Colossians is about the supremacy, the all-superior nature of Christ, and his impact and influence in the lives of those who know him.

1:1 — Paul’s greeting identifies him as laboring “by the will of God.” It is easy to throw that line around, but for Paul’s apostleship and the validity of all he wrote in the New Testament, it is a matter that must either be affirmed or denied.

If he was the Lord’s apostle to the Gentiles, if Jesus Christ appeared to him and commissioned him to take the Gospel to non-Jewish people across the known world, then his words and life must be given a more serious consideration than a man who was self-deceived or insanely impersonating a man on a mission for God.

Perhaps the most definitive defense of Paul (from a human perspective) is from those who heard him and who knew him, and who believed because of his life and the brilliance of his presentation of Jesus Christ. Perhaps his ability to teach and to direct them to Christ and then to take his place as their brother, and “faithful brother” with those who believed, is most revealing about the nature of Paul’s religion. He was just one of many who knelt in worship before Jesus Christ as the Beloved Son of God. “Grace to you and peace ….,” he said.

1:3 — It is odd to our minds that Paul would thank God as he remember these friends in Colossae. It would be more to our liking that he would thank God for people, rather than while remembering them to be moved to thank God — as though it were God who was first and most importantly involved in what Paul observed in those people — God was working and moving within them. We thank God for people, he thanked God for God. His prayers for them resulted in him worshiping. We do it very differently today, spending our time lauding people rather than in praising and thanking God. When we thank God for people,  we are really (are we not?) thanking people. Certainly there are times to be very grateful and to express thanks to people and there are occasions in the Bible when that happens, but the kind of thankfulness to the God of salvation, who is working in peoples’ lives, seems more rare today and it ought to be recovered as a more focused way to pray to the God who is working decisively in peoples’ lives.

Paul remembers their faith in Christ Jesus (1:4), and for the “love you have for all the ‘saints’.”

Paul’s love for them seems focused on what God had done in them. It was God who gave them faith (see Ephesians 2:4-6). It was God who made them alive. It was God who sent the Savior. It was God who drew them into his love. It was Christ who dwelled in their hearts. It was overwhelmingly God’s work that Paul saw in them, and it was God who was to be thanked.

“And because of the hope laid up for you in Heaven (1:5). Hope is a promise about the future. A secure hope is a promise made by someone who tells the truth and who has the capacity to keep his/her word. The hope of the believer is basedon the truthfulness of God and the power of God to do what he has promised, therefore, it is a secure and reliable hope. The Christian hope is a secure as the nature and Person of God, as reliable as his nature, and as sure as the promises of his Word.

Hope is important because of the death and disease, the tragedies and effects of sin, that come into all our lives. Without hope, all of these trials (which are normal and to be expected in every life) would lead us to despair. A superficial hope based merely on ungrounded optimism or a happy outlook, cannot sustain us when grave difficulties come.

Hope comes from God — hope is “laid up for you in Heaven” 1:5. The Protector of our hope is Jesus Christ. He holds our hope. He makes our hope secure. He places our hope in Heaven and he guards our hope with his irresitable and supreme power. We have no substantial hope in ourselves, at all. Christ gives us his life, his victory, his resurrection, his God-sized perfections, and his Word that we may have hope in him.

Faith, love, and hope.

In Colossians 1:3-4 the trinity of character traits: faith, love, and hope appear. These three traits show up most famously in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (ESV). Here in Colossians 1, they are mentioned once more, not aspirationally, as in 1 Corinthians 13, but as a report on the lives of these first century believers’ lives.

Faith is central to our life with God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (ESV) Ephesians 2:8 reminds us that “by grace you have been saved through faith….” Faith begins our relationship, our connection with God.

Love.

The second quality in the trinity of traits is love. We notice that the order in 1 Corinthians is different. But the order may not matter as much as the content of the concepts. There is a progress from faith to love to hope, considered chronologically. Faith comes, then the love for God and the love of people follow, then the hope of Heaven is realized by promise and then experienced through death.

The love of Christ for his people in redemption is without comparision. It is the grandest, the most glorious love that could be known. Yet, the love of the Father for the Son is promised to be shared with those who are the disciples of Jesus Christ (see John 17:24-26). God’s very love within himself he deems to share with those for whom he would lay down his life.

The necessity of love for eternity.

If Heaven were to exist without love, re;ationships, long, long, relationships between those who were there  would be exhausting and disappointing. It would be more like Hell than Heaven. Love is necessary for eternity because only when love has been made perfect can people live with God and with one another for ever.

With the love of God and the love within God’s peple being perfected in glory, the experience is too great for our imaginations — we have never known perfect love on this Earth. The only taste we have is found in the descriptions in the Word of God about Heaven and the world to come, We have never been perfectly loved by another human being, except Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God. But in this broken and sin-assaulted world, we have trouble even remembering the love of God in our hours of trial and through our disappointments in other people.

All the more, we see that the love of God’s people, even the love we experience while living here on earth, and without the vantage place of glory, this love in God’s people is an incredible love and a love that has solidity, constancy, true motives, and astonishing beauty. The love “for all the saints” is a worthy and wonderful love that should be experienced in every faithful church, and in the lives of every faithful believer.

We are to love like God loved because “God has poured out his love into our hearts” by the Spirit who lives within us (see Romans 5:5).

Hope.

Biblical hope is expectation of a future. It is a gift yet to be received, but faithfully and securely promised. It is a portion that we are fully assured that we will receive. Hope rests in  promises that are absolutely certain to be kept.

The hope laid up in Heaven refers to the promises Christ himself has made by his own words – and he cannot lie, seeTitus 1:2, “in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (ESV)

The hope in Heaven is protected by the resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead. It is assured by his Kingly power, from the One who is seated at the Right Hand of God on the Throne of Heaven. He is the Ruler over All. His promises are kept as no other promises. They are more sure than any other promises that have ever been made.

Paul concludes this introduction: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the Gospel.” (1:5b).

Faith, love, and hope. The centerpieces of the Gospel of God.