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
As I pointed out last week, the primary reason Paul wrote this letter to the Colossians was to head off a potentially significant trial. Colossae was filled with people of every religion, philosophy, profession, and allegiance. The result was that the church there was ever-bombarded with the temptation to various forms of syncretism—adding things to Jesus for salvation or godly living. Paul knew how dangerous, even deadly that was and so he wrote them a letter to explain the problem and plead with them to accept the solution: Christ over all and in all.
The point I’m trying to make is that this was a serious letter about a very serious matter.
And the reason that’s significant in relation to this sermon is that you’d never know it by the tone of our passage. You’d never know that the purity of the gospel and the salvation of this small church was hanging in the balance by Paul’s words in vs.3-8, would you?
Why is that?
It is because there’s a unique joy (a fruit of the Spirit joy) that’s available to God’s people when we are surrounded by faithfulness.
The smallest trial can be devastating if we are walking in or among faithlessness or if we are uncertain of God’s faithfulness. I’ve felt that many times. Have you? I remember seasons of trial where the discouragement they caused was greatly amplified by my ignorance (not knowing what faithfulness meant), my sin (walking in faithlessness), the sin of others, and my doubt that God would do what He’d said (according to His promises). There are few places more devoid of joy and filled with despair than areas of hardship coupled with faithlessness.
But at the same time, the opposite is true as well. The biggest trial can be navigated with peace and joy when we’re walking in faith, among a people who are walking in faith, and certain of God’s impeccable faithfulness. I’ve experienced that as well. And that was the case for Paul in our passage.
In vs.3-8 Paul gives us a picture of a faithful God, faithful saints, his own faithful prayers, and the unique joy that comes with all of that. Those things didn’t eliminate or even minimize the seriousness of the issue before him. They didn’t erase Paul’s need to address the central (syncretistic) question or cancel his plea to the Colossians to receive his answer in faith. But they did eliminate any temptation toward desperation or despondency that might otherwise have been there for him. And, more significantly, they did replace those things with an overwhelming spirit of joyfulness and thankfulness.
To help us all learn to share in this unique joy, from these few verses, we’ll consider God’s unwavering faithfulness, the Colossians remarkable faithfulness, and Paul’s exemplary prayers of faithfulness. And as we do, I hope the big idea of this passage will become clear: Thanksgiving and joy during significant trial come from our faith in God’s faithfulness. And the main takeaway is to cultivate a growing understanding of God, His promises, and His commands, in order that we might increasingly trust and obey (live faithfully), in order that we might walk in joyful thanksgiving whatever may come.
Faithful God
Once again, the very heart of this passage and Paul’s joy revealed in it is the perfect faithfulness of God to all His promises. We see that in four distinct and awesome ways in our passage, beginning in the very first words of our passage.
God Was Faithful to Keep the Colossians Faithful
In the beginning of v.3, Paul directs his gratitude for every good thing he knows of the Colossian Christians to God. That is, in spite of all the difficulties his letter represents, he finds peace in the knowledge that God was faithful to keep the Colossian believers faithful to Himself.
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…
It was the Colossians who were holding fast and walking in love, but it was God that Paul thanked. That’s because Paul knew that any faithfulness in the Colossian believers was the result of God’s faithfulness to them. It was God who called them into faith and it was God who sustained their faith. Therefore, He was the primary object of Paul’s thankfulness and joy. And joy rooted, not in our ever-changing circumstances, but in faith in the never-changing faithfulness of God to His the kind of unique joy that survives no matter the circumstances.
God Was Faithful as Father
A second aspect of God’s faithfulness that was at the heart of Paul’s thankfulness is more subtly revealed here. It concerns God’s faithfulness to His Fatherly nature. You may remember from v.2 that Paul commended “grace and peace” to the Colossian believers from “God our Father.”
This idea (of God as Father) is continued and expanded in our passage. This time, though, Paul notes (in v.3) that God is not only our Father, but He is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” as well.
There are essential differences between the way God is our Father and the way He is Jesus’ Father. For instance, while we bear the Father’s image, Jesus shares His essence. While we were adopted as His children, Jesus is His eternally begotten Son. And while there is nothing we can do to accomplish our adoption, Jesus accomplished it for us.
However, although there are differences, there are also ways in which God’s Fathering of us and Jesus is similar. The most significant of which (for this sermon), is that God is a perfectly faithful Father in every possible way, both for Jesus and for us. Paul knew that and was filled with thankfulness for that.
Grace, part of being made in the image of God is to have a kind of father hunger—a God-infused longing for someone to look to for origin, provision, protection, direction, wisdom, identity, stability, love, and affirmation. When our father hunger is met—when we have a father who is faithful to his God-given charge—it comes with a kind of stability that can weather most any storm. How many scary things that happen during the childhood of kids with faithful fathers are entirely unknown to them, having been silently born by their fathers on their behalf? How many trials born by kids without faithful fathers are entirely unknown by those with them?
And yet, God is a perfectly faithful Father in ways that the best earthly dads can’t come close to matching and the worst earthly fathers can’t come close to stealing. Living in that knowledge, as did the Apostle Paul, brings a unique joy no matter our circumstances.
God Was Faithful to Lay Up the Colossians’ Hope in Heaven
We see God’s faithfulness (and Paul’s joy in light of it) again in v.5. There, Paul acknowledged that there was hope “laid up for [the Colossian believers] in heaven.” Both the context and grammar of this clause (“laid up”) makes it clear that it was God who laid up that hope for the Colossians. They did not and could not lay it up for themselves. And as Peter points out (1 Peter 1:4-5), that hope “is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for …salvation…”.
We’ll consider this more closely next week, but for now, Grace Church, rejoice in the knowledge that God is eternally faithful to keep our hope laid up for us in heaven. Paul knew that and we are right to join him in praising God for that faithfulness!
God Was Faithful to Save People throughout the Whole World
Finally, we see God’s faithfulness embedded in v.6, “the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing. That the gospel was bearing fruit and increasing among the Colossians and throughout the whole world, was ultimately because God was causing it to do so according to His promise to do so. He was faithful to His promises to make Jesus Christ a light to all nations, to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of Christ in them (1:27).
Grace, we must settle now on something Paul seemed to know so well…that every good thing in us and through us, has been, is, and ever will be the result of God’s faithfulness to His promises. We deserve nothing but His fierce and eternal judgment for our sin, but we get nothing in Christ but His eternal blessing. He is our faithful Father. He is faithful unto heaven. And His faithfulness covers the whole world—every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
God’s faithfulness is why Paul was primarily marked by joyful thanksgiving even though hard things were happening. Is that the case for you? Are you able to say that as well? Are you aware of God’s promises to you in Jesus, promises that He will be eternally faithful to, promises that, if you receive them in faith, will overshadow (not eliminate) every hardship with a unique joy?
Faithful Saints in Colossae
The second aspect of faithfulness on display in this passage—the second source of Paul’s thanksgiving and joy in the midst of the serious trial—was the faithfulness of the Colossian Christians. Epaphras had planted the church in Colossae and had spent time teaching them of its implications for their life. In other words, he had a front row seat to all that God had done in and among them since the beginning. Therefore, when he went to visit Paul and seek his counsel, he was able to tell in great detail of their faithfulness (8 [Epaphras] has made known to us your love in the Spirit”).
Paul rejoiced, therefore, through Epaphras’s report, in God’s faithfulness, which led to Epaphras’s faithfulness, which led to the Colossian’s faithfulness. Let’s take a look at the forms their faithfulness took—Epaphras’s first, and then the Colossians.
Epaphras Was Faithful in Ministering to the Colossians
Epaphras was faithful in ministering to the Colossians. We see this in two primary ways.
First, Epaphras faithfully shared the gospel with the Colossians that they might receive it in faith (vs.5-7).
Of this [the hope laid up for them in heaven] you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to 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…
This was not a prestigious people. It was not a resort town that Epaphras would have enjoyed traveling to for some recreational purpose. It was not a mission trip to the Caymen Islands. As we saw last week, it was a mission trip to a small, insignificant, has-been, Roman outpost.
In other words, there was nothing to draw Epaphras to Colossae other than a supernatural faith in the “word of truth, the gospel,” a faith-driven, supernatural love for those who had not yet heard it, and a supernatural faith in God to cause some who heard his message to come alive in Christ.
O, what a lesson that is for us, Grace. Absent any of those ingredients (personal faith in the gospel, faith-driven love for the lost, and faith in the power of the gospel for salvation), we will remain comfortable and silent. We will not share with our neighbors, much less strangers on the other side of the city, much less strangers on the other side of the world. But Epaphras had all three by the grace of God and therein faithfully evangelized the Colossians.
Paul knew of that and was, therefore, filled with joy and thanksgiving despite the challenges he faced. O, what hope and joy there is in seeing God work in ways that cannot be explained by anything but the mighty power of God. O, what trial-overshadowing power there is in seeing God’s miraculous work all around us.
A second way we see Epaphras’s faithfulness among the Colossians is in the fact that he not only evangelized them, but also stayed with them to minister more of the counsel of God to them (v.7).
7 … He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf…
It is a staggering gift to be given the basic truths of the gospel. Indeed, we do not need to know all that Jesus taught to come saving faith in Jesus; only that our sin has brought the wrath of God upon us, that we are unable to rescue ourselves from it, and that Jesus Christ alone was able to absorb the wrath of God on behalf of all who would trust in Him.
However, while we don’t need to know most of what Jesus taught in order to become a Christian, we do need to know all that He taught to become mature Christians. We can share/hear the basics of the gospel in 10 seconds, but we need the rest of our lives to take in the rest.
I imagine that we’ve all seen people stuck in spiritual infancy/immaturity. They know the very basics of the gospel, they seem to genuinely have faith in it, but much of their lives are, often unknowingly and frustratingly, untouched by the rest of the counsel of God.
Jesus commissioned His followers to offer both to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20). Epaphras was faithful to that call among the Colossians. Paul knew that and it filled him with joy and thanksgiving.
As a pastor, there are few greater joys available to me than to hear stories of you all ministering the Word of God to one another, helping one another understand God’s will for your lives and what it means to live it out in faith. Stories like that are truly strengthening, healing, faith-building, and joy-filling for me; just as they were for Paul.
The Colossians Were Faithful in Receiving and Responding to the Gospel
By the glorious grace of God, Epaphras was faithful in sharing the gospel and its implications, and by the same glorious grace of God, the Colossians were faithful in receiving it.
Paul rejoiced, having “heard of [the Colossians’] faith in Christ Jesus” (v.4). He further rejoiced that they not only heard the gospel, but also “understood the grace of God in truth” (v.6).
It is a miraculous work of God every time one of His people is so burdened by love for Him and neighbor that we are compelled to share the gospel with someone in faith. But it is no less a miraculous work of God when the people we share it with receive it in faith.
Likewise, it is a miraculous gift of God every time one of His people is so burdened by love for Him and neighbor that we are compelled to unpack the doctrines of God for those who believe. And it is no less a miraculous work of God when those we teach receive that in faith, as was the case with the Colossian believers.
Not only did they receive the gospel in faith, but also Epaphras’s teaching, such that they were filled with “love … for all the saints” (v.4). Not only did they receive his teaching as the “grace of God in truth,” through faith in it, it was “bearing fruit and increasing…since the day [they] heard it and understood [it]” (v.6).
Again, Paul recognized these things for what they were. He recognized the sovereign grace of God that had taken hold of the Colossians, gave thanks to God for it, and that fueled his trust that God would continue to be faithful through their attempt to navigate the syncretistic heresy confronting them.
Faithful Prayers of Paul
The Colossian believers were in a tough spot. What might have led to despair, however, led to the opposite for Paul. Why? Because he saw God’s faithfulness, Epaphras’s faithfulness, and the faithfulness of the Colossians. He recognized all of that for what it was: the awesome, unstoppable grace of God. Who can fret when such miraculous power is on display all around you?
Rather than be consumed by difficult circumstances, as we are so prone to do, Paul stood back, eagerly anticipating whatever form God’s creative, perfect, future grace would take. The result of all of these things being revealed to Paul by God and Epaphras, therefore, caused Paul to be strengthened in his faith.
And in that, his natural response was to turn to God in prayer, thanking Him for His faithfulness and grace, and seeking more of both for the Colossian Christians (v.3).
I mean to close, then, by making a small handful of observations on Paul’s prayer, which is an example of and admonition to faithful prayer for us all:
Faithful Prayer Is Always Directed at God
“We always thank God when we pray for you…” (v.3), Paul wrote. This might sound obvious—who else would prayers be directed at, right? But having watched nine seasons of Alone, I can assure you that it isn’t. It’s still amazing and sickening to me to watch person after person, season after season, after weeks of slow starvation catch a fish and thank everything—the fish, whatever they made the lure out of, the river, the spirits—but God for it. Like Paul’s all faithful prayers are directed at the One True God, maker of heaven and earth.
Faithful Prayer Is Filled with Thanksgiving
“We always thank God when we pray for you…” (v.3). Remember, the occasion for the letter is hardship, and yet Paul’s immediate and overwhelming response was one of thankful joy. I’ve been forever marked by something I read years ago. At every single moment, from now through eternity, the answer to the question, “How are you doing?,” for everyone in Christ is, objectively, “Better than I deserve.” No matter how bad, how hard, how grievous our circumstances, they are infinitely better than what our sin warrants. And, if for no other reason, faith in that alone ought to fill us with gratitude in every prayer. Faithful prayers are filled with thanksgiving, which is a banner over all the days of the faithful.
Faithful Prayer Is Amazed by God’s Grace
This is sort of the opposite side of the coin from the last point. Paul recognized that it was only by the grace of God that there was “hope laid up for [the Colossian believers] in heaven…” (5) and that amazed him. It was at the heart of his prayers to God for the Colossians. It was God who laid it up and it was God who would keep it for them. In other words, the Colossians’ future was secure entirely because of God’s grace for them. Faithful prayer recognizes and is amazed by that.
Faithful Prayers Are Offered through Jesus Christ
Paul prayed for the Colossians consistently, thanking God in no small measure because they were marked by lives of faith in Jesus (v.4). Paul’s prayer of faith would have been much different if the Colossians had been relying on keeping the law or good works or their own strength for salvation or spiritual growth. Paul was filled with thanksgiving for the Colossians because they were trusting in Jesus and not themselves. When God’s people get that, when we get that Grace, we have unlimited access to the unique joy of faithfulness.
Faithful Prayer Is Eternally Focused
When our hope is truly in God, when our faith is firm in His nature and promises, it will shape our day-to-day lives; it will give us peace in times of trial; it will allow us to endure every earthly hardship with a unique joy. But it will also look to that which is to come—everlasting life with God in heaven (v.5) where trials are done forever. Again, God had laid a certain hope up for the Colossians for all time, Paul trusted that, and his prayers and disposition were shaped by it.
Faithful prayers are globally aware.
Paul, in his prayers to God for the Colossians, celebrated not only what God was doing among them, but also that which God was doing “in the whole world” (6). It’s so easy to focus exclusively on our narrow sphere of sight. Faithful prayers, though, are global. Faithful prayers are fueled by the awesome reality that Christ is over all and in all the earth. When we see what God is doing among us, it strengthens our faith. And when we see what God is doing throughout the whole world, it strengthens us all the more.
Grace, let us join Paul in praying, filled with faith in the certain knowledge that God is always working an unlimited number of glorious things for the good of the world, all over the world. A good friend of mine gave a really helpful message (and wrote a devotional) on this recently. In the message he said, “Our entire pessimism is based off our finite and often mistaken ability to see what God is doing.” If we only knew the 10 trillion ways God was at work for glory and good at every moment, we’d never be discouraged. Paul prayed prayers filled with faith in that, and so should we.
Finally, Faithful Prayer Is Concerned with Others
Faithless prayers focus exclusively on ourselves and what we don’t have. Faithful prayers focus on others, pleading with God on their behalf and thanking God for the grace in their lives. Faithlessness is threatened by the work of God in others. Faithfulness celebrates it with them and with God in prayer. Faithlessness prays that others would love us. Faithfulness continually expresses love for others. Paul thought and prayed faithfully, which is why he wrote (and prayed) of Epaphras, that he is “our beloved fellow servant.” And that “He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf” (vs.6-7).
Much of this opening section of Paul’s letter to the Colossians is a written description of the cause for Paul’s consistent, faithful prayers of thanksgiving for them. And in that we see that his faithful prayers were directed to God, filled with thanksgiving, amazed by God’s grace, offered through Jesus, eternally focused, globally aware, and concerned for others.
Because this was Paul’s mind and heart, these were his prayers. And because these were his prayers, he was filled with thanksgiving and joy when most of us would be discouraged by the hardship that confronted the Colossians.
Conclusion
To borrow from Ecclesiastes, God’s faithfulness and the Colossians’ faithfulness were like a rocket ship that took Paul above the clouds to see the sun at warp speed. And that strengthened Paul’s faith in the goodness of God in every trial.
The result of Paul’s faithfulness, awareness of the Colossians’ faithfulness, and trust in God’s faithfulness was, once again, thankfulness and joy. He knew they had plenty of work in front of them, he knew the hardships that were already upon them, but He also knew that as long as they continued to keep their eyes on Jesus (to remain faithful to Him), they would continue to know the joy of the Spirit, come what may.
I commend that to you all now, Grace Church, especially those of you who were just baptized into the name of the Triune God. Your baptism is a declaration that you believe these things. Live lives of faith, therefore. Trust in the goodness of God’s commands and obey them. Trust in the certainty of God’s promises and believe them. Trust in the sufficiency of the grace of God and rest in it. For when you do, you too will know the unique joy of faithfulness no matter your circumstances. Let us seek this from the Lord and help one another cultivate it in our lives, for Christ is over all and in all. Amen.