Forward Focus - Walk in Him

Describe our bibles and turn to Colossians chapter two. If you don't have a

Bible with you, just raise your hand. We're passing those out right now.

And if you didn't get a bulletin, that's gonna be helpful too.

So just raise your hand and keep it up if you need a Bible or

a bulletin, and turn with me to Colossians chapter two. We're gonna be

in versus six and seven this morning, Colossians two, verses six and seven.

And as you turn there, let me say, I think I've turned

this thing off. You're gonna get the improvised version you No, there is

not an app for that. Huh, that's strange. You probably already know

that one hundred and thirty million people in this country alone, one hundred and

thirty million people tomorrow are gonna undertake something very intentional, very aspirational. Thanks

bro, they are. Yeah, mm hmm, don't stop doing that.

I'll tell you what mine got it? All right? What are they gonna

do? They're gonna make a new Year's resolution. I know I am.

I've got several in my mind. I'm gonna pray through these. I'm gonna

to spend some time planning and contemplating the future, and this coming year's part

in this future, and I am looking forward to making several New Year's resolutions.

I mean, intentional aspiration is a good thing if it's pointed in the

right direction, if it's grounded on the right thing, if the foundation is

right, and our text this morning and cautions actually gives us that foundation,

this instruction of the first order of magnitude for the Christian upon which we can

build all of our life, and from which all of the implications of where

we really want to go in the future our forward focus should derive. Let's

read it together, Colossians two six and seven. God's word says, Therefore,

as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,

rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as

you were taught abounding in thanksgiving. All right, if we're not careful,

we could slide into twenty twenty four with no aspirations at all, just cruising

coasting. Or what might be worse, we could like barrel into twenty twenty

four with a forward focus or forward foci. If you're like me, that

barely correspond to what God has for us. In His word that are rather

borrowed from the world or just from our own desires. But here is the

forward focus that deserves our aspiration, right under which all intentions should be made

to submit Walking in Christ. It's a short text. If you're a part

of Crossway Bible Church, you know that we ordinarily we take a book of

the Bible and we walk passage by passage, usually longer passages through that book

of the Bible, until we get to the end, and then we start

another one. But this morning I wanted to just take this short text and

marinate in it a little bit. We're just gonna ask three questions. What

is the instruction from this text? Why is it important? Right, what

benefits? What pitfalls? And then how do we do it? What's the

instruction? Why is it important? How do we do it? So let's

begin. What is the instruction we receive from scripture here? Well, I

mean it's not complicated. This is not a detailed strategic plan. This is

a very straightforward instruction. Walk in Christ, Grow in Him, mature in

him, progress in him, which is to say, don't be stagnating,

and which is also to say, don't be wandering. Those are the two

negative implications of this instruction walk progress, move forward in Him, don't stagnate,

don't wander. Both are common. We could be those who stagnate,

who aspire to nothing. Like they say, if you aim for nothing,

you'll hit it every time. Right, You don't want to be the guy.

You don't want to be the guy guy, the guy who's been a

Christian for twenty five years, but maturity wise, he's just been a Christian

for one year twenty five times. You don't want to stagnate, But you

also don't want to wonder. Right, You don't want to be those whose

aspirations have nothing to do with Jesus, have nothing to do with his word,

have everything to do with just ideas that we've absorbed from the world or

that have popped up into our own minds for our own desires. And now

we've set goals, and now we've built plans, and we've got to we've

got a forward focus. But it's not really Jesus, but rather the instruction

we receive from the Apostle is this walk in Christ. Resolve in every area

of your life, Resolve to grow in Him and his character as a parent,

as a student, as a spouse, as a worker, as a

friend, as a steward of your finances, as a steward of your health

and fitness, in every area of your life. We could, we could

go on and on, we could, We could divide your life up into

I don't know, nine to twelve different areas in every area. Resolve to

walk in Him as a parent. Resolve I resolve that I will walk far

in Him as a parent this year. I will teach godly, teach and

train godliness, and do so in a way. Do so in a way

that has the humility and the meekness that fits an apprentice of Jesus. You

know, there's a way to teach your kids about Jesus that looks nothing like

him. Resolve as a spouse to walk far in Christ this year, to

demonstrate to my spouse the love and the gentleness and the respect and the caring

that reflects what Scripture shows about Christ and his Church. That's an aspiration,

that's a resolution. This is the kind of aspiration upon which we can build

our lives and our year. That's the instruction. Now, why does Scripture

instruct us in this way? Like? What benefits are does Scripture hold out

to us for this. What pitfalls are we meant to avoid by walking in

Christ, as Paul intends for us to understand it here. Well, I'll

answer that question in just a second. But first I want us to notice

this that this is not a casual suggestion. This is an urgent call.

If you just look at the end of the prior chapter, starting in verse

twenty eight, the Apostle says him, we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone

with all wisdom, that we may present everyone much sure in Christ. For

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

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you.

Right, the Apostle wants to get this across. I am doing everything

I can for you Colossians to walk in Christ. And I'm doing this not

only for you. I want this for everybody who hasn't even met me.

That's what he says next. So the Apostle Paul is eager for us who

haven't met him to walk in Christ. It is the instruction of the first

order. You know, not every instruction is as important as the other.

Right, some instructions are more important, even though they're all from God.

They're all important, they're from God. They're not all the same importance.

Some are subsumed into others. Right, Like Jesus says, the greatest commandment

is love the Lord your God, with all your heart and all your soul,

and all your mind and all your strength. And the second is like

it, love your neighbor as yourself. And then what does he say?

He says, upon these hang all the law and the province. Right,

so are there are a very few first order instructions under which everything else is

subsumed, under which all things are made to submit. I don't think you

believe me. I'll give you an example. Somebody in my house got a

remote control car this Christmas. And it's cool, flightweight, it's got big

wheels. It's not like the kind of remote control cars that I played with

and now I was when I was a kid. Those like in three seconds,

it ended up in a corner and then you had to and you had

to pull it out of there, and it turned upside down and you've got

to go find it. And this thing, like if it hits a wall,

it just flips right over. If it goes upside down, it flips

right back over. Like it doesn't stop. My point is you can make

noise with this for hours, and so the instruction is no playing with the

remote control car until all the family members are awake. That's a good instruction

and it comes from on high. But you know, there's been another instruction,

which is to be kind and considerate always to everyone. Now, if

if you're old enough, you might see that the first instruction just flows from

the second. If not, maybe you have to have that elaborated. Right.

But one of those instructions is more important than the other because it over

it it umbrellas. It serves as the foundation for the other instruction. And

this instruction that we have in this text right here is that kind of first

order instruction that you can build a whole year on, that you can build

a whole life on. Here is one of those first order instructions. Walk

in Christ, that's what we're up to. So as you map out and

move forward into this next year, don't let minutia trip up your maturity.

Right, go big, don't don't let noisy gnat like concerns drowned out this

instruction that the Apostle is struggling to make very loud for us. Yes,

here's the goal. Walk in him and let all your other sub goals flow

from that. It is our order, it is our business. Sorry of

the first order. Now we said, we're going to get back to the

question of why, Why, What benefits does the scripture hold out for us

in this regard? What pitfalls are we called to avoid? How will this

help us avoid them? Let's go with the pitfalls first, because I'm just

that kind of guy. Pitfalls. What will we avoid if we undertake to

put our forward focus on growing in Christ? Well, here's what the passage

says, we'll avoid wrong paths. Will avoid wrong paths. Actually, this

chapter uses a lot of different ways to describe those. Verse four talks about

being deluded with plausible arguments. That's a way of taking wrong paths. Verse

eight says talks about being captured by philosophy and traditions. That's a way of

taking wrong paths. Verse eighteen talks about being disqualified through insistence on spiritual shadows.

That's a wrong path. And then verse twenty talks about being submitted to

rules based on human teaching, another way to take wrong paths. It reminds

me of a song that came out when I was a kid, goes like

little pilgrim, walking down the road of life where my search for good and

truth had its beginning. You take a little turn to the left, and

you see what that path has to offer you. But then you've got to

make it back to the main road anyhow, and you've got all that lost

time to make up for. Don't you wonder what you're trying to do.

Don't you wonder where that path is taking you? I understand messing around with

wrong paths. All my life, I've been an experimenter, a tryer honor.

And I wish that I could say that all my life, my forward

focus has been derived from this higher order instruction to walk in Christ. I

wish I could say that I've never been deluded by plausible arguments or captured by

philosophies. But human precepts and rules have this allure of advancement. They promise

so much and they deliver so little. As I can tell you, and

so can the former adherents of all kinds of human teachers. They've had to

make it back to the main road anyhow, and got all this lost time

to make up for. But if you will walk in Christ, if you

will make walking in Him all your forward focus. As he is presented in

the scriptures, you will avoid the pitfall of wrong paths, and you'll find

this benefit real wisdom. You'll find real wisdom. Again, this chapter has

several different expressions for that sort of thing. I mean, reaching the riches

of full assurance of understanding. That's something and the knowledge of God's mystery,

which is Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

Right, that's I mean, those are some expressions. And the thing

is, when I was younger, I thought I knew all there was to

know about Jesus. I mean, I figured I'd been taught Christianity since I

was a kid, and I won every Bible trivia game that our youth group

ever played. I think I'm done learning from the scripture. I couldn't Here's

the thing in something I understood, I couldn't imagine knowledge I didn't have because

like a teacher I had once who said, when he was a kid,

someone suggested to him that he take a look into a career as an inventor.

And as a kid, he was like, what do you mean,

Everything's already invented? Right in something? He thought he understood, he couldn't

imagine knowledge he didn't have. And I wonder if that's us a lot when

it comes to Jesus. Let me just ask you, heart to heart.

Do you sometimes feel like you're done learning about Jesus? You don't have to

admit the answer to anybody but yourself and God, And I mean, don't

feel bad about it. That's where the Colossians were at. Pretty common,

to feel like you're done learning about Jesus. Let's look at it a little

closer, though. Do you feel like you're done learning how to pray like

Jesus, To pray for what he prayed for, to pray with the faith

that he prayed with, to expect the answers that he expected. Do you

feel like you're done learning to love like Jesus, to love the way he

loved, to love the people he loved, to love with the depth that

he loved. Do you feel like you're done learning to take on his easy

yoke, apprenticing under him and learning his ways because he is gentle and lowly

of heart, and thereby finding rest for your soul? Are you done learning

that? Are you done learning how to humble yourself like Jesus. Are you

done learning how to be anointed with the oil of joy that scripture says Jesus

was anointed with above all his companions. Are you done learning joy from Jesus?

Are you done learning Jesus? Of course not so. My challenge to

you, based on this passage is this, as you map out and move

forward into this next year, let all your forward focus be walking in Jesus,

learning Jesus, because in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and

knowledge. But how I mean, we've seen what the instruction from this text

is, and we've talked about why right the pitfalls, to avoid the benefits

to receive? How do we go about it? What does scripture mean for

us in the manner? Well, in a lot of ways. How is

the subject of much of the New Testament and frankly the Old Testament too,

How to walk in Him? So we're not going to answer the question comprehensively.

We're going to answer it in a targeted way. What we're going to

do is we're going to target the same things that are present in this passage.

And when it comes to this passage, there's a part of walking in

Christ's that's about the mind, and a part that's about the heart. A

part of that's about the mind, and part that's about the heart, and

the part of walking in Christ that is of the mind. Is this sound

doctrine, its sound doctrine. And look with me at this text verse six,

therefore referring back up to his rejoicing to see their good order and their

firmness of their faith in Christ. Therefore, as you received Christ, Jesus

the Lord, as he was presented to you, the Son of God,

crucified for sins, raised and reigning, all in sound doctrine, as you

received him, So walk in Him, rooted and built up, established in

the faith, just as you were taught. Paul's concern is sound doctrine,

understanding God and yourself and sin and grace and everything else in a way that

isn't warped or poisoned by what's false, but rather is right and straight and

true and pure, because sound doctrine is life giving. I mean, some

of you are tuning out right now because I'm talking about doctrines, because at

heart, many people believe that doctrine just doesn't matter much. I'm not scolding

you. It's an actually, very very popular viewpoint that doctrine doesn't matter much,

it's wrong. And there's lots of different flavors. By the way,

there's a lot of different flavors of the viewpoint that doctrine doesn't matter much.

There's the mainline flavor, the main line flavor of doctrine doesn't matter much.

And I think that's actually the main line. Denominations is where the phrase deeds

not creeds first showed up. Deeds not creeds, which is a really catch

you way of saying doctrine doesn't matter much. And so the idea was,

it doesn't really matter that much what we believe as long as we do good

things to people, which meant soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Right, this

is what matters. And yes, and a men, Christ commands us to

do good to people, to feed the hungry, to clothe the needy.

This is the command that we've received from Christ. And so we do those

things. Why because we love a Jesus that we know, we worship of

Jesus that we know, we follow a Jesus that we know because we are

his disciples. But what happened when you said doctrine doesn't matter, then you

stop making disciples, and you start just doing things as soon there aren't any

disciples to do the things. There's also the megachurch flavor. The megachurch flavor

of doctrine doesn't matter much, goes like this doctor doesn't matter much, just

as long as you draw crowd, right, So we're gonna water down the

statement of faith. We're gonna remove anything that seems offensive from the Christian from

Christian doctrine, so there's no barrier of entry, so that people will gather

together on Sunday mornings. The problem is, the commission we've received from our

Lord is go make disciples, not go gather a crowd. Go make disciples,

baptizing them and teaching them all that I have commanded you. So we

can gather a crowd and still lose the commission. There's the music. There's

the musical version of doctrine doesn't matter much, which means, you know,

it goes like this doctor doesn't matter much as long as we have an awesome

worship experience. And I'm all for it. I love an awesome worship experience.

You'll see me right down here most Sunday mornings, just like this.

But the worshippers, the Father is seeking, the worshippers the Father is seeking,

or those who will worship in spirit. Yes, raise your hands,

sister, and truth. There's also the moral flavor. The moral flavor of

doctrine doesn't matter that much, which is to say, a community where the

grace of God, the forgiveness that's central to the gospel of Jesus Christ,

the mercy that is to be known by his people, isn't celebrated the way

it should be. It's completely downplayed in favor of what is essentially a functional

salvation by works. Because the idea is if functionally we operate as if salvation

is by works, then people will stay in line. It will restrain sin

if we just sort of believe the gospel backwards. But of course that doesn't

conquer sin, just make sin go underground and come out sideways. The fact

is that doctrine doesn't matter much is completely wrong. And not only is it

wrong, it's hypocritical because doctrine doesn't matter much. As the late Tim Keller

pointed out, is a doctrine right that is a dogma of massive proportions,

and it is swallowed unthinkingly by millions who have just absorbed it from the world,

or even from Christian leaders who understand too little or have too much of

an agenda. Doctrine does matter. Sound doctrine is life giving. All you

have to do is go go read the old divines like John Owen and Richard

Sibbs, and watch how they take scripture and they work through the deep doctrines

of Christ, and they open up insights into the human heart and how that

intersects with the grace of God. And before you know it, you have

a path before you, a path of freedom and power and grace and life

for you to walk in Christ. It's life giving. Part of walking in

Christ is of the mind. It's about sound doctrine, it's about making use

of the deep doctrines of Christ. But part of walking in Christ is of

the heart. And in this text, the Apostle highlights gratitude. Right.

Passage puts it this way. Take a look, So walk in Him,

rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you

were taught. Abounding in thanksgiving, abounding in thanksgiving, overflowing with jam,

packed with gratitude. That's a lot of gratitude that is very unlike like when

you know the little one gets the Christmas present from Aunt so and so,

and you have to go like, Okay, what do you say that is

not abounding with thanksgiving? And sometimes I think we're not either. I mean,

this attitude is pretty conspicuous in how much it should abound in us versus

how much we lack it. But I'm convinced that if we attended with persistent

diligence just these two things, deep use of the doctrines of Christ and packing

ourselves full of gratitude for Him, we would in one year mature so much

in Jesus that our twenty twenty four cells, who look back at our twenty

twenty three selves and think we are quite foolish and flimsy, and the flesh

and the devil will grapple against this work with every pen and hold that they

can throw at us. But it the work of gratitude overflows with opportunity.

Just think a little bit about who he is. Your Lord is gentle and

lowly of heart. Are you thankful that your Lord is gentle and lowly of

heart, That he is your patient, patient teacher, that he overflows,

that he is annoyed with the oil of joy more than all his companions are

you thankful that your king knows joy like that, and think of what he's

done. He didn't count quality with God a thing to be grasped, but

he emptied himself of that kind of majesty, and became born as a person,

as a human, and he humbled himself in obedience to death, even

death on a cross, so that your sins would be forgiven, so that

you would be reconciled to God, so that you would have a way to

walk in him. Notice the scriptures don't say walk towards him, as if

he was just some ideal that you needed to attain through self righteousness. And

the scriptures don't say walk from him, as if he was just getting you

started on the path and then you have to do it on your own.

They say walk in him, because he is your way, and he is

your companion on the way, and walking in him is the worthy aspiration of

all our forward focus this year and all our lives.