Sermon Tone Analysis

Communication Card

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Colossians 1:3

pew Bible: Page 1,043

Explain what a chiasm is

Beale

A We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you (v.

3),

A’ For this reason also, since the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you … (v.

9).

B we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saint (v.

4);

B’ and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit (v.

8).

C of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel (v.

5),

C’ since the day you heard and understood the grace of God in truth just as you learned it from Epaphras (v.

7),

D which has come to you (v.

6),

D’ just as in all the world, also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as in you also

Chiastic emphasis is on the gospel bearing fruit and increasing around the world and in Colossae.

Syntax analysis - grammar itself lends itself to the same conclusion

We give thanks…when we pray… because we have heard… on account of the hope… about which you have heard previously… through the gospel that has come to you…just as it has borne fruit and increased worldwide…just as it bore fruit and increased among you… just as you learned it from Epaphras…who told us about this.

The point of this passage is that Paul can be thankful whenever he prays for the Colossians because he has heard of their transformed lives.

You see, whenever the gospel is rightly preached and believed peoples lives are transformed.

The Gospel always changes us.

So today we’re going to look at this gospel that Epaphras preached and Paul celebrates.

Based on our chiastic structure - I want us to see four fruitful effects of faithful gospel ministry.

1st of all:

1) The fruitful gospel grows wherever it goes.

v6 it is growing all over the world

it has grown in you

it bears fruit and grows… (fruitful and multiply)

Does that language sound familiar?

God had given dominion - over everything.

Part of the creation mandate was to be fruitful and multiply.

but part of the creation mandate was also to subdue the beasts of the earth.

Adam & Eve failed to subdue the beasts - to have dominion over the serpent and to take God at his WORD and thus spread his glory throughout creation.

God had designed it so that if Adam and Eve had by faith believed God’s word and trusted his goodness, then God’s glory would have covered the earth in their fruitfulness and multiplication

Of course that did not take place and the fall marred the image of God in humans.

We still are created in the image of God, but we do not fully display God’s glory because we have are all sinful and by nature exchange the truth of God’s glory for a lie.

So for Paul, there’s this connection (because of his incredible mastery of Scripture) between the word of truth, the promise/command of God and that word of his creation bearing fruit and multiplying.

We know from Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians that Jesus came to be the “second Adam” - the one who would trust God at his Word and would subdue the the Serpent forever.

Faith in Jesus is what makes us a new creation and a part of a new humanity that does begin to reflect and display God’s glory even now and will ultimately do so perfectly when Jesus returns.

And SO Paul sees the gospel as the beginning of a reversal of sorts.

Where the new creation begins to fulfill what God’s original creation would not - we are fruitful and we multiply by reflecting God’s image to the world.

a) Gospel growth reflects God’s image.

So this first point is an argument from Biblical Theology - there is an allusion, an echo where Paul sees the Gospel as bearing fruit everywhere it goes that the original creation failed to do.

So the gospel is fruitful first because it reflects God’s image, bears fruit and multiplies.

But the fact that the gospel is taking root and bearing fruit wherever it goes also serves another purpose for Paul.

b) Gospel growth refutes false teaching.

If you’ll recall from last week, Paul’s aim in writing Colossians was to provide the Christian antidote to error in doctrine and practice.

One of the things that highlighting the worldwide spread of the gospel does is it shows that this is not some cult/sect teaching that has doesn’t have any traction if you take it outside these four walls.

Christianity is not scared of you taking your faith outside these four walls - you will encounter opposition/questions/doubts, but we aren’t afraid of those encounters because we have the truth on our side.

That key element - TRUTH is what leads to our second point.

Paul reminds the Colossians that the Gospel that he preaches is the exact same gospel they believed when they heard it the first time from Epaphras.

2) The fruitful gospel remains unchanging.

you already heard about this (middle of verse 5)

you learned this from Epaphras (beginning of verse 7)

When being faced with the false teaching that was threatening the church, Paul reminds the Colossian brothers and sisters that the gospel they heard bore fruit in them the same way it does around the world.

They started loving each other sacrificially.

They started demonstrating a faith in Jesus Christ and not in idols.

Paul didn’t have a single thing to add to what Epaphras had already faithfully taught them.

The truth of the gospel was unchanged.

But notice carefully it was a specific word of truth that they heard and they understood and learned.

You see we don’t receive the grace of God by osmosis.

You don’t become a Christian by simply going to church.

The gospel requires our ears.

a) The unchanging gospel requires our ears.

How many times did Jesus say “he who has ears to hear, let him HEAR!?”

Paul says in Romans 10

A life that is truly transformed does not come about because you simply get a feeling that God loves you, or that there’s a bigger purpose for you, or that there’s a higher power and he’s got your back.

Gospel literally means good NEWS.

NEWS, dear friends, by definition is something that is shared and something that is heard.

We must listen to the gospel.

And more than that Jesus’ words imply that we need spiritual ears to hear.

EVERYONE has ears.

Isaiah mourned this as a preacher.

This is the preacher’s worst nightmare.

Week after week, sermon after sermon, you preach, preach, preach and then you end up saying:

Worse than that, the Bible teaches us that the very heavens are SHOUTING the glory of God and that their voice reaches the very ends of the earth

And people still can’t hear God.

You need a miracle - you need him to open your ears to hear the good news.

Ask him to do it.

That’s why we pray.

Pray that God would open your ears to hear him calling you.

The good news requires you hear it.

Look at the End of verse 6 - there was a day you heard about this.

Look at the Middle of verse 5 - You have already heard about this hope - through a word

The gospel comes in words, language, propositions and as such...

b) The unchanging gospel requires our minds.

Paul says you came to understand this gospel (end of verse 6)

Paul says it’s something you heard and something you understood.

I don’t like the CSB right here - it says the day you heard and came to truly appreciate God’s grace.

The word there translated “appreciate” is epignosko - and its sense means to know, understand, recognize.

Most other English Versions translate this as understand.

And most commentators rightly take this as an ingressive aorist - that is, “you heard of this gospel and began to understand the grace of God in truth.”

Or perhaps, you began to truly understand the grace of God.

And if we look at the chiastic structure, we realize that Paul is using “Grace” as a substitute for the entirety of the gospel.

So the gospel is something you understand.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not just something you understand - this is not merely an intellectual thing.

I know of people that regularly attend this church that know all about Jesus - believe he was a historical person, and that he died on the cross and even that he rose from the dead, but have absolutely no saving faith or relationship with God.

The Bible says even the demons believe and they tremble, but their belief is not a saving belief.

What I am saying is that while the Bible is much more than simply hearing and understanding, it is certainly not LESS than that.

It is for that reason that the elders do interviews with candidates for church membership and one of the things we ask is if a person understands and can explain the gospel.

At the core of our faith is an understanding that Christ died according to the Scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scripture.

So the gospel must be heard and it must be understood.