WWUTT 043 Faith, Hope, and Love (Colossians 1:1-8)

Faith, hope, and love. Three essential virtues that are foundational to the

Christian life. It is in observing these virtues that you also might be able to tell if someone is genuine in their beliefs.

We should see evidence of faith, hope, and love at work in the life of a

Christian when we understand the text. Thank you,

Becky. Colossians 1 -1 -H is where we're at again today, and just as I challenged you yesterday.

At some point during the week, read all four chapters of Colossians. It helps to keep all of these things together in context for you.

Maybe you've done that already, and when you read through the whole book, you were going, okay, this makes sense to me.

That doesn't make sense so much. But as we commit ourselves to a study of this word, by the time we get to the end of it, it's going to make so much more sense to you.

We want to mature our understanding of knowing that Jesus is enough. Paul wrote to the

Colossians so that they might know Christ as preeminent. As he says in Colossians 1 -18, he is top, above him we need nothing else.

We are completely satisfied in our Savior, and we want to mature in that understanding as well as we read through the book of Colossians.

Yesterday we did kind of our backstory into this letter and what prompted Paul into writing it. We want to come back to Colossians 1 -1 -8 again, and this time do a little bit more exposition of the text.

But before we do that, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our wonderful Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your patience with us, that you are growing us in this process of sanctification, making us holy, shaping us into the image of Christ.

And I pray that as we commit ourselves to the study of Colossians, we might know Christ as preeminent.

We know that in Christ, we have everything that we need for life, and we're completely satisfied in our

Savior. It is amazing to us that we get to know the mind of God and get to grow intimately with you because of what we read in your scriptures.

And nothing else is going to help us do that, except a committed study of your word.

We get to know your mind and heart through what we read in the scriptures. But we need your Spirit to understand these things.

So Father, give us the Spirit of God, that we might understand spiritual things. And it is in the name of your

Son, Jesus Christ, that we pray, Amen. 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 the truth, the gospel, which has come to you as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing, 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.

So right at the beginning of the letter, Paul identifies himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus, a little bit different than his greeting to the

Philippians where he didn't identify himself as an apostle. Why is that? Because the Philippians already knew him as an apostle.

In fact, that was the very reason why they had taken up the collection that they did and sent it with Epaphroditus to Rome to benefit

Paul in his ministry. There were some preachers out there who didn't want to associate themselves with Paul because they thought it was a shameful thing to associate yourself with a person who's been thrown in prison.

The Philippians didn't feel that way. They knew Paul as an apostle of Christ Jesus, and so they wanted to show their commitment to him and his ministry and whatever way that they could.

So they took up this money offering so that a Paul might benefit from it and that the gospel would continue to flourish because of what

Paul had received from the Philippians. Now, with the Colossians, Paul is preaching to a group of people that he's never met before.

He didn't plant the church in Colossae. He had never been there. So he means to establish his apostleship as he writes to them.

Now, that's not for him to lord himself over them. Hey, I'm an apostle, so you got to listen to me. It's true that they did need to heed his apostleship, his authority as an apostle, but he wanted them to know him as a pastor.

I'm ministering here for you. And so his addressing them as an apostle is just like I would address my congregation as their pastor.

For me to call myself a pastor is not to say, hey, I'm the one that you need to listen to.

I'm the one who has authority in this church, so you need to listen to me. It's a title of care. I am a shepherd, and that is what pastor means.

That word means shepherd. So when I call myself Pastor Gabe to my congregation, it is a term of endearment.

It is saying I am committing myself to shepherding you. I'm committing myself to to your needs.

And so Paul is doing that same thing as he commits himself as an apostle to the

Colossians. I am Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. This isn't by my will. All right. This isn't this isn't me going.

Here's what I'm doing as a profession. This is by the will of God that I was called to be an apostle.

Let's look at the at the start of Corinthians, First Corinthians, because Paul says something very similar in his address to them as well.

So First Corinthians chapter one, verse one, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our and our brother

Sosthenes. OK, so he makes the same address as he does to the Colossians, but a little bit different in Colossians chapter one, verse one.

It's Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. And in First Corinthians chapter one, verse one,

Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Again, it is not he that decided to do this thing.

It is God who decided it for him. Galatians chapter one, verse 15.

Paul says when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the

Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.

But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. So Paul sharing his testimony with the

Galatians about how he became an apostle and what he did first. So to the

Colossians, Paul talking about his apostleship as being something that was appointed by God, and he is there for the service to the

Colossians. He is serving them in writing this letter, in preaching the things to them that he does.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother. So Timothy basically is here in the same way.

Remember when Paul spoke of Timothy to the Philippians, if you were with us through that whole study in Philippians, Timothy is one who has been committed to their need.

So one of the reasons why Paul was sending Timothy to them is because he knew that Timothy was there for the benefit of the

Philippians, not for the benefit of himself. So Paul commits Timothy to the Colossians in the same way.

Likely Timothy is writing this letter while Paul is dictating it to him, just as he did with his letter to the

Philippians. So Timothy is there with Paul while he's under house arrest and is aiding

Paul in writing this letter to the Colossians. And that's who he's writing to. To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our father.

Very common address, very common introduction that we see Paul write at the beginning of many of his letters. He says, we always thank

God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. We have a very Trinitarian address that the apostle

Paul makes to the Colossians. We see God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So we have father and son mentioned in verse three, and the spirit comes in in verse eight, still part of the introduction.

Epaphras has made known to us your love in the spirit. So Paul is setting forth a very

Trinitarian work here as disciple making is Trinitarian. When you go back to Jesus commissioning his disciples to go out and preach the gospel to all nations,

Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 and 20, where he says to baptize in the name of the father and the son and the

Holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. So making disciples and baptizing them is a

Trinitarian work. So Paul means to grow the Colossians. He means to disciple them. And he does this through a very

Trinitarian address in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy spirit.

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 of the saints.

So Paul showing his love and affection for a group of people that he's never met before in this address, we pray for you.

We pray to God for you. This would have been deeply flattering for the Colossians to have heard that from the apostle

Paul. Paul says that we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

In those two verses, verses four and five, Paul mentions faith, hope, and love.

These are three essential Christian virtues. And Paul knows that the

Colossians are genuine in their Christian walk because they display faith, hope, and love.

As Epaphras has brought this word to Paul about the Colossian church.

Okay. So going back to yesterday, as we talked about the origin of this letter to the Colossians, Epaphras has come to Paul with a report of things that are going on in Colossae.

And one of the things that he's reported to them is there's this false teaching. There's possibly one single philosopher who has come in with this false philosophy.

There's also maybe some Judaizers that have come in with this Jewish mysticism and are attempting to woo the

Colossian Christians into their false teaching. So it is a teaching that is threatening the church from outside the church.

This is what Epaphras has brought to Paul in this report. And so Paul is addressing the

Colossians, but first means to set Christ as preeminent. He preaches the gospel to him off the bat, which is what we see through most of chapter one.

And it is through Epaphras' report of the Colossians. Paul knows that they're genuine in their walk.

He knows that they are fellow saints because Epaphras' testimony of them has talked about their faith, hope, and love.

How is it that Paul is able to address a group of people that he's never met before as fellow saints?

It's because the testimony of Epaphras that reports of them being steadfast in faith, in hope, and in love.

Paul says, we have 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.

These three Christian virtues Paul brings up frequently. Probably the most famous verse where we see faith, hope, and love talked about is in 1

Corinthians 13, 13, right? These three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I think also of 1 Thessalonians 5, 8, when Paul says that we are children of the day, therefore let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

You even get a little bit of the armor of God in there, which we read about in Ephesians chapter 6. He brings back the helmet of salvation even to the

Thessalonians. Another popular passage, this is one that we did together in church as we are going through the book of Romans in our sermon series.

And we're in Romans chapter 5, we read in verses 1 through 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Did you hear it? Concepts of faith, hope, and love in those five verses.

Since we've been justified by faith, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You know, when we are in Christ, everything that we go through is eternally significant.

So we should always have eyes that are focused heavenward upon Christ. So everything that we go through in this life benefits us somehow and shapes us more in the image of Christ.

Even when we do something wrong and we are going to sin and we will need to be disciplined.

Hebrews chapter 12 says that God disciplines those he loves. If he did not love us, he would not discipline us.

But because we are his children, we can call ourselves his children because he disciplines us for our good that we might grow in sanctification.

That is going to be a disciplinary process. So we're still going to make mistakes. We're still in the flesh.

So we're going to be tempted, sometimes giving into that temptation. We are no longer slaves to sin, but we will fall into sin on occasion, giving into temptation.

And then God will need to discipline us and bring us back into the path of righteousness. Even that is still producing something eternally significant, shaping us more into the image of Christ.

Even when we endure suffering in this life, that suffering produces something eternally significant.

It's shaping us more into the image of Christ. So Paul says here in Romans chapter 5, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces something, produces endurance.

Endurance produces character and character produces hope. You know, a person who is not a believer in Christ still might be able to endure tough stuff and that producing endurance.

And then that endurance produces character. You've heard the saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. A secularist can say that a person who is worldly, who does not follow

Christ can say that, but it does not give them hope. There's no hope in it. It isn't eternally significant.

The significance of the experience terminates on the experience. That's as far as it goes. Maybe it's developed a memory for them, but it has not sustained them.

Life will get hard. Things will get tougher. And then what is going to help them through those really tough experiences when they get later on in life?

Is it going to be happy memories? Those memories don't play into current experiences in any way.

Whereas we who endure suffering in this world, we're enduring something that Christ went through.

James chapter 1 verses 2 through 4 says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

First Peter 4, 12 through 14, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share

Christ's sufferings. You share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

So when we endure suffering, that is something that is shaping us more like Christ. It is perfecting us for the kingdom of God.

Jesus did not just die. He suffered and died. He suffered real pain.

He suffered the wrath. He also suffered something that we're not going to have to suffer, and that was the wrath of God. If we're in Christ Jesus, we will not have to endure

God's wrath. Jesus did that for us, but he suffered pain. He suffered temptation.

He suffered in various ways so that even those things would be sanctified.

Jesus went through them, so they're sanctified. So when we go through them, it is producing something that is eternally significant.

It draws our eyes more and more toward Christ. And the more we suffer in this life, the more, if we are in Christ Jesus, we will be longing for glory.

I remember an illustration that was given by Ray Comfort, where he was talking about a man on an airplane that was given a parachute, okay?

And he's handed this parachute, and he said, at some point during this flight, it's going to go down. You're not going to know when, but hold on to this parachute.

As long as you have this parachute on, you will be saved when this plane tanks.

There are people on the plane who are making fun of him for wearing a parachute as he's sitting in his seat, but he has been told the plane is going to go down sometime during the flight.

As long as he has that parachute on, he will be saved. So he's willing to endure the scorn and the ridicule to know that he's going to be saved during that flight.

The seat's even a little bit more uncomfortable. He's not as comfortable sitting in that seat with that parachute on, but he's keeping it on because he knows it's going to save his life.

There's a stewardess that comes by coming down the aisle. She's got a pot of hot coffee. She's asking the patrons on the plane if they want some coffee.

When she gets to the guy with the parachute, she spills the coffee in his lap. It's hot. It's scalding.

It burns. Does he take the parachute off and throw it on the ground and go, hey, this is foolish. This isn't saving me at all.

No, the parachute has nothing to do with the hot coffee he had spilled in his lap. Rather, his discomfort makes him long all the more for when he gets saved from that flight.

All right. Now, however crude that example, hopefully it gives you a little bit more illustration that you can apply to life.

As we struggle through things in this life, our pain and our suffering should not make us throw the gospel down and say, forget this.

I'm not following this anymore. Rather, it is the gospel that gives us our hope. And we look all the more toward heaven and desire the things of glory being delivered from the sufferings of this life, which we know

Christ will do for us if we remain steadfast to the end. So when Paul qualifies faith and love that the

Colossians display with hope, it's because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. This is something that is certain.

It's not the way that we tend to abuse the word hope. I hope that my team is going to win this weekend.

I hope that I have enough money that I can go out to dinner later today. You know, all this other kind of thing, the way that we tend to abuse that word hope is something certain the way that it's talked about here.

We know we know without question because of what's promised in God's word that we will be delivered from the sufferings and the trials of this life.

Not in this lifetime. We know that we will be delivered in the life that is to come.

The peaceful kingdom that God will usher in where there is no more crying, no more tears, no more pain for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Is he your hope? You hope for nothing in this world. All of this stuff is perishable.

All of this stuff is, you know, a fun experience maybe for a while, but it will not sustain you.

Is your sustenance Christ only? Are you fully satisfied in your savior?

You will long for the things of heaven and rejoice in that day when Christ is fully revealed.

Our wonderful father, thank you for this truth. Thank you for this text that you have given us today.

Grow us by these things and discipline us according to your truth as well.

Convict us as we go about our day with a hope in the, in the things that are to come, the things that are promised in our savior

Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. It's become a pulpit cliche to preach that God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.

Well, hold onto your seats because that's not in the Bible. On the contrary, scripture says that God hates sinners.

What? Psalm 5 .5. God hates all evil doers. Proverbs 6 .19. God hates those who cause division.

Jeremiah 12 .8. God hates his own rebellious people. Romans 9 .13. God hates Esau. In fact, 14 times in the first 50 psalms alone do we read about God hating those who do evil.

Oh, and you'll love this one. The Lord hates the very statement. God hates the sin, but loves the sinner. In Malachi 2 .17,

it says you have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, how have we wearied him? By saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the

Lord and he delights in them. God does not merely hate sin. He hates those who do sin.

And that's what we read about when we understand the text. All right, all right, get out of here. Fortunately for us, that's not the end of the story.

Because God does indeed love us, he did not leave us in our sin. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, as an atoning sacrifice dying on the cross in our place.

The wrath that we deserve for our wickedness was poured out on Christ instead. Romans 5 .8 .9 says

God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Now when God looks at us, he sees not our sin, but the righteousness of Christ, all those who follow him.

How is it that God can both hate the sinner and love us too? The answer is the cross.

The beauty of which we read about when we understand the text. Our question today comes from Ringgold, Georgia.

This is Aaron writing to us and says, Dear Watts, I first came into your videos through my church.

They are such great tools. Thank you for making them. They are helping me to be more understanding about the

Bible. It's through that understanding. I'm starting to get more uncomfortable when I hear a verse misused.

My youth pastor recently quoted Romans 5 .8. But God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. Except that he didn't use the word sinners. He used the term messed up.

So what he said was God shows his love for us and that while we were messed up, Christ died for us.

I knew when I heard it that it didn't sound quite right. I talked to him about it later, but he said that's what sin means, that we're messed up.

I guess he's right. I mean, I couldn't really argue with the point, but it still feels a little off.

Am I wrong to feel like he misquoted the scripture? Thank you, Aaron. I really don't know his intent.

So I want to be careful with how I answer the question because I don't want it to seem like I know what your youth pastor's intent was.

But it does seem like that he twisted the scripture in such a way to be gentle.

When you say messed up, that can mean anything. It could mean that your life's not in order. It could mean

I can't make sense of this stuff. So God's going to help me make sense of everything, okay? It can mean that no one else loves me, but God loves me.

There's a lot of different things that you can fit into messed up. But sin only means one thing.

Sin means that we disobeyed God. We rebelled against God. A great definition of sin,

I've mentioned this before, comes out of Deuteronomy 9, verse 7. When we provoke the

Lord our God to wrath, then we become rebellious against the

Lord. That's what's all being described there in Deuteronomy 9, 7. That is a definition of sin, rebellion against God.

And as it goes on to say in Joshua 1, 18, rebellion against God results in death.

So this summarizes Romans 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our

Lord. So sin means to miss the mark. At least that's the Greek word that gets used frequently in the

New Testament. The word hamartia, it means to miss the mark. And when

Paul says in Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, he uses the word hamartia as a verb.

So sin, we've missed the mark. We have fallen short of God's glory. We have rebelled against God.

That is what sin is, rebellion against God. So when we say messed up, that's make a mistake, right?

At worst. That's not saying that we've rebelled against God. So I think that your youth leader, again,

I don't want to read into his mind or try to read into something that he didn't mean, but it just kind of feels like he was softening the term.

He was trying to appeal to students on a level of, hey, when nobody else loves you or when nothing else makes sense,

God still loves you. When what a teenager needs to understand is the reality of their sin, that they have rebelled, that they have fallen short of God's glory and the wages of their sin is death unless they repent and come to Christ who paid that penalty for us so that we can know eternal life.

It is not at our liberty to adjust the scriptures to words that are more palatable or are more gentle for people to understand.

People need to know what sin is. Nobody knows what sin is, so I'm going to use a different word. Tell them what sin is.

Tell them what sin is, that it's rebellion against God and the result of that is going to be our destruction unless we repent and come to Christ who paid the price for us so that through Christ we are right.

We are holy in the eyes of God because Christ has imparted his righteousness to us.

Aaron, I hope that is of some assistance to you. Thank the Lord for his word that we might know our sin and we might know there is deliverance from our sin in Christ Jesus, our