Upward, outward, and inward fruit
To demonstrate how Jesus has transformed their lives, Paul points out three ways the truth has produced fruit in the lives of his Colossian readers.
First, the truth has caused faith in Christ Jesus.
This is actually the second time Paul has celebrated the faith of his readers. In v.2 he calls them faithful. While faith is always about trust, Paul identifies two primary aspects of faith in his writings. One is called saving faith. In Ephesians he says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God"(Ephesians 2:8). Saving faith is trusting in the work of Jesus, not your own moral performance or some status as a good person. Saving faith is realizing that Jesus is the only truly good person. This initial confession in Christ enables a person to step from death into life––now and forever (see John 5:24). The other aspect of faith is living faith. We might say, that faith saves and sustains us as followers of Jesus. French theologian John Calvin said, "There is no other method of living piously and justly, than that of depending upon God" (Ritzema, 300 Quotations for Preachers). So, the first fruit that Paul is thankful for is the fruit of faith. Jesus transforms our relationship with the Heavenly Father. He empowered our faith at conversion but also enables us to embrace daily dependency. That's the fruit of truth. Jesus is the truth who shapes faith in our Father because Jesus lives with perfect trust and dependency and faith in his Father (see John 17).
Second, the truth has shaped love ... for all the saints.
While faith is the gift that reconciles us with God, because of sin we also have tension and walls built up between one another. The Bible tells us without the work of Christ in our lives we're strangers and alienated from one another (see Ephesians 2:11-22). Yet through the truth of Jesus' life, death, and sacrifice strangers are made family; "you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). Jesus’ self-giving love unites estranged people. We're united in our love for Jesus. But we're also united in our care for each other and loving each other the way Jesus loved us. Namely, we give ourselves to one another. So this is both a spiritual state and spiritual practice. Christian love is the type of love that is willing to be inconvenienced, uncomfortable, and long-suffering. We can love all the saints, all the people of God because Jesus first loved a sinner like me, a sinner like you.
Third, the truth has produced hope laid up ... in heaven.
Now, let's collect our thoughts. Jesus transforms our relationship with the Father (that's upward, faith). He transforms our relationships with each other (that's outward, love). And he changes my relationship with myself (that's inward). Paul talks about our interior life through the language of hope. You see, so much of our self-concept is wrapped up in the here and now. We build our hope on this life and in this life and for this life. However, the hope Jesus instilled in us is one that's secured in the place where God dwells ... in an age that's yet to come ... it's secured in the Lord. Paul says it's laid up in heaven. This truth led Robert Robinson to write "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, / prone to leave the God I love; / here’s my heart; O take and seal it; / seal it for thy courts above" (Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, 1758). When truth grounds our interior life, no despair of this world can steal our hope.
Jesus transforms us upward, outward, and inward in the form of faith in God, love for each other, and hope in heaven. That's the fruit. Jesus put it this way in Luke 6, "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Jesus is that good treasure. Jesus is the truth through whom our lives produce good fruit.
