How do I grow in the gospel?

And if you have a Bible with you, let me invite you to turn to Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

We'll be looking at verses 1 to 17 this morning.

And uh we've been doing a series over the summer where you know people are in and out, so we're we're not doing a series in which we're building and going through a book of the Bible.

We're we're asking questions.

And the question for last week was about doubt.

And then the question this week is, how do I grow?

And there's a word that's associated with the word uh that question, how do I grow?

And the word is discouragement.

I uh we were at our staff meeting this week, and uh I asked Stephen and Julie, I said, What's a what's a question you think people have when it comes to growing?

And and uh they said, How do you deal with discouragement?

I said, ooh, that's a really good way of approaching that.

So that's the way we're approaching this question this morning.

And it's what I see, it's what you see, it's discouragement.

Uh I worked with uh young people for many, many years, and there's this phenomenon that would happen with students.

They would go to a conference and they would go through this big emotional conversion experience, and their lives, they feel like their lives would be completely changed by it.

All the emotions for Jesus, I love Jesus more than anything else, and now all of my sins are gone.

Like I'm not going to experience them or struggle with them anymore because I I've loved Jesus so much.

And then give it about two weeks.

And when the emotions have kind of dissipated, and they're a little bit dis, they're not just discouraged, they're a little bit alarmed.

Like, where did that go?

So they want to go to the next conference or something to try to get back those feelings, and maybe this time it will take, because once you get to that emotional high, that's that's that's the peak.

That's when everything's going to go really well.

Uh so young people struggle with that, discouragement, because uh becoming a Christian didn't remove all the struggles.

But it's also true for older people.

Uh, I sent, when I was starting the whole church planting venture several years ago, I sent a text out to some friends that were in ministry just to prepare myself for what I might face.

And the question was, what are some things that you have faced that have been the most difficult in ministry?

And the uh the answer that was the most common for all of these people in ministry that they sent back to me is how little impact the gospel had on the people they knew, whether it was their friends or their church and others, how little impact the gospel had, how little impact Jesus had.

And then the answer that surprised me was the follow-up.

And particularly how little the gospel impacts me.

And these were people in ministry, and they were they were expressing their discouragement about things and the way that happens.

And I know you feel that too.

We we see sometimes the person we could be, and we want to be that person all the time, and we're not, and we feel discouraged by it.

We have periods of growth that kind of seem to fade away.

We decide to do better, and then we find ourselves not able to do the things that we decided for the 15th time that we were going to do.

It just doesn't stick.

And part of the problem, uh, the reason that we have discouragement is because our discouragement is intermingled with a misconception, I think, that we have.

And the misconception is about how sinful sinful really is.

And uh, you know, for us we think that it's a few minor dents and scratches, it's like taking your car in and getting your car worked on.

It's they can it can easily be fixed.

And so I I want to kind of demonstrate to you that that's not really what's taking place.

Um this is not product placement.

This illustration is brought to you by sparkling water.

Um you know, if if the if the can has a little dent in it, which I just pressed in on the side, it's just easy to kind of get that out.

And we tend to think just with some minor adjustments, we can live the life that we want to live in Christ.

It's just a few minor tweaks, get up, buff out a few scratches, everything will be fine.

But when we start talking about what the got what happened with the fall into sin, now this can is empty, it's not going to go everywhere, but I want you to imagine this in reverse, right?

Because the fall into sin was not necessarily an external thing that happened and put force on us.

It was a vacuum that was created because we said we would rather listen to the Satan, the accuser, rather than the God who rescued us.

So for just a moment, this will probably hold my weight, but if I put any pressure on it whatsoever, then it's down.

It's shrunk down.

It's not what it looked like.

You can't even you can't even see the product placement anymore on this.

And the fall was much more like this than just a little dent in the side.

It was way more devastating to our minds and our hearts, our emotions, our feelings, every single part about who we are as human beings.

That was broken by the fall.

Not just damaged, not just scratched, but broken.

I'll put that there.

You can look at it the whole time if you want, but you know, that's that's okay.

Um the good news is the gospel uh in the gospel, God says, I love the broken you.

That you that's broken, that's not what you want to be, uh I'm going to reclaim that.

I'm going to redeem that, I'm going to restore that.

You have not yet seen the person that you could be once sin is removed.

But God already sees that.

And He loves you as if you've never sinned.

He loves you as if you had the righteousness, because you do have the righteousness of Jesus and Jesus alone.

And because of that, God says, I have made you my personal project of reclamation.

So right now there's discouragement because we don't feel uh that we're where we should be.

But the struggle with sin doesn't end when we become a Christian.

The struggle with sin actually begins in earnest when you become a Christian.

And God steps into our lives and that initial change takes place in us.

And that's what uh Colossians 3 is really about.

In Colossians 2, Paul explained the gospel that Jesus died for our sins to reconcile us and to restore us to God.

And not only to for you know, to forgive your sins and say, you may go, your sins have been forgiven.

But he says, No, no, no, no, no.

You may stay because your sins have been forgiven.

You have a new life, not just with me, but in me, in my household, with my people.

And so he's inviting us in.

And and that's all through the backdrop of this passage, is what God has done for us in Jesus.

And if you're you know investigating the claims of Christ, what God says he will do for you in Jesus, and how that changes the way that we live life now.

So, how do we grow?

So if you're willing and able, let me invite you to stand as we read Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse 1.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

If then or since then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put away, put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian Scythian slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.

As the Lord has forgiven you, so you almost you also must forgive.

And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Thus since the reading of God's word, let me pray and ask him to bless us as we study through it.

I am grateful for the conversations you had with me this week about this passage.

I am grateful for the things you were doing in my own heart and life as I look at how far I am from who I will be.

And so I pray, Lord, that today as you have this conversation with us in this room through your word, that those who are struggling with discouragement and those who are just struggling with besetting sin, and those who are just struggling who are struggling with the the uh the sense that maybe they can't change, that you would meet and minister to them.

That you bless us, show us your grace, show us your goodness, show us the Savior.

Be with us, we pray in his name.

Amen.

Have a seat.

So God steps in with this big grace and he takes hold of us by that grace.

And when that happens, that's when the change really starts.

God's radical grace brings the biggest change you've ever seen, and you have not yet seen the fullness of what God intends to do for us in his grace.

We think I need grace if I fail on my attempt to grow.

But what the gospel says is no, you need grace to be able to grow.

It's not the safety net, it's the power to be able to grow.

Religion says, do these things and God will bless you and accept you.

And so we we have the sense that God accepts me based on my performance, but the gospel says God loves you and has done these things for you out of that love and now calls and invites you into the glorious redemptive relationship that's yours with Him, where He empowers you and enables you to live a new life.

And that's what we see in this passage is that Jesus gives us a new life.

So in Colossians 3:1, we read this If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:1

Verse 3.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

So he's speaking here of Christ's death, which completely changes our status before God.

Christ died to pay the penalty for our sin.

But not just that, to unite us to God, to unite us in Christ.

And so what Paul does here before he says, do this, is he saying Jesus has done this.

And that's what enables you to live the Christian life.

Before he gives the command, he gives the truth.

And he says, the truth is Christianity is not first and foremost about what you do for God.

Christianity is first and foremost about what God has done for you.

And we constantly are getting that order in reverse.

And because of this, rules, simple rules will frustrate you.

They won't do what you want them to do.

You'll look at the scripture and you'll think, uh, how can God give us so many rules?

I can't keep those.

And you're exactly right.

And there are a few people, you know, the different responses that we have to that.

There are some people that when they see rules in scripture, and I've actually heard people, they haven't said it this way, but they kind of say it this way.

And that is, fake it until you make it.

That is, you just kind of that term comes from the idea of like if you feel like you're an imposter and you you just you just try on, you do what you're supposed to do until eventually you feel like, yeah, this is real for me.

And some people say it's that way with scriptures.

When you see a rule, just keep the rule until it actually becomes a part of you.

But that's not really the way that it works in my experience.

And some of you are kind of like, that's not the way it works in my experience either.

I can see uh the nodding heads.

Because what ends up happening is you end up trying to keep those rules out of the same motivation that has been there all along.

You good?

Are we good?

You're no, it's all right.

So, in one sense, uh the way that it works is uh you have somebody who is dealing with shame.

And the reason they keep the law is to deal with their shame.

Like so, but they never escape their shame because there's always a law they haven't kept.

So it just feeds that over and over.

They get frustrated.

The law is too big, I can't keep it, but I know I'm supposed to.

And then you have prideful people.

Prideful people love laws because they can keep them, and other people will see them keeping them.

And we call that self-righteous Phariseaism, right?

So they're keeping the laws, but they're doing it for all the wrong motivations.

And so in this passage, what he's saying is the key is to have a changed heart in Christ, to recognize Jesus has kept the law, he's paid for our transgressions of the law, we're completely right with God, so we can go to our Father in heaven and say, I need your help to be able to do this.

And there's a transforming grace that happens.

So what he's telling us to do here in this passage is constantly look to Christ.

The question is not how can I change, but the question is, how has Jesus enabled the change?

So we what do I see in Jesus that changes how I would normally respond or how I used to respond?

How does something about Jesus change the way that I think and live in this world?

How does Jesus do this?

I'm not, this is not original with me.

Like I've I've been reading John Newton over the past couple of weeks, his little book, Cartophonia, which is fantastic.

He understood this to be the case.

You have to go to Jesus.

It's not, I get my act together and I go to God, I go to Jesus, I go to God directly, and he is the one who brings the healing.

There's another theologian who said it this way.

He said, the way to maturity for the people of God lies in their drawing out and applying the personal and communal life, the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not and not in moving on to something more rigorous or challenging or disciplined or philosophical or anything else.

It's plumbing the depths of Jesus.

And that's what Paul's showing us here in Colossians 3.

When you've made your way to Jesus, stop there.

Stay there.

Be rooted there, be established there.

If you've been raised up with Christ, stay there.

Because that's the place where we grow.

And he's saying, when he says here in chapter 3, verse 2, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

He's saying, You've already been raised with Christ.

You're there.

Don't go anywhere else.

It's done.

This isn't a reference to a future event.

This is something that's taking place now.

So the thing that we deal with is uh first who we are to God in Christ.

And he tells us who we are to Christ, uh to God in Christ in chapter 3, verse 12.

Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved.

I love that verse.

Because he's not saying, do these things and you will become God's chosen, holy, beloved ones.

He's saying you already are this in Jesus.

This is who you are.

And you live out of that knowledge, you let that sink into your soul.

You're chosen.

A Christian, this is how God sees you.

Not a Christian, this is what he's promising to you.

So, how does this look?

Now, this is not in my thing, but I've been I've been dealing with, uh, like a lot of people, the idea of self-image and how you see yourself in the world.

And as I see myself in the world, you may think that I see, I I see a six foot four good-looking balding man.

And the only part of that you would get right would be, I see myself as a balding man.

That would be that would be about it.

Um, you know, like everybody else, I have these kind of image issues that affect me in the way that I see myself.

But the reason I'm preaching on this passage is largely because over the past three weeks, this is where I've been swimming.

Stephen, you're chosen.

Stephen, you are uh beloved.

Stephen, you are holy.

So what does that mean?

Uh three things.

I am chosen.

Now that's important for some of you because for some of you, you feel your whole life like you've been an outsider on the outside of everything.

But he says that's not the case with you, with God's family.

It says that he chose you, that he whisked you away, that he loved you and grabbed you and pulled you into his family, so that with God you are an insider, one of his people.

He wanted you to be with him.

Now, what that means is because God is the one who initiated that, what that means for you, and what that means for me, and anybody who's really wrestling with this idea, what it means for us is that we can be utterly and completely honest because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Not before I got my act together, not before I became a pastor, not before I did any of these things.

Christ died for me 2,000 years ago, knowing what my life was going to be like.

So that means that I can be honest with myself and I can be honest with you.

And it means you can be honest with yourself and you can be honest with other people and you can be honest with God.

You don't have to keep the laws to be right with God.

He says, No, I chose you.

You don't have to live trying to prove that you deserve that.

God knows exactly what you deserve, but he's given you grace.

So I'm chosen.

This is my team, this is my family.

God has brought me in.

I am holy.

What does that mean?

It means that we're perfect?

No, it means that we're set apart.

And in the Old Testament, when you were a priest, it meant yes, you were in service to God, but it meant that the priest had access to the presence of God that other people did not have.

And so when he says here, you are chosen, he's saying, You are you're delightful to me.

And you're holy, you have access to me.

And then he pushes that a little bit further, I think, for us is when he says that we are dearly loved, that we are the apple of his eye.

He loves us.

Can you believe that?

That God says he loves you, and that the Bible says you're the apple of his eye.

That's amazing that God would say that.

And what that means is when the Bible talks about God being our heavenly father, it's not just talk, it's not a metaphor for him being the creator, it's saying he's also our adopted father.

And the way that we have access to him is because he has adopted us and brought us in.

And not, you know, when my kids were little, I would let them, I would pull them up into my lap and I would read stories to them.

But if any random kid came and sat in my lap, that's not gonna happen.

That's not gonna happen.

Um but for my kids, I invite them in.

But sitting in my lap does not make me your daddy, right?

It doesn't make me your father.

Um but it does uh me, it does give me a picture of God's love for us.

And when you understand that, I am loved, I am different than I was.

I'm brought in.

It changes things for you.

I've always loved the story about Saint Augustine uh living around the fourth century.

Uh, he was uh before he became a Christian not a good person.

Uh he was involved in all the things that uh uh you might see going on at Mardi Gras and other places, it was not a good scene for him.

And then God took hold of him.

He became a Christian, he became a pastor, a theologian.

And there's this one moment where he's walking down the street.

He's an older man at this point, and he sees this woman coming towards him.

It's a woman whose uh establishment apparently he used to frequent.

And as they're walking towards one another, he kind of ignores that.

That's because that's a part of his life that's gone.

And she stops him and she says, Augustine, and gets his attention.

She says, Augustine.

Augustine, it is I.

It is I, Augustine.

And knowing what God had done for him in his life, he looked her in the face and he said, Yes.

But it is no longer I, Augustine.

Saying, There's a change that has taken place in me that's changed for me.

And so what he's telling us is it's changed.

I'm chosen, I'm holy, and I'm dearly loved.

That's defining for me.

My sin isn't defining.

My insecurities aren't defining.

Other people's opinions are not defining.

God's opinion is what is defining.

And he tells us this all comes from what Jesus has done for us, and that that makes the difference in the way that we think about this.

So it's what Christ has done for us.

So then he says, if you he says to seek after the things above in chapter 3, verse 2.

And he says, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.

What does he mean?

Well, he means that the mind is your personal reality depository.

It means that everything you know about the world, it goes into your mind and takes root and takes shape there, and you have a different hierarchy of things.

Some things are not true that are in your mind, some things are true and have weight for you.

And it holds all the data and facts about the world.

It's kind of your central processing unit.

And so when he's saying here to fix your minds on Christ, he's saying you live in a world where you have all of this information that comes at you every single day, and what he's calling you to do is to cling to Jesus in the midst of it.

That's my safe place.

All these other ideas they can bounce off, but this is the one I'm fixing on.

This is the one I'm being established in.

And this is the one that's going to shape me.

Now we talked about this earlier when we were starting worship.

And uh the reason I started worship thinking about the World Cup is because I was thinking about this passage.

Is I've been watching the World Cup and seeing people responding to the world around me, I'm I'm really realizing uh I'm very much shaped by uh where I live.

I am.

I'm shaped by the people here, I'm shaped by the uh the media that I've absorbed my entire life.

I've been shaped by my education.

Uh I'm shaped living here in the villages.

It's who knew that it would be normal for people to drive around in golf courts, golf carts everywhere.

I didn't know that.

And so where I'm living right now, it's very much shaped by it.

But then in the midst of all of this, I've been encountering uh these immigrants uh on, you know, on the stories they're telling on the World Cup stuff.

And they're from other parts of the world, and some of them live in the United States and now, and it's a struggle for them to keep hold of the life that they had previously, the traditions, the family values, those kind of things.

It's hard for them to hold on to those things as they've moved into the United States because it's a very different place.

Because what we value more than anything else in the United States is individualism.

Like my individualism, my I get to decide for myself.

But for them, they're more communal, but they're losing that aspect of who they were and things that were valuable to them.

And I've been reflecting on that and thinking, that is really what it's like for many of us.

Is the demands of Christianity seem difficult for us at times because uh he's asking me to do what I don't want to do, quite often in Scripture.

And isn't that what it means to be a human being is to be able to decide for myself and not let anybody else tell me what I want to, what I should do, what I should feel, how I should desire.

That's the way I think about it.

And so when God is telling me those things, it feels hard to do what he's saying because it goes against what I want.

Does that make sense?

So, what is he telling us?

He's saying not just do it anyway.

He's saying no.

Step into the deeper reality of Jesus because that's what begins to transform you.

So you want what God has for you.

There's a story I heard years ago about a young man who was living on the streets in Africa.

He was he was adopted uh probably around 12, 13, something like that, by an American family.

And uh they were not just an American family, they were very well-to-do, had a lot of money.

And he had his own bedroom, which he'd never had before, he had his uh big house, which he'd never had before.

Uh he was he went from poverty on the streets to having all this money.

And there was this one point where his mother went into his room and saw something poking out from under the bed, and she looked down under his bed, and under his bed, it's filled with boxes and boxes of food that he's accumulated.

And she's saying, Why does he have all of this food?

And it's, you know, some of it's not healthy, and you would think, okay, teenagers and junk food.

But some of it is just, you know, it seems like he's storing it up for a rainy day.

So she went and asked him and said, Uh, why do you have all this food under your bed?

And she showed him, and he said, Well, I grew up on the streets, and I didn't sometimes know where my next meal was coming from.

And so I'm keeping this just in case we uh I run out of food or maybe rejected.

She said, Come with me.

And she walked him into the kitchen and she opened all the cupboards and opened the refrigerator, showed him all the stuff, and said, We've adopted you.

You're my son, and I love you.

And everything and these cabinets, everything, all this food, it's yours.

You're not an orphan anymore.

You're my child, you're my son, and I love you.

Do you think at that point that began to free him up from feeling like I've got to do all this myself?

Absolutely.

It's the truth of the things.

We we have an old orphan mindset, the new redeemed, beloved mindset needs to replace that.

And the way that comes is by seeing what God has done for us in Christ.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about uh just growing in the midst of all this.

Is growing is learning how gracious God has been to you and that being fleshed out in every area of your life.

There's not simply uh a hack for this, it's growing uh to recognize the goodness of God in Christ.

And the way that we do this is through what the Bible describes as the means of grace, because that's holding forth Christ to us constantly.

So in chapter 3, verse 16, he tells us, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gladness in your heart to God.

So he's saying, There is something we do for one another.

We sing, we gather, we encourage, we talk to one another, we read scripture together, and we do this when we're by ourselves, is we keep Jesus in front of us.

That's how we grow, is keeping him rooted and established in our minds and hearts and thoughts constantly.

But something else is really important, and that is to know that God is at work in this process.

He knows what shaping you need, he knows what sharpening you need.

And when you're going to the Word, there's some points where you're in Scripture and it's like the words come off the page and you have the sense God is right there with you.

And then other times when you've read something for the 15th time and you're like, I'm not really getting anything out of this, and you set it down.

God's in that process, the whole thing that's taking place.

And there's times when you're discouraged, and God is in the discouragement.

And there are times when you fail.

But you've got to know that some growth only comes through failure.

Humility.

Uh we we we have watched way too many times uh The Old Pride and Prejudice, uh, 1995, Jennifer Ailey, who's from she's she's uh to NC State, uh, Colin Firth, and uh Mr.

Collins.

Mr.

Collins, who is the priest in the show, is the one I think of every time I think of somebody who's imitating humility but doesn't really have it.

You've met people that you know are imitating humility, and it's schmarmy, it's a little bit sickening, it's not really humility.

Humility is something you can't fake, and it's something you can't just muster up.

Humility is something that comes through failure.

In fact, all of these things that he mentions here in uh 1 Timothy 3, uh, I'm sorry, not turns, in Colossians, where he says, uh, I don't have my glasses, I guess I can read it.

Um put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another.

That only comes from failing and failing and failing in your own Christian life, that you can be humble towards other people when they fail, that you can be compassionate towards other people when they fail, that you can be kind and gentle to other people when they fail.

It becomes a part of you.

And so God lets us fail in order for that process to take place.

Second thing, some growth only takes place through failure.

Some growth takes a lot of time.

It's not just one quiet time, it's not just one retreat, it's not simply gathering information about how to make things.

It involves sitting with the truth over a long period of time and let it ferment in your soul.

Uh that actually came, well, I was out here this week uh and walking the grounds a little bit, and uh I saw these live oaks out here, and I Googled how old are the live oaks in Central Florida?

And it said, some some are people think are two to five hundred years old.

Some three to five hundred years old.

I was thinking, that tree is older than my country out there.

And it's hard to imagine what all that tree's been through.

It's been through massive hurricanes, it's been through droughts, it's seen the villages grow over the past however many decades.

It's seen things, it's been here for things that you haven't seen.

And when we look at them, we just look and say, that is majestic and beautiful.

But it took time.

It took a lot of time.

And for you, it takes time.

It really does.

It takes a lot of time.

And it takes going through hurricanes, and it takes going through spats and fights and arguments.

It takes going, it takes going through lean times where you didn't know where the next food was going to be coming from.

It takes all the hard things, and God is using all of these for you to sit and ferment and grow and say, I have a good Savior who goes with me through everything.

And then the third thing is growth looks different for different people because we all start uh in different places and we all go through different things.

So the timid person may need to grow in courage.

That looks different than the person who's brash who needs to grow in gentleness.

Both are growing towards Christ-likeness, but they're coming at it from different directions.

And that happens for us.

Your growth is going to look different than other people's growth around you.

But it's real, and uh it takes time.

And here's the here's the part that I think is important, and we'll close on this, is you can you can fake a lot of things externally for a while.

Uh you can do that, and you can be an artificial tree.

And an artificial tree looks great off the assembly line.

And I love going to the mall, and there are big these big trees in the middle of the mall, and then you look at the little planter, it's in it's like that's not a real tree.

It doesn't have any roots that go down, but that has fruit on it, has green leaves on it.

It looks beautiful in this space, but it's just an architectural feature.

It has nothing really to offer other than that.

Whereas uh my wife is uh becoming a uh a gardener, and uh she grows things in our yard, and it takes a while for those to grow, and I often don't know if it's it's ever going to produce anything.

And then she'll come in with her first pepper, or she'll come in with her first tomato, or she'll come in with something I don't even know what it is, and say, This is what's for dinner tonight.

And whatever it is that's growing, it's producing real fruit that's beneficial.

You may be discouraged, but God's in the process.

And you may not feel like you're at the same level as other people, but God's in the process.

And you may not feel like you have anything to offer, but God's in the process, and He is making us like Christ.

We're just not there yet.

None of us.

Let me pray for us.