Colossians 1:1–14: Where Faith, Hope & Love Come From

7‑minute read · July 12, 2026

When you first come to faith, you expect the line to go up. You picture your trust in God getting stronger week by week, your love getting warmer, your hope getting steadier - a clean climb toward the person you're supposed to become. Then real life happens. You catch yourself doubting. You're short with the people closest to you. You keep pinning your hopes on things that let you down. If that's you, you're in good company. This past Sunday at Christchurch Miami, guest preacher Jay Reynardus opened our new series through Colossians - "Greater Than" - by admitting that the longer he walks with the Lord, the more he sees how faithless, how loveless, and how full of misplaced hopes he still is. Then he turned us to Colossians 1 and showed us why that isn't the end of the story. Because faith, hope, and love were never something we manufacture. They're given.

"We always thank God… 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."

- Colossians 1:3-5

Faith, hope, and love: the marks of God's children

Paul opens his letter to a small church in Colossae - an ancient trading city about 120 miles east of Ephesus - and immediately gets specific about what he's grateful for. Not their attendance. Not their giving. Their faith, their love, and their hope. If that trio sounds familiar, it should. Paul reaches for it again and again, remembering the Thessalonians' "work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope" (1 Thessalonians 1:3) and famously landing on "faith, hope, and love" as the three that abide (1 Corinthians 13:13).

These aren't three nice extras for especially religious people. As Jay put it Sunday, they are "the distinguishing characteristics of the saints" - the fingerprints of a real work of God on an ordinary life. "The faithless have become faithful. The loveless have become lovers. And those without hope have received the living hope." That's what a Christian is.

What this means for you this week

Here's the practical turn for a new believer. Stop measuring your walk with God by how impressive you feel and start looking for evidence of these three. Where has God grown a trust in you that wasn't there a year ago? Where do you love someone you used to find impossible? What hope is holding you steady that money and success can't touch? Jay literally told the congregation to get out their phones and write it down: you are a recipient of the grace of God, evidenced in faith, hope, and love. Then go looking for the evidence. It's there.

It's a gift, not an achievement

So where does that faith, hope, and love actually come from? Paul answers it in the same breath: from "the word of the truth, the gospel" (Colossians 1:5). It arrives with the good news and grows wherever the good news lands. This is the heartbeat of the way we talk about grace: the gospel is not a to-do list, it's a gift. "You who are faithless have been given a faith," Jay said. "You who are loveless… have been given love and are free to share it." God does the giving. We do the receiving.

That reframes the whole project of spiritual growth. You will not squeeze faith, hope, and love out of yourself by sheer willpower - and you don't have to. But it does mean paying attention to where the gift comes from. Jay was blunt about the competition for our hearts: "20 minutes of this on a Sunday morning will not overcome 25 hours of Netflix throughout the week." Not because entertainment is evil, but because whatever fills your week forms your heart. If the gospel is the soil these three grow in, then a life with almost no gospel in it will stay thin, no matter how sincerely you meant well on Sunday.

The prayer worth praying

There's a reason Paul, writing from a prison cell in Rome, doesn't just wish the Colossians well - he prays for them: "that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord" (Colossians 1:9-10). Jay pressed the point with a question: who wouldn't want to be filled with the knowledge of the risen Christ? So why don't we have more of it? Often, he said, echoing James, "you do not have, because you do not ask" (James 4:2). Growth starts on your knees, asking God for the very things only He can give.

Five things God has already done for you

Then Paul does something remarkable. In two short verses he stacks up five things God has already accomplished for everyone in Christ - and every one of them is past tense, finished, done to you rather than by you.

"Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

- Colossians 1:12-14

Slow down and count them, the way Jay made us count them Sunday. God has qualified you - handed you a standing you could never earn. He has delivered you out of the domain of darkness. He has transferred you into the kingdom of His beloved Son. He has redeemed you - bought you back at a price. And He has forgiven you, wiping the record clean. Qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed, forgiven. Not "will, if you keep it up." Already true.

This is the part that changes how you carry yourself on a hard Monday. Your citizenship in the kingdom of light doesn't rise and fall with your performance, because you didn't get yourself in. As Jay described it, God "reached into the darkness where you lived and pulled you out" - while you were still His enemy, before you cleaned up, before you had a single thing to offer. That's the God Colossians introduces: one who "desires to be known" so deeply that He came in the flesh and went to a cross so you could see His love and be sure of it.

Why this is greater than your circumstances

Here's how this whole passage earns the sermon's title. When your heart really grasps everything God has already done, the "little loves" and "little hopes" of this world get exposed for what they are - small. Not because your job or your family or your dreams don't matter, but because none of them can do what Christ has already done. The circumstances that feel bigger than you this week are not bigger than the King who qualified, delivered, and redeemed you. That's the freedom underneath the surface of an ordinary Christian life.

Keep your eyes on Christ

If there's one instruction that runs under all fourteen verses, it's this: look at Jesus, not at yourself. Jay said the most honest thing about himself all morning was that "the real Jay is the Jay who points you not to Jay - I'm a little thing - but points you to Jesus. He's the big thing." That's exactly what Paul does. He opens the letter by taking your eyes off the person in the mirror and fixing them on the person of Christ.

For a new believer, that's the most freeing news imaginable. Your growth doesn't hinge on your grip on God; it hinges on His grip on you. So when you feel faithless, don't stare harder at your faith - look to Christ, and ask Him to make you faithful. When your hopes feel misplaced, don't just scold yourself - set your hope on the risen One. As Jay closed on Sunday: "It's Him. It's always Him. It will always be Him." Keep your eyes there, and the rest begins to follow.

If Colossians is stirring something in you this week, we'd love to help you take a next step. You can watch Jay Reynardus's full message any time, come check out the new "Greater Than" series with us on Sundays at 11 AM at 8485 SW 112th St in Kendall, find a Community Group where faith, hope, and love actually get practiced, or plan your first visit. You can also keep reading on our blog - including Pastor Kent Keller's recent reflection, True Freedom: The Cross and the Declaration. Jesus really is greater - and His welcome is open to you.

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