Growing Up

I encourage you to take a Bible and open it to Colossians chapter 1 as we hear what God has to say from this little short New Testament book.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

I'd like to spend our time together in the last three verses of Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

But before we read that, we need to notice who we're talking about.

At the end of verse 26, the Apostle Paul is talking about the saints, so all who have come to faith in Christ.

And so he says, it is to them, to the saints, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery.

That is, the mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Would you pray with me?

Our Lord Jesus, we come before you this morning as your people, as your saints.

And just like I was this morning so often we are not aware of how it is that we stand in you and you in us.

That all the riches of Christ are ours.

We we often neglect to realize what a privilege it is to know you, to worship you, to sing of your praise, and to hear you speak to us.

So we ask that by your Spirit you would open our hearts to hear, that you would break that hard and stony ground, and your word would be planted deep within us.

We ask these in the name of our Savior.

Amen.

Here you can see it's a little blown out, but you can see a picture that is about twelve and a half years old of my dad and me fishing on the Stillwater River in the mountains of Montana.

It's the last picture that I have of the two of us fishing together.

So it's sentimental, and there's some nostalgia in this picture.

Some of that is there because I don't get to fish on the Stillwater River of Montana very much anymore.

But some of it is also because I don't get to fish with my dad anymore.

But there is an unspoken message in this photo.

The unspoken message is a lesson on maturity.

I don't remember how old I was, I just remember that I was very, very little.

I was very young.

But I vividly remember, I see this image in my mind, of standing alongside the dusty gravel street in tiny Marmoth, North Dakota, asking my dad to teach me to fly fish.

And I held in my hand a fly rod that was more than twice my height, probably close to three times my height at the time, trying to make my wrist and my arm move in the way that my dad was instructing.

There was no fly on the end of the line.

I was simply trying to learn the actions, to mimic my dad's arm action as I tried to develop some muscle memory.

But even without the hook on the end, I still managed to get the line caught in the trees.

And I was so frustrated.

But I was determined to learn.

My first fly rod was barely a fly rod.

It was short for a fly rod, but still more than I could comfortably handle as a small boy with a weak wrist.

But I persevered.

I was determined to learn.

Sometimes my dad helped me learn from the comfortable space of a canoe out in the middle of a lake.

That's a comfortable place because out in the middle of the lake there are no trees in which to get your line caught.

I still managed tangles, though, because tangles were my specialty, much to my father's chagrin.

Tangles on the rod, knots in the line, getting my line mixed up with my dad's line.

But through that I learned the motions necessary for fly fishing.

But simply learning the motions wasn't sufficient.

Because often we fished in mountain lakes and streams where trees and boulders the size of trucks hugged the shoreline, leaving very little room to cast your line.

So over the years, I learned how to cast and maneuver the line around trees and over truck-sized boulders.

And Dad was always there.

He taught me.

He pointed out details.

He warned me when my line was dangerously close to a tree on a backcast because I wasn't paying attention.

It was maddening sometimes, because even as I improved, he always caught more fish.

He taught me how to tie my own flies.

And which kind of trout perverred which kinds of flies.

Or what worked better in the morning versus the evening, or during a storm, or when the sun was high in the sky.

And that scrawny little boy grew up, and while I was never as proficient as my dad, I did okay.

I even learned enough to be able to teach my friends how to fly fish.

And amazingly, I found that the same things that my dad said to me were now coming out of my mouth to my friends.

And occasionally, and a very rare occasion, I actually caught more fish than my dad.

When I went fishing without him, he always wanted to know how it went.

What flies were the fish hitting?

What size of hook worked best?

You see, my dad was a mature fly fisherman long before I ever picked up my first rod.

But once I expressed a desire to learn, he did everything he could to develop his son into a mature fly fisherman as well.

His goal was to get me to the point where I could fish without his constant teaching, his continual warning, and without the wisdom of his experience.

I want to say that he succeeded.

And this picture is an illustration of his desire to develop his son into a mature fly fisherman.

Now I know I tested his patience.

I know I frustrated him and cost him lots of money with all the flies that are still to this day stuck in trees, or that I snapped against a rock and so broke off the tip of the hook.

I even broke a fly rod or two.

Maybe three.

But through it all, I matured and grew.

And we both kept at it with one goal in mind.

The time would come when I would be able to fish without him.

Now I tell you that life story because it illustrates another truth.

What my dad did with me needs to happen in the local church.

I'm not talking about fly fishing, although it would be great if you all learned to fly fish.

We teach the word of God.

We disciple believers through teaching, through prayer, through fellowship together and other spiritual activities, and we do so with the goal of developing mature Christians, because it is mature Christians who are people devoted to following Jesus.

That's the third aspect of our vision as a church.

We declare the Word of God, we disciple believers so that they will become mature.

And as mature believers, they will be devoted to following Jesus.

Some of the biblical support for that is found in the passage we just read in Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

There's much, much more about spiritual maturity found in Scripture than we can look at this morning.

But I want to focus just on these three verses.

But before we dive into this, we need to understand that we all come to Christ as spiritual infants.

Just as we were born into this physical world as infants, we come into the spiritual world as new believers in Christ as spiritual infants.

Our physical life as well as our spiritual life begins in infancy and progresses towards maturity.

And discipling is the process of taking believers in Christ from infancy all the way to maturity.

That's the goal of the church gathered together.

Now, I don't know if my dad ever thought about it, but I'm certain that his underlying expectation was that every time we went fly fishing, I would come away from that a little bit better.

A little bit more mature as a fly fisherman, having learned something.

The same is true for the church.

God has caused us to gather together in this place.

Every single one of us is here for a reason.

He has graciously brought us together so that we might grow in maturity.

And each time we gather together, our goal must be to become more mature.

Because mature Christians are devoted to following Jesus.

That was the Apostle Paul's desire in his ministry to the local church.

He says that in these verses, so that we might present everyone mature in Christ.

But he said that with a future aspect in mind.

Our focus must be on the future.

Our goal is to work to ensure that every believer gathered here today and next week and the week after that is mature in Christ whenever they see him, whether that's through his return or through death and resurrection, whatever.

That is our goal as a fellowship of believers.

Now, how do we do that?

That is a staggering challenge to me.

In many ways, it would be easier for me to teach you to fly fish than to make sure that all of us end up mature in Christ.

That feels like too lofty of a goal.

But I don't get to set the goal.

God does.

And he has set this goal for us to be mature in Christ.

But he hasn't simply set the goal, he has also shown us how to reach it.

And that's what we see in these three verses is how, as a body of believers, to become mature in Christ.

So for faith evangelical free church to disciple believers to the point of maturity, we are told that we must first have Christ in us.

We see that in verse 27, talking about the riches of the glory of a mystery.

He says, the mystery is this truth: Christ in you.

And that truth, Christ in you, is the hope of glory.

Now, if we turn that around, we learn that there is no hope without Christ in us.

Spiritual maturity is hopeless without Christ in us.

That's the baseline, it's the foundation.

There is no reaching maturity if Christ is not in us.

And you cannot help someone else reach maturity if Christ is not in them.

What does that mean?

Well, if we look back at verse 23, it means that first and foremost we have come to believe in the hope of the gospel.

The good news of Christ crucified, buried, and risen again.

Christ in you means it is the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer in John 17.

That wonderful chapter, Jesus is praying to the Father on behalf of us here today.

And he says in John 17, 26, to the Father, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me might be in them and I in them.

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Sometimes maturity is a painfully slow process, isn't it?

But the reality is that spiritual maturity is impossible if you have not first believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no foundation to become mature without that.

If I had grown up in the middle of the desert, having never left the desert, and never known what a lake or a river or a stream is, and if my family had never left the desert, my dad would have never known what it was to fish, much less fly fish.

And I would have had no hope of learning to fly fish as a child.

But my dad loved the mountains and the rivers and the lakes.

He loved to fish, so I grew up around those things.

That provided a foundation for me to become a mature fly fisherman.

Those without Christ are still in that desert.

But when through faith Christ comes to dwell within us, we are transported out of that desert and given a new background, a new home, and a new hope.

That means that part of our responsibility when we gather together is to ensure the salvation of everyone present.

Now, there's only so much we can do about that humanly, it's up to God in the end.

But that means we proclaim the gospel.

We teach the gospel, we live the gospel, and we do that to ensure that Christ is in each of us through faith in him.

And once that foundation is set in place and we have Christ within us, we can then move on to proclaiming Christ, to warning believers of danger and to teach them of the wisdom of Christ.

Verse 28.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

There's one primary purpose in that verse that is accomplished by means of two actions.

That is, we proclaim Christ.

That is our purpose, that is our intention.

And we do that by warning and by teaching with wisdom.

Do you think the Apostle Paul did that?

Let's look and see.

Look back at chapter 1, verse 5.

The end of the verse, we see, of this you have heard before in the word of truth.

Verse 6, you have heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Verse 7, just as you learned it.

Verse 9, we do not cease to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, with all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So there's teaching and there's learning, there's proclaiming, so that people might come to know.

And then guess what?

In verses 15 through 23, there's a mini-sermon about who else?

The Lord Jesus Christ.

He is proclaiming Christ, and people are hearing it and learning it and come to understanding, learning knowledge and wisdom.

That's why he would say in verse 25 that it is his duty to make the word of God fully known.

Not only is it his duty to make it known, but he also makes it his prayer.

If you look down in chapter 2, verse 2, he prays that our hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, so that we may reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is, guess what, Christ in you.

But he also warns.

If you look down at verse 8 of chapter 2, he says, See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit.

There are ways that that twisting of truth makes its way into us.

Beware, he warns.

So he does these very things in this letter.

He he proclaims Christ, he warns them, and he teaches them with all wisdom.

But then he puts feet to that truth at the end of the book in chapters 3 and 4 by teaching us what that looks like.

I don't remember my dad reacting to my frustration.

But I'm certain he knew of my frustration.

Over and over again, he would firmly tell me to use my wrist, not my arm.

It's all in the wrist, he would say.

If I would complain about him catching more fish than me, he would say, It's all in the wrist.

It's all in the wrist.

So when he would tell me, use your wrist, not your arm, I would respond with, I know, dad.

And of course, my tone was as thick with irritation as that ketchup that you can't get out of the bottle.

You know where I've been.

Sometimes we don't want to hear the preaching.

Sometimes we don't want to hear the teaching.

Sometimes it's irritating.

But it's necessary to reach maturity.

In the same way, we often don't want to hear warnings, do we?

I can't count the number of times I was warned about how close I was casting to a tree.

The number of times I was warned about to pay attention to the rocks behind me are beyond count.

I detested the warnings.

But they were essential to my maturity in fly fishing.

See, here's the thing about warnings in relation to maturity.

Warnings generally come from those who are more mature than we are.

Because they are more mature to be able to see things that we can't.

To understand when there's danger in a particular place, or when something is unhealthy, or when something should be avoided.

But the warnings are necessary, aren't they?

Don't touch the hot stove.

I don't know how many times I said that to Joshua this week.

The latest craze I'm told is eating detergent pods.

Really?

Who would have thought that we needed to warn people to not eat detergent?

It is unwise of us to assume that discernment is present even when the Spirit of God is present.

If warnings are necessary for our physical health, how much more for our spiritual health?

We don't like warnings, though.

Because they make us feel restricted.

They make us feel as though we don't know what we're doing.

They make us feel looked down on by others.

But they are essential for maturity.

And you know what?

We are to do this for each other.

If you look later in Colossians chapter 3, verse 16, it tells us as a body of believers to teach and admonish one another.

Colossians 3:16

As you look at verse 28, the main verb is proclaim.

We proclaim Christ.

How do we do that?

By warning everyone and teaching everyone with the wisdom that is in Christ.

Sometimes we put wisdom out there as this unattainable sort of thing in the Christian life.

Maybe we think of Job and we think I can't be that wise, or we think of Solomon and I can't be that wise, and it's unattainable.

But let's bring it back down to a practical level for a minute.

Wisdom is simply skill in living.

That's all it is.

It is skill in living.

And when we apply that to the spiritual realm, spiritual wisdom.

Is skill in biblical living or skill in holy living?

My dad was a wise fly fisherman.

He was skilled at it.

And he taught me with wisdom.

When the church gathers together, those among us with spiritual wisdom, with that skill in biblical living, must teach the word of God so that the rest of us might develop that kind of wisdom.

And through that, moment by moment, day by day, year after year, we grow into maturity.

Sometimes it feels like we're growing at a snail's pace.

Sometimes we might make a big leap.

But that is how God has ordained our spiritual maturation.

He's established the foundation as well as the means.

We develop maturity in the local church through proclaiming Christ and warning and teaching with all wisdom.

But that means that we must labor extensively.

Our labor is far-reaching, and our labor is hard.

So he says, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Moving people towards maturity is hard work.

Anyone who's raised children or led employees or co-workers understands the difficulty of moving others to greater points of maturity.

But the work has to be done if we're going to reach maturity.

Developing maturity in God's people requires hard labor.

That's what the word toil that Paul uses means.

It points to the exhaustion that comes at the end of a long, hard day of physical labor.

In fact, it's used in ancient Greek literature of the severe labor of a soldier in the middle of a battle.

And that might be an apt illustration for this context.

We are in the midst of a spiritual battle, and we have an enemy who wants us to remain in infancy.

He wants us to remain spiritual children.

He does not want us to be mature.

And so we are constantly in a battle.

In a battle to become more mature, to grow ever so slightly more mature.

This means that our enemy has won a skirmish in the battle if he can keep us home on Sunday morning.

It means he has won a skirmish in the battle if he can convince us that we are too tired to pray or to read our Bible.

If he can convince us not to fellowship with other believers because we don't get along very well with one particular person, then he has won a skirmish in the battle.

And every time he wins a skirmish in the battle, our maturity is held back a little bit.

We fail to grow.

That battle is why it takes hard labor to move from infancy to maturity in our spiritual lives.

That hard labor is there for individual believers, but it's also there for us as a church.

It's hard work to grow up.

But it's our responsibility to do the hard work.

We must put in that hard work together to reach the appointed goal.

And sometimes it is agonizing.

That's the word that the Apostle Paul used here that is often translated struggling.

Sometimes the work of growing up and helping others grow up is agonizing.

You can admit it.

It's okay.

We can admit that sometimes it feels as though we are failing.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own sin that we wonder if we'll ever grow up.

If we'll ever get beyond this place in our spiritual lives.

Sometimes those feelings exist when we gather together.

There are times when we act like spiritual children when we're alone.

And the reality is that sometimes entire churches act like infants.

But we are to keep laboring and agonizing until we reach the goal of maturity.

That might resonate with some of you this morning.

That may be just what you need to hear: to be encouraged to keep up the good fight, to stand firm in your faith.

If so, be encouraged and keep fighting to grow up into Christ.

Keep looking to Him, the author and perfecter of your faith.

But as you hear that, it may feel as a burden to some of you.

If you are discouraged by life or feeling beat up by your own sin, you might feel as though there's no energy left to keep fighting, to keep laboring.

And some of you, some of you may have that sense of rebellion welling up within you that wants to hold obedience at arm's length so that instead you can run to grace.

Well, thankfully, God speaks to all of that in this one verse.

The Apostle Paul is purposefully redundant.

If we were to translate this very literally, which is very woodenly, it would say something like this that we are to agonize with all his energy with which he powerfully energizes us.

We toil with agony as we progress towards maturity, but that toil is not done in our own strength.

Notice the pronouns.

Most often it's the small words in your Bible that are the most important.

Notice the pronouns.

It is Christ's energy.

It is Christ's power.

And the working that He does within us is His energizing work.

Telling us that if we are to reach maturity, then we must have the powerful working of Christ in us.

Be encouraged to keep up the march towards maturity.

If you failed this week, that's okay.

Stand up, confess your sin, dust yourself off, and get back in the march.

If you feel like there's no more energy to keep pressing on, remind yourself of this truth.

God does not expect you to reach spiritual maturity in your own power.

He sets the goal of maturity, and then he gives you everything you need to reach it.

If you are in Christ, then he is powerfully at work within you.

If you are in Christ, he expects you to gather together with the saints to hear Christ proclaimed, to be warned, and to be taught with all wisdom.

And through that, he will bring you to maturity.

That's why there's the command in the book of Hebrews: do not forsake the assembling together of the saints, because it's assembling together that helps us progress towards maturity.

Now there's an individual aspect to that, of course.

That's talked about in Romans 7 and 8.

But there is a part of our maturity that can only occur together when we labor in it together.

If you struggle with this and you hear it as a tension, a budding of heads between works and grace, then you need to notice that both of those exist in this one verse.

There is obedience expected.

There is obedience expected.

And sometimes that obedience is agonizing.

But in the midst of that agony of working, of pressing towards maturity, there is also grace because Jesus is the one who comes in and works powerfully within you.

He commands us to mature, but at the same time, he energizes through grace to obey, and by his grace we will reach maturity.

And notice, notice the often overlooked emphasis.

Verse 28, Him we proclaim, warning whom?

Everyone.

Teaching everyone that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Whom do we warn?

Whom do we teach?

Who are we seeking to present to Jesus mature?

Everyone.

In the context, it's everyone who has Christ in them and gathers together in this place under this umbrella of a building.

And if they do not have Christ in them, then we seek to go back to the first aspect of discipleship that we talked about last week.

And we lead them to Christ, and hopefully they trust in him.

And then when they trust in him, they come together and join all the rest of us who are in Christ, laboring together towards maturity.

That's what he calls us to do.

He says, don't remain a spiritual infant.

Grow up.

It's hard work.

But he does the work in you.

As you seek to obey, he infuses you with his own energizing power.

And in the end, it's really Christ who does it.

Christ is in you, and Christ completes it.

What amazing grace is that! Now, what does it look like to reach maturity?

I wish we had time to really go through that with all that Scripture says about maturity, but there's a lunch being prepared, and you might leave on me.

Let me just walk quickly through this book of Colossians and just point out some things that I think the Apostle Paul had in mind.

What does maturity, spiritual maturity, look like?

Let's go back to chapter 1, verse 9.

From the day that we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you.

What is the content of his prayer?

That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

He wants us to come to know Scripture well enough so that we will know what God's will is and so have spiritual wisdom and understanding.

That's maturity.

We look down a little bit more at verse 22.

Christ has now reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death in order to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

So there we are told to grow up into a place of holiness and blamelessness and above reproach so that we will have this continuity in the faith because we are stable and steadfast, that we don't get blown to the side by the winds of life.

Chapter 2, verse 5.

I'm absent in body and I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Notice that he's speaking of a local church.

He's not specifically talking about individuals.

He's saying, as you gather together, you have good order, and you are demonstrating the firmness of your faith in Christ.

That's maturity.

Verse 5, 6, 7, 8, all talk about these things.

He says in verse 6, as you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, follow him, become a devoted follower.

What does that look like?

Being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, abounding in thanksgiving.

Being mature in the faith means that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit.

You are discerning.

You are able to see because of the warnings that have been given.

You're able to see what's true, what's not true.

Chapter 3, verse 1, maturity looks like seeking the things above where Christ is.

Isaiah 3:2

Chapter 3, verse 2, setting our minds on the things that are above.

Verse 5, putting to death what is earthly in us.

What is earthly?

Verses 8 and 9 tell us that.

Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying.

He says, maturity means we work at putting those things, we kill them in us.

Puritan John Owen said that's mortifying the flesh, killing the flesh, putting to death what is earthly in us.

Chapter 3, verse 13.

Maturity looks like bearing with one another.

Meaning we all understand that we're broken.

We are broken, we are hurting, we are sinful human beings who are still wrestling with sin in our lives because we are still on our way to being mature, and therefore we bear with one another.

We understand that we're all on the same road.

And when we bear with one another, we are then able to forgive one another.

That's maturity.

A clear sign that we need to grow up in the faith is when we refuse to forgive.

Verses 15 and 16.

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.

That is a sign of maturity.

It is a sign of maturity when you gather together on Sunday morning to sing.

There's another sign of maturity that I noticed this morning.

And we sang Cornerstone.

Then there was a pause, and we were infused with the scripture from which that song is taken.

And I actually got tears in my eyes when we started singing again because you sang differently.

Webb's nodding his head, he felt it too.

Do you know what that is?

That's maturity.

That's saying, I get this.

I get this, I understand this, and now I can worship more fully because I'm understanding.

That shows a level of maturity.

When we come together and we read God's word and we pray and we sing, that's a level of maturity.

Chapter 4, verse 6.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Maturity looks like having gracious speech that speaks wisely of Christ.

That's maturity.

I'll add one more, chapter 4, verse 16.

And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

Spiritual wisdom means desiring to hear the word of God read.

But the Apostle Paul condensed it all in one letter to a church.

He said, this is what I'm desiring, this is what I'm laboring towards, and here's what it looks like.

Join me in laboring towards that end.

Yes, it's agonizing sometimes.

Yes, it's painful sometimes.

But we all need to see Christ, and when we see Christ, let's be mature.

That's why all of our teaching, all of our praying, all of our fellowship, all of our worship must move us further from infancy closer to maturity.

Moment by moment, day by day, week by week.

So that when we see Jesus, we're ready to say, Lord, I've grown up.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we we all need to grow up.

Some of us are further along in that than others.

Sometimes we feel as though we we've taken three steps back.

Some weeks we struggle with our sanctification.

We struggle to put to death the desires of the flesh.

Other weeks are better weeks.

But we cannot do it, Lord Jesus.

We are frail human beings who fail.

And so we give you thanks that you are the one who completes the work that you've begun.

We are thankful that you are the one who is powerful and that you are the one who gives us the energy to do what you've called us to do.

And so with that, we ask that you would keep your promise.

That you would keep your promise to be the one who is powerfully working within us.

And that we would have then no qualms about saying, I want to see Jesus because I've grown up into him.

Lord, give us a love for your word so that we might see you, hear you, and understand who you are in your word.

So that we might rest in it as the means to grow up.

In your name we pray these things, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Committing ourselves to trusting in Christ seen in the scriptures.

And we will stand on every promise of your word.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherd teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and craftiness and deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into Him who is our head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow, so that it builds itself up in love.