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Colossians 1:5b-8
…because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of our love in the Spirit (Colossians 1:5-8).
I like working up acrostics. So I’ve got two for you. GOSPEL: God’s Only Son Provides Eternal Life. And you probably know GRACE: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. I want us to get fired up about the gospel of God’s grace, about the power of the gospel as God uses it to bring salvation to sinners. In the middle of so much turmoil and social media craziness, let’s not lose the gospel. Last week we introduced this Colossian letter as both an instruction and warning. Now we’re going to look more closely at how the gospel of God’s grace worked powerfully in the lives of the Colossian church located 100 miles east of Ephesus.
In 1967-68 I worked at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. I was an orderly or nurse’s aide in the Emergency Ward, a most interesting job. Besides cleaning bed pans, restraining drunks, and cleaning up the blood from corpses of fatal accidents, I was often assigned to get a patient’s vital signs. I’d go into the patient’s room, take his pulse, get his temperature, count his respirations per minute, take his blood pressure, and basically make sure he was alive. These were vital signs of physical life. No pulse, no respirations, no blood pressure, and you can figure the patient is dead.
How do you know if you have spiritual life? You check for spiritual vital signs. In verse 6 Paul says these Colossians had heard and understood the grace of God in truth. The gospel of God’s grace had brought spiritual life to their hearts – they had faith, they loved one another, and they were full of hope that Christ could come back at any moment, snatch them right off the planet, and take them to be with Him.
They had the vital signs of spiritual life and it was all by the powerful life-changing gospel of the grace of God. There is a time when you come to understand the grace of God in truth. God gives us three truths about His grace in this passage.
FIRST TRUTH: God’s life-transforming grace is revealed through the gospel – vs. 5b-6.
Col 1:5b-6, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel 6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;
Compare two phrases here. What did they hear? They heard “the word of truth, the gospel.” And what happened? They “understood the grace of God in truth.” The gospel is the word of truth about the grace of God. The gospel isn’t a philosophy or a psychology or a theory for human behavior. It isn’t a church’s idea, Protestant or Catholic or any other religion. It isn’t a good feeling about God.
The gospel is something given to us by God Almighty. It’s unique – there is no other. That’s why Paul says in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” And these Colossians “understood the grace of God in truth.” This is the message that came to them and brought new life, spiritual vital signs.
The gospel is a message of truth – “the word of truth, the gospel” (vs. 5b). You can count on this. Someone comes and tells you about God, about your sin, about Christ as both God and man coming into human history living a sinless life, dying on a Roman cross as a substitute for sinners, being buried and three days later rising from the dead, walking on earth for 40 days, then ascending up to the very presence of God as the God-man, as the one and only Savior. This is not one of many messages, but the one true message. It’s not “my truth” or “your truth.” It isn’t one of equally valid truth claims. It’s not like one soda among others. It is God’s unique life-transforming message of truth.
The gospel is a message of truth for the entire world – “in all the world” (vs. 6). “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). There is only one Savior for the whole world. There is no other gospel for all people of all kinds for all times. You might be a Somali or Pakistani or Indian or Asian or Hawaiian or even a Hoosier. There is only one gospel for all mankind, for the entire world. This is why church history is so good. I read about the gospel coming to Hawaii around 1820. Out of fear, some Hawaiians worship Pele, the volcano god. But the gospel came and a female chieftain named Kapiolani was saved and to prove Christianity she walked up the side of a volcano that was sacred ground, ate sacred berries, and declared, “Jehovah is my God. I fear not Pele.” In 1829 a dentist from England, Anthony Norris Groves, went to Iraq to evangelize Muslims. Then he went to southern India in 1833. The story of world missions is exciting. The gospel is for the entire world. Let’s be praying for missionaries everywhere.
The gospel is a message of God’s grace. The truth of the gospel reveals bad news and good news. The bad news is that all men everywhere have offended God. All people are part of Adam’s race and under the wrath of God. “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23). That includes you. You are helpless to change your nature. No amount of good deeds can remove the guilt of your sin. But there is good news. The good news is the message of God’s grace. Let’s take a quick dive into God’s river of grace that runs throughout the Bible.
Romans 3:24, Being justified freely (you don’t deserve it and can’t pay for it) by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 1:7-8, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.
Ephesians 2:4-5,7, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved…. In order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing (beyond measure) riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, Forever we will be trophies of God’s sovereign saving grace.
And of course, Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith….
The gospel of God’s grace has brought you blessings such as you can’t even imagine. You were guilty and now you are forgiven. You were a sinner and God’s enemy and now God has reconciled you to Himself and declared you perfectly righteous forever in His Son. You are right now as ready for that mansion in glory as you’ll ever be because you aren’t going there based on whom you are but on whom He is! He is as able to save the worst of sinners and the finest of sinners. This is God’s grace in the gospel.
SECOND TRUTH: God’s life-transforming grace works powerfully through the Gospel – vs. 6.
Col 1:6, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;
R. C. Sproul wrote the book The Consequences of Ideas. It’s a survey of the major philosophers and what they taught, beginning with Thales of the 6th century BC and ending with Marx, Darwin and Freud of the 1800s. They were brilliant, sometimes demented and morally corrupt men. They spun out philosophies like spiders spinning webs out of their own brains. Their ideas have had consequences, many deadly to mankind. But none were anything like that gospel message that Jesus Christ planted on this planet 2000 years ago. And look how Paul describes the consequences of the gospel, “constantly bearing fruit and increasing.”
The gospel is bearing fruit – vs. 6
This powerful grace-saturated gospel message was received by the Colossians. I hope you have received it too. You may have struggled with God, hating to give up your way. That hound of heaven may have even chased you for years, but he finally treed you, brought you down, and caused you to submit to Christ as your Lord and Savior. And the power of the gospel began to work in your heart and, like a fruit tree with life inside. You began to bear the fruit of the Spirit. You are a spiritual fruit tree.
The gospel is increasing – vs. 6
“Bearing fruit” is the internal working of the gospel and “increasing” is the extension of the gospel. For the last 2000 years Jesus Christ has been building His church through one message–the gospel of the grace of God. The gospel ship has traveled through dark and bloody seas. It has survived through enemy territory. Sometimes it seems almost extinguished, but God sees to it that it will continue to bear fruit and increase until every one of His sheep is safely in the fold. Jesus said in John 10:16, “And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd.” He has been saving people out of every tribe and nation and tongue. This gospel of the grace of God will fulfill Christ’s saving purposes and He will bring all those He purchased with His blood to reign with Him forever! Glory! Here’s the amazing thing…
THIRD TRUTH: God uses mere mortals like us to spread this good news of the gospel of grace – vss. 7-8.
Col 1:7-8, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8 and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.
God could have sent angels to tell us the gospel, or written it daily in the sky, or sent Lazarus back to tell us the gospel. But God has determined to use people to give out the fruit-producing message of the gospel. Epaphras was one of these. He had those beautiful feet described in Romans 10:15 of those who bring the good news of Christ. Paul highly commends his character as a faithful, beloved servant of Jesus Christ. I believe he’ll hear, “Well done you good and faithful servant.”
When I read about Epaphras, I think of Lee Hollenbach. He was an assistant pastor who brought the gospel message to my wife and me at our rented farmhouse in Pennsylvania in 1971. “Go get your Bibles” he said, and then led us through the Romans Road. Do you remember who brought the gospel to you? Someone did. Mom or dad, grandparents, a friend at school, a Sunday School teacher, radio broadcast, a book, a preacher, a neighbor? Somewhere, almost out of the blue, someone said something about the gospel of Christ and it stuck because the Spirit of life sent that word right into your heart. And God doesn’t limit Himself to highly trained and educated people to be the channels of His grace. D. L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon never went to seminary, but God used them mightily to win many thousands to Christ. A good education is fine, but not required. I doubt Epaphras had a Ph. D. after his name!
But how did Epaphras get people like these Colossians to understand the grace of God in truth? How can you make the gospel effective in the lives of those you tell? Friends, that’s God’s work. God used Paul to bring Epaphras to Christ and then he went back home and started teaching and preaching the gospel. He knew the gospel is God’s power to save and transform lives by grace, and he was privileged to see God work mightily in some of his hearers. That’s exactly what you and I are called to do in one way or another. We just need to be faithful with the message. Keep your heart aware of people’s need to hear the gospel.
Don’t miss that last phrase in verse 8, “your love in the Spirit.” The gospel is the power of God and the power of His grace to conquer our proud and selfish hearts and turn us into lovers of others. There’s a battle between our flesh and the Spirit within us. But one of the great vital signs of spiritual life is how the Spirit gives us a love for other believers. That’s the practical evidence of the power of God unleashed into our lives. Do you understand the word of truth about the grace of God? Is the gospel bearing fruit in your life? Are you prepared to spread this great news to others, trusting God to bring forth fruit according to His good pleasure? Someone said they will go door to door at our new location inviting people to Evansville Bible Church. So we’ll see what God is going to do. Let’s stay fired up with the Gospel, God’s Only Son Provides Eternal Life. Go through this coming week on your toes looking for opportunities to point people to Christ.