Key Truth: We bear fruit in faith in Christ and love for all saints because of the hope laid up for us in heaven by the grace of God.

Introduction:

Q: What most affects your faith in Christ? What has the biggest impact on your love for all the saints?

“The letter (to the Colossians) affirms that God’s creation has a divine purpose, which is brought to fulfillment in and through Christ. It affirms the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ as the fullness of God and as our Creator and Redeemer.”

David E. Garland, The NIV Application Commentary:
Colossians and Philemon

The Faith and Love of the Colossian Saints: A Reason for Thanksgiving:

Colossians 1:1-8

“The love that is genuine evidence of divine working focuses on the brotherhood. It is not so much a mystical experience of God whom we have not seen as the practical actions of love toward our brothers and sisters whom we can see. In this first description of what is genuine Christian experience Paul puts Christ, the Christian brotherhood, and heaven, as the objects respectively of faith, love, and hope, thus discouraging his Colossian friends from concentrating upon subjective experience in a search for Christian fullness of life.”

R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians and Philemon:
Fullness and Freedom

Q: What impact does what Christ has laid up for you in heaven have on your faith in Him and your love for all the saints?

Colossians 1:1-8 teaches us that:
-we bear fruit in faith in Christ and love for all saints because of the hope laid up for us in heaven by the grace of God

“It is a beautiful thing when you see in the Church love for all the saints—not just for some, not just for the lovable, but all. This is what made the early church so amazing and so enticing to the ancient world….Genuine love for all was cause for Paul’s joyous celebration of the apostolic Church, and it is cause for celebration today, for the results are the same.”

R. Kent Hughes, Colossians and Philemon: The Supremacy of Christ