Colossians 1:3-8 –

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 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, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Introduction

For a second week, we are going to consider Colossians 1:3-8. Last week, I focused on answering the question: How can Paul’s tone be what it is here—thankful and joyful—when the point of the letter is to address a really significant and dangerous heresy? The answer, we saw, is that there’s a unique kind of joy (a circumstance-transcending-kind-of-joy) that comes from living a life of faithfulness, among a faithful people, and, most importantly, with supreme confidence in the unfailing faithfulness of God.

This morning we’re going to focus on a different question that the text also addresses: What is the gospel and what role does it play in Colossians? In v.5, Paul mentions that the gospel had come to the Colossians and was bearing fruit in them and throughout the whole world. But what is the gospel, what kind of fruit does it produce, who does it produce such fruit in, how does it do so, etc.? These six verses don’t tell us everything there is to know about the gospel, or even answer all of those questions, but what they do tell us is good news indeed.

Before I share the big idea and implication of this sermon, and before I pray, let me say a brief word about why I’m preaching this sermon from these verses. Why not consider what the entire letter says about the gospel? Paul certainly didn’t intend to say everything about the gospel in this passage, so what’s the value of getting an incomplete picture? Those are reasonable questions. My answer is simple. This passage is so densely packed with gospel that I want to show you how Paul has woven it into every line of this letter right from the beginning, so you’ll be better prepared to recognize it in the rest of the fabric of the rest of this letter.

With that, the big idea of this sermon is that the gospel is good news for every aspect of our lives forever. Christ is indeed above all and in all. And that is densely packed into these few verses, even as it is densely packed in all of Colossians. The main takeaway, then, is to learn to live more fully in light of the reality of the gospel.

Gospel Density

If an outside observer were to follow you around undetected for a full week, 24/7, what would they likely conclude is the most driving force in your life?

Would it be your job/the need to make money? The desire to avoid anxiety or fear? The pursuit of pleasure/entertainment? The love of your family? School/good grades? A relationship? Sports/hobby? The opinions of others? The need to succeed? Taking care of someone?

What motivates you? What primarily shapes your decisions? What is your main frame of reference in life?

Whatever your answer was coming into this morning, my earnest prayer is that the Lord would use this sermon to increasingly bend it toward the gospel; such that from now on, when asked what most drives your life, motivates you, shapes your decisions, and is the lens through which you see yourself and the world around you, your answer will truly be: the gospel, the good news of Jesus!

That is the answer that permeates this letter and Paul’s life. It is the only answer that will allow the Colossians to respond the heresy confronting them in a manner that is pleasing to God and good for their souls. And it is the only answer that will allow any of us to live the lives we were designed to live and for which Christ died.

To be extra clear, if your first thought when presented with something new or familiar, hard or easy, suffering or sweet, good or bad, entertaining or boring, religious or secular, work or leisure, alone or in a group, with anything and everything, is anything other than how it relates to all that Jesus is and accomplished for those who believe in Him, then you will never experience that thing as you were meant to.

As we saw last week, Colossians 1:3-8 is largely about Paul’s faithful thanksgiving to God for God’s faithfulness to the Colossians and the Colossians’ faithfulness to God in the midst of trying circumstances.

What I want to point out here is that the gospel was in and around and over and under and through all of that. Again, we’ll see it all throughout this letter, but the fact that it’s so densely packed in these few verses ought to wake us up to its power and glory and necessity and all-encompassingness.

Consider with me, then, nine expressions of the gospel, embedded into this opening paragraph and how your life wild be different if they shaped your perspective and aims and heart and mind.

Jesus and the Gospel Are Inseparable (vs. 3, 4, 7)

First, Jesus and the gospel are inseparable. No Jesus, no gospel. He is all and in all.

I hope many of the points I share this morning are at least somewhat familiar, but this one most of all. There is no gospel, there is no good news, apart from Jesus. There is nothing that Paul believed more firmly than that. That is why he thanked God, “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is why he commended the Colossians for their “faith in Christ Jesus.” And it is why he praised Epaphras for being “a faithful minister of Christ.”

As we’ll see at the very end of this sermon, and many times throughout our time in Colossians, there is no gospel apart from Jesus, because Jesus is the gospel. He is the means by which there is good news for sinners and He is the good news for sinners.

Jesus and the gospel are inseparable.

The Good News of the Gospel Is Ours through Faith in Jesus Christ (v.4)

Second, the good news of the gospel is ours through faith in Jesus Christ. We get a glimpse of that in the beginning of v.4.

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus…

One of the most significant aspects of the gospel is that it is ours through faith. Within that, there are two terms we need to consider more carefully: “through” and “faith”.

In our culture, the term “faith” is often used to mean “wishful thinking;” something we’d really like to happen, but know to be really unlikely.

“I have ‘faith’ that my team is going to pull it out (despite being down by 20 with less than a minute to go),” we often hear.

Or, people say, “I have ‘faith’” that someone will pull through a significant illness when there’s no good reason to believe they will, and every good reason to believe they won’t.

Because of that modern sense of the term, people often think that faith in Jesus is equivalent to believing fairytales or that they’ll win the lottery—not an absolute 0% chance of being true, but not far from it.

The kind of faith Paul references here, though, is very different. Rather than hope for something that is almost certainly false, biblical faith is complete trust/full assurance of something that is absolutely true, but also invisible.

The author of Hebrews says it like this, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Paul’s words in v.6 come close to that. There, he talks of receiving the gospel in faith as hearing and understanding “the grace of God in truth”. To have faith in the gospel, we must hear the content of the gospel, we must understand it, and we must trust in it as truly true (more on that later).

Culturally speaking, faith requires hope and a slim chance of truth. If either ingredient is lacking, there is no faith.

Biblically speaking, faith requires both trust and truth. If either ingredient is lacking, there is no faith.

The second word I want to focus on is “through.” The good news of the gospel is ours through faith in Jesus.

Do you know what a conduit is? There are a number of conduits all around us right here in this room. A conduit is a means by which something travels. An electrical wire is a conduit through which electricity travels. PVC pipe is a conduit through which water travels. Fiber optic cables are a conduit through which data travels. And faith is the conduit (and the only conduit) thro...