Colossians 1:3-5

Colossians chapter 1 verses 3 to 5 our focus is going to be on verse 5 we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you as we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have to all the saints for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven whereof ye heard before in the Word of truth of the gospel. God blessed to us the reading of His sacred and holy word this morning. Some years ago a hydroelectric dam was going to build built across a valley in New England. The people in a small town who were in the valley were going to have to be relocated because when the dam was built the whole valley was going to be flooded. Well, during the time between the decision to build the dam and its completion, the buildings in the town, which were previously kept up nicely, fell into complete disrepair. Instead of being a pretty little town, it became an eyesore. For no one did any repair work. Why did this happen? The answer is simple, as one resident put it, resident put it, where there is no hope for the future. future, there is no work in the present. The apostle rejoiced when he saw that the saints at Colossay possessed the key graces here of love, hope, and charity. Faith, love, and hope. Varses 4 and 5. And when he prayed for these believers, he thanked God that they had been granted these graces. God holds forth this hope of eternal life, of course, for his people and his word. And so Paul expands on the hope of heaven that is enjoyed by these believers in verse 5. Without a future hope, the people of God would be adversely affected regarding their faith and hope in this life. So we see the important. importance of a future hope because it influences your present living as a Christian. And so the rest of the epistle, when he deals with their practical everyday life and the aspects of it in the latter part of this book, it certainly is based upon the fact that they have a hope of heaven. And that should affect them. Let me begin this morning by saying this, you have a marvelous hope. It is marvelous that you as a sinner should have any hope at all. After the fall of man and Adam, every human being that comes into this world comes into this world unreconciled with God, and therefore under the curse of God. It’s separated from God’s favorable presence. When your sinful state lays heaven, upon your conscience and you feel the great distance that exists between you and God and guilt lies upon you. It’s a very difficult situation to be in. Paul refers to this state in this manner in Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 12, wherefore remember that at the time ye were without Christ and without hope without God in the world. having no hope is what our condition once was. It’s changed. Now we have this marvelous hope. Hope has taken the place of despair because we have been reconciled with God and we have been forgiven of our sins. We’ll see in the latter part of this chapter in verses 13 and 14 when he talks about the fact that we are in the kingdom of his dear son. We’ve been translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. And we’ve had, verse 14, indicates redemption through his blood and forgiveness of our sins. Isn’t this a marvelous hope that all those black marks against you, all those things that would keep you and condemn you, keep you from heaven, condemn you to eternal hell, have been taken care of. It stunned the scribes in the Pharisees because Jesus was a friend of sinners. That he received sinners. They had trouble with that. They couldn’t understand that. But isn’t that the real truth of the gospel that we proclaim. is that God receives sinners and that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. So the most defiled persons imaginable were embraced by the Son of God. It have been embraced. It have been brought into his kingdom. God holds forth this hope in his word. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man in his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord. He will have mercy upon him. God for he were abundantly part. At one point in Christ earthly ministry, a woman was brought before him by the scribes and the Pharisees. Now this woman had been caught in the very act of adultery, and you couldn’t have a black remark against you. The law of God condemned her and placed a death sentence upon her head. And so the scribes and the Pharisees brought her to Christ, and it appeared that she would be stoned shortly. You can imagine her hanging her head in disgrace and shame. What hope did she have? She was a woman without hope. Strangely enough, the scribes and the Pharisees brought her to the very person who could provide her with hope. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus responding to these Jewish religious leaders simply said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And being convicted by that statement, they all left. And there was Jesus standing alone with this woman. And Jesus said, woman, where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemn thee? And she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn thee. Go and say, sin no more. Now, isn’t that a marvelous thing? When we see a woman who is condemned has no hope whatsoever, but she’s brought to Christ, who is the one who provides hope and forgiveness for her for the blackest of sins. And my friends, we look at ourselves, isn’t that our hope? Isn’t that the hope of the Christian? We come to Christ, we have thrown ourselves on the mercy of the Lord. and He has forgiven us of our sins. And all the things that were marked against us have been forgiven. It’s a marvelous thing that you as a sinner should have any hope at all. And it’s a marvelous thing that your hope should be of heaven itself. These Colossians had a good hope through grace of eternal glory. What is this hope that? that he’s talked about. It’s a hope, he says, it’s laid up for you in heaven. You’ll notice of verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father, which made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. And verse 27 of the same chapter here, to whom God would make known what is the richest of the glory of his mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the Holy Spirit. of what? Of glory. of heaven. Of being with the Lord. An eternal glory. Can heaven really be your eternal home? It seems almost preposterous to think that a sinner under the wrath and condemnation of God should somehow rather have things so reversed and now that they can enter into the presence of God and dwell with Him for all eternity. This is the The real blessing of the Christian faith is this gospel message, the good news for sinners. You and I richly deserve to be cast into the flames of eternal torment the rest of our days. And yet somehow, by God’s grace and through Jesus Christ, things are so turned around that we can enter into heaven. and dwell in that place of eternal light in the presence of the Lord God for all eternity. Will you enjoy the joys of heaven? Will you associate with angels? Will you be with just men made perfect? Will you see God? Yes. It’s so amazing that some people disbelieve the scriptures. They cannot fathom that this is possible. The Roman Catholic Churches Church teaches there’s a purgatory. Oh, you You can’t go to it. You undergo years of suffering to get purged of your sin before you can go to heaven after you die. You have to be made fit for heaven. Well, we’ll be talking about being made fit for heaven, but we’ll see that it’s God. It makes us fit, as verse 12 this chapter indicates to us. I read an interesting story when Charles Haddon Spursion, the famous Baptist minister, visited the Church of St. John La Terran at Rome. He read a request there that was posted, and the request was for the repose, for the rest and tranquility, of the soul of his eminence Cardinal Wiseman. Now, Cardinal Wiseman was a famous man, a great man in the Roman Catholic Church, and yet, Spurgeon says, he’s supposedly somewhere in the other world where he is not. not at rest in tranquility because this is a request for prayer that he would have rest in tranquility. The Spursion thought there must be a, if this is the case with an eminent person like Cardinal Wiseman, what can the poor common Catholic person? What hope does he have or she have? His conclusion was, for my part, I would give up so cheerless a hope and become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and go to heaven. When Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, and remember there was a thief on either side of him. And they were executed in the same manner he was, but the thieves joined in with the Jewish religious leaders and the people and ridiculing the Lord Jesus Christ. They threw their reproaches upon Christ, which we were reading, we were singing about from Psalm 22 F this morning. But eventually one of the thieves confessed that they actually deserve to die, but Jesus did not. And then he asked Jesus that he would remember him when he came into his kingdom. Now here was a notorious thief under condemnation for his crime. Unable, of course, to get off the cross and live any type of life to make amends for all the evil that he’s done. He can’t reform his life while he’s dying on the cross. Now that Jesus, talk to this repentant thief and say, now the holy hope you have is you’re going to go through some time of purgatory and you’ll have to suffer for all you’ve done first and then maybe, perhaps, you might have some hope of heaven. What did he say? He said, verily or truly, I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Today you’ll be in heaven. After you die immediately. Now that’s the hope that we have. That’s why it’s such a marvelous thing to be a Christian. Friends, believing sinners go to a place of rest and happiness and fellowship with Christ. A marvelous hope that you have. Now, you’ll notice also, that you have a gospel hope here. Your hope is based on divine revelation. No one could ever have invented this hope. It’s so glorious as to abathle your imagination. Who could have thought of this? The best dreamer would never have envisioned sinners entering into heaven. The master, what master of logic could ever have deduced that it would be possible. This eternal hope had to be revealed by God himself. Because, it’s beyond man’s imagination. You’ll notice Paul says this hope, ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. That you, as a sinful, should have the hope of heaven is revealed in the gospel. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting. life, Jesus told the woman at the well. What did Jesus say to Nicodemus? Whosoever believeth in me in the Lord Jesus Christ should not perish, but have what? Everlasting life. He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life, John 336. Everyone which seeeth the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life, John 640. What is the son? the message that the gospel proclaims to us but everlasting life by faith in Christ, the Savior. You or I are unworthy. We are undeserving. And yet, the Word of God can assure the believer of eternal life. We couldn’t dare to hope to obtain it in our own merits in our own way. But here is the Word of God. It’s open the door for us. us. It bids you to enter through it. There’s thoughts of being an air of eternal life. Jesus said, he is preparing a place for you as a believer in heaven. Now, friends, that’s pretty plain. That’s pretty obvious that we’re going to have an eternal home if Christ is preparing a place for us. So your hope is based upon divine revelation. The Bible tells me so. Your hope came by simply hearing the gospel. Where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel? Faith comes by hearing and hope comes through faith. This God-given hope of heaven came as you heard the gospel, Paul says. Faith doesn’t come by works, but it does come by hearing and believing the gospel. Believe unto eternal life is what the scripture indicates to us. You heard that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was a substitutionary death. Paul would say he loved me and he gave himself for me. Simply by hearkening diligently under the divine word concerning Christ as the Savior of sinners you believe unto eternal life. Your confidence is now in the gospel message which you’ve heard that it is Christ who is your Savior. Or as Isaiah 553 puts it, here in your soul shall live. So we prize God’s word, don’t we? For it grants you a joyful expectation of heaven by faith in Christ. I read a story about a poor young girl who earned her way through life by selling violets on the street corners. And the flowers that didn’t sell one day, she would take home and store and bring back the next day, hopefully to sell the next day. However, being relatively poor, she had a very tiny, cramped one-room apartment in which she lived. She reached the point where she said she couldn’t stand the smell of violence anymore because she smelled them all day long and then she brought the ones home that she didn’t sell and they were in this little apartment and she smelled them all night long too. She was constantly exposed to the fragrance. Friends, that must never happen when it comes to the fragrance, the aroma of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It always should be a pleasant thing to us. We shouldn’t dread above everything else that familiarity with the gospel would breed contempt. That should be the word, you know, we should hate that thought that our familiarity with the gospel would bring that. It is the gospel that leads to the salvation of our souls. It is the gospel that leads to our hope of heaven. The sweet smell of the rose of Sharon and the lilia valley should never make us nauseous. So you have a gospel hope. The third thing this morning. Your hope is a secure hope. Your hope is substantial. It’s clear that Paul here not many speaks of the object of our hope, our eternal place in heaven, heaven itself, but also of the grace of hope that dwells in the soul. No one has a hope laid up in heaven except those who hope for it. And just as faith includes the thing believed, we talk about faith in Christ, but we also talk about the faith, what is believed. And so when we talk about the hope of heaven, we talk about heaven itself, but we also think about the belief that is associated with that hope, that our trust that that is the future for us. Hope in Scripture is the grace of God. It’s never a mere wish. It’s always something that’s solid and confirmed. The hope of the believer is so substantial that Paul speaks of it as sure, as certain. Many a person has had the hope of wealth, but that hope is a different thing from actually having wealth. I had a friend when I worked at Keystone Diesel many years ago, who told me that he was reading a book about obtaining wealth. I think the name of the book was Think and Grow Rich. So that was one of those self-wealth kind of books. Very popular, I think, at the time. In the book, the readers told to picture in his hand this bundle of money and the concentrate on and so he told me every night he was picturing himself with all this money in his hand, and he was concentrating. Just as the The book had told him, but you know what? He never became wealthy. He had a hope of being wealthy, but he never became wealthy. He still was working at Keystone Diesel when I left. He never gained wealth by that hoax, by that foolish idea. Man may have hope of long life, but that hope is not longevity itself. There was a man who invented some nutritious drink, and he claimed that it would give you a long life, and he was on tea, promoting his drink when he died of a heart attack. What the Apostle speaks of here is a hope. It’s identical with what’s hoped for. It’s never disappointed. Your hope is reserved for you. Notice he says, it is laid up in heaven. Or for you in heaven. It’s laid up there. Now, if your hope is laid up with God, I think it’s pretty secure, don’t you? Who’s going to go in there? go to heaven and steal it from. Laid up means hidden in a safe place like a treasure that’s in a well-secured place like the gold in Fort Knox or something. Here it’s reserved by God himself. You find it hard to lay up your valuables on this earth and keep them safe because there’s always thieves that are going to break through and steal them. The iron safe, the fortified, secure room, the walls, even a hidden place. Cannot. always secure your valuables in this life. But when the God is the guardian of your eternal home, your eternal inheritance, who can steal it? When Christ has prepared a place for you, who is going to take it away from you? No one can touch it. No one, no angel, not even Satan himself. Certainly no man can take it away from you. I had a an uncle who collected rare and valuable coins. And he had a police alarm on his home, and he tried to protect his home, but thieves still broke in and robbed him. Thankfully, he had some of his most valuable coins in a safe. He had this large safe in his house, and the thieves didn’t get in there. But months later, they came back and blew the safe. Because they wanted to get everything that he had. Now, our hope is such that it can’t be touched. That’s better than anything man can come up with in this life. It’s safely retained by God for you, as the scripture says. Now, your hope is guaranteed. It’s guaranteed by the word of truth. Notice how he states it. It’s not merely the word of God, but it is the word of truth, because God is a God of truth. Man’s word is like the wind. but God’s word is such that he cannot lie. Therefore, if he says that you have an eternal inheritance in heaven, well, that hope is as sure as you can get and as secure as you can get. because it never returns under him void his work. His promises are always guaranteed. Scripture says in Titus I, too, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promise before the world began. You have a hope of eternal life and God promised it and he doesn’t lie. The word of truth. There’s not a possibility of guess or conjecture here or anything of question. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s word will never pass away. So the word of our God shall stand forever, as Isaiah 48 says, it’s never going to be altered. It’s never going to be altered. going to be amended. When God writes your name down in the book of life, he doesn’t, it hasn’t, it has any names crossed out. The word of God cannot be broken. There’s not a word of it. It is going to fall to the ground and not be fulfilled. So if God promises you eternal life, you’re going to have it. You’re going to have eternal life. Everything’s secure. We can rejoice in this. So you have a secure hope. Well, the building of that hydroelectric dam in New England caused the residents to sort of basically abandon the town, not even keep it up and it just got run down. They didn’t have any hope for the future for that town. This is why keeping up and maintaining our Christian faith, if you would, is based on this hope we have for the future. We have a future hope. And that’s why we persevere. God’s grace. The hope of heaven stimulates us to live for Christ and to live godly. So here’s Paul’s argument. We have a marvelous hope that sinners can go to heaven. It’s a heavenly hope and it is certainly a secure hope that we have in Christ. Let us bow for a word of praise.