Thankful for the Gospel

What is the most essential thing you need? What is it that you need above everything else? Now, if we're thinking just purely in the material world in terms of what we need to sustain life, air, food, water, shelter, I think relationships need to be added to that list of just bare essentials. Everything beyond air, food, water and shelter, these are the things that enhance life. Now, we think these are things we need. Indoor plumbing, hot water. These are things that enhance life. They're not things we need for life. A shovel, an axe, a hammer. These are things that help us. As we progress, we have things that make life better. These things make life easier. And the world is constantly promising, if you just add this, your life will be better. Your life will be more enjoyable. We constantly add to the most bare essentials things that enhance life. And this is good, unless we buy into that everything we add really does make life better. The real danger of this is that we can take this mentality to Christianity. There's something we can always be adding to Christ. If we just had that other secret ingredient, if there was just something else, if there was something else we could do plus Christ, it has to be better. Because that's how we've always known life to be. There's a real danger in this, because once we add anything to Christ, we lose Him. Nothing makes Christianity more enjoyable. Once we start adding anything to Christ, we lose Him. You see, here's the message of Colossians. Christ is all I need, and I need to want nothing else. Christ is all I need, and I need to want nothing else. See, it's a danger to think all I need to do is add that little something. And in Christianity it would be easier, it would be more enjoyable, but no, what we need is more of Christ. Or rather, what we need to do is put more of our affections and more of our trust and more of our faith in Him. Now, I say that's the theme of Colossians. Christ is all I need and I need to want nothing else. Really, that could summarize the entire scripture. I want to look at this statement because we're going to hear it over and over again as we begin our study of Colossians. There's the objective truth. Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. It's his death, his resurrection, his life. He's all I need. That's really the easy part to confess, we can know that to be true, the second part of this message is the hard one. I need to want nothing else. Will I truly commit to only wanting him? Will I truly commit to only needing him? Can I bend my heart? Can I discipline myself to say Christ is sufficient? Because he is all I need. And once we start adding anything to Christ, we lose the joy of Christianity. That's how we're going to begin our study in Colossians, you can turn there, I've challenged the church to be memorizing this book with us. If you find that challenge daunting, feel free to memorize at your own pace or just read the book in its entirety every week. That would be another way that you can enjoy more our study of Colossians. Let me do a brief overview of the city and the settings so that we can we can appreciate what Paul is going to be saying for the rest of our time here. He's writing the book to Colossae. It's a It's probably the most insignificant city that Paul wrote a letter to. He actually wrote two. Colossians is sent with Philemon to the city. Philemon was the homeowner of where the church met in Colossae. And so he sends Philemon and the book of Colossians together. They were written during prison. We don't know which imprisonment it is. The city was lost in the 10th century. There's different things that happened. One would be that there were a lot of earthquakes. So maybe there was such a devastating earthquake that the city was in ruins and beyond repair. The other thing is that there was a trade route change. And so this would be very damaging to Colossa. Who are the inhabitants? We can profile them fairly easily. See, there were three cities close to one another. There's Hierapolis and Laodicea. Colossae was really the most common of the cities. John Conley could live here. John Conley is the author of The Country Song. I'm just a common man driving a common van. My dog don't have no pedigree. There's really nothing special about Colossae. Hierapolis is the educational center. Laodicea is the political center. It's a producing city. It's not a consuming city. They were actually known for Colossus wool. It was a deep, dark, dyed wool that this city was known for producing. And it would be picked up on the trade route to Ephesus, maybe even Rome. And so it's really very similar to the 1980s textiles towns of the Carolinas. They were producing something at one time and they were producing at a great level and so they had a good lifestyle, but then for circumstances outside of their own control, those products were either made cheaper or brought in from somewhere else. It's important for us to know that these folks are blue-collar workers. They're not the people from the political center. They're not the people from the educational center, because when we look at Colossians, that's actually one of the more deep philosophical and deep theological books. He's writing it to shepherds, he's writing it to workers, he's writing it to common folk. This isn't written to a D.C. or a New York or Chicago, it's written to like a Pittsburgh or a Cleveland. So if you look at the deep truth that Paul's going to share here, I just want to warn us to not say, keep this over my head. I don't want to go that deep into the theological truth and the philosophical truth. He's writing this to your average blue collar worker. These are truths that are meant for all the church to love. So this isn't high truth for high people. This is God's truth for God's people. So what was the problem Paul was seeking to address with this letter to the Colossians? Primarily, the Colossians were adding something to Christ, the rules and regulations, they were adopting little bits and pieces from all the different religions of the area. So they had rules and regulations that were added, but also they were adding something in terms of a hierarchy to Christ that there were other mediators that would help you get to Christ and get to the father. So he is. pointing out, most importantly, the perfectly sufficient Savior. We see that most of all, as we will look ahead to Colossians 1 15 through 20. It's the great hymn that exalts Christ as a great creator and great Savior of all. Paul never visited the city. That we know of, at least he's writing to them from prison. He is sending Tychicus with Onesimus. And so this is actually one of the letters that we know a little bit more about in the sense that if you flip over and you can see Philemon, there's a wonderful picture here. As Tychicus and Onesimus are walking up the road, they know Onesimus has left the city. He's fled his master. Philemon was his slave owner of Anisimus. And so here you see the letter carrier and Anisimus walking up the road in the city would be a buzz, especially the church. And then we can just picture Tychicus, right, reading this letter aloud to the Colossians and to Philemon and his household. Let's look at our salutation. 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 is setting himself out with authority as an apostle by the will of God. It isn't an authority that he has inherit to himself. It's because God has given him the authority. He is the apostle who was untimely born. Timothy is with him, a dear brother of Paul, as we know from his his his missionary travels and his other letters. The recipients The Church of Colossae are described in two ways to the saints and the faithful brothers. These are two very important descriptions and identifiers of the church. See, oftentimes we think of saints in the wrong way because of the Roman Catholic Church, they have decreed that certain people who are super holy and super spiritual, they're the saints, St. Augustine and St. Athanasius, you have to really accomplish something to be a saint. No. The only thing that qualifies you to be a saint is that you believe in Jesus Christ. A saint is someone who is set apart by God and for God. So you're all saints. Everyone who has believed in Jesus Christ is a saint. Now, we don't need to start calling Saint Mike and Saint Sherry. That would be a little awkward. But we do have to recognize that it's all it's all of our identities. Being a saint isn't the super spiritual. Being a saint is just the gift that you receive from God when he calls you out of darkness and into his light. He also calls them faithful brothers, another key identifier. We are all united as brothers. Now, oftentimes we'll make this gender inclusive and I'll say brothers and sisters, because I do want to make sure all of our our men and our women feel like they are part of the family. But it really loses the fact that we're all brothers because we all get to share in the inheritance of the firstborn son, the only begotten son. And we'll see why that is so important that we all share in the brotherhood. We all share in the firstborn inheritance when we look at that Christ hymn in verses 15 through 20. Finally, his greeting is very typical of Paul in many of his letters. Grace and peace to you from God, our father. So it's a bit of a Greek blessing with the grace and then a bit of a Hebrew blessing with the peace. It's grace and peace, grace, the great gift and blessing of God that you do not deserve and peace, the shalom that God originally created us with and that we have lost. But yet he is restoring. Let's look to our body where we're going to focus the rest of our attention today versus three through eight. 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 truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world, it is bearing fruit and increasing as it is also so, 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. Now, let's look at this just briefly and as a as a full text, because this is actually one long run on sentence from Paul. I assume most of our English translations, there's a couple of periods in there. Those actually aren't there for Paul. He just kind of he starts out strong and then he kind of keeps going and just as and just as and just as and just the things we can't actually do in English. It's it's acceptable in Greek. If we were to write this way in English, we would all fail our teachers classes. There's only one verb, there's only one main verb in the entire. Section the entire paragraph. We thank God. That's the only verb he gives everything else modifies that we thank God this passage is about his thankfulness to God. There's two key modifiers for this Thanksgiving. He says he he thanks God when he prays for them. So that's the occasion for the thankfulness, he is thankful when he is praying and then he gives the ground for the faith, for the thankfulness, faith, love and hope. Now, many of you are thinking, well, that was out of order, you're supposed to say faith, hope and love. Yet Paul connects all three of those here in Colossians, whereas we're used to the other the other the other organization from Corinthians here. He is thankful to God because of the faith of the church, the love they have for one another and the hope set before them in heaven. Then in verse five is really where this verse goes berserk in terms of grammar and syntax. Of this, you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. The next few verses just continue to declare about the gospel, the faith, the hope and the love that you have, because you have heard of it in the gospel, the word of truth. And notice how he starts up narrow that you heard that is also going on to all the world that you receive from a path. He starts narrow, goes bold and wide, and then he comes back. So the end is just a great declaration where Paul seems to get very excited just as the gospel has come to you, just as it's going on in all the world, just as you heard from Epaphras. He's a faithful minister. So if you look at the text, there's one verb, the participles, and then we see just a great focus on the gospel and it's going out. Our first Point this morning is this. The gospel makes us thankful to God. The gospel makes us thankful to God. Again, the main verb in the entire section, we always think God Paul declares thankfulness is actually a key theme, a key motif throughout this entire book or this entire letter. Look down in verse 12. He's he says. Giving thanks to the father who was qualified you to share in the inheritance of the Saints of the Earth, he says that he is praying that they would be thankful. Verse Chapter 2 verse 7. He exhorts them. To be thankful. Chapter 3 verse 15 he ends and just declares and be thankful. And then he continues in verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell on you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Chapter four, verse two continues steadfastly in prayer again, an exhortation to pray, being watchful in it with Thanksgiving. Paul is exhorting them to be thankful. Being thankful is a key characteristic of being a Christian. We could turn over to Romans 121 and see the importance of thankfulness. As Paul is describing the demise of humanity, as Paul is describing the fall of humanity and how we continue to grow in a rebellion, he describes us this way. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. Some of the chief marks of our rebellion is we stop thanking God. We start expecting him to give us things instead of thanking him for giving us things, we start assuming that we deserve everything we receive instead of realizing that every gift comes down from God. A key characteristic of a Christian is that they are thankful. It's a clear mark that we acknowledge God and we thank him for all that we have. More particularly, Paul just isn't thankful, he has a clear objective in his thankfulness. Paul thanks the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now here, Paul, he's thankful for the Gospel. He's thankful for the God who is both Father and Son. He is not denying in any way the deity of the Son. You can listen to two sermons ago to explain the, for my explanation of the Father-Son language. But here we can see the most basic level that he is thankful that God, the father, has sent his son. He's thankful for the word of truth because it gives direction. He's thankful for the word of truth, the gospel, because it guides us and directs us towards happiness. He thanks God for the gospel because it is light in the midst of darkness. It is truth in the midst of lies. He's thankful because the gospel forgives us. of our sins. He's thankful for the gospel because it gives us rest. One of the most important things to see here in Colossians is that he's thankful to God because the gospel unites all the saints, all the brothers under the one head, Jesus Christ. See, he's thanking God when he's praying for the Colossians, and these Colossians are most likely Greeks. Here's a Jew, a Hebrew of Hebrews, thanking God. For these Greek believers. Now, in the Old Testament, the Jews were seeking and asking God, when are you going to destroy the heathens, when are you going to bash their heads against the rocks? But here we see a Hebrew, a Jewish man thanking God that the nations are coming to him. You see the gospel. It makes us all equal under the heads of of Christ. Does it matter our race, our background, our nationality? All are equal. It unites us together. He is thankful to God because these brothers were once far off. They were once walking in the domain of darkness, and now they have been brought to the kingdom of light. After we see the beauty of the gospel, we can only respond with thankfulness. So I ask you this morning. Are you thankful? Does thankfulness mark your life? Would people look at you and say he's a thankful person? How would they describe you and how far on the list would they have to get until they said they're thankful? Are you overwhelmed with the joy of the gospel? Or has the gospel become so routine and regular that you take it for granted? The gospel produces Thankfulness. Now, what does thankfulness look like? Oftentimes, we think being thankful looks like we're yelling and screaming and shouting for joy. I don't think that's what gospel thankfulness typically looks like. Because when we have gospel thankfulness, we really are seeing our sin, how far we're removed from God and how far he came to us. And we see that we are completely undeserving We become overwhelmed. It's actually a speechlessness to it. It's a deep, quiet contemplation. Being thankful is being overwhelmed into speechlessness because of the great gift we have received in Christ. Ask you again, are you thankful? So you would look at me and say, How can you ask me if I'm thankful? You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know the trials and the tests that I'm in right now. How can you ask me if I'm thankful? Well, friends, this is Paul in prison. Full of thankfulness, he doesn't know if his life is going to be taken from him or not. He doesn't know, but one thing he always directs us to is the fact that we're not thankful for our circumstances. We are called to be thankful in every circumstance. Because no matter what our circumstances are, God has given us his gospel. So it's not our circumstances that make us thankful, it's actually the gospel, despite what our circumstances are, that makes us thankful. Let's consider our thankfulness again. We see Paul's thankfulness constantly come out in his prayers. How do your prayers articulate thankfulness? Are your prayers marked more by what you want God to give you? Or marked by what God has given you and what you are thankful for? Are your prayers more focused on what you want God to give you? Or are they marked by what God has already given you in the gospel, which will produce thankfulness? Do you thank God for the gospel that's evident in other people's lives? Or is it constantly what he can do for you? Paul's thankfulness should lead us to want to be more thankful. Well, how can we be more thankful first? Be committed to the word. Be committed to the word of God as as Steve preached for so boldly and clearly last week. The word produces in us a desire for God. It protects us from the sin that brings about bitterness. The word is where we see the promises of God for which we are so thankful. And the word is what gives us the truth that protects us from bitterness. So first, if you want to be more thankful, read God's word stored in your heart. It will produce thankfulness. Secondly, be more involved in other people's lives. Be involved in other people's lives so that you can see what God is doing in them and see how God will use them to bless you. Be more in their lives so you can thank God and see the work they're doing in them. We are called to share in each other's joys and trials, and that will help us be more thankful. Third, Be more involved in mission work. There's nothing that makes us more thankful for the gospel than to hear someone cry out and call upon the Savior for the first time. It reminds us of the joy we have. It reminds us of the hope we have. We need to be more involved in the outreach in our own community, and we need to be more involved in mission work that is bold with the gospel. That's how we can be more thankful. Be more committed to his word that gives us the promise of that that produces Thanksgiving. Be more involved in other believers lives and be more involved in proclaiming his gospel outward. The second. Point of our text this morning is that the gospel bears fruit. We see this in verse four. The gospel bears fruit. He is thankful because he has heard of their faith in Christ Jesus. and of the love that they have for the Saints. Here's two fruits. There's thankfulness that was a fruit, but there's two other fruits here. He focuses on. He is pointing out the fact that the gospel brings about faith. And he's pointing out the fact that the gospel produces a love among the brethren among the Saints. First, let's look at the fact that the gospel brings about faith. Say. It's very similar to the theme of Colossians I stated earlier. Christ is all I need and I need to want. I want, I need to want nothing else. There's the truth and then there's the fact that I've got to put my faith in him. I've got to trust him. I've got to rely upon him. We need to rely upon Christ and that is all. Now, if you're not a Christian here this morning. Do you believe the gospel? Now I can hear you asking the question, why would you believe the gospel? Why should you believe the gospel? And I answer that question, another question. What else are you going to believe? What else is there that would give you hope? What else is there that would actually solve your problem, which is sin? Let's walk through the options. One option you have that you can believe is that there is no God. We all just happen to be here by chance. If that's really what you believe, I think you're fooling yourself. And I think you even know you're fooling yourself. Life is beautiful. We were created to live. We were created to have life. And all you have to do is go to a funeral and see how unnatural and destructive and disharmonious that is. We were created to have life and to enjoy life. Life is beautiful and complex. It demands a designer. It demands a creator. Life is beautiful. That's why we should go to death or to funerals often to be reminded that death is a harsh reality that is opposed to how we were created to live. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. We should rejoice with births. If you've ever been to a birth, it's miraculous. It's amazing all the things that take place to bring about this very fragile life. If you're denying God's existence, I believe you're only doing so to reject him because of your love for sin. So I'm going to assume there is a God. I believe we all know there is a God and that we were created to have life. So that leaves us with two options. Well, at least with one clear option, there is a God and we will have to give an account. For what we have done. Now, I know that there's a lot of other options between those two, but this is the really main focus, and this is what every world religion teaches. There is a God. He is good and we will have to give an account. Every religion other than Christianity says this, though. You need to have enough good deeds that way your bad deeds. You need to have a balance so that you do enough good to outweigh your bad. We all know we sin. We all know there's evil, but we fool ourselves into thinking, if I just do enough good, God will accept me and he'll overlook my my bad. The problem with this is there's no way to remove the taint of sin once we're committed to it. There's no way to remove the wrath of God that is on our sin of rebelling against him. Again, we're we're fooling ourselves to think that we can actually remove sin by being better, we fool ourselves by thinking we can remove the bad by being good. Though God is holy and he calls us to be holy, even our efforts to be more righteous are self-righteous and bring more condemnation upon us. We can do nothing that pleases God. This is why the gospel truth is so unique. The word of truth that is the gospel, it is unique because it says you don't have to work to make yourself better and more presentable to God. It says somebody else will do that for you. The gospel says that God himself will do it for you. See, the gospel says that Jesus Christ is God himself who came down to take upon himself a humanity just like ours, except for sin. He was the one innocent, righteous person that pleased God, that had a life that was pleasing to God, that was perfectly obedient. But he was put to death. Because if we believe in him, God will no longer judge us for our sin. God will judge him for our sin. See, he's a perfect substitute. We don't have to make ourselves better. God makes us better. God forgives us of our sin. He nails it to the cross. That's the beauty of the gospel, friends. God comes and stands in our place. He dies on our behalf. We no longer have to follow rules and regulations to make ourselves fit for God. We place our faith in Christ. Now, what does it mean to place your faith in Christ? Actually, I have a great illustration from a recent event. We went hiking, Ben and the Hodge boys and I. And I carried a big backpack. And it got really heavy. And Chris Hodge, who's way more fit than I, He's sitting there without a backpack. And so I asked Chris, would you carry my backpack? That backpack was weighing on me, it was heavy. And I had to humble myself and belittle myself and admit that I was struggling and give him the backpack. And boy, was it worth it. Because there was a lot of big, steep hills up ahead that I didn't know about and he didn't know about. See, I completely released that weight and I put it on Chris. I leaned upon him. I relied upon him. I gave the whole thing over to him. And then he cared. That's what we do with our sin. We stop walking around with the guilt. We start walking around with the wrath of God looming over our head. We start walking around with our sin debt. And we give it to Christ, who nails it to the cross by allowing Himself to be nailed to it. We trust Him with our sin, with our death, with the guilt that we have. And He takes it away. We rely upon Him. We lean upon Him. We trust Him. It takes humility. Takes humility. I need someone from outside of myself. I cannot bear this load alone. Friends, Christ is that good friend. He is that big brother who takes away our sin and the wrath of God, but only. When we believe in. Christian. Do you believe the gospel? Have you truly released that sin debt to Christ? Do you have peace that you no longer have to please God with your life in the sense that you earn righteousness, but you've truly released it all? You lean upon him. Do you have peace? Or do you continue to be restless and wondering if you have been good enough to receive God's grace? Do you have rest? Or do you continue to add rules and regulations that keep you in fellowship with Christ? Give him your burden. The second fruit that we see from our text is that there is a love for all the Saints. There is a love for all the Saints. We are called to be united in love to one another because we're a family of brothers and sisters. We are all under the headship of Christ. Now, at one level, there's a universal church. That's all saints, all believers in all places at all times. Here we are a local church. This is a microcosm of the of the universal church. This is a group of believers that have gathered for the purpose of loving one another and communing and fellowshipping with one another. Every Christian, I believe, is called to be committed to a local body. That is the only way that we can love all the saints. In the way that Paul is calling us to here, see, it's an agape love. And that word should bring in our heads, it's a love like Christ has for the church, it's a love that lays down its life for one another. It's not a love that we can have for all saints. I believe he's actually speaking of every kind of saint. One of the key things we're going to see or one of the key messages of Colossians is that there is no Greek, there is no barbarian, there is no male, there is no female, there is no slave, there is a free in Christ, we're all united. There's not all different kinds of saints, we're all saints, the only thing that unites us and qualifies us together is the fact that we believe in Christ. We are called to be committed to his body. We're called to follow him. Now, someone may ask him, but if you said we can't add anything to Christ, isn't adding the church, adding something to Christ, adding church membership and being committed to a body, isn't that adding to Christ? Well, no. Christ constituted the church. Christ, the head said that he's got a body and that we're supposed to be committed to that body under his headship. So there's two extremes we can go. We can have a bodiless head. Well, we're a lone ranger Christian relying upon the Savior and not worrying about being committed to anybody else. That's one error where we do not get involved deeply in others lives. The second error is to have a headless body or become a social organism for good works, not following the proclamation of the gospel as our chief end. Friends, we are called to be under the head of Christ by belonging to a body. If we're truly belonging to a gospel body, a a body of saints committed to the head of Christ, it only produces more love for Christ and only produces more dependence upon Christ. Here's three characteristics of the love. That we should have for other saints within the church. This is how we can be more thankful for the gospel as we fellowship with one another. The first thing we should see, we should know about the love that we're supposed to have for the other saints is that it is not a selfish love, it's a sacrificial love. Again, this is modeled after Christ. He lays down his life for his brothers. We are called to lay down our lives for one another. We don't love when it's convenient We love because it's a calling. And the more we're gripped with the gospel, the more we're going to want to love others with a sacrificial love, one that doesn't only do it when it's convenient, one that is loving. Under compulsion because of the love we first received in Christ. Secondly, it's not a casual love. It's a committed love. It's not a casual love, it's a committed love. So I believe we have to be committed to one another. Because in order to truly love one another, we have to know one another. As a dear friend said Thursday, good relationships take time. There has to be a clear commitment to one another to say, I'm going to know you in order to love someone best, you need to know their frailties. Their sin, their typical temptations, their scars, their problems, their gifts, their strengths, their abilities. I hope we all love our spouses more over time because we've gotten to know them better. It's the same way in the church, we should be able to love one another more as we spend more time together. It has to be a committed love. A love that's seeking out the well-being of others and ourselves. This is why we We preach church membership. Because I think that defines the relationship and the expectation, I know who I'm responsible for and they know that they're responsible for me. I know who else is responsible for me. It commits us to being submissive to others. That's the scary part. We have to be submitting to one another as Paul commands in Ephesians. Something that's not to be done flippantly or casually. Loving the Saints is a love that is a commitment. Finally, it's not a discriminating love. It's a focus love. When Paul says all the Saints, he's meaning every kind of Saint. He's saying every get everyone who gathers, it doesn't divide us according to age, social status, race or class. You see, a church is supposed to be made up of all different kinds of people, and that's the beauty of a true church of Christ. We're all united, not because we're part of a social organization, we're not all gathered and committed to one another because we belong to a certain class or race. No, we're all committed because we're all under the headship of Christ. That overcomes the social status, the age, the race and the class. This is why it cannot be a convenient love. My fear is that if one does not commit to a particular body of saints, you typically would just love those who are like us in other spheres of life. Let me continue, we'll move to verse five, our third point, the gospel is our sure foundation. The gospel is our sure foundation. He gives the other ground because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Again, hope, faith, and love are united here beautifully in this book. What is our hope? We have hope in something that's outside of us. We have hope in God's Word. We have hope in Jesus, who's at the right hand of the Father. We have hope in the Spirit, who continues to work in us. We have hope in the promise that Christ will return. The main focus here is that it's a hope that's in heaven. Our hope is not in this world. Our hope is not in making this world a better place, our hope is in the new heavens and the new earth, when Christ is going to come back and redeem not only this world is groaning for him, but our hearts that are groaning for redemption. Our hope is in the future life where there is eternal life. There is no death. There is no destruction. There is no rust or moth to destroy. We have to remember, we're sojourning here. We're sojourning and our hope is supposed to be where Christ is at the right hand of the father, and we're waiting for him to come back and he will make all things new. So we have to believe in that promise. We have to believe in that promise. That he is going to return and bring us home with glorified bodies. This is the challenge to you, Christian. Do you find the pure savior as precious or is it our purchases and our power here in this world? What is precious to us most is that the pure savior, the things that we get in this world, and that is our Purchasing power. Is the gospel the treasure that you are willing to give everything up for? Is the gospel that treasure that you're willing to sell everything for to go buy the land and dig it up? Are you setting your heart in the heavens where Christ is? Is your primary ambition to glorify God and receive a crown there instead of here? Finally, as we conclude. Verses six through eight really focus on the gospel again. I would love to know a little bit of Paul about this. I look forward to talking to Paul about how his mind was working here because it it just kind of rattles off the gospel, which the gospel, which and even as and just as it's it's quite an amazing machine gun of declarations about the gospel and its activity. The key thing we have to see here is the gospel goes out. The gospel goes out. It's not something that's supposed to be hidden. We don't keep the gospel in here. This isn't the gospel place. The gospel is supposed to go out and penetrate every border, every gate, every heart. The gospel is commissioned to us. We are entrusted with that power. To take it out. Just as it has gone out into all the world, Paul says, and bearing fruit. Now, it's not our obligation to make sure it bears fruit. The gospel has its own power that bears the fruit. It's our calling. It's our obligation to take it out. To go outside of these walls, to go outside of these doors. And seek to proclaim it. That's scary. What if you get rejected? What if you get stumped? What if you don't know the answer and you think Christ is going to be put to shame because of you? These are good questions. But trust the gospel. Trust the power of God in even your most simple proclamation. Jesus Christ came to be like you in every way, but without sin, because we are sinners and he died on the cross to take away your sin so that you can have life instead of death. Share with one another if you're scared of what you might say. But this is the most important step in taking the gospel out. Pray for gospel opportunities. It's the most important thing we can do in evangelism is to be praying over our evangelism. Pray for your own evangelism. Pray for your co-worker, your neighbor. Pray that God would give you the opportunity to talk about Him. Believe that He is able to grant you those gospel opportunities. If you want to take the gospel out as it has to go, the first thing we need to do is be committed to praying for all those relationships we have that we know they're not believers. Pray that God would give you the opportunity and pray for the boldness to share it. Secondly, be committed to missionaries. And be praying for them. Find missionaries whose sole purpose is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Find those missionaries whose desire is to be bold with the gospel. And then support them. financially, prayerfully, spiritually. However, they need support so that you can hear the great news coming back that their boldness is bearing fruit and we can all rejoice in it. Friends, we conclude it's the gospel of Jesus Christ that makes us thankful. I pray that we have that thankfulness in our fellowship. And I pray that thankfulness will compel us to go out and share it with others. As we conclude here, it's interesting, Paul points out the person who shared it with them, Epaphras, the faithful minister. A little project. Who shared the gospel with you? Have you thanked them for it? Who shared the gospel with you and have you thanked them for it? And then secondly, who are you sharing the gospel with? as a thanksgiving to God for his gospel. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Almighty God, we come before you. Which is thankfulness. That in our every weakness. In our every sin. In our ever evil action and word and deed and desire, Lord. You looked upon us. with grace and mercy. We thank You that You did not give us the wrath we deserve. We thank You that You gave us life. You gave us peace. You've given us rest. I pray that we would cling to that in Christ alone. Thank You, Jesus, for dying for us. We thank you for the promise that you are coming back again. In your holy name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.