This is the text of Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for 15 February 2015 (Week 2 of the series “Fruitfulness on the Frontline”):

The disconnect between professed faith and demonstrated faith

In his book, “It takes a Church to raise a Christian” (which the Session are studying at the moment), Todd Bolsinger makes the startling claim that, while religion is highly popular, it is, to a large extent, superficial.

It does not change people’s lives to the degree one would expect from their level of professed faith. In other words, the faith we profess is not resulting in fruitfulness.

There seems to be a disconnection between our faith at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning, and the way we live our lives at work and at play.

The studies that we are doing over the next few weeks, and the sermons I will be preaching, are my humble attempt to help you to reconnect.

In this attempt, one of the key New Testament passages is from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians

It is a pinnacle of Paul’s writing.

It has been described as having a majestic view of Jesus, the church and God’s plan for the whole world.

However, because of that, any attempt to preach on the verses is difficult because, in an attempt to make it more manageable, we make it a little bit boring.

As one commentator wrote: “Our voices can sound pygmy like compared to what sounds like the roar of Paul’s reflections.”

I believe that to treat this passage correctly we need to take a step back.

Colossae was a town 100 miles East of Ephesus.

It was not as wealthy or as influential as the nearby city of Laodicea but it was a major trading crossroads and, during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes a couple of hundred years before Christ, it had become a major place of refuge for those who had fled.

As a result, it had a very large Jewish population who were well versed in the cries of Isaiah and the questions he raised during his exilic period.

Where is the presence of God? When will our God finally make good on his promises of peace and reconciliation? When and how will God show the world who he really is?

To these questions Paul and Epaphras had replied loudly and strongly that the world-shattering presence of God – the return of the king – had happened. It had happened in the person of Jesus Christ – and that makes a difference.

It makes a whole heap of a lot of difference.

So, in his letter, Paul begins by giving the people, whom he had never actually met, an insight into his prayers.

He begins by reflecting on the fact that the Gospel was bearing fruit all over the world  – changing lives everywhere.

Here was no superficial “going to church on a Sunday so that you can feel good about yourself on a Monday”. This was a faith that was reaching down into the very depths of people to bring forth a harvest of faith, hope and love.

This fruitfulness was not only transforming individuals, however; it was transforming situations.

It was making a difference in society, not just behind closed doors.

So, when Paul goes on to pray for their greatest needs, he prays that they will be filled with a knowledge of God’s will so that they will live lives that are worthy of their calling, and that they will continue to bear fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God and strengthened to keep going in their lives of faith.

However, Paul recognises that, in order to do that, the Colossians need to know what God’s will is for them in their situation at that time.

They need to have confidence in all that God has done, is doing and will do.

That confidence is needed today, just as much as it was then, and it is Paul’s expression of his confidence in all that God has done, is doing and will do that is our focus for today – for, without this confidence, we will never bear the fruit that befits our faith.

The supremacy of the Son of God (Colossians 1: 15-20)

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

It is generally reckoned that these few verses are some of the most important verses in the whole Bible, describing exactly who Jesus Christ is.

Paul is writing them to dispel a heresy that was arising at the time, that you had to have a certain secret knowledge in order to have salvation, together with a belief which separated the “spiritual”, which was “good”, from the “created”, which was “bad”.

Paul is fighting against the division of life into “sacred” and “secular”, which reduces God’s creation to less than He intended.

It has to be said that such a division is very tempting.

After all, if we have areas of our lives where things are unresolved, difficult or threatening, it is easy to dismiss them and believe that God is not involved there, so maybe we should not expect anything to change.

It makes it easier to shout abuse at the referee at a match or fudge on your expenses at work, to think it is okay to “borrow” a few paperclips or over-charge a client, to extend your work breaks or abuse your position in a club or society.

But here, Paul urges us to have what Dr. Gupta calls an “all-ness Christology”.

He is above all, before all, sovereign over all, victor over all and reconciler of all.

In other words there is no area of life – no area of creation – where Christ is not involved and is not supreme.

It is Christ who holds all of life together.

Help from Sherlock Holmes

Eugene Peterson has a wonderful illustration of what that means, in one of his books.

He wrote this:-

“While on vacation, our family worked on a jigsaw puzzle.

When those thousand pieces were dumped out on the table, it seemed like an impossible task to put them all together.

The only thing that kept us from throwing the pile into the fire was that there was a picture on the box of what they could become – a picture of Sherlock Holmes smoking his pipe and surveying the fields of an English estate where a murder had taken place.

That picture made it possible to do something.

Because of that picture, we had the motivation and faith to go to work.

Without it, the chaos would have overwhelmed us, and we would have given up.

That’s precisely what the scripture in Colossians 1: 15 – 20 does for us in relation to the chaotic world in which we live.

It gives us a picture. Christ is the one who gives coherence to all the disconnected pieces of that puzzle which is life. In him everything interlocks. In him everything finds its purpose.

With that picture of Sherlock Holmes, we were motivated to begin the work of piecing the puzzle together.

Everyone joined in.

It was a painfully slow process.

That seemingly endless search for a piece with a bit of red in it, for example. And occasionally the reward of fitting the piece in place.

The Bible word for that is “reconciliation” – putting together what belonged together.

That is what Christ is doing with the chaos of the world.

And that’s what he is doing with the smaller world of our lives: putting our lives together and making them whole.”

That has very deep and lasting consequences for us who call ourselves Christian, for we need to see that God’s mission is about all things and not just some things.

God has a desire for all things to be transformed so that eventually all things will be reconciled to God through Christ.

That means that God wishes to transform your football club, your school, your place of work, your clubs and societies.

But, in order for that for that transformation to happen, Christ has to be present in your football club, your school, your work, your club and your society.

But  – do you know something? – and here is the rub, he is present!

For that presence is you.

You are the incarnation of Christ wherever you are and – for you to be successful – for St. James to be fruitful – we need to become what is known as a “Missional Church”.

Here is a short two minute film clip, which the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity recommends to illustrate what is meant by a Missional Church.

(There is a transcript of the audio track associated with the LICC video on this website here).

The Missional Church in action

Over the next few weeks, we will learn how to:

• model Godly character,
• make good work,
• minister grace and love,
• mould culture,
• be a mouthpiece for truth and justice, and
• be a messenger of the Gospel, to the glory of God above.

For God is glorified when we bear much fruit.

But, for all of us, there is a sense that, for us to live with this big picture feeding our imagination, we need to offer our lives so that we may live worthily of the calling – the calling that is embraced by the Lordship of Jesus over every area of creation. The lordship that redeems, renews, recreates and reconciles.

So, let us hear the scripture again, in a contemporary form that will so shape our lives in the days, weeks, months and years that have yet to come (Colossians 1: 15-20):-

15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.