"The gospel has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; 7 as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit. Three words that are crucial there: faith, hope, and love." (Col 1:6-8)
Paul picks up here in v.6 with the most powerful concept ever presented to man: the Gospel which is both good news and bad news. The bad news prepares us for the good news. And, of course, the good news is Jesus Christ has demonstrated His love for us by solving our sin and death problem on His cross. The result of knowing this love is we are gradually transformed from the inside out.
There are times, when facing difficulty, we are tempted to give up on following the Lord Jesus. At this point, He is always faithful to reveal the fact that He is more involved in our lives than we knew. This is the power of the gospel. Almost without exception, God has, during these times taught us the value of faith in Him. As Philip Yancey writes in his book, Disappointment with God, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
Although God has often provided help to us through friends and family, He has been known to sometimes deliberately deny us human help. He does this so that we will recognize that no matter where the help comes from, He is the one providing the help.
The Apostle Paul identifies what is happening in these contexts: the Gospel is producing fruit in and through us. The type of fruit that he is talking about is faith, hope and love.
Notice when the effectiveness of the Gospel began to come alive in our lives, "...since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth." (v.6)
Do you remember the first day you began to hear and know God's grace? Like me, it probably took you a while to get it, but when you did, you began to recognize that He was the power behind your change. There is nothing more life changing than to know that God likes us and is for us one hundred percent.
This presents a major theme in the book of Colossians. You see, the Colossians had lost sight of this core doctrine: Jesus is the active answer in every possible way during each day of our lives. Learning to relate with Him is the key to all of life. When we do this, we begin experiencing "eternal life".
At this point, hope is unlocked in our lives. And, this hope is effective because it is about that which awaits us each day as we anticipate what God is going to do in our lives on that day. Those who don’t understand hope are always freaking out when things go wrong. This posture of worry is needless and stunting to our spiritual growth. Even the negative is a positive in the kingdom of God.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it well when he said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
