To Encourage You

Colossians 1:4-6 “We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.”

What’s so great about the gospel?  First, what is the gospel?  The word simply means “good news.” In the Bible it is referring simply to the “good news” about Jesus Christ.  It’s the good news that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  And it’s also the good news about what happens in a person’s life when the message of the gospel is mixed with faith, i.e., when a person comes to the point of actually embracing the gospel by understanding that “the world” that God so loved includes them, individually.  This is the seed that when planted in a receptive heart, as in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, springs up and “bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”  It is belief in the marvelous gospel of Jesus Christ that the wonderful things mentioned in the opening verses of Colossians accrued to the account of the believers in the Colossian church, and that accrue to the account of every believer before, or since, the time that church existed.

So, what are these things? One of these things is hope.  What a wonderful word! There is nothing else like it. It gives a person a reason to go on.  A person can endure almost anything in life if he or she has hope.  A believer, because of his or her faith in the Giver of “precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4), always has a great hope.  Of course. the greatest of these promises is the promise of an eternal life in Heaven.  The Colossian church had this great hope, because, and only because, of the gospel, and you and I can have that very same hope as well.

Another great thing about the gospel, when it is believed and received, is wonderful spiritual fruit. Hope itself is one such spiritual fruit, but another is “love for all the saints.” This love is the “agape” love of God. It is sacrificial service to others that stems from the gratitude of the one who finally understands the awesome love of God for them.  The Christian loves others because Jesus first loved them (1 John 4:19).  And the Christian understands that love, above all else, because of the gospel. 

Because the gospel is like a seed, the fruit it produces is something that increases.  It’s not a one and done thing.  A life becomes one of increasing fruitfulness, i.e., growth in spiritual things because that’s what the life-giving and life-sustaining gospel does.  It is a miracle of God to use words to produce life, eternal life, fruitful life.  Who, in their right mind, wouldn’t ultimately want something like this? 

Then one other thing that the opening verses of Colossians tell us about the gospel: it gives us understanding.  Specifically, it gives us an understanding of the matchless grace of God.  It enables one to come to grips with the fact that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  And it gives one an understanding of Truth, God’s Truth. It’s an understanding of reality as it really is.  It is understanding about where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. It gives us understanding of the Truth about God, Satan, Jesus, our self, Heaven, Hell, life, death, sin, righteousness, and anything else that matters most. 

So, what’s so great about the gospel?  It is the starting point of everything that is truly great.  It’s the gate through which one enters life – not physical life, which only lasts for a short time, but eternal life, that begins the moment one understands God’s grace in all its truth and continues forever to the glory and praise of God.