True Christians, True Gospel - Pastor Matt Tyler

Today on the Gospel for the Nations Church podcast,

Pastor Matt Tyler from Bangkok City Baptist Church in Thailand brings a message from Colossians chapter 1, verses 1 to 8, titled “True Christians, True Gospel.”

This passage reminds us that true Christians reflect the fruit of the Spirit, most clearly through their faith, love, and hope manifested among God’s people and around them. These Spirit-enabled graces are at the very core of our new life in Christ.

We have been transferred from darkness into the Kingdom of God.

Thank you for listening to The Gospel for the Nations Podcast.

If this message blessed and encouraged you, feel free to share it so others may also be strengthened in their walk with Christ.

To stay connected, follow Gospel for the Nations Church in Koh Samui for more teachings and updates. www.gospelforthenations.church 

May the grace, peace, and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, today and always.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, it is a great joy to be with you all this morning, and I want to be sure that you know that I'm bringing you greetings from Bangkok City Baptist Church here in Thailand. We are a church that planted just a couple years before you all did, about four or five years ago. And we want you to know that we pray for you. Even this morning, there's a church in Thailand, in Bangkok, that is praying for this church. I've been getting messages about it on my phone. You all are being prayed for. We pray for your pastor, we pray for the saints here. I hope that encourages you. And I want you to know that people don't just come to Kosum We, people also come to Bangkok. So if you ever find yourself there, you're welcome to come visit us at Bangkok City Baptist Church on this on the Lord's Day. We would love to have you. And you can just tell us, hey, I'm from Gospel for the Nations Church in Kosum Wee, and we will know who you are. I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Colossians chapter one. That's where we're going to be looking at together. If you don't have a Bible, I think I see some Bibles over here or along the sides. If you don't have one, you can grab one in the back. I'm sure I can speak for Pastor Kareem. That would be a gift to you from this church if you don't have a Bible. And if you're not familiar with the Bible, Colossians, that's the letter we're going to be looking at this morning. You can turn to the first couple pages of that Bible. You'll find a table of contents. You can look at the letter of Colossians and turn there. And we're going to start right at the beginning, Colossians chapter one. You know, if there is any place that I don't belong, it's the gym. It's the fitness center. And maybe you can tell that by looking at me. I just don't go to gyms. I don't go by myself. I don't go with other people. You know, I've been before with somebody who said that they would train me on how to use all the different weights and everything. And I, I gotta tell you, I just don't feel like I fit in there. Uh I feel like I'm not qualified to be there. I never measure up. I don't belong. And it's not just that I don't like exercise, it's that I don't know what I'm doing. And I feel like everyone in the fitness center knows that I don't know what I'm doing. And so they're just staring at me the whole time and they can see that I'm a thro a fraud. Uh and so a couple years ago, I know it's good to exercise. Uh, a couple years ago, I realized well, if I'm not gonna go to the gym, if I'm not qualified to go there, maybe I can just, maybe I can go swimming a few days a week. I mean, I've been swimming since I was a kid, uh, I know how to swim, I'll try that out. And I thought that was going okay until one day I got into a swim lane and there was a a group of uh middle schoolers next to me on one side and a 75-year-old man on the other side. And I realized I don't know how to swim either. I just kind of flail from one side to the other, and I I don't know, it's pretty embarrassing when you complete a lap, you take a rest, and then you hear the 75-year-old guy next to you say, 50 laps nonstop. And you realize, okay, I don't belong here either. I don't measure up, I'm not qualified, I might as well just give up with this kind of thing. I wonder if you ever feel that way about any aspect of your life. You're not qualified, you should just give up, you don't belong. You ever feel that way in life in any way? Do you ever feel that way as a Christian? I'm not really qualified? Or have you ever felt disqualified because of something another Christian has said to you or has done to you, maybe? You know, maybe you feel like you haven't attained a certain level of spirituality that they have? Maybe you've been made to feel that, you know, if you had only had the same kind of spiritual experiences as somebody else, or maybe if you shared a similar conversion story, or maybe if you had grown up in a Christian home, or maybe if you had disciplined yourself to follow the same practices as someone else, well, then you would be more spiritual, then you would be more qualified, then you would be a better Christian. I think sometimes we feel we don't measure up as Christians because we compare ourselves to others. And we think those Christians are better than us, that Christian over there, he truly gets it, he or she has something that I don't have. They must have access to something that I don't know about. And I think sadly, sometimes we also train ourselves that spirituality is more about how we feel because of certain things that we experience. We think that a particularly emotive worship service or maybe a quiet time out in nature, or even just a Sunday where I can come and hear God's word. I don't need to serve anybody, I just need a break. This is what I need in order to gain a spiritual blessing. I think we think that way sometimes. And I think often we worried, we're worried. Am I really qualified to be a Christian at all? You know, am I missing something? What is the secret to spiritual fulfillment that everyone else seems to have, but I don't have? Well, these are questions that Paul answers in this wonderful uh letter, the letter to the Colossian Church. Again, you can look there. We're gonna look at chapter one this morning, verses one to eight. But I would encourage you this afternoon to take your Bible and just read through this whole letter. It is a wonderfully hopeful letter. And just as we begin, I want you to look at verses one to two. This is where Paul is introducing himself. Here's what Paul says in verses one and two of chapter one. It says, 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. Paul here calls himself an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. We can imagine receiving this letter from an apostle of Jesus Christ. This is God's man. This is one who has been specifically set aside by the Lord. Would you feel intimidated by that? Would you feel like you're not qualified like he is? Like you don't and you can't measure up to the intense spirituality of God's apostle. Well, I want you to notice that Christians have the same standing before God as he does. Right at the beginning of the letter, Paul removes the spiritual distance between him and the Colossian church. He writes to them, verse 2, as saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, these are not empty words, these words form a bond that connects Paul with the Colossian Christians and with them, with us today. So you see, Paul calls them saints here. This is not a moral judgment about them. Paul is not looking at how high they are on the righteousness ladder. Oh wow, look how saintly you are. That's not what Paul's doing here. Paul had never met these Christians before, he had never visited the Colossian church. Paul was not directly involved in them becoming Christians. So there is no way that he could make a moral assessment about people that he had never met. When Paul calls them saints, he's describing a fact of what God has done in and for these believers. Paul calls them saints and faithful simply because they are in Christ. They're not saints because of what they do, they're saints because of who they belong to. You see that? You see it right at the top of this letter? Paul places them all on the same spiritual level. It is not apostles up here, you know, Timothy here, Colossian Christians here, and you and me down here. That's not what it is. It's brothers and sisters, all of us bound together as saints in Christ. Now, the Colossian Christians that Paul is writing to, they were struggling. Some people had begun to feel that they weren't truly qualified as Christians, or they weren't as qualified as other Christians. They began to feel that they were missing out on spiritual fulfillment. And these teachers, these bad teachers, had come into the church talking about how they could advance spiritually. Now, these teachers they weren't denying Jesus, they were just offering the Jesus plus package, you know, Jesus premium. That's what they have in mind. The extra stuff that you need to truly grow. So the Colossian Christians, they they had just kind of gotten the basic Netflix package, you know, the one that comes with ads. And if you really want to, if you want to watch the a show the same time as you know, your younger brother or sister, you got to go to your wealthy friend's house because you can't watch two shows at once using the same account. That's the basic Netflix package. Well, for here, these false teachers had come in and they were saying that look, you you have the Jesus basic passive package. And what you really need is Jesus premium. And when Paul hears about this, he immediately writes a letter to the Colossian church to tell them the wonderful news that there is no Jesus basic, there is no Jesus premium, there is no Jesus plus, there's just Jesus. And if you have him, you have it all. So, friends, let's look at verses three to eight together. Let me read this for us. Colossians 1, verses 3 to 8. Paul says, 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 I laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of 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 in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow saint. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. I like to give a main point of the passage. Uh hopefully it's also the main point of the sermon. Here's what I think is the main point of Colossians chapter one, verses three to eight. I think it's this. Thank God because new life is given to true Christians through the true gospel. Thank God because new life is given to true Christians through the true gospel. Paul has never met these Christians before, but as soon as he hears about them, he thanks God for them, and then he keeps thanking God for them. He wants to reassure them that they are true Christians who have received the true gospel and they can therefore thrive spiritually. And so, friends, that's our outline this morning. Paul's prayer, it reassures these believers that they are number one, true Christians, and number two, they have the true gospel. That's what I want us to think about together this morning. They're true Christians, they have the true gospel. Let's look first at verses three to five, which is where Paul describes them as true Christians. You know, how can you tell whether someone is a Christian? How do you know whether you are truly in the faith? What evidence would you point out for your Christian spirituality? I think a common response to these questions is to start poking into how often we read the Bible or how frequently we pray or how regularly we share the gospel with other people. You know, or maybe the response is to look backwards at a particular experience that you had in the past, maybe during a very emotive worship service where there's just this outburst of emotion or some kind of strong compulsion to respond. I think that's what we often think about when we consider am I a Christian? But what we must see is that when Paul writes to reassure the Colossian Christians that they are true Christians, Paul does not mention Bible reading or prayer or evangelism or any subjective experience as evidence of true Christianity. And friends, I don't think you should either. If you root authentic spirituality in the spiritual practices that you do, you're actually on shaky ground. If you point to spiritual experiences as evidence of being a true Christian, you're on shaky ground. Because what happens when you're not feeling it anymore? Now, what evidence does Paul point to to reassure that they are true Christians? What sends Paul into overwhelming gratitude to God about these believers? Look again, verses three to five. Scan your eyes over that. He says he's heard of their faith, their love, and their hope. Paul often points, Paul often brings faith, hope, and love together. He often combines faith, hope, and love as the three elements of real Christian spirituality: faith, hope, and love. A basic and sufficient description of a genuine Christian is the presence of faith, hope, and love in their lives. The fingerprints of God's work in the hearts of men and women are faith, hope, and love. Sometimes I go to these events for pastors. Um and the point of these events is for pastors to network together and talk together. That's actually where we met just a month or so ago. And inevitably, the same question gets asked, and it's an okay question. How big is your church? How much have you grown in the last year? It's a fine question. You can talk about those things. But I've come to realize that church size doesn't tell you anything about the health of the church. How are the church members demonstrating faith, hope, and love? Now that is a really interesting question. Having conversations about that, that will encourage you. That's a question I love to answer because it focuses on what God is doing. When you talk about gospel for the nation's church, is your focus on the faith, hope, and love that you see among members? And do you thank God for what you see and encourage one another by what you see, as Paul does here? Church, it is no small thing to be able to fill hours of content with stories of your faith, hope, and love, which actually is exactly what we did yesterday sitting around Pastor Kareem's house. We just told story after story of the things that God is doing in your life. Paul knows that faith, hope, and love, these things are not natural to us. Paul does not believe that faith, hope, and love can just be developed or willed up by us. I get that some people may have certain temperaments. You know, some people we might say they're born to believe, or some people may be marked by a more affectionate nature. We might say that they're loving. Other people maybe they're just their personality is a little bit more optimistic, and so we say, oh, they're they're really hopeful people. That's actually not what Paul is talking about here. Paul is not thinking about the natural man, he's thinking about the spiritual man, he's thinking about what is given by God Himself. So I actually want to look at each of these words together, one by one, and think more about them. First, a true Christian is known by their faith in Christ Jesus. That's what we read there in verse 4. True Christian is known by their faith in Christ Jesus. I have another question for you. Why does God work in a particular person's life? What is the very root reason why God works in someone's life? The answer is not because of their faith. Faith is a consequence of God's work in a person's life. Faith is a result of God's work in a person's life. Faith is given by God as a gift of his grace. That's why Paul thanks God for their faith. He doesn't thank them, he thanks God for their faith. Paul claims that God's grace has genuinely been at work among these Colossian Christians. And how does he know that? Because of the presence of faith. Faith in Jesus is unchallengeable evidence that the Spirit has worked in a person's heart. A truly spiritual person places their faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes people are called spiritual because they are religious people. Some are called spiritual because of what they give up. You know, we might think of a monk and all the things that they have given up in life. And today, a whole class of people, they wouldn't necessarily claim a particular religion, but they claim to be a spiritual person. But for Paul, merely believing in God is not sufficient evidence of a person's spirituality. Authentic spirituality is faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the object, Jesus is who faith grabs onto. And so, friends, is your faith in Jesus this morning? Now I'm not asking if you believe that Jesus existed. Is your faith in Jesus? I'm not asking if you like Jesus or love Jesus or appreciate Jesus. Is your faith in him? I'm not asking if you personally feel that Jesus is the best object of religious devotion for you. You know, for somebody else it might be Buddha or Allah or Krishna, but for you it's Jesus. That's not what I mean. That's not what I'm asking. Faith in Jesus recognizes him as the only God and the only solution for our salvation. If you believe in Jesus like this, that is clear evidence of God's work in you because people do not naturally believe that Jesus is God, the only God, the only way to salvation, the only comfort that we have in life and death. Only a work of God can get a person there. But it's not just faith in Jesus that marks these Colossians off as true Christians. It's also their love. And specifically, notice verse four it's the love that they have for all the saints. So once again, this is a love that is not natural to people. Now, naturally, most people in the world they know the joy of family love. They may even know something of a love that is self-sacrificial, but unless you belong to Jesus, you cannot know or share the love of Christian brotherhood and sisterhood. Love for God's people is a distinct gift of the Spirit that is given to every true Christian. And this is not a shallow love, it's not a sentimental love, it is a love that takes effort. It's a costly love. It's a love that identifies the needs of fellow Christians and then works to meet those needs. More than that, it is a love that is indiscriminate, meaning we don't get to choose who receives our love. It is for all the saints, verse 4. That means God chooses for us. That phrase, all the saints, it's the same phrase from verse 2, where Paul calls them saints in Christ at Colossae. It's specifically a love for the members of the church that God has placed you in. Paul thanks God because these believers love one another. He has heard about their love. Evidence of physical love for fellow church members so abounds in Colossi that Paul hears about it even while he is in prison over 1900 kilometers away. They meet each other's needs. Paul says this is indiscriminate love for God's people. They're not showing favoritism. That is compelling evidence that they are true Christians. Love for fellow believers who are different from you is so counter to human nature that it surely points to the Holy Spirit's work in your life. And so, friends, this is why when I meet professing Christians who refuse to commit themselves to a local church, they just won't submit to one. I actually have to wonder if they're truly Christians. I literally pray for God to change their heart, maybe convert them if they're not converted. On the other hand, when I encounter Christians in the church who doubt, you know, they doubt the sincerity of their faith, or they struggle with assurance, or maybe they're fearful of falling away. But I see their love and concern and service towards fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray for them. I don't want them to doubt, but I also don't worry too much about them. Because their love for God's church is evidence of the Spirit's work in their life. Your love for one another displays the fingerprints of God in your life. So when you serve in the children's ministry each week, or when you intentionally have spiritual conversations with one another, even if it feels a little awkward or embarrassing, or when you spend time together during the week praying for one another, or when you bring each other meals or serve one another in particular ways, or when you meet up one to one over lunch or coffee to read the Bible or discuss the sermon or just pray together. Friends, when you mourn with another who is in sorrow, or you rejoice with another who is rejoicing in their own triumphs, when you encourage one another spiritually, when you forgive one another, when you persevere with one another's annoying quirks, which surely somebody's face has popped into your mind when I've said that. When you do these things, none of these acts of love are overlooked by God. None of them are insignificant. They are evidence of God's fingerprints at work in this community. You love each other because you are true Christians. I wonder what ways you are going to find to love each other this week. Friends, be on the lookout for evidence of this church's love and thank God for it when you see it, because it means he is at work in you. Faith and love. The Spirit gives these qualities to true Christians. And by God's grace, faith brings Christians into a relationship with Jesus. Love brings them into a relationship with his people on earth. And then Paul highlights a third quality here. He highlights hope. True Christians hope. They enjoy hope in heaven. The mark of a true Christian is the hope they have stored up in heaven. Now I want to show you something that fascinated me when I was studying this passage. This is something I had to really think about. Look at verse 5. So Paul says he's heard of their faith in Jesus Christ, their love for all the saints, verse 5, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. So their faith and love spring from their hope in heaven. You see that? I expected to read that their love for others and their hope in heaven grows in the soil of faith in Jesus. That's what I expected to read. Love and hope come from faith. That's not what Paul says. Here, the cornerstone for your faith and love is hope. You know, everyone, everyone wants hope. If you lose hope, it's hard to go on in life. Most people survive in this world with a very shaky hope. Their hope rests on tentative, fleeting, unstable realities. And so if it disappears, they have to quickly find something else to rest their hope on, usually something just as unstable, or they give up. I mean, it's not really even hope. It could easily lead to disillusionment in their lives or frustration in their lives. The Bible describes the Christian's hope as stable. It rests on an ultimate future. Christian hope is a confident assurance of the blessings that God has in store for us. It's a hope, notice in verse 5, that comes out of the gospel, right? The stable, certain work of what Jesus accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection. The Christian hope is born out of promises that have been guaranteed by resurrection, by a man who has come back from the dead. See, that's the difference between Christian hope and worldly hope, between wishful thinking and guaranteed, stored-up realities that have been won by the God who raises the dead. Christian hope is stable because right now, today, our God lives. But hope is a line from God to us, drawing us towards Him. And I think that's right. I think that's what Christian hope is. It comes from God, it rests with God, it is future-oriented. And look, I think that means, church, that there is something we need to understand, something vital for our lives, something so radically different from the perspective of this world that I think Christians even have trouble remembering it. In fact, if you don't learn what I'm about to say, I think you're going to end up with the same uh disillusionment and frustration that comes with wishful thinking. Here it is. Most of the great things won for us by Christ come in the next life. Most of the great things won for us by Jesus come in the next life. If you look for a fullness of life in this world that in reality only belongs to the next, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. And the same is true of our spirituality. If you look for a fullness of spiritual life in this world that in reality only belongs in the next, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Most of the great things won for us by Jesus comes in the next life, not in this one. You know, this life is filled with many hardships. There are many trials in this life. Things do not go as planned. The Christian life, it can be difficult. There are doubts and there's depression and there's loneliness and there's feeling, sometimes, even that God is absent. Faith in Jesus will not save you from a hard life. Likely, it will actually make your life harder. It will increase your trials. Faith in Jesus does not mean that you will receive everything you want in this life. Name it and claim it in Jesus' name. That is not the antidote to the challenges of life. The antidote to the challenges of life is the hope of what is to come in the next. Without hope in heaven, you will become disillusioned and frustrated with God when you don't receive everything you want, when life does not go as planned, and when faith is hard. So, friends, how much time do you give to thinking about heaven? You know, do you spend more time wishing to have things in this world that have not been promised than you do thanking God for the certain gifts that will certainly be yours in the next? The only things God has promised in this life are the precious foretastes of what is to come in the next. Nearly all of God's promises come in the next life. Now, when we realize that, when our hope is in heaven, that frees us up to enjoy the gifts that God does give in this life. And that's why I think faith and love spring from hope. Faith in Jesus that gives fellowship with God. Love gives us fellowship with God's people. These are precious gifts, but they are foretasts. It's merely the appetizer for the fellowship feast reserved in heaven for us. Whatever present joys we have with God and his people, these are precious foretastes of what is to come. They're appetizers, they're not the main meal. Our faith and our love anticipate the far greater gifts that are reserved for our future when we see God with our eyes face to face. Hope in heaven, hope for what is next. That fosters faith in Jesus. It fosters love for God's people because it's the closest taste that we can get to the glorious life that is to come. So, friends, faith in Jesus, love for God, hope in heaven. How can you tell whether someone is a Christian? What evidence would you point to for your own genuine Christian spirituality? Not subjective experience, not subjective actions, that just leads to hand-wringing and uncertainty and fear. It's subjective. Do you have faith in Jesus today? Do you love God's church? Are your hopes with Jesus in heaven rather than in this life? Faith, hope, and love. That is true Christian spirituality. And these things, faith, hope, and love, they come through the true gospel. That's our second point a little bit more briefly. They come from the true gospel. Look again at verses five to eight. Paul says, You have heard before in the word of truth the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world, it is bearing fruit and increasing as it 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. So Paul wants them to see that the presence of faith, hope, and love they come from the gospel that saved them, which should just give them confidence in the gospel that has been proclaimed and continues to be proclaimed to them. Most likely, there were people that had come into the Colossian church that he began to cast doubts on whether the Colossian Christians had received the full gospel message. And what they're saying is if you want to truly grow, there's something else you need to hear. You're missing something, something that will help you be more spiritually fulfilled. So certain teachers were casting doubt on the gospel message that they heard. Now, according to verse 7, Epaphorus was the first to evangelize the Colossian Christians. Then he took that same gospel back to his hometown of Colossae, he shared it there until people believed. And that's when the Christian church in Colossae was born. But now Paul has never visited Colossae, and it would have been very easy for these teachers to come in and say, oh, well, Epaphras, he actually left something out. And if you just listen, we'll tell you what you really need to hear. I don't want you to underestimate the seriousness of what these teachers were doing. They wanted to add to the gospel message. And what Paul does is he is aiming to reassure the believers that the gospel they heard from Epaphrist, that was the true message. That is a sufficient message, that is a powerful message. If the gospel is proclaimed in this body of believers, week in and week out, it is sufficient for you to grow. And so, friends, do you know what the gospel is? You know, what is the gospel? I want you to summarize the gospel in your head. If you don't know how to answer that question, it's possible that you're not a Christian. I'm not trying to offend you or anything, it just doesn't mean that something's deficient in you. It simply means that maybe you haven't heard the gospel. Because the gospel is foundational for Christians. Hearing the gospel and then receiving it by faith, that's what makes somebody a Christian. And not only that, look at verse 6. It says the gospel bears fruit in the lives of those who receive it, and the gospel helps people to understand God's grace. Every one of us in this room needs to hear and know the gospel. And we need to believe the gospel if we want to enjoy the hope of heaven and a right relationship with God. So, what is the gospel? Well, notice in verse 5 the gospel is a word, it is a message. Christianity is about a message. People do not become Christians because of where they were born or which parents they were born to. People don't become Christians by birth. People become Christians when they hear a specific message and then they believe it. Christianity is a religion of preaching and teaching that calls for listening and understanding and a response. The power of Christianity, it doesn't reside in actions or deeds. The power of Christianity resides in God drawing close to his people by the proclamation of a message, a word. And notice also in verse 5 the gospel is a true message. It is truth, absolute and final. The gospel of Jesus Christ did not come from human imagination or invention. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not one religious message among many other valid religious messages. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth, which means, according to the Bible, every other religion is wrong. Christianity alone has the true message. We might say that it's the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. And because of that, we must not add to it, we must not subtract from it, or we will do serious harm in people's lives. Now I recognize that this is kind of a bold claim. It might be scandalous to anyone in here who's not a Christian. This is a claim that has been scandalous since Christianity began at the resurrection of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. It's why Paul was in prison when he wrote this book. It's why Paul would eventually be killed. Christianity alone possesses and preaches the truth that comes from God. It is absolute and it is universal and it is for all people. And it is precisely because the gospel message is the truth at verse 6, it is proclaimed throughout the whole world. From the beginning, the Christian gospel has been a message for all people in all places and all contexts. Paul preached it in Ephesus. Epaphros heard it, he believed, he took it back to him, he took it back with him to Colossae, he preached it, people believed. Paul then traveled to Rome. The gospel had already reached there, and people believed, and it has continued to spread to this day, so that today there is not a country on earth where you will not find a Christian. And you know, if we had time, I would tell you, I would encourage you with the gospel fruit that we're seeing in Bangkok, just as you're seeing gospel fruit here. I would love to sit down and tell you about my friend Nat, a formerly Thai Buddhist man who has recently renounced that religion, has become a Christian, and in a couple weeks will be baptized in a Thai church. I could tell you about Gavin, a Chinese brother who has left atheism behind and is now a Christian as of just a couple months ago. We'll baptize him, Lord willing, in a couple of weeks. I could tell you about Raj, a Hindu Indian who about a year ago took all the false gods and idols that were in his house and he threw them away. And today he is professing faith in Jesus. Church, the same gospel that increased and bore fruit then increases and bears fruits today. It is a message for the whole world, but it is also a message that is bearing fruit and growing here among you. Do you believe that? Brothers and sisters, do not doubt the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think sometimes we have trouble seeing evidence of the gospel's power and growth in us. And maybe the fight against sin has been a battle in your life. Maybe life has been hard for you. Maybe the church has struggled in some ways, but Paul is confident in verse 6 the gospel bears fruit and it increases among you since the day you heard it. That faith, hope, and love that we talked about earlier is evidence of the gospel's growth in your life. And you know the gospel will also grow among you as you commit yourself to and discipline yourself for evangelism. The gospel will bear fruit. Put all of these truths together, and you find that the gospel is a true message that bears fruit. It grows everywhere that it is proclaimed, all over the world. And so, Christians, let us proclaim the gospel together. Epaphoros believed because Paul proclaimed, the Colossians believed because Epaphoros proclaimed, and you have believed because someone proclaimed it to you. Who? Someone. It's true. It bears fruit, it grows, it's meant for the whole world. Nothing else comes with these kinds of guarantees. So, friends, let's proclaim the gospel together. I know that can be hard. Evangelism can be really difficult. Let me just maybe begin to close by giving you one way you can grow in evangelism. Become the kind of person that constantly has the gospel on your lips. As you interact even with fellow believers, work gospel encouragements into your conversations. As you talk on Sundays after church, remind one another that Jesus died to defeat sin. When you talk with your family at the dinner table each night, apply gospel truths to the events of the day. Let the gospel become a normal part of your conversation. And when you do that, you'll find that it naturally overflows into your conversations with non-Christians. And the Lord will use it to save some. Friends, what is this message that saves? Notice in verse 6 the gospel is something that helps us understand God's grace. The gospel is the message that God, because of his deep well of grace, saves people in Christ. The gospel is a message that tells us it's not about your commitment to God, but his commitment to you in Christ. And look down at verse 13. I know we didn't read that earlier. It's a wonderful summary of the gospel. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. I like to think of the gospel with four words: God, man, Christ response. God created us to live underneath his good rule. He is our authority. He created mankind in his image, but man, we disobeyed God. We rejected his authority, and now we are underneath the judgment of God and deserve only death. And yet, God in love and grace sent Jesus into the world. Jesus is truly God, truly man. He lived a perfect life. He died on the cross for sinners. He rose from the dead. And now, if you respond by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus, you will be transferred from a domain of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Friends, I would exhort you to trust in Jesus this morning. And then together let us thank God because new life is given to true Christians through the true gospel. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the faith in Jesus Christ that we see among the believers in this room. We thank you for your spirit in working love for brothers and sisters into their hearts. We thank you, Father, for giving real and true hope, a lasting hope, a hope that comes from you, a hope that is secured in heaven. And oh God, we thank you for the gospel message that Jesus Christ died for sinners and rose from the dead. And we thank you that it is because of this message, when we have faith, we have Jesus, and that is all we need for spiritual fruitfulness. Oh Lord, by your spirit we pray you would use your gospel to make us more like Jesus until the day that we see you face to face. And we pray these things, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Thank the Lord for using you as a vessel of pain. We are nothing. We are here. Otherwise it won't be called the good news. So yes, this is the good news of our soul. Jesus came to say our soul. The invisible part of our being. But the fruits of the spirit have to be visible to each one of us. So before we finish the service, we have a last song as well. And so I call the Washington team to play the last song with the location lesson all of us.