Tonight we'll be continuing our
study in Colossians. Continuing our study in Colossians. Let's read in our text here,
Colossians 1. We'll start in verse 3 and we'll
read the verse 8. 8 will be where we'll be tonight.
And I talked to several dear brothers today. Oh, I need to
give some greetings quick. I talked to Gary Shepard today
and he says to give everyone his love and that he thanks you
for prayers. And also Tim James, talked to
him today. And he also sends his love and
said to greet everyone. And Brother Norm Wales out in
Oregon too as well. So greetings from those three
grace preachers. Just to let you all know, you're
very loved and very thought of. Tonight's message will be called,
Love in the Spirit. Love in the Spirit. Our text
will be found in Colossians 1.8. But as I said, we're going to
read Colossians 1.3-8. We give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. Since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you
have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven, wherever you heard before in the word of the truth
of the gospel, which has come unto you, as it is in all the
world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since
the day you heard of it and knew the grace of God and truth. And
as you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who
is for you a faithful minister of Christ, And here's our text,
who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. Love in the
Spirit. A quick note, this is the only direct reference
in this epistle to the Holy Spirit. Now it's implied, other places
it's implied, we know by the gospel bearing fruit, it only
comes by the Holy Spirit. We know that our love and our
hope It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit, but this is the only
direct reference to the Holy Spirit of God in this epistle. Let's back up to verse 4. And remember this, many things
point to God the Holy Spirit, such as the gospel bearing fruit,
and our faith, and our hope, and our love coming from Him. In verse 4, though, Paul declares
that he had heard of their faith and the love which they had to
all saints. All saints, not just some. And the love spoken of in verse
4, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love
which you have to all the saints, is the same love which he describes
as your love in the Spirit in verse 8. Love in the Spirit. Here the third person of the
Trinity is brought before us. God the Holy Ghost. God the Holy
Spirit. Now, in our text up to this point,
we've now had the Father mentioned, the Son, and now the Holy Spirit. And we can see in our study,
and we've seen this in Ephesians too, that the whole Trinity is
at work in an action in the salvation of a sinner. We know from what we looked at
in verse 4 that love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love for our Savior, love for
the Gospel, and love for the brethren is not something that
we can muster up on our own. It doesn't come naturally to
us in the flesh. It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit
of God in us, working in us. Look at verse 4 again. Knowing
that the love spoken of here is from the Spirit, since we
heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, faith is a gift from God,
and of the love which you have to all the saints. And notice
how interconnected faith and love are. If you find someone who professes
Christ but has no love for the brethren, that's not real salvation.
Because faith and love are interconnected. Now we love our families, don't
we? We do. We love our families before the
Lord saves us. And we love our friends before
the Lord saves us. But not with this kind of love.
Not with the kind of love mentioned here. This is a special love. This
is a love that is in the Spirit. It comes from being born again. It's a love which, verse 4 says,
is to all the saints. To all the saints. Not only the
ones we agree with, but also the ones we disagree with. Not
only the ones we really get along with, but some of the ones that
are harder to get along with. It's convicted, but it's the
truth. And think of this. It is easy
for us to love the brethren, ones that we don't always get
along with, when we think about how much Christ has forgiven
us. when we think of all the multitude of our sins that are
covered in the precious blood of Christ. It makes it real easy
for us to be forgiving. I remember hearing Henry say
this. He said, if you're having a hard
time with someone, pray for them, because you can't be mad at someone
you're praying for. Turn, if you would, to Colossians
chapter 3. This love is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit of God working in us. Look at Colossians 3, verses
12 to 14. Put on therefore as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering. All those things we can't do
on our own, can we? But we're told to. But God must work this in us. Forbearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. If a man has a
quarrel with you, forgive him. Even if it's unjust. Let it go. Vengeance is mine,
sayeth the Lord. I will repent. And above all
these things, put on charity. That's love in Greek. Put on
love. Charity, which is the bond of
perfection, perfectness. So this love we have for the
brethren, it's also not just a private
love. We just don't say, oh, I love
that dear brother and sister. But it's manifested, isn't it?
It's manifested in our lives. It's manifested in our actions
towards one another. We genuinely love one another. It's not a put-on. Tim and I
were talking about that today, about the difference between
religion and being really born again and part of the family We used to have to try to do
that. We used to have to work at that.
Sister, you came out of workspace religion, too. You had to work
at it, eh? Now, there's some people you genuinely love. There's
others you just... You didn't. But it's different
when you're born again of God. It's different. You love the
brethren. You love them. And this love, this love, finds
its origins in God. It finds its origins in God.
He's the giver of it. He's the giver of it. He has
to grow it in us. He grows His love for one another
in us. And where does it find its center? Where does it find its hope?
Christ. Christ in Him alone. Look at verse 5 of our text here
in Colossians 1. For the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, wherever you heard before in the word of the
truth of the gospel, what God has promised and laid up for
us in heaven will come to pass. It will. Again, this love finds
its origin. The love spoken of in Colossians
One aid, who declared unto us your love in the Spirit." This
love finds its origin in God, whom Paul gives thanks for. He gives thanks to God for this
love. That these Colossians have this
love. Because it's evidence of the Holy Spirit working in them. He also gives thanks for their
faith and their hope. There's the three. Faith, love, and hope. Look at verse 3, Colossians 1
through 3. We give thanks to God and our Father, our Lord
Jesus Christ, praying always for you. Again, where does the
glory go? Where does the glory go for this
love, this faith, In this hope, it all goes to God, doesn't it?
Because God's the giver. He's the giver. As you also learned of Epaphras,
our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister
of Christ, who declared also unto us your love in the Spirit. The love of the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of God is shed in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
He sheds it in our arms. It's not something, like I said,
we can't make it up. Ask yourself, before you were
saved, did you love the brethren? No. What changed? You're a new creature
in Christ, born again in the Spirit of God. Now, we all have
the same Father who believed, right? The same Spirit. The same Christ. Turn if you would to Romans 5.
Romans 5. It's not something that we can
fake or something that we can work up. It comes from a regenerated
heart. One who's born again of the Holy
Spirit of God. Romans 5, starting in verse 1,
says this, "...therefore being justified by faith." So right
there, Scripture declares to us that we are not justified
by anything that we do. Not by any works which we do.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice." Oh, we
rejoice, don't we? In the hope and the glory of
God. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations. Also, knowing
that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and
experience hope. And hope maketh not a shame,
because what? The love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. By the Holy Ghost, which is given
unto us. And then turn, if you would,
over to Romans chapter 8. Now, unregenerate people do not have
this love for the brethren. And I know, because I was there.
Brother Newell, you were there too. We didn't have a love for
God's people before the Lord saved us. Not at all. Now we
do. Now we do. Look at Romans 8,
verses 5-9. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be calmly minded is death.
But to be spiritual minded is life and peace. Because the carnal
mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so, be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. If you're not born again, you're
not Christ. We know that here. Now contrast
those verses with the ones in Colossians that we looked at
in Colossians 4, 1-4 and 1-8. Believers have the love of the
Spirit because they're born again. So the love that the Colossians
have for God who also declared unto us your
love in the Spirit. So this love that the Colossians
have for God and for the brethren is wrought in them by the Holy
Spirit of God. And let us think on this also,
that the love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts, and
which is from God, As I said earlier, it has only one object,
doesn't it? Christ. Christ. Remember Scripture says the Holy
Spirit will not speak of Himself? He'll point us to Christ, won't
He? He'll point us right to Christ. We grow and learn in the knowledge
of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. And what
happens? Our love towards Him abounds
and increases. Is it not so for you, beloved?
Do you not love Him more now than you ever have before? Is He not altogether lovely? We learn some things that we
learn. We learn when we're born again
and when God the Holy Spirit teaches us because He must illuminate
this Scripture. He teaches us of Christ. And
we learn how He loved us from eternity. How God loved His people
from eternity. And what happens? Our love for
Him increases. It increases. We grow and we
learn in the knowledge of what God has done for us in Christ
Jesus our Lord, and our love towards Him increases. It just increases. We learn how we were chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world, and our love increases.
We learn how that Christ Jesus, our Savior, died our substitute. And He bore the penalty of God's
law and justice. And what happens? Our love toward
Him just increases and increases and increases. We learn how that
He rose again from the grave for our justification to show
that God was satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ. And again,
our love just increases. Towards Christ. He's the object
of our love. We learn how He's the mediator
between God and man. We don't have to go to anyone
else. He is the one mediator. He's the one our prayers are
directed to. between God and man. And again,
our love for God and our love for Christ just increases. We marvel and we learn how He
rules and reigns in heaven right now. He's not waiting to come
back and rule and reign. He's in full control right now.
He's our rest and our sovereign and our king. And our love increases
again. And it's all wrought in us by
the Holy Spirit of God. And that love for Christ was
not there before we were born again. It cannot be willed into existence. By anything we do, it's wrought
in us by the Holy Spirit of God. Think of this, in our natural
state, and even after we're saved, we struggle with it too. But
in our natural state, in our natural flesh, we're selfish. By nature, we're selfish and
guarded and we have no care for God. I only used to go to church three
times a year. And I counted myself a good Catholic
for doing that. Well, let me ask you something. Because we come here and we feast
on the clover of God's Word, don't we? And I didn't know Christ then,
but could I live on three meals in a year? No, there was no food
there for me anyways. But if I, you know, this is why
we need to come to church. We need to come and hear the
gospel preached. We need to be where the true
Gospel is being proclaimed. This is our spiritual food. We
feast on the Word of God. In our natural state, we are
absorbed by our concerns and our own lives. But this love spoken of here
is a love we never had in our natural state. We weren't born
with this love. I didn't have a love for God
until He saved me, until I became born again in the Spirit of God.
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love
which ye have to all the saints, who also declared unto us your
love in the Spirit." Think on this. We used to only care for
ourselves and our family and some friends, close friends,
even some of the ones we didn't belong with, but they were still
our friends or our buddies or whatever. We cared for them.
But think of this now. We who are born again of the
Holy Spirit of God. Now we have a love for people
that we don't even know. We have a love for people also
that we didn't even know. Now we have a love in the body,
a local body too. Think of this. We now have a
love for people that we didn't even know before the Lord saved
us. How do you explain that? Only by a supernatural work of
God, the Holy Spirit. People who we may not have wanted
to be around before, and I know before the Lord saved me, I did
not want to be around born-again believers. I did not. But people who we
may not have wanted to be around before, the Lord saved us. Now
we love. we pray for, we care for, and
they're the only people we want to be with. Think of this, too. We have a
love for Brethren in Africa, where Jean-Claude goes and ministers
to. We've never met any of them, and we probably won't. We probably
won't. But we still love them. They're
our brethren. We pray for Jean-Claude as he
goes there and preaches the gospel to feed God's sheep there. Lance
Heller, our missionary in Papua New Guinea. We'll probably never
meet any of those people. But we love him. And we pray
for him. And we pray for the work there.
And supposedly there's all kinds of little churches in the jungle
out there that Lance goes to in the different places. And
God's doing a mighty work there. And we pray for him. And we love
him. We have brothers and sisters
in other churches that we may never meet. Or we may meet them temporarily
for a short period of time. And that, oh, what is it that
when you meet with a believer who you might not have ever known
before, and within weeks, or not even, within weeks, within
the conversation, you feel like you've known them for years.
That's the love of the Spirit. I've had that happen with a few
different men, where I've got together with them, either on
the phone or met with them, and your hearts are just knit together. How do you explain that? Other
than the love of the Spirit. And you feel like you've known
them your whole life. Oh, it's the love of the Spirit,
beloved. And it's only in Christ, and only believers in Christ
have this. It's a fruit of the Spirit. Look again in our text. "...who also declared unto us
your love in the Spirit." Here in our text it says that Epaphras
has declared this to Paul. He's declared this to Paul. You know what Epaphras has told
Paul? He's declaring to Paul the wondrous
work that God has done in the Brethren of Colossus. And he's attributing it all to
God. He's attributing it all to Him. God has done this. He's telling Paul about the evidence
that he sees. That God has saved His people
who were in Colossus. And there's more probably. And
that the Gospel goes forth and continues to bear fruit in their
lives and in others. He tells Paul that they are faithful
brethren who love the Gospel and rejoice in only Christ and
the only one Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior of sinners. Think of the evidence. He's proclaiming
to Paul the evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit in these believers.
That they have faith. Genuine faith. Faith that trusts
in Christ alone. Faith that casts their works
aside. Faith that have no hope in their
own righteousness because they know it's like filthy rags before
the Lord. They believe the same gospel
we believe. Christ alone plus nothing. He's proclaiming that they have
faith. Genuine faith. Genuine faith. They have love. Genuine love for the brethren.
Not just with who they fellowship with. Not just those they hear
of. But they have genuine love for
the brethren. For those they fellowship with
and for those who they hear the Lord's saving. And it's all by the power of
the Holy Spirit working in them. They received the Word of God
with gladness. Have not we who believe too?
They rejoiced that Christ had saved them from their sins. Is
that not what we rejoice in? It's the same Gospel. The same
Savior. The same Almighty God who moves
and wills and does His own will and His own pleasure. They believe,
beloved, the Gospel of God's free grace in Christ plus no
works. No works. No works of their own. It's the same Gospel we believe.
The Gospel of God's free grace in Christ plus nothing. They've
heard the Gospel. And they've received it. They're
made willing. They receive it with joy. And they have a hope, beloved. Oh, they have a hope of eternal
life. And it's only in Christ. It's
only in Christ. This is evidence then that they
are saved. Evidence that they are redeemed
by the Lamb. They love the Gospel. And they continue to love Christ.
And they continue to love the Gospel. And they continue to
love His people. Look at Colossians 1.6, "...which
is come unto you," meaning the Gospel. The Gospel goes forth
with power. Every one of us here tonight
are here by divine appointment. "...which is come unto you, as
it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also
in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of
God in truth." God had revealed to them, they
knew the grace of God in truth because God had revealed Himself
to them in the Gospel. And we know that the Gospel bears
fruit, and that it goes forth with power, and sinners are redeemed
and saved. How does it do that in a practical
way in our lives? Well, first there's a drawing
of the Holy Spirit, right? And a conviction of sin. A conviction
of sin shows us that we are sinners
in a horrible predicament. That we cannot save ourselves
before a holy, just, and righteous God of the universe. with absolutely no way to save
ourselves. It does not stop at producing
guilt in us before God. It produces repentance. We express
our sorrow to God in that we confess that we are guilty before
Him. It ends in faith and we flee
to Christ and trust and rest in Him who is our wonderful,
merciful Savior. And it's all the work of the
Holy Spirit of God working in us. Granting us faith and repentance. We are granted faith and we repent
and trust Christ as our Savior. Born again by the Holy Spirit
of God. Turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians
1. Born again by the Holy Spirit
of God and all this comes to pass. 1 Corinthians 2. Oh, the Holy Spirit
must regenerate us. And then we flee to Christ. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10-16. God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the
deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the
things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we
have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not
in the words which man's wisdom teaches. We don't teach the wisdom
of man. but which the Holy Ghost teaches,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. And there was a time when the
Gospel was foolishness to me. But God had mercy on me. Isn't
it not so with you, beloved? Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?" We have
the mind of Christ. We receive Christ. We receive
Christ and the Gospel and the truth of it. Why? Because we're
born again. There was a time when we could
not discern the spiritual things. We had no interest in Christ.
But a great change occurs. Look at 2 Corinthians 5.17. The
next verse down. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, born again of the Holy Spirit of God. All
things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. He who despised the Lord Jesus
Christ now loves the Savior. now loves the Savior. He who
despised Christians now loves the brethren. He who despised the Gospel now
loves the Gospel. That's all he wants to hear.
We won't settle for anything else, will we? And the Gospel continues to bear
fruit. in our lives and in others. As we hear the Gospel of God's
free grace preached and proclaimed, we grow in faith towards our
wonderful Savior. And we also grow in love towards
God. And we grow in love towards the
brethren. And we have a hope of eternal
life. We have a hope. And it's in Christ. It's not
in our doings. It's all in Him. So we see, who
also declared unto us, your love in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God working
in us and giving us a love that we never had before. He only has one object. That's
Christ. And that's for all of us who
are believers. The object of our love, the object of our affection
is Christ. Look unto Him and be saved. May we rejoice this week. And
may we think on this fact. Let us think on this. Let's close
with this. That God the Father God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, all are involved in each of our salvation. We who are saved. It's a total
work of God from A to Z. And we're just receivers. He did it all. Salvation is of the Lord.