Memorize: Hope produced by Christ
Key Verses: 10, 13, 15-20, 22, 27
Paul makes a direct connection between faith and fruit. When people have a living faith in Jesus their lives produce fresh fruit, fruit that satisfies the hungry people’s souls. The readers of this letter had grown in their faith and there was fruit evident in their lives. The hard question for today is this: is there fruit in your life that demonstrates that Jesus is the answer to life’s questions? Can people even tell you are a Jesus-follower, or are your words of faith just empty words? Is our life worthy of the sacrifice paid? Our lives should be filled with wisdom and understanding. There should be God’s strength enabling us to endure hardship.
Sometimes we forget that we were rescued! We were on the spiritual Titanic, without a life vest, and the lifeboats have long since departed. He rescued us from spiritual darkness. I have some relatives who don’t know Jesus. As crisis arises, they don’t even have the hope of prayer in their lives. They have nothing outside of themselves to which they can hold. They have no hope. I am saddened by it. But we have a new start, a new hope, a new kingdom to which we now belong.
Verses 15-20 are jam packed with theology, truth about Jesus. I wish that I could take weeks to unpack these verses, but I can’t. As an example of the richness of Truth, look at verse fifteen. When you go to the Empire State Building in New York city, you can make your own souvenir of our visit. You put a penny in a machine, turn the crank and your penny comes out flattened with an image of the Empire State Building pressed into the penny. The same thing happens when a signet ring is pressed into the wax on the back of a letter or official document, sealing it. Jesus is God’s image that was pressed into humanity leaving His mark. We can look at the image on the penny, the wax, or on the world and see what the impression maker looked like. We can make out the details of the imprinting body. So, when we look at and examine Jesus, we can know exactly who God is and what he is like. Jesus is the invisible God made visible, and He left His mark on the world, and in our lives.
Jesus created all things, holds all things together, is in charge of the Church, and made it possible for all the old prejudices to be overcome. And the mystery is no longer a mystery: Christ now lives in us. We have become the dwelling place of the Creator of the Universe! There are many good expositions of this passage, but here is a quick outline to begin if you want.
The Arnold Journey 