If you were asked, what would you say really kind of drives people on in our society? What is it, if you were asked, what would you say sort of really motivates people out in the world? What gets them going in the morning? What is it that people in this city, let's say, what is it that really, really motivates them and what is it that they are working towards? I think for many people, I suppose it's retirement. Isn't it? You know, that seems to be the focus for a lot of people. You know, that's what they are thinking about, that's what they're working towards, maybe building towards retirement. Maybe for other people, maybe for younger people, it's a bit more immediate, and it's about maybe working towards a new house, or a bigger house, or maybe even, if you've got loads of money, a holiday house. That seems to be the focus for a lot of people. That's what people are working toward. Well, okay, that's fine for society. Let's not comment about that. But tonight the question that we're going to consider for a short point is what should the focus be for Christians? You know, that's what society is focused on. What should we, just us in here, as a group of Christians, what should we be working toward? You know, what is it, let's put it like this, what is it that should stand in front of us? that is the thing that is kind of pulling us towards it. What should motivate us? What should get us going? What should drive on the people of God? And to establish that and to think about that, we are going to look at a section here that Paul read, not the whole thing, but if you've got your Bibles open, it's just that section from verse 3 to verse 8. We're going to look at that. Verse 3 to verse 8. We're not going to have, you know, the usual thing, you know, three, four, five sort of points. It's not going to be like that tonight. Let's consider it, we're just going to break it up into two headings. And we've done this before, you know, two headings, each with maybe three things beneath it, okay? And yeah, there's probably more in the first heading, so maybe don't panic when I get to the second point, I think. See, still going. It's okay, it's okay. Just two headings, each with three points. So, let's jump in. Let's think about the first heading, right. We have here, in these verses, reassurance of the hope of glory. reassurance of the hope of glory. Right, let's make a start. Now, in last Sunday evening sermon, we noted that Paul adhered to the custom of the day. Do you remember that? The introduction to his letter that he inserted the three expected things. Remember that? He adhered to the custom of the day in the prelude or the introduction to his letter to Colossae. That's what we saw last week. Now, Tonight, we see again that Paul is adhering to expected convention, because he begins the actual body of this letter, the letter proper, he begins this with a section on thanksgiving, and that's what was expected. You know, you write a letter in the ancient world, not only do you have to sort of adhere to the bits and pieces about the introduction, you also have to begin the letter with a bit of thanksgiving. That was what was expected. And look, what we find here is that Paul is not giving thanks for anything to do with himself. He's thanking God for these Colossian people and their spiritual maturity. Now, here's what he's thanking God for. He's thanking God for the Colossian Christians' faith, their love, their hope. So he's thanking God in the start of this letter for the three great hallmarks of what was hallmarks of spiritual living, spiritual life, faith, love and hope. So what is it that he actually says here about these things? Well look first of all in verse 4 you'll see that Paul mentions faith. Now this coming week is a big one in the Pearson household. It's a big one in the manse because it is the first time ever that myself or my wife will ever have attended a parents' evening, a school parents' evening. And who knew that a parents' evening was as scary for the parents as it is for the children? You didn't know that. But it is, because this is where we are, of course, going to get a progress report, aren't we? You know, we're going to get a report from the teacher about what are we boys been doing and how he's been getting on. A progress report. Well, do you see? That's what we've got to be thinking about in these verses here. Because what has happened here is that that guy Epaphras, remember him? He's gone to Rome with, effectively, a progress report. almost like a school report. He's gone to Rome, to jail, he's gone to Paul and he's reported back on how the Colossian church are getting on and what they've been doing and how they've been... And what's happened is that Paul has taken that report and he's been able to rejoice in Jesus Christ because Epaphras has told them all about the authenticity or the reality of that church's Hang on, let's make sure we get this right. Because it's not here that Paul is thanking God that, you know, for the Colossians' kind of unspecific faith. It's not that he's like, he's not thanking God that they are kind of, you know, spiritually minded people. It's not sort of thanking God that they, you know, they're kind of, you know, people of faith in a sort of general... Look at it! I mean, it's very exact! Do you see the object of faith in verse 4? We have heard, from Epaphras, we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. Do you see what he's saying? He's able to praise God here, that this congregation believe in the person of Christ. They believe that he is the eternal, only begotten son, you know? They believe also in the work of Christ. They believe that he has died for sin. I mean, they believe this. It's faith. Aye, it's faith. But it's faith in Christ Jesus. So let me say this to you. I've said that there's three great hallmarks of faith. Three great hallmarks of spiritual life here. Do you see why Paul mentions faith first out of the three? Well, it's because without that, we're dead. I mean, without what he's talking about there, there is nothing at all going on spiritually. Do you see that? Without faith, what is it? It is impossible to please God. But let me say this, there are people at church right just now, throughout this country, who, you know, call themselves Christians, and would regard themselves as people of faith. We have to say here and now, that is not enough. But they would say, but we are people of faith, and we are Christians, and we believe in God, we have faith in God. And we have to say, from the standpoint of God's Word, from the Bible, do you see that that is not enough? It is not enough to be people of faith. Here, Paul is rejoicing, and he's rejoicing because it's sufficient for salvation. That congregation, those Christians, they have faith. in Christ. Do you? So there's faith. The second of the great hallmarks here is love. So Paul thanks God for the Colossians love. Now, I don't know what your memory for sermons is like. You might be, like myself, a person who can go away in 20 minutes after the sermon's finished. You've forgotten what the preacher's text was. That could be you. Or you could be, like some people, I won't mention any names who can remember a preacher's text for, it seems, for many, many decades after he's preached. Well, even if you can just remember last week's sermon, you will remember that Paul called the Colossians two things. Remember what he called them? He described them as saints and he described them as brothers. Do you remember that? Saints and brothers. And we noted last week, that really what he's doing there, he is commenting on a vertical relationship, isn't he? And a horizontal relationship. Saints. And what is he saying? He's commenting on their relationship with God, the sort of vertical relationship. And then he's calling them brothers and he's describing their horizontal aspect and how they relate to each other. Now, that's helpful here with the second hallmark. Think about it. He has already commented on faith. He's already commented on the Colossians, or thank God for the vertical aspect, their faith in Jesus Christ. Now he's talking about love, isn't he? But he's changing it. He's now talking about this horizontal relationship. He's now talking about, do you see what it is? It's not love that he's thanking them for. Do you see what it is? It is love for all the saints. It's the horizontal relationship that he's thanking God for. It is love for each other. So I wonder, do you see what he's saying? It's amazing what he's able to do here. He's praising God that the supernatural bond that unites people of faith, it could actually be seen in Colossae. You know this supernatural bond shared in the blood of Jesus Christ. It was actually evident in that congregation. And not just evident, it was so evident that Epaphras could go all the way to Rome knocking Paul's door and say, Paul, you should see how much these people love each other. It's fantastic. And you see the challenge for us, I assume you see the challenge for us. Let's think about it this way. If Epaphras was here tonight, you know, if Epaphras was here for a couple of months and involved in this congregation, what would he think? I mean, after spending a few weeks with us, would he be able to go away and would he be able to say, wow, Paul, you see those folks at London City Presbyterian Church? Man alive. They love each other. They clearly, clearly love each other. Now, we can laugh that off and just say, what's he talking about? That's madness. Apathos here tonight. But do you see that one true sign of spiritual life is a genuine affection for our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ? Do you see that? You know, one true sign, if we know that we are growing and increasing in spiritual maturity. A sign of that is not just if we're increasing in service. No. It's that we are increasing in our care for each other. It is a sign of spiritual maturity. There's faith. Yeah. But Paul is thanking God that those Colossians loved and loved each other. And then the third of the sort of great triumvirate here is faith, love and hope. Now there's certain things in life that you expect to see sort of side by side. Okay? You might see a little boy running around the school playground sort of stuck next to his best friend. Okay? Side by side. You might see my wife and you might see somewhere there's bound to be some sort of cake. Cupcake usually so it's something that you see expect to see together And that might be what we're thinking here Because so frequently do we see these things? faith hope and Love in scripture. We often see them side by side. Don't we Paul usually mentions these things one one after the other doesn't he? Don't make a mistake of thinking that's what's happening here because it isn't. These things here, faith, love and hope, are not sat beside each other. Paul is emphasising the last one. Paul is making a point about the last one. It is the hope here that is stressed. Paul is saying that hope is the basis of faith and love. Hope is the stress. So what does he say about it? Well here, Paul is actually thanking God that the Colossians are looking to heaven. I mean he's praising God here that these Christians have embraced the eschatological reality of their salvation. That they can see, I wonder if you'll follow me with this, they can see that their salvation is not all about the here and now with kind of heaven chucked on as a nice little cherry on top. That's not what salvation. That's not what it's about. He's praising God that the Colossians can see that the salvation that they have is about heaven. I mean, it's about the great consummation of all things. It's about spending eternity with God. And this time here, just now, this is the foreshadow. This is just a taster of what's to come. And you see that emphasis and what Paul's saying there? I honestly do not think that could be any more relevant to the church in London. The whole of the modern church. Because isn't it true that we, as Christians, or the Christian world just now in Britain, is so preoccupied with the here and now? Isn't it? I mean, we see that with the prosperity gospel, don't we? It is all about now and what we can have now. And it's the same with liberal churches, is it not? What can we do and how can we act just now? It's the same with all these big healing meetings, it's the same. We're overly concerned with the present life rather than the life to come. And do you know what's really interesting? That's no new problem because that was the problem in Colossae. See, remember those false teachers that I was talking about last week? Well, it seems that that's what they were doing. They've come into Colossae and they've said, see that gospel you've heard? Nonsense. Forget heaven. There's no heaven. It seems as though these false teachers are saying, it's all about now. Forget that future aspect. And what does Paul do? Well, Paul writes, he thanks God that the Colossians have rejected that nonsense. And he reassures them that there is a hope. And I'll say this to you, remember how we started the sermon? We said, what should motivate us as Christians? What should be that that gets us going? It's that. It's heaven that should stand ahead of us, pulling us forward. And I wonder, do you see tonight why heaven should excite you as a Christian? Do you see it? When we talk about heaven and church, we talk about the fact that there isn't going to be any pain in heaven, and there isn't going to be any suffering in heaven, and there isn't going to be any grief, and there isn't any loss, and any obstacles, and any tiredness. That's all wonderful, isn't it? But that is not why heaven should excite you tonight. Heaven should excite you Because Jesus is there. Jesus is there. We are going to a place very soon where we are going to see Jesus. And we are going to love Jesus. And we are going to spend all of our time with Jesus. Can you imagine it? And we are going to live with him. And we are going to learn from him. forever. Do you see there is heaven that it must be standing in front of us? That must be the motivation. No wonder Paul thanks God here for the reality of the Colossians sure hope of glory. So the reassurance of the hope of glory. Okay, we got it. Faith, love and hope. Okay. Second heading. Let's consider the reassurance of the completeness of the gospel. So we've had the reassurance of the hope of glory. But secondly, the reassurance of the completeness of the gospel. Okay. What do we know? Well, we know that there were false teachers. We know that these false teachers coming in and sort of dismissing the idea of heaven and future hope. There's something else going on. There's a problem in Colossae. Because it seems from these verses here that what the false teacher was doing was trying to undermine the gospel message that Epaphras had been teaching the church. Now, remember what we said last week, do you? that Epaphras was the guy who had set up this congregation. It wasn't established by Paul, it was established by Epaphras. And what doesn't have been happening is that these teachers, they come in and they say, see all that stuff that Epaphras has been teaching you about the gospel? That's nonsense. It's incomplete. That seems to be their stress. They're saying, Epaphras has taught you some stuff, but not enough. There's much more to the gospel. And the false teachers are saying, you listen to us and we will teach you the truth. Now what we find here in these verses is that Paul not only thanks God, but what he does, he also confirms the completeness of the gospel message. He says, that message of salvation that you heard from Epaphras, the message that I, Paul, taught Epaphras, that's the gospel, in its glory, in its fullness and in its completeness. Now, how does Paul do that? Well, first of all, let me ask you this. If you would look with me to verse 5, can you see what Paul calls the message that Epaphras preached? In verse 5, do you see what he calls it? He calls it the word of truth. Now, do you see how clever he is there? See what he's doing? Was it the word of truth? He's contrasting there the truth and the veracity of the gospel that Epaphras has preached with the lies of the false teachers. That's what he's doing. He's saying, you guys, hold to the truth, hold to the veracity of the message of salvation and put away the emptiness, the falsehood of all this guff you're hearing from the false teachers. And I think, honestly, if Paul was around today, Not only would he be vilified for that phrase he's just used, I think he would be put in prison. Isn't that true? Like, you can say anything you want in London. I mean, you genuinely can hold any belief you want about gender, or about sex, or about philosophy. You can hold any view you want about religion, I guess. But if you call the message of salvation in Christ true, what an affront that is to man, isn't it? I mean, how man despises that idea. You know, if it's true, by implication, other ways of salvation, other ways to God are wrong, and you can't see that. That is intolerant. That is disgusting. Man hates this idea. And yet, that is what Paul says here. And I tell you, that is an important thing for us as a congregation to hold to. The gospel message is the word of truth. And salvation is found in Christ, yes. But salvation is found in Christ alone. It's the word of truth. So Paul affirms the truth of Epaphras' message, right? How else does he reassure these Colossians here? Well get this, he also shows them that this gospel that they've heard from Epaphras is the same gospel that has come to many, many, many other people. Again, do this with me if you would. Just look at verse 6. The essence of verse 6 in the Greek is that the gospel has come to you as it has to the whole world. Now, at home, I am constantly on at my little girl, not the littlest one, the middle one. I'm always on at her for lying at the moment and exaggerating because she's only three years old but there's rarely a sort of word of truth that comes out of her mouth. It's all about how she was out in the garden playing with unicorns and things and it's very difficult to work out what is true and what is not true. Would you think that that is what Paul is doing here? I mean, do you think that this, look at, do you think it's exact, he says the gospel has come to the whole world. I mean, what's Paul, do you think he's just lying? Exaggerating? Now, I'll give him some credit. What he's doing there is trying to reassure this, this Colossian congregation that they are not the only ones believing this gospel. It's almost like he's trying to reassure them that they are not being punked, you know? That they are not the only ones here, that the gospel isn't just in their area, that it's gone to other places. You see what he's saying? He's saying, look, You know, this trust in Epaphras' message, the gospel has gone to all the major cities. It's gone to Jerusalem, Damascus, it's gone now to Greece at this stage, and it's gone to Italy, and it's gone into Persia. You see, Paul is encouraging these people. Just as I think we should be encouraged tonight, we are not the only people. There's not many in church tonight. There's not many people connected with this congregation. We should be encouraged with what Paul is saying here. That millions of people, you know, through the ages and right throughout the world, millions and millions and millions of people have heard this gospel. And not just that, that they have believed in Christ for their salvation. So he affirms the truth and he confirms that it's the same message that other people, this is the last thing tonight. To reassure the Colossians of the completeness of the gospel, Paul reminds them of the gospel's power. They're worried, perhaps, that what Epaphras has preached to them isn't the whole gospel. So he reminds these people of the gospel's power and what they've seen. Now, young people, Teenagers or people in their 20s love mirrors. Don't they? You see it in the high street. Young people love it when they sort of walk past a reflection of themselves in a shop window and they can stop and check out how they're looking. But I've found that you get to a certain age. I am now past that age where the last thing in the world you want to see is a mirror. Well, what Paul the Apostle is doing at this point is effectively picking up a mirror and holding it in front of the Colossian congregation, isn't he? Because he's saying to them, look, you want to be assured of the reality of this gospel message. You want to be assured that this gospel message is true, then what you need to do is look at yourselves. You want to know it's true. Look at what God's done amongst you. Look at what God has done within you. Look at what God has done in your whole congregation. He's saying, you know, whenever it has taken root, what does he say? This gospel has borne fruit. You know, it's resulted in good works from Christians. What else does he say? He says it's increased this gospel. It's led to people's lives being utterly, utterly changed. Paul's saying to them, as God's Word is saying to us tonight, You know, if we want to be assured of the truth of the gospel, then we need to look within on occasion. You know, is it true this gospel? Well, consider what God has done in your hard heart and consider how over the years he has chipped away at some of that hardness, hasn't he? By his grace, hasn't he? Consider how God over the years has softened you to his mercy. We look within. And I want to end like this. What we've seen tonight is that Paul was thankful that this Colossian group of believers were holding to the gospel. He's thankful about that, but he's also concerned that they would continue to do it. I just want to ask you a question as a congregation. Where do you stand on that gospel? the gospel that Epaphras is preaching here. Do you believe in it? And as Paul's thanking God that that church was changed, what about you? Do you believe has the gospel of Jesus Christ dramatically changed your life? You know, do you not just have faith But do you have faith in Christ? And if you do, I want to ask you something. I would ask you to do exactly what Paul does in these verses here. If you're a Christian, I would ask you to give God thanks. And to thank him this evening, in the quiet later on, for sending his son to die for your sin. Give God thanks for saving you. Let us trust in Christ. Faith. And let us really try and care for each other. Love, okay? And then hope. Let's focus on that day that is coming fast. That day that stands ahead of us in Jesus Christ, where for all of us who are Christians and are saved, it's going to happen where we are going to see Jesus. And we're going to know him. And we are going to live with him forevermore. Let's pray.