Sermon Tone Analysis
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Knowing full well the danger of this illustration, since it is the afternoon, and since you are most likely hungry, still I am going to talk about cheeseburgers.
Apparently, this afternoon, I intend to live dangerously.
What would you think if someone walked into a restaurant and when it came time to place their order, they said, “I would like a cheeseburger, but hold the cheese.”
Other than immediately thinking that that person in crazy!
My thought would be, “you mean you want a hamburger.”
“No, no,” the patron would reply.
“I want a cheeseburger without any cheese.”
And you would say, “Yes, that is called a hamburger.”
“Oh, no.
The two are very different.
I don’t want a hamburger.
I want a cheeseburger without any cheese.”
Now we call that a very silly conversation.
But the question is, can you call a cheeseburger a cheeseburger if it doesn’t have any cheese on it?
No.
It is its defining characteristic.
It is essential to its makeup.
It’s in the name.
It is a part of what a cheeseburger is all about.
This afternoon I want to talk about the believer’s defining characteristic.
And just like cheese goes hand in hand with a cheeseburger, so this thing is vital, essential, and fundamental to the makeup of the saints of Christ.
Paul informs us in vv.
3-8 of Colossians chapter 1 that the defining characteristic of the believer is love.
If one is a believer, if one is a saint, if one has trusted in Christ then there will be love, to some degree, present in their life.
Love, and specifically here in Colossians love for other believers, is part of who we are in Christ.
I John
The question that we want to ask this afternoon is what is the source of the believer’s love?
Where does it come from?
Paul has never met these believers.
He has only heard about their faith and their love, and yet he spends multiple verses describing in detail their love.
How does Paul do that?
It is because love has a common source for all believers.
What is that source, where does our love come from?
I.
The believer’s love comes from a supernatural source
A. This love is unnatural
Notice here that Paul is talking about how he is continually praying for these believers in Colossae.
As he prays he gives thanks to God for two reasons.
First, for their faith in Christ Jesus
Second, for the love that they have to all the saints.
As a bit of a rabbit trail, I find it very convicting how Paul starts his letter to these saints.
He has received some fairly serious news of false teaching corrupting the church.
And instead of rushing right into a critical commentary of, “I can’t believe you are falling for this ridiculous false teaching.
What are you thinking?
Don’t you have any brains in those heads of yours!”
Which is what I would be tempted to do.
Instead Paul begins his letter with thanksgiving.
And again His thanks is directed at God. God thank you for how you have worked in the lives of these dear believers.
Thank you for the evident work you have done in their hearts.
Paul begins with highlighting the grace of God, and soundly places his hope and thanks in God to work in this situation of false teaching.
Now, it is easy to understand why Paul thanks God for their faith in Christ.
Paul, thanks God, not the Christians in Colossae for their faith because it was God’s doing not theirs.
God is the one who produced their faith in Christ.
Rom 3.
But I also find it interesting that Paul thanks God for the believer’s love to all the saints.
Why does Paul thank God and not the believers for their love?
Same reason.
The source of their love for each other, just like their faith, comes from God.
In other words it is not natural within them to love one another.
Their love was a byproduct of something that God did in their hearts, and so Paul thanks God.
B. This love is Spiritual
They learned (the gospel) from Epaphras, who is Paul’s dear fellowservant and faithful minister of Christ, and Epaphras declared unto Paul these believer’s love in the Spirit.
Notice that is “S” Spirit.
Their love that hey have for all the saints is in or of the Holy Spirit of God.
The only way these believers could love each other they way they were doing was because of the work of the Holy Spirit of God in their lives.
Thus one of the reasons that love is the defining characteristic of the believer is that this kind of love, Biblical love, is only possible if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you producing this love for each other.
And so quite frankly if anyone is cut off from a personal relationship with God, they cannot have this kind of love present in their lives.
This leads us then to the second source of the believer’s love and the second follows the first- they are connected.
II.
The believer’s love comes from faith in the gospel
Col 1.3
For the hope- is literally because of the hope, or on account of the hope.
So the love that these believer’s had for each other was on account of or because of the hope laid up for them in heaven (we will talk about that hope in just a minute).
If we keep going we see that their love was on account of their hope, and their hope existed because of what they had previously heard.
And what did they hear?
The word of the truth of the gospel.
And so their love has a supernatural force, it is from God, it is Spiritual in nature.
But that love was made possible because of the word of the truth of the gospel.
They had received the written word- God’s revelation in the Scriptures.
God opened their eyes and they knew it for what it was- the truth.
And they they received the gospel or the good news how that Christ died for their sins, was buried, and on the third day rose again from the dead.
A. What the gospel was accomplishing
Which is come unto you, that is the gospel has come unto you.
The gospel came, in the same way or just as in all the world.
And what is the gospel doing?
The gospel is bearing fruit, it is increasing in the lives of the saints of Colossae and it is producing spiritual fruit.
It is interesting that in when Paul gives us a list of the fruit of the Spirit that the first thing on that list is love.
And I think that is what Paul has in mind here in Colossians.
You heard the word of the truth of the gospel, and it began to work in your hearts and lives to produce in you the Spiritual fruit of love.
And not just in you.
This is not a unique thing to you only.
Wherever the gospel goes, throughout the entire world, this exact same thing is happening.
The gospel is producing the spiritual fruit of love.
Why?
Because godly love, Spiritual love has as its common source a connection to the word of the truth of the gospel.
B. When this fruit-bearing began
The gospel has been bearing fruit in the lives of the saints since the day they heard it.
Hearing it was not enough.
These saints didn’t just hear the gospel, they also knew it or better understood the grace of God in truth.
Knew- means to know exactly, completely, to know something through and through.
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