How to Impact Your World for Christ

Once upon a time there was a little Baptist church in a small town way back up in the hills of West Virginia. It just so happened that this little church called a new pastor. The new pastor was a brilliant young man who came from New York City. He had had a university education and had graduated from one of the best seminaries on the east coast. How he ended up at that little church in West Virginia is beyond me, but there he was.

Well, people came from far and wide to meet the new pastor at the installation service. Some of them were farmers, some of them were coal-miners, and some of them were just the local characters that you’d expect to find in the hills of West Virginia.

Farmer Jones clomped into the church and picked up a bulletin for the service. He noticed that the new pastor had a string of letters after his name, describing all the academic degrees he had earned; B.S., M.S., Ph.D. His neighbor, Farmer McCoy, leaned over from the next pew and asked Farmer Jones if he knew what all those letters meant.

Farmer Jones replied: “Well, we all know what B.S. means. And I guess that M.S. just means ‘More of the Same’”. And Ph.D. means “Piled Higher and Deeper”.

All the jokes you have ever heard about small towns and small town people would have applied to the city of Colosse. Colosse was tucked away in a river valley way back up in the hills of what is now the interior of Turkey, but was known, back in the first century A.D., as the region of Phrygia.

At one time it had been a fairly important place, but by the time of the NT, the bloom was off the rose. The main trade route from Ephesus to the Middle East now by-passed Colosse, and its sister cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, which were about ten miles away, outgrew it.

In Pennsylvania terms, if you can picture Ephesus as being like Philadelphia, Laodicea and Hierapolis would be like Allentown and Bethlehem, and Colosse would be like Jim Thorpe—a simple little town tucked away on a river up in the hills.

Way back in 53 A.D., the apostle Paul came to Ephesus—the major city down on the coast. And he stayed there for a good two years, teaching and preaching, and establishing a strong Christian church in that city. During the time he was there, Christian workers began to fan up into the hills in the interior of the province of Asia. They brought the Gospel—the Good News of Jesus Christ—to the towns and villages there. That’s how there came to be a church in Colosse. A man named Epaphras, who happened to be a native of Colosse himself, brought the Gospel to the Colossians.

A few years went by and the Apostle Paul moved on from Ephesus. But the church at Colosse continued to grow and flourish—in spite of the fact that they were situated in a rather hostile religious environment.

You see, Asia Minor in those days was a place that was just teeming with weird religions and cults and philosophies. It was kind of like California is today. If there was any kind of bizarre belief system, chances were you’d probably find it in Asia Minor, especially in the region of Phrygia where Colosse was located.

You had all of your garden variety pagan cults dedicated to the worship of the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. But you also had several kinds of humanistic philosophies that glorified man’s reasoning and intellect. Remember, the Greeks were noted for producing thinkers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. And then you had several varieties of Judaism which had come from Judea. Some of them were quite strict and legalistic—like we saw in the book of Galatians—others were less so. And finally, there was Christianity.

Now these various religions and world views didn’t just keep to themselves. They combined and mutated into countless sub-species. So, for example, you could have a religion that was part Judaism and part Greek philosophy. Or a philosophy that combined elements of paganism and elements of Christianity, with a dash of humanism on the side for good measure.

Asia Minor in the first century was just like a big religious cafeteria—kind of like America is today. Take one item from column A, two items from column B, another from column C, and try to blend them all together into your own coherent world view.

And the Colossian Christians were right in the middle of that kind of environment. They were Christians living in a non-Christian world. And they were having trouble sorting it all out. All around them, there were people telling them that they needed to add other things to their Christianity—other ideas, other beliefs, other perspectives.

“Surely you can’t be as narrow-minded and dogmatic as to think that Christianity, and Christianity alone has the truth?” these people would say. And the Colossian Christians began to wonder.

The Apostle Paul heard that they were struggling. And so he wrote this letter to them—the letter to the Colossians. It begins on page 1165 of the pew Bible. And over the next several weeks, we’re going to study it verse-by-verse together. Because there are principles in that letter that we need to hear today.

We are living in a non-Christian world. We are living in a world that believes that there can be many varieties of spiritual truth; many roads to God; many satisfying philosophies of life. We are living in a world that increasingly frowns on people who think there’s only one way. That’s unenlightened, that’s intolerant, that’s not being sensitive to diversity, that’s not politically correct.

So we have a lot in common with what those Colossian Christians were going through. Now let’s see what God had to say to them…

Colossians 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Paul opened all his letters with a greeting or salutation like this. He tells them who is writing (in those days you signed your letters at the beginning rather than at the end), he sends them greetings, and he wishes them grace and peace from the Lord. Then he goes on…

Colossians 1:3 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 the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

Remember, Paul had never been to Colosse. He had never met the Colossian Christians. But he had heard about them. He had heard good things about them. Ever since the Good News about Jesus Christ had come to them, and they had accepted it and believed it, good things had been happening in their lives. They had become Good News people.

Paul says that there were three things in particular that he had heard about them.

1. They had a visible faith.

Paul says “I heard about your faith.” Their faith in Jesus Christ was producing visible, tangible results. It was making a difference in the way they lived. James says “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?” If you’re really a Christian, it’s going to show in your life. There’s going to be some evidence. Good News people have visible faith.

2. They had active love.

Paul says “I heard about the love you have for all the saints…” These Colossian believers loved each other. And it showed. Jesus said “By this will all men know that you are my disciples; if you love one another.” The crucial mark of a Christian is love. And it’s active love. It isn’t just love in words; it’s love in action. Good News people have active love.

3. They had steadfast hope.

Paul says “The faith that you have and the love that you have spring from the hope that you have—the hope that is stored up for you in heaven.” It’s a hope that says “I believe that God loves me; that God is in control of my life; that I matter to Him; and that He wants me to live with Him forever.” Good News people have steadfast hope.

Now if you are lacking in any of these areas—you don’t have visible faith; you don’t have active love for other people; and you don’t have a positive, bubbling hope about your life and its significance, maybe it’s because you are not a Good News person.

How do you become a Good News person? You become a Good News person by believing the Good News Message—the Gospel about Jesus Christ. The word “gospel” means “good news”. The Gospel tells us that God loved us and cared about us so much that He sent His Son here to die for us—to take the penalty of our sin on his own shoulders.

And simply by believing in Jesus Christ, we can come into fellowship with God. We can have total and complete forgiveness for our sins—boy, talk about getting a load off your back! And we can begin to discover the plan and the purpose for our lives.

Are you a Good News person this morning? Have you ever placed your trust in Jesus Christ? If you’re not sure, you can do it right now if you want to. Simply say to God “Lord, I need you. I need Jesus to be my Savior. I believe that He died for me, and I want to have fellowship with you. I want to be a Good News person—a person with visible faith; a person who actively loves others; a person who goes through life with a positive outlook because of that steadfast hope that someday I’ll be with you in heaven forever.”

If this prayer expresses what you are feeling right now, why don’t you just go ahead and pray it. Let’s pause right now and bow our heads and you can pray that prayer where you sit, quietly just talking to God. Let’s all pray.

If you prayed that prayer to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior this morning, I’d like to know about it. So I’m going to stay up here at the front of the church after the service is over, and I want you to come up here and tell me about it, OK? It’ll do you good to tell somebody what you did. Remember: your faith needs to be visible to be real.

If you are a Good News person, it is because you have based your life on the Good News Message. And Paul talks about that message in verse 6…

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.

We live in the information age. We are drowning in a sea of information. We have television, we have the Internet, we have computers, we have millions upon millions of books being published every year. Man’s knowledge is increasing exponentially.

But have you noticed that all this information doesn’t seem to be making a difference? We’re still wrestling with the same problems we’ve always had? Society doesn’t seem to be getting any better—in many ways, it seems to be getting worse—even though we have all this information. Why is this so?

It’s because all of this information comes from us. It’s origin is human. But there’s one piece of information out there that’s not of human origin. It’s the Gospel.

The Good News about Jesus Christ is an amazing piece of information. It’s amazing because it didn’t come from man; it came from God. And it does several things, as Paul says there in verse 6…

1. The Good News has a worldwide impact.

Paul says “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing”. That was true in the first century and it is true today. The Good News about Jesus Christ has penetrated every corner of the world, has made an impact on every culture, and has changed the lives of people from virtually every ethnic background.

You can go to the remotest regions of China today and find people meeting in simple house churches worshiping and praising Jesus Christ. You can go to Muslim countries like Libya and Iran, where it is a capital crime to become a Christian, and find people willing to give their lives to believe in Jesus Christ. The Good News has a worldwide impact.

2. The Good News produces fruit and grows.

Fruit nourishes and sustains people and growth implies the presence of life. Things that grow have life in them. There is an inner energy to the Good News about Jesus Christ that makes it different from every other piece of information on the planet. The Gospel has the power within itself to change people’s lives. That’s because the Gospel came from God.

If you were to record the story of every person who has ever had his life changed by believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the world would not be able to hold the books. Over the past 2,000 years, enemies of the Good News have tried to stamp it out. And yet they have not succeeded. Today, 2,000 years later, there are more people in the world who believe the Gospel than there ever have been at any time in history, and more people believe the Gospel than believe any other belief.

3. The Gospel helps us to understand God’s grace and truth

Without the Good News about Jesus Christ, we would never really know that God loves us. The Bible says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s the Good News. And without it, we would never know that God has made a way for us to know him.

So the Gospel—the Good News about Jesus—is a very important message. But it’s a message that needs a messenger. And that’s where you and I come in, and that’s where we can really impact our world.

How did the Colossians learn about the Good News? Well, Paul tells us in verse 7…

You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf…

Epaphras was originally from Colosse. For whatever reason, he was down in Ephesus when he ran into Paul. And through Paul, he heard the Good News and became a Christian. What did he do next? He went back to Colosse—back to his hometown, back to his friends, back to his family—bearing the Good News. He became a Good News messenger.

Now there are several things we learn about Epaphras that made him effective as a Good News messenger.

1. He had a changed life

His very name tells us that. The name Epaphras is a shortened form of Epaphroditus, which contains the name of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Obviously, Epaphras did not come from a Christian home. He came from a pagan home, where they worshiped Aphrodite and even named their children after her. But Epaphras became a Christian, one who bore the name of Jesus Christ. His life was changed.

You may think that to become an effective messenger of the Good News, you need to have a Christian pedigree, or a Christian family background, or some sort of Christian training. Let me tell you that the most important component of your effectiveness for Jesus Christ is a changed life.

In the book of John, chapter 9, there is a story about a blind man whom Jesus cured of his blindness. The religious leaders gave this poor fellow a hard time because they hated Jesus. They threatened the young man and they threatened his parents. They tried to get him all tangled up in theological arguments. But he just kept saying over and over again “All I know is this. Once I was blind, but now I can see.” His life had been totally changed by Jesus.

If your life has been changed, don’t be afraid to tell people about it.

2. Epaphras had a servant’s heart.

Paul called him a “dear fellow servant”. And an effective Good News messenger is going to have a servant’s heart. If you want to really reach people for Christ—if you really want to make an impact on them—learn to serve.

That means listening to them instead of doing all the talking. That means going out your way to show kindness to them, even if they don’t reciprocate. It means returning blessing for cursing if they turn against you. It means seeking out the poor, the unlovely, the unpopular, and loving them for Jesus’ sake. It means having the mind and the heart of Christ.

3. Epaphras was a faithful representative of Christ

Paul calls Epaphras “a faithful minister of Christ” and the word minister is the word “diakonos”—the same word that we get our word “deacon” from. It is a word that refers to servant leadership—the same kind of leadership that Christ modeled.

So a Good News messenger needs to be like a little picture of Jesus Christ. There’s a popular Christian song that says “You’re the only Jesus some will ever see.” Ask yourself this question:

“If my friends, or my neighbors, or my family, only knew about Jesus from what they see in me, what would they think about Him?”

Mohandas Gandhi was one of the great political leaders of our century. He was the father of the independent nation of India—the second most populous nation on earth.

Gandhi was a committed Hindu, but during his days as a student living in South Africa, he was very much interested in the Bible. He read the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ, and was seriously considering becoming a follower of Jesus.

So he decided to attend a nearby church one Sunday. He intended to ask the pastor how he might become a Christian. But when he entered the white Protestant church, the ushers refused to give him a seat and they suggested that he go and worship with his own people. Gandhi left and never came back.

He left because, although he was attracted to Jesus, he didn’t see any Christians who looked like Christ and acted like Christ. Too bad he couldn’t have met Epaphras!

The only way to leave a lasting impact on the non-Christian world in which we live is…

1. Make sure that you’re a growing Christian yourself

2. Be faithful in sharing the Good News with others

Because a Good News messenger who shares the Good News message will produce Good News people. It happened in the first century; it can happen in the 21st century. It happened through Epaphras; it can happen through you.