We're going to be turning through to the scriptures again tonight, back to the letter to the Colossians. Letter to the Colossians this morning. If you weren't with us, we began a series through the letter to the Colossians by Paul. We had an overview of it this morning. If you missed it this morning, it might be worth going back and having a look tomorrow. We're going to work our way through the book and we find ourselves this evening in chapter one. We're going to read the first eight verses, but we're going to be looking primarily at verse three, four, and then the beginning of verse five. So Colossians chapter one, starting at verse one, this is God's word for us tonight. 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 and 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. Amen. And may God bless His word to us. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word again. Thank you for a second opportunity to open it up tonight. And we pray that as we turn to it now, that you would indeed press it upon our hearts. Would you give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe what you are going to say? Lord, we thank you for your help in this, that we're not left alone to work it out. Thank you for your help for me in preparing this message. And Lord, we pray that any words of Logan which are contrary to your word would be cast out. and that we would only hear the voice of God tonight. That as I speak to human ears and through the internet to human ears, we pray, Lord, that each and every one of us would hear the words of the living God in our heart. That your spirit would speak to us, that Christ himself would speak to us. That we might be conformed to the likeness of Christ. that we might grow in love and faithfulness, that our hope might be secure. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we're going to be looking this evening at verse 3 or 5. I'll just quickly read that again. 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." It was about a week ago that Josella and I were sitting outside in the sun enjoying a cup of coffee, and I said to her, and I often have these thoughts, I said to her, do you ever wonder how everybody else sees you? Have you ever wondered, I wonder if you've ever wondered this, because we look at other people and we have thoughts about what they're like, but wouldn't it be interesting to be able to hop in the head of other people we know, maybe it would be terrifying, but to hop in the head of other people and see how other people perceive you. Well, I wonder if you've ever wondered that about the church. You know, how do people perceive covenant, Presbyterian Church? How do the other grace churches think about us? What do they think about us? And what about the churches down the road? What about our neighbors? What do they think about us? What does Christ think about us? What would an apostle say about us? Well, Colossi, the Colossian Christians, was in a place where they got to hear that. They got to hear the perspective of Paul, the apostle, the representative of Christ, as it says in verse one. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. The Christians there got to hear Paul's opinion of them. And in this prayer, from verse 3 all the way down to verse 8, we see Paul's thoughts of the Colossians from the report that he's heard, but then also Paul's desires for the Colossians. And we're going to be looking at the desires next week. I was originally planning on going all the way down to verse eight and thinking about this in one lump sum, but as I said to someone just before the service started, I got halfway through my sermon preparation and my notes were full. So I thought, well, I guess we're stopping at verse five. So we're going to be thinking about the thanksgiving of Paul. Paul's what I've called apostolic thanksgiving, as he gives thanks for the church. And the next week in verse nine onwards, we'll see his desires for the church. So what does Paul's apostolic thanksgiving look like and why is it important? Well, if we could see a report from an apostle on covenant, that would be very instructive, wouldn't it? You just think about your children's report cards. I can still remember the day I brought home my report card filled with Ds, and you could have tried way harder, never tries on anything. Yeah, really great report card. And I remember the grim feeling of going home and showing my dad with terror. And You know, it would be really interesting because you'd be able to look at that report card, and my report card, you could see exactly where my weaknesses were, you could see exactly where I was failing, and thereby you could address things. And to be able to see a report card of our church would be the same, wouldn't it? You'd be able to go, oh, look, we're doing really well at this. No, we're not doing that well at that, but we're doing great at this. It's a little bit like what you see in the letters to the churches in Revelation, where you see this, you're doing this well, you're not doing that right, change this. carry on. And so today we're going to see Paul giving thanks for this church. But firstly notice to whom Paul thanks. Who does Paul thank? It's pretty obvious, but have a look at verse 3. So in hearing the news of what's going on in Colossae, they don't give thanks to the Colossians, do they? This is not Paul expressing thanksgiving. Good job, guys. You're doing really well. Keep it up and just cheer you on. Great job. No, he says, when we hear of what's going on, We give thanks to God. We give thanks to God. Why is that important? Why is that significant? Because God is the one who's doing it at the end of the day. It is God who is doing the work and therefore it is God who deserves the praise and thanks. Although the Colossians are laboring and working and doing stuff, at the end of the day, it is God who works in them that is doing it and therefore deserves all the praise and honor and all the glory. But also, because the only reason that this is being stated is because of the redemptive work of Christ. If Christ had not accomplished redemption, purchased the church at Colossae, washed them clean by his blood, given them his spirit, caused them to be regenerated, there would be nothing worth giving thanks over. And so there's no point in lifting up thanks to the church because it's Christ who was at work in the church. And we see this really, really powerfully in two verses. Have a look a few pages back in Philippians, Philippians chapter two. Verse 12, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. Now listen to this, very key. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So work it out, be busy, why? For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Colossi, if you wrote this to the Colossians, Colossians work really hard because God is doing something. Now, if you turn it to Thanksgiving, we give thanks to God because God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And then we see a similar thing in Ephesians chapter three, verse 20 and 21. Hear how God works in his people. Now to him who was able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. How? According to the power at work within us. to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. You see, we are working and laboring, yet it's His power at work within us that causes anything to happen. And so He is the one that deserves all the glory, all of the praise, and all of the honor. Therefore, if anything happens in this church, If we as a church, covenant church, if we experience any success, any blessing, any favor, any conversion, any joy, God gets all the credit. If our plans succeed, it's because of God. If our numbers grow, it's because of God. If we see people coming in the door, it's because of God. If our planning is fruitful, it's because of God. All of it is because of God, which means down with me and you. You see, this, this thanksgiving, we thank God should generate humility inside of us. Because even if we had the most amazing preacher that we could get, it would still be down with man and up with God. You think about John the Baptist. Remember how Jesus described John the Baptist? He was the greatest man of the Old Testament, the greatest man. And yet John the Baptist says, less of me. and more of him. I am happy to fade into existence. Just fade out and let Christ receive the spotlight and the glory. Whatever joys and sorrows and experiences that we go through as a church, all of them must generate in us not pride, not feelings of worthiness, but humility and glory and praise to God. And you can cross that same thing over into your personal life. If you succeed as a Christian in your life, if you succeed in your work, all praise goes to God. For you can do nothing outside of Him, because in Christ you move and have your being, as He will go on to say later in chapter 1. So Paul and Timothy give thanks to God, the Father of Jesus Christ, but then they also pray for things. Notice what they give thanks to God for. Have a look at verse four. So when they pray, they always give thanks. Why? Verse four. Since, or for, we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints. Paul and Timothy have Epaphras turn up and Epaphras describes a church which is rock-solid in its faith in Christ and rock-solid in its love for one another. And that is what they give thanks for. They thank God for a church which roots itself, buries itself, its faith deep into the soil of Christ. And that out of that soil, what is produced is love for one another. But why those? Why does he thank God for those two things? I'm sure there were other things the Colossians were doing. They were probably feeding the sick. They were probably going out and preaching the gospel. They were probably doing a heap of different things. Why does he pick those two? And it could be that it's just those were the two things that really stuck out about the Colossians. But I think there's something in it. Why faith in Christ and love for the saints? Well, firstly, I think faith, because faith is ultimately the mother of every single thing that we do as a believer. We can do no good without faith. We can love one another, but if we don't do it by faith, then it becomes a work, and thereby it does not glorify God. We can give to the poor, but if we have not faith, then we do it to our own praise and honor. Faith in Christ, salvation from Christ, in Christ, through Christ, is the foundational bedrock of everything. And so if we start from anywhere except the faith in Christ, we have a sandy foundation. And we're like the fool who built his house upon the sand, and the house came a-tumbling down. But when we found ourselves When we found ourselves upon the rock of Christ, upon faith in Christ, we have a sure foundation on which to build a strong house. So we see faith is spoken of because it's the bedrock for everything we do in the Christian life. But then he also says the love for one another, the love for all the saints. Why love of the saints? Well, we can recognize with 1 John that if we say we love God, yet we do not love our brother, we are a liar. We cannot say we love God if we don't love our brother and sister. And so this is a witness for Paul and Timothy that these people love God, is that they have an immense love for one another. But also we could say with Romans 12, verse nine to 21, that love for one another is just like a core mark of the Christian church. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, the world will know you're my disciples by your love for one another. They're not gonna know that we are Christ's disciples by how successful our church planting programs are. They're not going to know we're disciples by our discipleship programs. Although all of these things are good and helpful and necessary, they're going to know we're disciples by the one mark which you only find in the church. True love for one another. Why is that the sustaining mark of the Church of Jesus Christ? Because this is the only place you will find true love for one another. You will go to other places and find camaraderie. You will find people that get alongside one another. You'll find organizations where people seem to love each other quite well, but you will never find a sacrificial, self-denying, full giving reality of love that you see in the church in any other place under the sun. Because after all, as Jesus said, as I have loved you, love one another. And so do you see the really hard space we're in right now? And we've got to do our best to love one another right now, but it's hard. We're not together. We're not together. But right now there's normally 50 of us here on a Sunday night. Worshipping together and loving one another. And we're not doing it. We can't do it. And so we need to work extra hard, but we also need to pray with all of our might that God would enable us to come back together again so that we can do this. Because this is not an individual thing. Paul's not saying, hey, John at Colossi, you're doing a great job. He's saying Colossian church, the church at Colossi, you as a people are doing a great job. And that's how this gets fleshed out in our midst. And I love some of the things that are happening. As I hear stories, I'll ring people and they say, oh, I was just speaking to so-and-so the other day. As people call one another and encourage one another, let us do that all the more, but let us, let us look forward, forward-looking with zeal for the day when we can come back together again. So we've seen that Paul gives thanks to God because he deserves all the credit. We've seen what he gives thanks for. Paul and Timothy give thanks because of this foundational faith in Christ and love of one another merging together. But then notice what Paul says causes this faith and love. There's something that this actually springs out of. He says in the beginning of verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. So let's back up to verse four. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of, in other words, which comes about because of. This faith and love come from hope. laid up for you in heaven. So the question is, what is the hope laid up for you in heaven? Because he could be saying two things. He could be saying, because of the hope that you exercise towards the thing that's coming. So like more of a me, like because of your amazing ability to have hope in something. Or he could be saying, because of the inheritance that you're waiting for that's coming. So is Paul directing us towards the future hope that's coming that they're waiting for? In other words, it's because of the thing that's coming in the future, or is it because of the way that they are effectively pursuing the thing that's coming? Yes. It's a both and reality. You see, because it's the reality of the thing to come, the reality of the thing to come that is generating in them now a hope for the future. So because Christ has given them inheritance to come, they are setting their hope upon it. And because they're setting their hope upon a future joy, a future inheritance, faith and love is erupting in their hearts. Sometimes at really hard times. I mean, these were days of trouble for the Christian churches. You didn't have two or three days to prepare for a lockdown in the Roman provinces. No, they just walked in the door and burnt your house down. Or they just walked in the door, Hebrews, and plundered all your goods and walked out again. And you couldn't take them to court. You couldn't do anything about it. These were hard times, and yet this hope firmly fixed on a future joy enables them to bear forth fruit of faith in Christ and love for one another. And I wonder if that springs any verses to mind. Maybe like Hebrews 12. Remember that passage we love, fix your eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith. And then it describes in verse two, I think it is, what Jesus does. What does he do? He endures the cross and despises the shame. So he sees the future, joy to come, and endures and bears up under suffering and walks through it all the way he was supposed to because of the future hope. And that's the type of picture we have here. Paul says, faith and love is erupting from you looking to something better in the future. And I wonder if this reminds you of a sermon we had just a few weeks ago about the coming of a kingdom. And we talked about the fact that our problem is not that we're too heavenly minded. Please name me, or you can't because you're on camera, but if you were here, name me seven people that you know that are so heavenly minded that they're useless. that you would legitimately look at and say, that person just thinks way too much about Jesus. That person just focuses, reads the Bible and prays way too much. But what if I was to ask you to show me a hundred people that focus too much on this earth? You see, if we want to see love for one another continuing to grow, and I know that we do this really well, love for one another, but if we wanna see that growing more, which we do, of course, none of us are gonna say we've got it perfect. If we wanna see love for one another growing and flourishing and faith in Christ deepening, pushing further into Christ, then we need to focus upon the hope laid up for us. And I always remember, I always remember the little story. Well, it's not a story, it's a true story, I suppose. I always remember the true story of a woman that Gisela and I used to know. So we went to the small little Baptist church in Huntly. And there was this little Maori lady there, and she's just so lovely. And I remember one day we went to their place and hung out and had a cup of coffee with them. And I said to them, what do you guys do for fun? And he was an ex-gang member and bikey. And so he's like, I ride my motorbike, and he fixes up his motorbike, and he shows me his hog and his garage. I was like, yeah, this is already cool. And then I asked her the question. She said, I just read my Bible. And I was like, yeah, but what else do you do? He said, no, I just read my Bible. And I looked at him for clarification. I'm like, what does she mean? And he goes, yeah, she just sits there and reads her Bible all day. Just literally, she never watched TV. She just comes home after work, sits down, gets out her Bible, and reads it all day long and all night long. And then goes to bed. And then gets up, reads her Bible before going to work, comes home, reads her Bible, goes and does some church stuff, comes home, reads her Bible. And at the time, I can remember thinking to myself, well, that's just kind of not practical. Who can actually do that? This woman's just ridiculous. But isn't it because we're so narrow-sided? Is it not because we suffer with spiritual short-sightedness? Or is it long-sightedness? I can never remember. Whichever one. We can't see very far. And what we need is spiritual corrective glasses that enable us to look into eternity and see the joy that is laid up for us. If we truly saw the rich, glorious inheritance that is coming for us. And if we truly believe that, would we live how we live every day? That's a hard question to answer, isn't it? Because deep down we all know There are things that we do that we would not do if we knew we were going to stand before Christ today. And yet it's this change of perspective. this change of perspective to see the way things truly are, the way God is doing them, that enables us to be who He calls us to be. In Ephesians 1, in verse 13 and 14, He says these words, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. See, Paul says we've been given the Holy Spirit as a promise, as a guarantee, as a seal, like one of those fancy wax seals. He stamps it on us. He stamps the Holy Spirit right on us, so that when we walk into glory and we see the inheritance, The seal of God is upon us and we get access. So that's what God is doing in our life. And so we must be pushing into this inheritance by the Holy Spirit. We need to take the long term view. I can remember working on the farm with my dad and walking around the farm with him. And he was always talking about what was going to be happening. Very rarely did he talk about just now or yesterday. It was always, you know, you'd go on a farm walk once a week and survey the farm and see what's going on. And dad would be saying, oh, that paddock in two years time, we're gonna do maize in that paddock so that it can be reseeded into grass because the soil's getting bad and the grass crop's getting bad. And that paddock's gonna be the year after that. But this one here that's been done recently, so that's not going to be done for. And it was all this forward thinking, isn't it? And farmers and I mean, we all have to do this, but with farmers especially, you have to plan season by season, year by year, crop by crop to ensure that you are prepared. And so you're always looking into the future. And we as Christians should be like that. We should be looking into the future hope, looking into the future inheritance, and saying, that's what I'm going for. That's what I'm living for. I have something stored up for me. And what that generates is faith in Christ, because now you have an object to believe in. Because Christ is the reward. So it generates faith in Christ and then it generates love for one another. Why? Because we look at one another and we realize you're on the same journey as me. Guess what? We're going to be spending millions of years together. So I might as well start loving you now. I know it sounds ridiculous and kind of comical, but it's true, isn't it? We will be spending forever together. So let us start loving one another now. You see, it's this future hope that enables us to transcend all of the difficulties, all of the obstacles, and act as God would have us act. And so I wonder, in light of this, If Paul was to write to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Manurewa, what would Paul say? Or if he was to write to you and your family? But maybe more important than what would Paul say is what would Christ say? today and how we live in this world as individuals, but even more importantly, as a church, as we live out our days within the church. Because at the end of the day, we must never forget that the church is the bride of Christ. You are not the bride of Christ. But you are a part of the Bride of Christ. There is only one Bride of Christ and it's the Church of Jesus Christ. And He has standards for His Bride. And He is working in His Bride. And so just like we were told in Philippians chapter 2, Let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Because it's God who's at work in us to will and to work according to his good pleasure. So brothers and sisters, my dear people and visitors as well, let us work with zeal. Let us work with zeal fixated upon our reward in heaven, Jesus Christ himself, so that ultimately we would have the commendation of Christ himself, our husband. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the church of Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have joined us together as one people. And we do pray that you would help us to love each other. Lord, help us to have faith in Christ together. Help us to set our hope in eternity. And we pray that you would work in us. Lord, we do long to honor you. We know we fall short. Yet we do want to do this. So would you help us? Lord, I thank you for the way this church works so hard to do these things. And so would you help us more and more each day that we might grow in faithfulness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.