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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions in Day 2 of our Look Through Colossians,
Chapter 1. We're going to be looking at verses 3 to 8 today. In fact, I'd like
to begin this study today by reading verse 3 through the first part of verse 5.

Paul writes and says, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
when we pray for you, because we've heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and the
love that you have for all the saints, the faith and love that spring from the
hope that is stored up for you in heaven. " Paul, as he begins Colossians 1,
talks to us about some things that you and I must understand to live a life that
is worthy and pleasing, worthy in this world before God and pleasing to God.
Paul's just talked about the saints and living a life as a saint.

We talked about that a bit yesterday. How do we live that kind of a life? Well,
we're going to talk about that the next few days, heading towards some verses
that talk about worthy and pleasing and living before God.

And he begins by talking about, "If I want to live a worthy and pleasing life,
I've got to understand. " Well, today we're going to talk about the process of
faith and the power of the good news. He begins by talking about, "I've got to
understand the process of faith, hope, and love.

" You might remember that 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that, "Now abide three
things, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. " Well, in
these verses, in Colossians 1, Paul talks about a process of faith, hope, and
love. Not just the value and priority of them, but the process, how they work
together.

Did you notice what he said? He says, "This process begins with hope. Faith and
love," in verse 5, "spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven.

" The process begins with hope, and then hope draws us to faith. I'm hoping that
there's something more than this world. And I realize that there is in Jesus
Christ.

It draws me to faith in Him. And then that faith in Him, my trust in Him, leads
me to love. Notice where the hope springs from.

It springs from the gospel. The faith and love that spring from the hope that's
stored up for you in heaven. It all begins with the good news.

Hope is the spark that ignites our faith. And the good news of Christ is what
strikes our hearts to create that spark. And faith is the fire that empowers our
love.

Hope is the root. Faith is the plant. Love is the fruit.

That's the process that he talks about here. Now, there's a couple of questions
about this hope as you read through these verses. First, how does it happen?

When does it happen? The Greek text here actually has the idea of hope that is
stored up for you in heaven. Hope that is available for you in the heavens, the
plural.

The term the heavens is not a reference just to the heaven you're going to go to
after this invisible spiritual kingdom that surrounds all of us right now. This
sense that we all have within us that there has to be something more than what I
see or feel or experience right now in this world. There has to be something
greater than this.

When you feel that, your heart is longing for hope. And you can try to find it
in yourself. You can try to find it in the things of this world.

You can try to find it in materialism, but you never find what you're looking
for there. It's found in faith in Jesus Christ. And so what Paul is saying here
by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is that the gospel reveals to us, the good
news of Jesus Christ, that this hope that we long for is not just invisible.

It is available to us. It is surrounding us at this very moment. And how do I
enjoy it?

I enjoy it through Jesus Christ. That is the process of faith, hope, and love.
It begins with hope, knowing it's available.

And then that results in this faith, this trust in Jesus Christ in my daily
life. And James, his entire book, talks about if I have a genuine faith in Jesus
Christ, that's going to result in love for other people. That's going to change
the way that I love.

The way that I love God changes the way that I love others. Faith, hope, and
love. If I want to live a life that is worthy and pleasing before God, I've got
to understand and live out this process of faith, hope, and love.

There's a second thing I want to talk about today. So I have to understand and
live out what we were beginning to talk about a moment ago, the power of the
good news. Paul had talked in the first half of verse five about a hope that is
stored up for you in heaven.

And then in the last half, he begins by saying this, "And that you've already
heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the
world, this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing in
you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You
learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of
Christ on our behalf, and who's also told us of your love in the spirit.

" Now first of all, you may have some questions about Epaphras. We'll get to
that in a minute. But first of all, what do these verses say about the good
news?

Well, they say first of all that it's true. It is the gospel of truth. In fact,
all other religions could be entitled guesses about God, man's guesses about
God.

But Jesus Christ came to this world, God in human flesh, and he said, "Here is
the truth about God. " That's why it's good news, because I can know that it's
true. It is true.

The good news is true. The good news is also universal. Now, it's not universal
in everybody's acceptance.

There are many people who do not accept the good news, and they'll suffer the
consequences for that in this life and into all eternity, but it is universal in
its application. It is good news for everyone. It's good news for every single
person on this planet.

There's no one for whom the good news is not good, if only I'll accept it in my
life. It's true. It's universal.

It's also growing. Did you hear that as we read through this? This gospel, this
good news is bearing fruit, and it's growing.

That's how God is at work in this world. He is at work spreading this good news
in a way that changes our hearts. And then when my heart is changed, you've seen
this happen in families, then my brother's heart is changed, or my sister's,
then my mom's, and my dad's, and then an uncle, and then somebody over here, and
then a best friend.

That's how it grows. The good news grows. It grows in my heart, and then it
grows from my heart.

And that goes to the last thing that he says here about the good news, as he
talks about Epaphras. The good news is delivered by people. This great good news
that's true, that's for everyone, that's growing when it gets to be shared, God
has decided that you and I get to have the privilege of being the ones who
deliver it.

This good news is delivered person to person. Have you heard about Jesus Christ?
Have you seen what he's done in that person's life?

Let me tell you about what he did in my life. That's what makes the good news
good. Now in the case of the Colossians, Paul says it's Epaphras who brought the
good news to you.

He's a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf. And he says he's doing this in
one sense, Paul says, just as if I were there on my behalf. He's been teaching
you the truth.

Epaphras was evidently the man who started it all. We don't know a lot about
him, although he's mentioned a couple of times in other letters of Paul, but he
evidently was a layman. He wasn't a professional preacher.

He just went around and served people as the opportunity came. And he'd probably
been a part of the group that Paul himself taught when he was a resident at
Ephesus for three years and had taken that truth and he'd gone to Colossae with
it. Aren't you glad that Epaphras didn't go home and think, you know, it'd be
great if the Apostle Paul could go to Colossae someday.

I'm going to pray that the Apostle Paul might go to Colossae someday. He's come
to Ephesus. If he'd only go there, I know what could happen.

Aren't you glad that instead of that, Epaphras went himself? Now at the end of
these comments about Epaphras, Paul says, he's told us about your love in the
Spirit. What is that?

What is love in the Spirit? If you've never heard of it, it sounds a little
shady. Love in the Spirit has to do with Holy Spirit-inspired love, that God's
Spirit has come into our lives to inspire a new kind of love in our hearts and
in our lives.

So I'm not depending on myself or my power to love other people. I'm depending
on God's power to love other people. That's the power of the Gospel in our
lives.

Let's take a minute to talk to God about his willingness to change our hearts
and lives and depend on him right now in prayer. And God, we do depend on you.
We realize that if we're going to have faith, hope, and love in our lives, it's
going to come from you.

We realize that if the good news is going to make a difference in our hearts and
then it's going to spread out from us to others, it's going to depend on you.
And some of us were brand new to this. We're just starting to understand the
good news.

Others of us, we've been doing this for a long time. It doesn't matter where we
are in that journey. It depends on you.

And so we do that right now. We depend upon you for the faith, hope, and love
that we need to share the good news about Jesus in the world today. In your
name, we pray, Jesus.

Amen. To live a worthy life, I need to understand the process, I need to
understand the power, and one other thing I need to understand. We're going to
talk about that tomorrow.