Gospel Growth
Currently, I am preparing to preach a series of sermons focusing on the first chapter of Colossians. The title of the series is Gospel Growth. I hope to make those messages available to you as they are preached, but I wanted to write this article as a sort of primer to this series and to clearly articulate what I see in Colossians as God’s glorious goal in and through the Church.
“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.” (Colossians 1:3-8)
God’s Glorious Goal
You can easily see where the title Gospel Growth comes from in verses 5 and 6 of Colossians 1. Paul says that the gospel is “bearing fruit and increasing.” These words call to mind for me the words of Jesus. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32) Like a tree or a vine the gospel starts small and grows into something magnificent and glorious. This is God’s goal, and it should be ours. Often, when we talk about starting new churches, we call that work “church planting.” However, a better way to say it may be “gospel planting.” Churches are formed when the gospel takes root in the hearts and lives of people, and those people are drawn into community with one another because of their new lives in Christ.
God’s Global Vision
The vision that Paul lays out for us is clearly global in scale. He points out the fact that this gospel isn’t just bearing fruit and increasing in small remote pockets of the world. No! The gospel is, indeed, in the “whole world.” The vision God has for gospel growth is that the entire world will be covered with this news about God’s great salvation through Jesus. This harkens back to the prophet Habakkuk who revealed that God has been working from the beginning to fill the whole earth with the the knowledge of his glory. (Habakkuk 2:14) If we are going to join God in his glorious goal of gospel growth then we too must have a global vision. We should plan, pray and work toward world missions, but as we set our sights on world missions, we must not look over our own communities.
God’s Local Expression
The next thing Paul makes clear to us is that God’s glorious goal and God’s global vision have a local expression. He says in verse 6, “as it also does among you.” The “you” in this verse is the church in Colossae. Paul is writing to a specific church, and he says God’s vision to grow his gospel in the world will be accomplished AS it is accomplished among you. I take that to mean two things. First, Gospel Growth will be accomplished in each local church in the same way. God doesn’t have a different process for growing the gospel in Africa than America. Second, Gospel Growth will be accomplished in the world THROUGH local churches. This reality is exactly why Canldekeepers exists. We know that God’s plan A is to use churches to accomplish his glorious goal of gospel growth, and there is no plan B. That’s why we are dedicated to keeping the light of the gospel burning, one church at a time.
Thank you for your prayer and support. Together we are developing leaders who will strengthen existing churches and start new ones. God has a glorious goal with a global vision and a local expression. We are committed to this work because God is committed to Gospel Growth.
