Faith, Hope, and Love

Colossians 1:1-14

Introduction

How important is a job description? Some jobs are self-evident of what is expected. A fire fighter knows they will have to put out a fighter and they do not need this to be specified. A pilot is going to know that they are going to need to fly planes. But even in these examples, there will be details given so to firefighter and the pilot know that they are doing their job properly.

I have experienced this even as a pastor. You might think that being a pastor is one of those things that the job descriptions is pretty clear. Preach, visit, and get involved in the community. But it can get a bit more complicated. My first full time pastoral position was as an associate pastor. The head of the search committee told me clearly what my job was. My role was to make sure that the senior pastor did not get burned out and it was communicated just like that. So for the first year, I tried to do that but was not effective because the senior pastor was not willing to back down on some of their responsibility. After a year, I went back and said I need a new job description that clearly identifies what I am supposed to do. Only then would I know if I was being successful in my job.

How does this apply to being a Christian? What is our job description? How can we know if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing? There is a job description for Christians, and it is both simple and difficult. I need to make clear that what I am talking about is not how someone is saved or how someone can have assurance of eternal life. What we are going to look at is about what the Christian does once they become a Christian. 

The job description is faith, hope, and love, the very things listed in 1 Corinthians 13. What we will do is dig into that a bit more so we can see what the Christian life looks like.

Faith

The first thing we are going to look at is that of faith. This is no surprise. The Apostle Paul, who wrote this letter, speaks very often about faith. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1) Paul in his writings explains clearly about how we become justified, that is achieve right standing before God, and it is only by faith.

The faith that Paul talks about is not simply believing a set of facts. Belief is important but true faith goes beyond that. You might believe that a daredevil can cross a high wire over a steep waterfall but you might not have the faith to sit in a wheelbarrow and be pushed along that high wire by him. Biblical faith is about trust.

This is very important when we talk about how one becomes a Christian but it is just as important about how we live as a Christian. Paul praises the Colossians for their faith in Christ, not just their faith in becoming Christians but their ongoing faith. Being a Christian is not about getting a ticket to heaven and then Jesus moving on to the next customer. Christianity is about an ongoing faith and trust relationship with Christ. 

Think about how we pray. We pray “in Jesus’ name.” We may not know how God will answer that prayer but we trust that the Jesus in whose name we have prayed actually cares about us. Faith is not about tricking God into giving us what we want but trusting that Jesus is already at work in our life. 

It would be easier if faith was a one and done event when we become a Christian but it is a choice that we make each and every day. Some days that faith will come easy and sometimes it will be a struggle. Sometimes I hold onto to the faith of that father who brought his child to Jesus: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

Faith is about having an ongoing relationship with Jesus. It will include mountaintops and valleys, but it is meant to be a continual journey. Faith does not come about by itself but it requires a regular commitment to trust Jesus, no matter what circumstances we might face.

Love

Normally, in our triad of virtues, we would talk about hope but here Paul focuses on love. We have recently looked at the concept of love and so we will not go over the same material. It is important for us to ask who we are supposed to love. We might want to only love our family and close friends but God does not give us that option. In this passage, Paul praises the Colossians for the faith they have for all the saints. Who are the saints? Saints in the Bible are not special people who are extra-spiritual and have been given an exalted position by some council. In the Bible, all Christians are considered saints. Saints literally means “holy ones” which you might struggle with as much as the other term. But one is holy not because it is better than something else but because it is set apart by God. For example, the ground around the burning bush that Moses encountered was holy ground because that is where God chose to reveal himself not because it was better dirt.

This is a hard teaching but the New Testament stresses that our love is first of all to those within the family of faith. People struggle with this because it seems to diminish outreach and might lead to an unhealthy church culture where it is all about us. That is not what Paul is talking about. The love for all the saints sets up the foundation for us to love others. It is not that we are more deserving of love but how can we love those outside the church if we don’t first love those inside the church. The expectation is that people outside the church should look at us and remark: “Those are the people that really love one another.”

Hope

This brings us to hope. We have seen that we are to have faith in Christ and love toward one another. Where does hope fit into this? Paul says that this faith and loves brings forth from the hope we have stored for us in heaven. What is that hope? It is not as simple as saying “heaven.” Paul is not saying to try to have some faith and love because soon you will be in heaven. The hope is stored in heaven and that hope is God’s ultimate plan. Hope is the understanding that we are part of a larger story and that we are ultimately heading toward something amazing, even if we don’t quite see it yet. The hope is that which God has in store for us now, that which happens when we die, and the resurrection from the dead when Jesus returns. 

How does this help us with faith and love? What we experience now is not just about a bunch of random events that may be good or bad, depending on the whim of fate. Christian hope is the confidence that we are part of God’s story and what we do now is a part of that story. Our faith in God is based on the hope we have in what God is doing in us and through us. Our love for people is based on the fact that the church and the rest of humanity are all part of God’s plan and that is worked out through how we treat one another.

What if you don’t feel hopeful? This is the beauty of it: feeling hopeless and being hopeless are not the same thing. Life is never hopeless for the Christian, no matter what we may feel at the time, because we are part of God’s story.

Conclusion

So what is the job description of the Christian? As I said, it is both simple and difficult. It is simple in that it is just three little words: faith, hope, and love. We can look at these concepts and understand them. But how do we live them out?

It is about a decision. We choose to have faith in Christ. We choose to love one another. We choose to hold onto the hope of what is stored for us in heaven. I am not saying we become Christian by choosing to be good enough. Rather, as Christians, it our job to choose to live as Christians, whatever our feelings might be. Faith, hope, and love. Want to know if we are following our job description? Look to these three.