God’s Grace and Peace to you!
The color that adorns our altar, pulpit, and lectern is the color green. Green reminds us of growth. As winter turns into spring and then into summer, nature rebounds with life in which the color green showing forth.
The Day of Pentecost is often referred to as the birthday of the church. The Sundays after Pentecost – the church season we will be in until the season of Advent – is also a season of growth in faith and in Christian life. Thus, the color that beautifies our sanctuary in this church season is green.
But the Christian life does not always manifest itself as we might think. Which often leads people to question, “why is it that sometimes we don’t see the growth in the life of other believers or ourselves that we expect?”
I think this is a question that occupied the Apostle Paul quite often – as evidenced by how many letters he wrote to churches struggling with different issues of faith.
The Colossian church had issues of its own concerning the nature of the Gospel. There was a conflict within the Christian church in Colossae, but the exact origin of the conflict is not what concerns Paul the most. Rather it is how the false gospel the Colossians are hearing devalues Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection.
Paul begins his letter to the Colossians with a word of thanksgiving and a prayer, both of which serve as a prelude or an introduction into what he is writing about. In the case of the Colossians, Paul expresses his gratitude that they have believed the true Gospel and that this faith is demonstrated as love for all the saints and is anchored in their hope of a certain future with Jesus Christ. Essentially, Paul is trying to impress upon the Colossians that the Gospel he preached is the real thing.
You see, what Paul is hinting at and will make clearer as the letter continues is that by its very nature the Gospel grows the life of Christ in us. When the Holy Spirit leads our heart to understand the message of the Gospel, giving us faith to believe, the power of the Gospel produces life in us, bringing redemption.
We start with a knowledge of God for who he truly is and what he has done for us in Jesus Christ. In other words, we finally realize that we are creatures and our life is dependent upon the goodness and mercy of our Creator. As Psalm 111 reminds us – the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom – the environment of our heart is then home to the Gospel that brings life. As the seed of the Gospel sprouts in our life, our understanding of who God is and what he wants from us grows and as we act in obedience to the Word implanted, we begin bearing fruit in every good work.
Paul prayed for the Colossians that their vision of Christ would match his and that their knowledge of the love of God in Christ Jesus would deepen and then grow and bear fruit in service to God and to others. Let this also be our prayer for each other.
In Christ!
Pastor Bakker
9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. Colossians 1:9-10 (NRSVUE)