the reality that they have believed the gospel, the true message.
And then central to this thanksgiving section is verse 5, and it's this hope that Paul speaks of.
This hope which is a heavenly hope.
It's stored up for them in heaven.
It's a hope found in the true message of the gospel.
So you put those three things together.
There's the hope, there's the hope stored up in heaven.
It's hope found in the gospel.
We realize that for Paul, their hope is rooted in the Lord Jesus himself.
Jesus is the hope of the church.
So what does Paul say about the gospel?
How does the gospel connect to hope?
Well, first of all, and I suppose fundamentally,
to remember that when Paul uses the word gospel, that word gospel means good news.
And that word was borrowed from language of the day.
So if you were in the Roman Empire at the time of Paul's writing,
you might hear a message of gospel good news.
If the Caesar had won a great victory in battle,
if the Roman Empire had conquered another land,
or you might hear gospel being announced because a son had been born to the emperor.
Gospel in the Roman Empire, in other words, was centered on Caesar.
And so what the Christians do is really radical and significant
because they make good news, not all about Caesar, but all about Jesus.
Good news because Jesus is Lord.
There is good news because King Jesus has been born.
He has come.
There is good news because of the victory of Jesus at the cross and the resurrection.
So to say the gospel is good news.
It is challenging the culture of the day to consider who really is Lord.
And the point is that from the beginning, the church understands where does hope lie?
Hope lies in Jesus, who he is.
It's the Son of God.
What he's come to do, bring salvation.
So gospel is good news.
Gospel is also truth.
Verse 5, they have heard the true message of the gospel.
It's important for us to recognize that the gospel is a body of teaching.
The gospel is revelation from God.
In other words, it's not human speculation,
not something created by Paul and the disciples and the apostles.
It's not morality or ethics.
The gospel is not, here's some steps for how to live.
It's about God's salvation.
And it's revealed by God himself in this word, the gospel.
For Paul, our author here, gospel and truth can be interchangeable.
You can see that in the book of Romans, for example.
You go to Romans chapter 2, verse 8.
There are people who are being challenged because they are rejecting God's truth.
But then in chapter 10 and verse 16, people are being challenged because they're rejecting God's good news.
Truth and good news.
Truth and gospel interchangeable.
And I think this matters when it comes to talking about our faith with others.
Because it's rooted in truth, this isn't, here's my feelings about God versus your feelings about God.
Our hope and confidence isn't built on our warm feelings.
It's built on a body of truth.
God has engaged our mind.
God has sent revelation.
And so we can have confidence because we have objective truth, not just something subjective.
But then it's important to recognize, as Paul tells us in verse 6, the gospel is also about God's grace.
See there at the end of verse 6, having said the gospel is bearing fruit and growing,
just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace.
To understand the gospel is to have a firm grip on this reality.
That we are not saved by our own merit.
We are saved by God's grace.
We are saved because of God's commitment to us in Jesus Christ.
We are saved because God has freely chosen to make a free and merciful offer to us,
to forgive us and give us eternal life in Christ Jesus.
So the gospel is about God's grace.
So good news and hope then come together for Paul because the gospel is rooted in the work of God.
Here's the basis for confidence, not in ourselves, but in what God has done through Jesus.
It's the Father's eternal plan that leads to the sending of Jesus.
Our hope is in Jesus, the Son's willing obedience and in the work of the Spirit in opening our eyes
and doing that work of conversion in our hearts.
Paul speaks of the power of the gospel a little later on.
If you have your Bibles, look at verse 21 to 23.
As he comes to look at the power of the gospel and the importance of hope within that,
he talks about them being alienated from God and previously being enemies,
but now reconciled by Christ's physical body through death.
Through faith in Jesus, we will be presented wholly in his sight.
But then look at verse 23.
If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.
So we need to hold on to this hope, this certainty presented to us in the gospel.
The gospel is confident expectation, not wish fulfillment.
It's rooted in Christ, that greater things are still to come.
That what God has begun to do, he will complete.
And that explains why, when we come back to verse 5,
there is a future focus to the hope that Paul speaks about.
So let's think about that, Jesus and future hope.
But perhaps, before we get there, boys and girls, we can switch our brains on.
So have a little think how many famous trios you can think of, or things that come in threes.
I was having a little think earlier.
I could think of the three musketeers, the three little pigs, the oldie locks and the three bears.
But I bet you have more.
You can think about that.
Well, for Paul, there is a trio that keeps coming again and again.
We heard it in 1 Thessalonians, as we began.
And we find it here, too.
It's the trio of faith and hope and love.
Perhaps when we hear those, we think of 1 Corinthians 13.
We think of a wedding service, perhaps.
Now, these three remain, faith, hope and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
It seems like for Paul, this trio represents the basic description of the true Christian.
A true Christian is someone who has faith and hope in God's work in Christ Jesus,
and who has love for God and love for the church.
This trio, faith, hope and love, serve as evidence,
pointed to the reality of God's work in a person's heart.
So let's have a little think about these as they are presented here.
Faith, love and hope, because the order is changed.
And we'll see why.
So what is faith, first of all?
Well, we need to recognize that faith itself is a grace from God.
It's a gift.
We need to understand that to see, to hear, to believe Jesus is good news,
to believe that we have a need of salvation,
that we have a sin problem that only Jesus can fix,
that's not natural to us.
That's a supernatural work.
It's a gift of faith.
Paul makes clear that faith, verse 4, is in Christ Jesus.
As a family, we've been trying to learn the New City Catechism.
A very helpful device.
It comes in song, which is even more helpful.
And one of the questions is, what is faith?
And what is faith in Jesus Christ?
I have to say it in the way that the song goes.
And it's receiving and resting on him alone for salvation,
as he is offered to us in the gospel.
It's receiving the gift of Jesus Christ,
and resting and trusting in that gift,
as we hear it in the true message of the gospel.
That's faith.
It's rooted in the Lord Jesus for salvation.
But we can say more than that, too.
Faith is about life under the lordship of King Jesus.
United to Jesus by faith,
we now live under his rule in glad obedience.
Our citizenship has changed.
We're in a new kingdom,
no longer the kingdom of darkness,
and we're in the kingdom of light.
And just as in any kingdom,
the ruler sets rules to live by,
the Bible then becomes our rule of faith
for how to live under the lordship of King Jesus.
So faith is both in Jesus and under his rule.
Now, what about love?
What does Paul say about love here?
How do we see this love in action?
Look at verse 4.
Paul is thankful because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus
and of the love you have for all God's people.
So this love has a particular direction.
Now that a person belongs to Jesus,
brought into the family of God,
there is a new love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
One of the things the gospel does
is it creates this new community,
this new family,
which is utterly unique.
Paul points to its uniqueness in chapter 3,
verse 11,
when he says,
here there is no Gentile or Jew,
circumcised or uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian,
slave or free,
but Christ is all and is in all.
So every barrier that would normally be there in a society or a culture,
every dividing line of race,
of language,
of ethnicity and culture
are broken down in the gospel
or should be broken down in the gospel
because we're all one in Jesus Christ.
But what Paul is saying here,
the evidence of our love for God
is love for his people,
love for his church.
John,
the apostle,
wrote something along the same lines
in his first letter,
chapter 4.
He said to them effectively,
we can't say we love the God
who is invisible
if we don't love our brothers and sisters
who are right there in front of us.
We can't claim to love the God.
We can't see if we don't love
those in God's family that we do see.
So Paul says to love Jesus
is to love his church
and he's thankful that that's in evidence
in their lives,
in that active way,
a costly way,
serving,
encouraging,
sacrificing,
helping one another.
But I think what's interesting from Paul
is that while we're used to
probably hearing faith and hope and love,
here we have faith and love and hope.
Now, what is hope
and why does that come
as the third of the trio?
Look with me at verse 5.
We find the reason why.
He says that our faith and our love
spring from the hope
stored up for you in heaven
and about which you have already heard
in the true message of the gospel.
So hope is the foundation
of the other two,
or to use another image,
hope is the root
and faith and love
are the fruit that grows.
And here we discover that this hope
that encourages our faith
and encourages our love
is future-focused.
It is stored up for us.
We are still awaiting
the full realization of it
and there's that sense of expectation
that comes with hope.
I can't speak for every child here,
but any given day,
if I ask our children
how many days till Christmas,
they'll know in a heartbeat.
Expectation.
Hope.
The day's coming.
Hope is future-focused so often
and so it is
in the gospel.
And that's something really powerful.
Alexander the Pope
had the proverb that said,
hope springs eternal
in the human breast.
But as we look around our world
just now
and as we see that people
kind of despair about the future,
we see a loss of hope
among so many.
The statistics on addictions
bears that out.
The rise of anxieties
bears that out.
The sense of hollowness
that people are beginning to feel
bears that out.
And it's a reminder to us
as the church
that we for ourselves,
we need to hold on to gospel hope
to recognize
all we have is not now,
so much is still to come.
And it gives us good news
to present to a world
that is desperately in need
of a hope that is solid
and eternal.
When Paul speaks of future hope
in other letters,
he points in different directions.
So in 1 Thessalonians 5,
he emphasizes the reality
of future salvation.
Jesus has begun
the work of salvation.
He has begun building his kingdom,
but that work is not completed
until the day he returns.
And his people are with him
forever in the new heavens
and the new earth.
That's salvation complete.
And that's still waiting
in the future.
1 Corinthians 15.
Hope for the future there
is of bodily resurrection.
That as Christians,
we believe that the moment
a believer dies,
their soul goes to glory,
to be with the Lord.
But it awaits the return of Jesus
and resurrection,
perfect resurrected bodies.
Titus chapter 2.
There the anticipation
for the future
is of the glory of Jesus
being fully revealed.
Now we see through a mirror
just dimly.
But there's going to be a day
when we see perfectly.
There's going to be a day
when we see Jesus
face to face.
When we know
and are known fully.
And that's a wonderful hope.
But all the time,
when Paul is writing
about present hope,
or he's writing
about future hope,
he's talking to us
about Jesus.
Jesus and Jesus alone
is our hope.
I wonder as we read
verse 5
and we heard
the hope stored up
for you in heaven,
I wonder if it made
any of us think
of Jesus teaching
where he said,
don't store up
for yourself treasures
on earth
where moth and rust
destroy and thieves
break in and steal,
but store up
for yourselves
treasure in heaven
for where your treasure is
there your heart
will be also.
You get that sense
that Paul is echoing that.
And for Paul,
what's the treasure
in heaven?
The treasure in heaven
is Jesus.
Nothing less than
Jesus, our Lord
and Savior.
And so Paul is thankful
that this future hope
is motivating their faith
and their love.
How does heavenly hope help?
Help us today,
help us tomorrow.
Dick Lucas,
who was a Bible teacher
down in London,
he said that it leads
to a proper balance
between experience
and expectancy.
So that sense of
having faith in Jesus now,
getting to know Jesus now,
is preparation for eternity
with him.
So there's experience now,
but there's expectancy
that grows
as we come to see
how good he is.
Loving our fellow Christians now,
committing to one another
in a local church,
provides for us
an imperfect,
and it is an imperfect mirror
of life in the new heavens
and the new earth.
We'll be with our brothers
and sisters for all eternity.
See?
And remember that good news,
that heaven,
to use Jonathan Edwards'
wonderful phrase,
heaven is a world of love.
One of the challenges
I guess we have
as brothers and sisters
in Christ
is our own sin
and the sin of others,
so we can find
that we let one another down,
we speak and act
in ways that are unhelpful
and unkind,
but then
that will be a thing
of the past.
Then there'll be nobody
we are in a rush
to avoid
or to pass by,
then we will be so glad
to share fellowship
with one another
and with our Lord Jesus.
And so what we experience now
creates that sense
of expectation
for the future.
On Friday,
we were round at Friends
having a meal together,
and the high point
of the meal
was the dessert.
It was a gingerbread trifle
with a blackberry sauce,
some creme anglaise,
some double creams
and blackberries
on the top.
Right?
It was as good as it said.
Getting the taste
of the sauce
before the main course
was even on the table,
what did that do
as we were getting things ready?
It created a sense
of anticipation
of this wonderful flavor,
this wonderful dessert
that was still to come.
And what the Bible
is wanting us
to understand
that all that we know
of the goodness of God,
the love of God,
the mercy
and the kindness of God,
the wonder of the Lord Jesus
is just a taste.
It's just a drop
in the ocean
of what is coming to us
for all eternity.
And so we need
that sense of future hope
to give us that help.
Probably when life
gets difficult,
when life is full
of struggles
to remember
and to hold on.
That's not all
that we discover
about hope
from Paul here.
We also see
Jesus brings
global hope.
This is in verse 6.
He talks about
the true message
of the gospel
that's come to you
in the same way
the gospel
is bearing fruit
and growing
throughout the whole world
just as it has been
doing among you
since the day you heard
it and truly understood
God's grace.
Now this is
something that we really
need to focus on
as Christians
and something that
runs
counter to
culture.
it's the question
what is the greatest
hope
that anyone
could be offered
today?
What is the one
thing
that regardless
of the age of a person,
the culture of a person,
the place of the globe
where they find themselves
with the greatest hope
that they could be offered?
Biblically,
the answer we give
is that
the great hope
is that someone
can wake up
a sinner
far from God
dead in
their sins
heading for
a lost
eternity
but they can go
to bed
a child of God
they can go
to bed
with eternal hope
knowing sins
are forgiven
made alive
in Christ
through hearing
and believing
the gospel.
That's the greatest
hope
as a church
that's all we've got
in that sense
but it's all we need.
And that hope
we can offer
not because of
our
wonderful
personalities
that will draw
people
to faith in Jesus
because we have it
not because of
our ability
to argue
or convince
someone into the kingdom
the hope
rests in the gospel
and the gospel
being powerful.
The gospel
is a message
and it's a message
that's living
and powerful
or to use
Paul's phrase
it's a gospel
that bears fruit
and grows
bearing fruit
and growing
throughout the world.
Again I think
here we have
from Paul
another echo
of Jesus
the parable
of the sower
and the seeds
and the seed
that fell
on the good soil
and that seed
grew
and produced
a crop
that seed
the good news
of Jesus
that good news
of salvation
by grace
alone
produces a crop
when the church
expands
when mission
happens
when people
submit to Jesus
as Lord
and Paul
gives thanks
because he sees
that this
future hope
of eternity
with Jesus
that's so central
to the gospel
is being believed
not just in Colossae
but all around
the world
and it's this
same hope
that should drive us
in mission
too
when we really
believe
that the gospel
is powerful
that the gospel
is the greatest
need for men
and women
and boys
and girls
today
we begin
to understand
just how much
mission matters
I think it's
as we understood
to apply this
to our local
context
I think it's
as we
grasp this
that we will
really support
our mission
partners
both prayerfully
and financially
as we think
about becoming
a mother church
to Gala Shields
I think it's
as we
understand
that it's
the gospel
that people
in Gala Shields
need
that we'll
commit to
Craig and Amy
and the team
that will be
formed there
I think as we
believe in the
power of the gospel
it's what will
cause us to
pray for
local mission
for international
mission
it will cause us
to give
and it will
lead some
of us
to go
perhaps just
to go to
the other
side of the
office
to begin
a conversation
to establish
a relationship
with the hope
of sharing
Jesus
but perhaps
it will lead
us to go
to the other
side of the
world
to give our
lives
for the
mission
of Jesus
to see
his kingdom
come and his
will being
done
in our life
and in the
lives of
others
as we
understand
that people
need
the hope
of the
gospel
the world
needs
the hope
of the
gospel
for now
and eternity
so as Paul
begins his
letter to
the Colossians
he begins
by reminding
them and by
reminding us
of how important
hope is
Jesus
and Jesus
as our
great hope
perhaps
you saw
in the news
this week
the church
in Glasgow
they put up
a sign
outside
its church
building
that basically
said I think
it was that
the world's
greatest need
is for
churches to
preach Christ
crucified
not claim
it change
perhaps provocative
perhaps we
might question
the wisdom
and say
well perhaps
we could have
shown solidarity
with the
emphasis on
stewardship
and such
things
but we need
to understand
that the
point
holds
what the
world needs
far more
than
any
significant
climate change
is to hear
the good news
of the Lord
Jesus
and to
believe
if the
world is
at one
minute to
midnight
as Boris
Johnson
borrowed that
phrase
we need
to
recognize
the eternal
urgency
of people
hearing the
gospel message
for the
world to
hear
the truth
of eternal
hope
that's found
in the
Lord Jesus
that's why
the world
still needs
the church
because the
church has
the gospel
it's why
our friends
and our
neighbors
they need
our faith
and our
love
and our
hope
that it
might point
them
to Jesus
to move
a little bit
forward
to Colossians
chapter 2
and verse
13
here is our
hope
here is the
hope of the
gospel
when you were
dead
in your sins
and in the
uncircumcision
of your
flesh
God
made you
alive
with Christ
he forgave
us all
our sins
having
cancelled
the charge
of our
legal
indebtedness
which stood
against us
and condemned
us
he has
taken it
away
nailing it
to the
cross
dead in
our sins
that God
made us
alive with
Christ
by forgiving
our sins
that's
that's our
great hope
it's our
great need
and it's
the great
need
of our
world
let's pray
in that
light
our
father
in heaven
we are
so
thankful
and humbled
this evening
as we
consider
the hope
that is
held out
to us
in the
gospel
that hope
that you
have sent
your
son
the Lord
Jesus
to become
one of us
to die
in our
place
the
just
for the
unjust
to bring
us to
God
we thank
you
that by
faith
in Jesus
we can
know
that our
sins
are forgiven
that we
are no
longer
alienated
from you
no longer
strangers
or enemies
but brought
into your
family
given the
hope
of
eternity
Lord we
thank you
that you
have given
to us
in Jesus
a hope
that is
solid
and secure
that is
stored up
for us
in heaven
thank you
for the
promise
that Jesus
who is
in heaven
now
as Lord
of the
church
caring for
the church
praying for
the church
that same
Jesus
will return
and he
will make
all things
new
and he
will
take his
people
to live
with him
forever
in the new
heavens
and the new
earth
and perfect
resurrected
bodies
where sin
and death
are no
more
Lord
to a
world
that is
looking
and longing
for hope
as we
understand
how crucial
hope
is
to life
and to
motivation
and to
perseverance
and may
you give
us both
wisdom
and boldness
and love
and urgency
to share
the good
news of
the Lord
Jesus
with
others
we pray
that we
would be
a people
of faith
and of
love
that would
spring
from that
great hope
and all
to your
praise
and glory
and in
the name
of your
son Jesus
we pray
amen
now we'll
close our
time
this evening
singing the
hymn
Isaac
what's
hymn
when I
survey
the wondrous
cross
and let's
stand
to sing
together
we
roll
ío
together