Colossians 1:1-8 Thanks

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Good morning. Welcome to Recast Church.

I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And if you guys out there can find your seats, that would be great. But thanks for gathering together to hopefully hear from God this morning and to worship

Him. I hope that's your intention for this next year as we kind of launch into 2016.

I'm grateful that you're here with us and we can get this year started off on the right foot by worshiping

God and just contemplating and considering what He has for us in this next year and thinking that through. And also,

I hope you had some time in the last week to express some gratitude and thanks for what God has done for you in 2015.

Some of you maybe are looking back at this last year and kind of thinking, thank you and I'm glad that year is over.

And then some of you are looking back at 2016 and wishing that you could, in 2015 rather, and wishing you could do it over again.

But whatever kind of year you had, that one has passed and the new one is coming in obviously. And so, just rejoicing in what

God has for us and looking forward to walking closer with Him this next year, I hope is your goal. Recast Church started over seven years ago with the goal of reaching out to the community of Matawan with the ultimate purpose of finding more worshipers for His name.

And that's been our goal, our stated purpose. And from those first 30 people that met in a basement in 2009 to where we stand now, we have seen the faithfulness of God on us over the years.

It's been a cool process. We are reaching out to others with the good news of Jesus. And that's something that we're all called to do.

Something that God desires of us. And yet, at the end of the day, we recognize that reaching out with the love of Christ is ultimately the work of God.

That in the end, that's His work through us that produces the results. And so, we give the honor and glory to Him and thank

Him for what He has done for us. And as we look at the start of this letter of Paul to the

Colossians, that's what we're going to be going over here at the start of 2016. The theme for this message this morning is thankfulness.

It's gratitude. God has been pressing on my heart specifically a desire to be more thankful.

And if you're anything like me, and I think some of you probably are, you could be more moved quickly to discouragement than thankfulness.

If you're like me, then you can find yourself focusing on negative things rather than positive things.

If you're anything like me, you can find yourself actually gravitating towards grumbling and complaining rather than giving thanks.

And I think that almost kind of feels to me sometimes like that's the American way. We have a lot given to us.

We have a lot of blessings that we take for granted. And I hear a lot of grumbling and complaining.

And I hear it from myself as well as others. And so, it's one thing that God has really pressed on my heart. So, in 2016,

I'm personally going to be working with the power of the Spirit to try to turn that around in my life and try to express more thanks and more gratitude.

I'm starting early in the morning and kind of thinking through things that I'm thankful for in my time with God and his word and in my time in prayer with him.

And I want this next year to be a year of gratitude and a year of thanks. And I hope that that flows over for all of us.

That all of us could look at that as maybe a goal for this year as a church. By God's grace, he has a starting out this year.

I had picked Colossians not because it starts with thanks, but because it's a good book in the New Testament for us to go over.

I haven't preached through it yet. And so, I would love to just tell you that I orchestrate these things with depth.

But I kind of have this attitude that, man, I could just throw a dart at any book in the Bible and pick it.

And we would grow from it, right? Because it's God's word. It's knowing who he is. And so, I don't feel like I've got a huge master plan for where I'm taking you other than to say we're going to mine deep into God's word.

And so, Colossians is where we started. And then we get a chance to look at this text. I'm kind of setting thankfulness as the goal.

And then I actually come to realize this past week as I'm studying, preparing for this message, that that's exactly where he's starting us at here in Colossians.

As Paul expressing thankfulness for the greatest thing that you and I have ever had offered to us.

And many of us have received it. And it is the thing for which we should give the most thanks. So, let's open our

Bibles to Colossians 1, 1 through 8, as we're going to dig into this start of a new year, start of a new book.

And let's start a journey of thankfulness together. So, Colossians chapter 1. If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand.

And Mike's got one back here for you. If you don't have a means to navigate to a Bible on your lap, it might be,

I know some of you have a device or whatever. But, and then you can just take a Bible home with you. There's some sitting on the table back here after we're done or during connection time if you don't want to raise your hand.

But having a Bible on your lap is beneficial as we follow along and you hear the message.

So, Colossians 1, 1 through 8, recast God's first word to us together as a body in 2016.

Let's follow along. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, 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, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the

Spirit. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Thank you,

Father. You have given us so many good things. We are blessed beyond our worth.

We are blessed beyond what we deserve. And Father, I know that many are going through hard times and there are difficulties and there are struggles and some have had a good week, some have had a bad week and all different kinds of things swirling around us and some are just really hopeful for 2016 that it's better than last year and some are wishing for a year just like last year.

And we come at this whole thing from different perspectives and yet you brought us together in a body and we have fellow believers around us to encourage us and strengthen us and guide us in the right direction.

We have a scripture available to us that is a revelation from you. We have salvation available to us through your

Son, Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to sing songs to you corporately together and to have fellowship with one another and to have friendship and to do life together.

Father, we thank you for all of these things. I thank you for the servants and the ministers who have helped make this Sunday morning even work for those who set up chairs and those who have made coffee and those who have went and picked up donuts for us and those who are working with the kids this morning.

And Father, just so many aspects that go into this that we are thankful for. So Father, please move in our hearts to start off this year from the right perspective with thankfulness and gratefulness and no matter what difficulty

I find in going through in my life there is still always something to be grateful for. And so Father, I pray that you would help us to focus on those things.

Not just to be an optimist in ignorance but to be an optimist because we are informed by the hope that we have through your son

Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. You can go ahead and be seated.

And I just want to say thanks to the worship team for leading us this morning. And especially I just also want to just add to Dave's thanks to Lee for the years that she has served the church.

And not all of you necessarily know this but I mean they're going to be going as missionaries so they're not just taken off but that's part of that whole process of saying goodbye and all of that.

And so that's a tough thing. And at the same time a joy to see what God is doing in their family.

Encourage you to get comfortable. Remember if you need to get up at any time and stretch out in the back if the seat that you're sitting in gets uncomfortable or you need more coffee, juice, or donuts get up at any time during the message and take advantage of that.

The restrooms are out in the hallway. Take a right. And men's are upstairs. Women's downstairs. So if you need those at all that's where they're at.

And then keep your Bibles open to Colossians 1, 1 through 8. That's the text that we're going to be digging into and running through here this morning.

And in our text this morning the Apostle Paul is going to demonstrate for us thankfulness for the things that matter the most.

And as I walk through one super long tangled run -on sentence from Paul it's interesting to note and those of you who don't know

Greek you're just gonna have to trust me on this that Paul loves compound sentences.

He loves complex sentences. He puts things it's almost like I picture as I've gotten to know

Paul through studying him and I feel like I kind of get to know him I feel like he's a guy who's got a little bit of ADD like he distracts himself in the middle of a sentence and then begins to like talk about something else and then

I'll have like sometimes you any of you in here know what I'm talking about like you go down rabbit trails from time to time or you know somebody who goes down rabbit trails from time to time that's like Paul only he does it in one big you know like excited and he's just talking and he's talking fast and he's just going through and it's like all one big sentence and that's our text this morning one sentence in Greek grammar.

I mean that's how many of you like that's that sounds like a hard one to kind of analyze sounds kind of hard to like remember in school when you had to underline the subject and the verb it was work for me this week to find the main subject and the main verb to what we're going through here so it's one long run -on sentence but I hope that all of us by the end of studying this sentence from Paul that is very deep and rich and theologically significant that we draw some degree closer to gratitude and thankfulness in our hearts because we've encountered this

I hope that we're moved one step closer to trust in the gospel as our hope and I hope that we're moved closer to a passion for spreading that good news that is the gospel to others around us here at the start of our year so the structure of our text is thankfulness it is gratitude but the content of that thanks is the power of the gospel to change our world the power of the gospel to change the world is a thing that is moving

Paul to thankfulness here in our text Colossians 1 1 through 8 is an extremely optimistic text that shows that Paul is encouraged by what he hears about those in the city of Colossae that's why the letter is called

Colossians it's a letter from Paul to those who live in that city but before we jump in to the introduction of the actual text itself and look at that introduction it's important for us to understand

I think some of the historical context of what's going on behind the scenes as we enter into this letter this is a letter we're reading somebody else's mail do you realize that when you read these

New Testament letters you're reading somebody's mail and a letter that was sent from one person to another but that teaches us significantly that's revealed by the

Holy Spirit to Paul and in his nourishment for our souls has the power to transform us from hearing because it reveals

God himself to us and it's important for us to understand that historical context of what's going on there so that we can kind of get a feel for why is he writing?

who's he writing to? what's their relationship like? some of that stuff ends up helping us to interpret it and understand it better and so as of the writing of this letter it's important I think for us to understand that Paul has never been to Colossae I didn't you know as I was studying and as I was studying this history

I kind of was like how many of you might just assume that Paul started the church in Colossae? like you've been around the church long enough to know that he was a missionary he traveled he started churches did he start this church?

was he the planter of the church in Colossae? he's never even been there he has not gone there and so he's writing to a people that he's never met this letter and he started a church in a city called

Ephesus which is a few hundred miles away it's a distance away from the city of Colossae but he started this church in Ephesus and one of the people who came to faith in Christ in Ephesus ended up moving it was a dude named

Epaphras and Epaphras came to faith in Christ under Paul and Epaphras then got a job transfer or whatever

I don't know why he moved he moved from Ephesus to Colossae and brought with him the good news of Jesus Christ and through Epaphras leading others to faith in Christ in another city that Paul's never been at the work was multiplied and a church was started there that Paul hasn't visited as of the writing of this letter and so now

Epaphras has communicated with Paul what's going on and now this letter back from Paul to the church in Colossae is the result of that interaction between Epaphras and his mentor, leader his spiritual father if you will,

Paul so in verses one and two we find Paul's regular introduction and these can be easy to overlook if you're reading through the

Bible in a year or you read through this letter you know you can find okay Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God Timothy okay move on you know you can almost skip that in your mind and just move on but Paul is a guy who never wastes words he deeply puts theological principles and concepts even in his introduction and the way that he talks he doesn't waste words and here he genuinely is introducing himself to a gathering of Christians he's never met and so he is going to use his words with significance

Paul was an apostle he says and opens up by introducing himself I'm an apostle by the will of God he has been set apart by God himself for the purpose of bringing the message of the gospel to the

Gentiles some of you maybe remember his Acts 9 experience where he had encountered on the road to Damascus Christ himself and he had been commissioned by the risen

Christ himself to go and proclaim the good news to the Gentiles the non -Jewish people of the world and so he has taken that mantle on but not taken it himself he's been given that by God himself and so he says by the will of God I am now an apostle and I'd like you to take a moment and consider what are you going into this next year what are you by the will of God talking to you what are you by the will of God what position what role what

God -ordained circumstances define your life right now at the entrance to this new year are you an engineer by the will of God are you a teacher by the will of God are you a father by the will of God but an

American by the will of God all different kinds of roles and all different kinds of functions and all different kinds of things that might define your life to some degree or other certainly none of those titles will probably be the sum total of your role but what are you by the will of God I'm convinced that part of Paul's motivation and understanding was recognition that his calling was a calling from God and I believe that that that God given

God gives us roles and and understanding those roles is a powerful starting point for our gratitude for our thankfulness to him it's a it's a powerful spot of start and saying

God you have placed me here and so I can thank you for the roles that you've given me and the position that you put me in and the opportunities that I have day in and day out not always easy right not always a delight and a joy at every moment but a thankfulness to God for the places that he's put us and the influence he's given to us so when you consider

Paul who is according to scholars imprisoned while he's writing this okay he's writing this from from a house arrest in Rome at the time that this was written so he's under arrest in a house he's probably assigned to a guard who has to follow him around and some would even under house arrest would be chained to a

Roman guard during this time and that Roman guard didn't how many of you think he heard the gospel a few times when he's chained to Paul and then they would take a shift and he would get he would get to go eat lunch and then another guy gets chained and Paul had a revolving circle of people to share the gospel with all throughout his day and so that's where he's writing this from and and how many of you think in those circumstances as being in prison that he might have some grounds to complain about his

God -given role in life he's been imprisoned he's in currently under house arrest and all because of his role as an apostle of the

Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles he has by this point in his life by the writing of this he has been beaten multiple times because he's an apostle of the

Lord Jesus Christ he's been shipwrecked because he's an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ he's been pelted with rocks and left for dead because he is an apostle of Jesus Christ he's been scoffed mocked ridiculed laughed at pushed to the margins of society as somebody who is ignorant and unlearned and yet we find in the start of this text the absence of complaint the absence of grumbling but instead we see from Paul nothing but a cheery disposition and optimism that I would like to define my life

I would like this to be a definition of my life whatever 2016 holds for me

I would love for it to be said of me that I'm a thankful and grateful individual and I hope the same is true for you as well that you long for that that you hunger for that Paul mentions his credentials and he moves on quickly and I think the way that he mentions his credentials is important for us he says

I'm an apostle by the will of God he is not exerting his power in this calling to be an apostle was not a calling to power and authority but a calling to weakness a calling to service a calling to a life of sacrifice that we see here some people see okay he's constantly throwing his weight around he calls himself an apostle

I'm an apostle well often he also referred to himself as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ sometimes even taking a step further and using the

Greek word for slave I'm a slave to Christ and so he understood he's not here

I'm putting his foot down and saying I'm an apostle listen to me heed me pay attention to me instead he's saying that that comes with some suffering that comes with some sacrifice but Paul is not alone in his house arrest and we see that here in the text and other places in scripture indicate that he had people around him who would help him and assist him

Timothy was with him and likely served as a secretary in the writing of this letter you see that right away in verse one and Timothy our brother who was with him and by the time we get down to the last verse of this letter a few weeks from now

Paul makes it a point to say that he is writing the final greeting with his own hand implying that someone else was writing the rest of this for him somebody else has the pen in their hand as he's dictating it to them and that would be his friend

Timothy who was with Paul during this house arrest so Timothy is assisting in the writing of this but Paul picks up the pen from Timothy at the end and writes the final salutation in his own hand but in verse two

Paul identifies that the intended recipient of this letter are saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae his target audience it's important as we go through the letter his target audience who he wants listening to this is believers those who are followers of Jesus Christ this is not a primarily evangelistic letter it's not primarily to bring people into the kingdom it is primarily for the purpose of believers to strengthen those who are there in Christ those who are set apart to God that is saints that's what that word means set apart ones those who are sanctified those who are set apart holy unto the

Lord I've used this illustration before that one of my professors used for the word holy a lot of times we have all kinds of notions about what that might mean but sanctified or holy two synonyms ultimately are kind of like this professor was telling me that his mom had a set of scissors that she called her sanctified scissors they were set apart for a specific purpose he was not supposed to cut open boxes with them they were her cloth scissors and he would get in trouble if he used her sanctified scissors for anything other than the purpose for which they were set apart they were made holy they were for a specific purpose and that's what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ that's the picture set apart for holy purposes set apart for glorious purposes set apart to proclaim the the glory and supremacy of Jesus Christ so therefore we take it a step further and say well we we jump straight to the holiness means being righteous or only ever doing what is right well that's an element of holiness that's an element of being sanctified for sure and that should be the outcome of being set apart for God is that set apart unto righteous deeds not set apart unto evil just like you wouldn't use his mom didn't want him to use those scissors to dull them and to do things that were going to damage them so that's the idea of this this word saints and he also identifies them not just as saints but identifies them in another way calling them dependable or faithful brothers in Christ two ways of saying the same thing and just in this title brothers there's a deep and a rich meaning that we might miss if we don't understand the context remember that Paul was a

Jew among Jews trained up in the school of Gamaliel he was a a man who was very learned in and steeped in Jewish tradition and one who even went around persecuting

Christians he would have been one who would have thought it unclean to eat with Gentiles before he encountered

Jesus Christ and here to a Gentile church he uses what word for them brothers brothers this is a beautiful thing it's it isn't a big deal to us but it's huge when you understand that the way that Paul was raised and what his

Jewish background implied for his view of Gentiles and the way that that was turned around when the gospel took seed in Paul's heart the

Jews had nothing to do with Gentiles so when he calls them brothers Paul is demonstrating the power of the gospel to break down cultural walls and cultural barriers at the foot of the cross we all can become brothers and sisters in Christ we are all saints together who are in with Jesus we've become family and so Paul has a familial relationship with those he has never met because of the common ground of the gospel have you ever had that happen?

you're on vacation over a weekend you get an opportunity you're traveling to another city you get an opportunity to visit another church some of you ever get that get a chance to visit another church you're away with family or whatever and have you ever had that experience where it just feels like there's a common bond you've just you can experience that common bond with other believers because you see wait a minute we're singing

I've had that happen in a cross -cultural context where I'm like we are worshiping the same God I mean we are all in with Jesus and I'm in the

Dominican Republic or I'm in Germany or I'm in England or I'm in North Africa and we're singing to God Almighty and our hearts are united together in this beautiful thing called the kingdom of God and it's a glorious reality and Paul says he's writing to someone he's never even met he's writing to a church he's never been to and he's like brothers faithful brothers

I hear the report and it's a glorious thing Paul offers grace and peace to these saints in Colossae from God our father he says

Paul used every opportunity to remind his listeners of the good news and here even in this greeting he does so his greeting of grace and peace is a reminder that it all starts with God's unearned favor towards us grace to you and it results in the proper restoration of all things shalom or peace to you

Paul kind of invented this greeting in Greek the Greeks would greet one another with the word greeting or chiren and he changes it to charis which kind of starts the same way so he starts with grace and peace and the

Jews would greet one another with shalom and so he combines those two for his audience and uses both the

Greek and the Jewish greeting saying grace and peace the love and unmerited favor of God towards you and the restoration of the way that things should be to you beautiful picture of the gospel but in case you feel like we're just wandering around let me organize the rest of the message for you some of you are kind of going

I'm trying to take notes here and this isn't making any sense and we're just kind of walking through but you could get kind of lost but verses one through two are introductory just kind of him identifying who he is identifying the audience but verses three through eight have some more significant structure to them since this whole text is like I said one huge run on sentence in Greek it helps us to identify the main subject and verb and we find it at the start of verse three finally when we get down to verse three we know what we're talking about and he says this this is the core of the message this morning we that's the subject of this whole long sentence we always thank the verb

God we always thank God is the heart of this message and so thankfulness forms the structure so in verses three and five three through five rather Paul is thankful for the local impact of the gospel three through five if you're taking notes

Paul is thankful for the local impact of the gospel verse six Paul is thankful for the global spread of the gospel so first it's thankful for the local impact second thankful for the global spread of the gospel

And in verses 7 through 8, Paul is thankful for the specific minister of the gospel.

So first, Paul is grateful for the local impact of the gospel. The reason Paul wrote verses 1, 1, chapter 1, 1 through 8, is to express thanks.

That's, that's very clear from the verb that is the main verb of the sentence. He's overjoyed and wants to express, express it to the small church in a remote and far -off area that's, that's a ways away from him.

And he's gonna have some corrections later for them. He's gonna have some advice for them later in the letter, but he starts off gushing his thankfulness, his gratefulness to God, the

Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, for them. He says, you, you encourage me. You give me cause to say, thank you,

God. Now, how many of you would like to be the source of thankfulness for someone? Would you like somebody to be thankful for you?

Okay, no, I, you can go ahead and raise your hand. You'd be glad that somebody was, you want people to be thankful for you.

I, I think that that's a reasonable response. And let me, let me just say that Paul's prayer is honestly my thoughts and prayers over you this past week.

After writing this sermon out this week, I sat down and went through names and just spent time thanking

God for each one of you here at our church. Each one of you that calls this your home. If you've filled out a connection card, you've got a thanks by name to God.

I am grateful for you. And some of it quite specifically, thanking God for how he's designed you and how he's put you together, how he's brought you here.

And even if you're here visiting this morning, maybe this is your first time here. You've only been here a couple times and you never filled out a connection card.

I obviously don't know your name, but I still thanked God for you. I still said thanks God for those that you're gonna bring to us this week that we haven't met and that we don't know.

Well, you see, according to verse 4, Paul has been informed by Epaphras that the church in Colossae has faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints.

This is the first reason he is thankful. He has heard that the gospel has taken root in community.

And I've seen the gospel take root in community. Paul's excited that the church in Colossae is growing in faith and community and he hasn't had the opportunity to see that with his own eyes yet.

But we who are here at Recast, who have been around for a while, have had the opportunity to behold the gospel moving into a community.

It's been a glorious and a beautiful thing. We've experienced the growth in faith in Jesus Christ.

We've experienced in and participated in the love toward all the saints here at Recast.

We've seen the power of hope to transform us from self -centeredness to lives of love and faith.

And giving over to others. Paul has heard that the impact of the gospel in Colossae flowed in this direction here in our text.

They recognize that their hope is laid up for them in Christ in heaven. They have a hope laid up in heaven.

And that hope has brought them to faith in Christ and love toward each other. And that's the direction of life transformation.

Sometimes we get this turned around, but that's what I've had a front -row seat at here at Recast for seven years.

Rather than programming people to act in a certain way, to follow a handbook of ethics and give you guys a list of rules of do's and don'ts, we proclaim the truth that hope is found in Jesus.

And I hope you've heard that clearly over the years. I hope that's been the message that you've been hearing from up here. Not a list of rules, not a list of regulations, not a if you do this, then you're in, and if you don't do this, then you're out, and all of this kind of stuff.

But instead, hope is found in Jesus. And if you haven't heard that clearly from me, let me just say it now.

Hope is found in Jesus Christ, and that's the message I have to bring. And if it means that I sound like a, like a, like a bell that just keeps clanking out the same note time and time again,

I hope that it, it, it breaks into your reality in a very real and life -transforming way, that the only hope that you and I have is

Jesus Christ. Our hope is not our ability to make him happy. Our hope is not found in our ability to please him and make him take attention of us because we've done really great things for him.

Our hope is found solely in the cross of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us, his righteousness, and his great and deep grace towards us in his

Son, Jesus Christ. That is our only hope. And I, and God, what

I've seen, God has led us deeper into a life of walking by faith, and deeper into a love for all of the saints that I've observed here over the years of Recast Church.

There is a way that as a church we could do this that I believe could interfere with the process.

We can clearly spell out all of the rules. We can clearly draw up a bylaws, a bylaw full of, like a handbook of rules and regulations.

Of what is, what does, and doesn't constitute good Christian behavior. And we could walk through all of that and, and encourage all of you to take a copy and read it over the next week and obey all the laws and rules.

Or we can keep proclaiming that hope that leads to faith and love, and then in turn celebrate what

God is doing among us. Not what I'm doing among us, not what our rule book is doing among us, but what

God is doing among us. Paul, Paul throughout this text is ecstatic because he hears that the gospel is working.

The gospel works. It is accomplishing what it sets out to do and it is transforming lives.

He doesn't, he doesn't say Epaphras is changing lives or I'm changing lives. He says the good news and he's thankful for what the good news is doing.

And when God works this way among us, Paul's ecstatic and I am too. And we can only thank

God for that kind of transformation, because only he can do that kind of transformation.

In order for it to occur, in order for lives to be changed like this, the gospel has to arrive in a community.

And at the end of verse 5 and the beginning of verse 6, Paul reminds them that all of this change has come about through the word of truth arriving to them.

The gospel that came to them and it came through a guy, did come through a guy named

Epaphras. So in the middle of verse 6, we find the second detail of Paul's thankfulness. He's not only thankful for the local impact of the gospel, but secondly, he's also thankful for the global spread of the gospel.

He wants them to be aware that what is happening in their little community is not an isolated event. What's happening here in Matawan is not an isolated event and we're kind of like on, we're not on the cutting edge of church planting here folks, okay?

God is doing things all around the world and we get to be just a little small slice of the pie of what

God is doing. Now they may feel like an island in the darkness of a pagan world around them.

Sometimes you might feel that way too. But Paul encourages them. The gospel is doing this thing throughout the whole world.

There is something so encouraging and invigorating to know that we are not alone this morning. Now certainly we're not alone and you gathered together so you can look around the room right now and see the faces of other individuals who love

Jesus and want to connect with you and you have an opportunity at relationship with one another. But there is something encouraging to know that there is something bigger than this going on around the world.

Locally we have each other but globally we are part of a massive work of God who is doing his thing.

And his thing is the message of the good news that is bearing fruit and increasing throughout the world.

Beautiful, beautiful thing that he is doing to advance his kingdom. In the parable of the sower,

Jesus talked about it this way. So often in the parable of the sower we talk about the different kinds of soils. I almost always hear the parable of the sower used in negative terms.

Well, was he more like the seed that fell on the rocky soil or is he the one that like the birds came and plucked away or you know, you hear it in the negative, have any of you ever heard it used in a negative sense?

But what about the growth? What about the increase? What about those who are fertile soil and the promise at the end?

How does the parable of the sower end? That some have fifty and a hundred fold increase.

The seed falls in fertile soil and the plant sprouts and produces more grain than the one that was sown.

One sown and multiplied in the kingdom of God. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture and Paul is, it's like he's saying

I'm seeing it grow. I have an opportunity to watch and I'm seeing the the seeds of the gospel grow in people's lives and people are being transformed and not only that but the kingdom is growing through the believers there in Colossae and he's encouraged, he's optimistic, he's excited about what he has a front row seat to see

God doing around the world. Paul is so contagiously optimistic here.

He says it's working. It's working. The gospel is doing it.

Jesus is doing it through his power and through his might and through his forgiveness and through his love and through his sacrifice.

He's doing it. He's doing it here in Matawan. And he's accomplishing it all around the world.

If we would have eyes to open up to see the beauty and the glory of the gospel in the kingdom advancing.

It's a beautiful, glorious thing. The seeds are sprouting all around the world.

Paul offers thanks to the Father that the gospel is increasing in the whole world in the same way that it took root in Colossae.

And that gospel has saved, that saved them is the same gospel that bears fruit.

At the end of verse 6 Paul highlights that they heard the good news, understood the good news, and then proceeded to bear fruit.

He says you have to hear it and understand it and then the fruit comes. The grace of God produces the fruit.

Believing the gospel, having hope, trusting that God is gracious towards those who are in Christ, trusting him that he has hope stored up for you in heaven.

That is the fertilizer that fuels our walk with Jesus into bearing fruit. So in other words, if you want to bear more fruit in 2016, is it that you need to make a bunch of resolutions to put your foot down and do more?

Or do you need to believe more? Do you need to believe more? We're American so we like to do more.

That's, that's easier for us. Well, we know that we're gonna break those, those resolutions anyways at some point along the way because we're falling, we're broken, we're finite, and if you're anything like me, you're just gonna bite off more than you can chew anyways.

Believing more is harder to quantify and we are a technical society that likes to quantify stuff.

And so to say something rather than, we like to, we like to make up all of these, these rules and these checklists but when it comes down to the end of the day, what about coming back to the gospel?

What about studying his word to know him better? Not, not just to check off a box and say I read the

Bible today, but to know him in deeper ways. To see him there.

Not necessarily limiting yourself to the, the, the section that you said you were gonna read or you know, what if, what if tomorrow you're reading through the

Bible and you've got this set in a year and you run across something that smacks you upside the face that you need to spend more time on but nope,

I got to move on to the next chapter tomorrow and I got to do the next thing and I got to do the next thing. are you open to the

Spirit's guidance and direction in drawing you deeper into belief and trust in God?

Now granted sometimes, and I got to be careful because I could pull back from this and say like if I want to love my wife better in 2016, it's, it's one thing to stop here, stand here and say okay,

I'm going to love her more. But how many think there's some things that I could do to love her more? I mean some of that might entail like I should buy her flowers from time to time.

I should you know, write her a text in the middle of the day or there's some things that I can do to do that.

So don't, don't hear me say that the things that we do are just kind of bad or off the table or anything like that.

But I'm just saying sometimes we focus so much on the details that we miss because then she sees my list of things that I'm trying to do and da, da, da, da, da, and is it really love or is it, is it just you know, you do it going through the motions or whatever.

So you getting what I'm saying in this? Is this making sense? It's about belief and not just simply about the doing.

And that's very, very important in the gospel. The grace of God is what's going to produce the fruit in your life and mine.

The kingdom is expanding. All throughout the world people are hearing the word of truth and based on the hope of Jesus, they are growing in faith and love.

They are bearing fruit and the kingdom is increasing and Paul is thankful. It's true in Paul's day that that was happening.

The gospel is expanding. Churches were being planted. Glorious things were happening and it's true in our day as well.

And now lastly in verses 7 through 8, Paul is thankful for this specific minister of the gospel.

As a minister myself, I have a front -row seat to seeing many things that God is doing around the world and even locally here.

And I must confess to you that I've, I've not always done a great job of sharing that excitement with you, of passing along to you the things that I'm hearing.

I get to interact with other pastors and leaders and hear about what God is doing and I rejoice, but I rarely pass those things along to you.

And in our text this morning, Paul mentions another minister of the gospel by name. Epaphras was not an apostle.

Epaphras was not one of the twelve disciples. He was not a Jew trained in the Old Testament.

He was a simple Gentile convert who came to faith under Paul's ministry. A man in the church of Ephesus who moved for some unknown reason to Colossae and took the gospel with him.

And the increase of the gospel was the result. Epaphras was the messenger by which

Paul became aware of the condition of the church in Colossae. And Epaphras brought to Paul at the very end of our text a report of the deep love that the

Colossians had for one another in the spirit. They had a spirit -driven love for one another and another reason for Paul to rejoice.

Epaphras was the one and Paul is not is not shy to mention him by name and gratitude.

So let me share with you a smattering of the things that I know that God is doing. Let me pass some things along to you and go ahead and use some names.

The gospel is bearing fruit and increasing through my brother Jason Hitchcock who right now is preaching at Freshwater in Coloma.

He's bringing the grace of God in truth through Troy Gents who right now is preaching at Freshwater in Pawpaw.

The gospel is bearing fruit through a new community church under the leadership of Adam Potgieser and Lawton. He's brought the gospel to Lakewood, Ohio western suburb of Cleveland through my brother -in -law's new church plant

Parkside West. He's bringing hope to the University of Michigan through Allison Downing and I was gonna mention her and I didn't realize she's here.

Hi. Not this morning, but I mean through the work that she's the seeds that she's planted.

Maybe right now it's happening. He's using Peter and Carissa DeWitt to encourage a church in Incheon, South Korea that they're attending and Pete's already got the guitar in his hand playing on Sunday mornings there.

He's bringing the good news to Manokwari, Indonesia through the Lloyd family who are gonna be leaving in the next couple of months.

He's doing things locally. He's doing things globally through paid ministers, through volunteers, through those who are just serving faithfully in their church where God has planted them now.

Thankfulness. Thankfulness. Not competition.

Not a focus on minute differences in our theology. Not a critical spirit. Thankfulness.

Are you glad for what the gospel has done and is doing in our midst?

Are you thankful for what the gospel has done? Let's break it down even further into your heart in your life.

Are you thankful for the movement of the gospel in your community? Are you thankful for what he's doing throughout the world?

Are you thankful by name for those who are carrying the good news and are serving? As we close let me suggest that we all take a moment and write down one thing that we are thankful to God for about his work here locally.

Write down one thing you are thankful to God for out there in the world that he's doing globally.

Write down one person by name that you are thankful to God for who is serving.

This morning we have a worship team, a huge crew of children's workers, a hospitality crew, a setup crew, a sound crew.

There are so many people serving us this morning as a family each Sunday morning as a family.

And maybe on this last one, don't just write it down. Maybe actually speak your thanks to those who are serving you on a regular basis.

Paul had many reasons to complain. I think I could understand why he would complain.

Beaten for the gospel. Any of you ever been beaten for the gospel? I don't think, I mean he had cause to complain, but instead he just said thanks.