What can we learn from Christians who have been living in a town that’s been on its way down for 500 years?
What can we learn from a church that is legendary for its hoping, holiness, and love for all God’s people while also enduring hardships of poverty, minority status, Imperial brutality, and religious cynicism?
What can we learn from a YMCA that invented basketball as a way to build up hope, holiness and a love for all God’s people?
What can we learn about joining Jesus in answering his prayer for unity while at the same time experiencing the spreading darkness of despair, decadence, and destruction?
I’d like to think we can still learn so much more!
Enjoy this encouraging sermon, rooted in trust that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.”
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.
In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”
St. Paul to the Colossians, 1:1-8 NIV