Colossians: What is Spiritual Maturity?

So we're working our way through the book of Colossians.

And what we've talked about is how the book of Colossians, when Paul wrote this letter, he's probably in Rome, he's probably in prison.

He's heard about this church that started up in southern central Turkey.

He's writing this letter, and how he lays it out is the first two chapters, he lays out all the promises of God to us.

So that we we call these the indicatives, what's been indicated to us, the promises of who you are, who you are in Jesus, what God's done for you, what Jesus has done for you.

And then chapters three and four, he moves into practicals.

So he moves out of promises into practicals, and in these practicals we could call these imperatives.

If you're an English major, you like that word.

And this is what this is what you should do.

Because of this, here's what you should do.

So the structure itself shows us even how Christian life is lived.

Christian's life is lived out of chapter 1 and 2 in order for chapters 3 and 4 to come out.

And so what we saw in the past couple weeks, last week we talked about Thanksgiving, but the two weeks before that, we talked about that in Jesus you need nothing else.

You don't need anything else.

He did all the work for you.

You are holy and righteous by his work and not by your work.

And actually what we talked about is we talked about that accusation in your life comes when you start to try to add to the work Jesus has done for you.

And that's when accusation shows up.

Accusation of shame, accusation of guilt, accusation you're not enough, instead of relying on that Jesus is enough for you.

And so when we say that and when we think about it, basically what we're saying is we're saying we're perfectly loved.

And so if we if we are indeed perfectly loved, then do we just do whatever we want?

Right?

I mean, like spiritually and just like in life, is it just kind of like on a beach with the margarita for the rest of our life?

Do we, do we, what do we, do we just, is there no need to grow?

Is there no need to progress?

Is there no need to study or to learn?

So what I'm talking about is what does it mean?

What does it mean to mature in the Christian faith?

So I I've been in churches for about 25 years at this point.

Some of you got me beat by a long shot when it comes to how long you've been involved.

Some of you, maybe day one in church.

And here's what I've noticed.

I've noticed sometimes, not always, sometimes activity is mistaken as maturity.

Just like whoever's the busiest, oh, they must be really mature.

You know, that let that lady, she's in charge of everything.

So she must be so in so mature, or that guy.

Maybe some of you walked away from church because of this attitude.

You just got wore out, right?

I mean, maturity wasn't happening, you just got exhausted.

Exhaustion was happening.

And it just wasn't the life that you wanted.

So I've seen activity, I've also seen power mistaken as maturity.

You know, and maybe that's seen in terms of money, or maybe seen in terms of network, or maybe that's seen in terms of charisma.

And everybody's perception of that person is, oh, they must be so mature because they are they have so much power in this community, and really it doesn't have anything to do with maturity.

And some of you may be walked away from church because of that.

You just get the you see that, and you're like, this is gross, this is horrible.

And he's like, I'm I don't want that.

I'm out of here.

Now I think you can be those things, right?

I mean, you can have influence or you can be busy and active, and you can be mature.

So the one doesn't mean that the other isn't true, but they're definitely not definitions of maturity.

But I've made that mistake.

If you've been around church long enough, you've probably made that mistake of kind of signing on to some extent of, oh, well, if only I'm more active, then I'll be more mature.

Or maybe if only if I have a little more influence, then I'll be more mature.

And see, why this is so important to you.

This is so important.

I was thinking about this last night.

I was flying back from Virginia where we went for Thanksgiving.

I'm flying back, and I'm just thinking about the sermon, and I'm thinking about why does this matter?

Why does this matter to you?

Why does it matter to me?

Here's why it matters.

You can make the mistake to think you have to do everything.

And wear yourself out while never knowing the deep wealth you have in the riches of Christ.

So you can make the mistake to think you have to do everything, but but then at the same time, you can make the mistake to think you should do nothing.

And also never know the wealth of the deep riches of Christ.

And so the question is: here's the question.

In light of his glorious grace, where we're perfectly loved and we're secure, and we don't have to add to the work Jesus has done for us, in light of that, and in light of the fact that I'm set free from my work, what am I supposed to be doing?

Right?

Another way to say it would be, what is my work in light of the fact that I'm set free from my work?

Well, let's take a look at it.

Fortunately, Paul had thought this through and he wrote about it, which is good for us.

So, verse 24 of Colossians 1, he writes this.

He says, Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church.

Now you can come away from that verse and go, oh, well, it sounds like something's lacking here, and I need to add to it.

Well, that goes against everything Paul ever wrote.

What this simply means is it means we we suffer for Jesus.

And maybe we don't, in our country, we don't feel that a lot.

We feel it maybe more emotionally, maybe we feel it in different ways because we make decisions that go counter-culturally, or or um, or or maybe we don't go along with the crowd for a particular reason, and maybe we feel that suffering, or we follow his lead when it's not popular, we follow his lead when it doesn't add up financially, um, and maybe we feel that suffering.

And when we do that, we add to uh the lacking of his suffering, meaning that we put on display, we put on display to the world that Jesus suffered for them and us, and he loved the world.

Meaning in our suffering we show the world how valuable he is.

Verse 25, I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God and its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations.

See, us we think, oh, it's no big deal, it's been two thousand years, we've had the Bible, you know, we've had it our whole lives, we've been reading it, no big deal.

Then Paul writes, the mystery has been kept hidden for ages and generations, right?

I mean, he's been he's been a Jew his entire life in the Jewish faith, and he's been wondering who's the Messiah, when's the Messiah coming?

When are we gonna be rescued from this system of religion?

And for generations, they've been waiting.

Like, who's the Messiah?

When's the Messiah coming?

All this mystery.

And Paul says, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people.

I mean, that's why the Old Testament's constantly talking about his plan for redeeming people.

Now, here it is.

Here is the plan.

The mystery is solved, right?

I mean, it's like clue.

It's like Mrs.

Peacock in the library with the dagger or whatever the scenario is.

I mean, the mystery is solved.

Is Jesus the mystery solved?

Verse 27 to them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

What is your hope of glory?

I mean, that sounds like a pretty irrelevant question, right?

I mean, that's the first question I wrote down after I read this verse early this week.

What is your hope of glory?

But that sounds such a kind of irrelevant question to our language.

But that the word glory means weight or intense beauty.

So the question really is: is what is your hope for your inner being to be beautiful?

Oh, now we have a question we can work with, right?

What is your hope for your inner self to be beautiful?

Well, the world says your hope is going to be by adding something to your life on the external, right?

We had a bunch of catalogs if you were here, and basically, you know, in you date.

I got home last night, checked the mail, but I had like 30 catalogs.

Some of these catalogs were the same companies I received last week.

And they're already sending me another catalog, right?

Get another sweater, another belt, another whatever.

I got a text from one of you.

One of you, you sent me a picture of a lady on the front of a catalog.

She's wearing a sweater, and she has an elk, like the elk's like a live elk behind her, and like there's like beautiful men behind her, like in a field.

You know, it's just like if only you had this sweater, you could have this life of rugged exploration and men waiting to be with you.

Right?

I mean, that's what the world says.

Like, modify, if you want to have a beautiful inner self, would then just add something on the external, right?

Like the next thing, the next job you acquire, the next position, the next person you're with, or the next car you drive, the next workout you conquer, right?

The next bad behavior you eradicate, then the problem with this is every time we use the stuff or we use the behaviors or we use people around us uh for our hope of glory, at the end of it, we're still there.

Like we're still there under the sweater.

We're still there when the new person is on our arm and we thought they were gonna do it.

We're still there.

Right?

It's like fresh paint over rotten wood.

The rotten wood is still there.

And that's why this verse is not Christ and you, hope of glory.

Uh the hope for beauty for you is Christ in you.

Becoming a beautiful person, a mature person is all about a in you life.

And so here's the sermon point, the thesis in one sentence.

The marvel and maturity is Christ in you, not Christ and you.

Let's keep going.

Let's keep unpacking this.

Verse 27.

Uh I'll repeat 27, going to 28 and 29.

To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

See, an And you life, the And you life, um, that's what we would call moralism.

It's external modification.

So I gave a definition of moralism a few weeks ago.

We talk about moralism right here all the time.

We we will continue to because this is our default as human beings, this is what we sort of result back to, and you'll see when I give you the definition, you'll go, oh yeah, that's that's me.

And here's moralism.

It says uh it's a life where we try to earn our standing with God and our value as a person based on what we do.

And so there's no end to it.

You always got to have something else or do a little bit better.

There's no end to it.

It's based on what you do.

And so we carry around that scorecard and we score ourselves, we compare ourselves to somebody else, and we're just constantly, we're constantly doing this, and we present the scorecard to ourselves to feel better about ourselves, we present it to God, to say, oh, do you accept me now based on what I've done?

And that's not the gospel, it's not Christian faith.

The gospel is this it says your standing with God has nothing to do with what you do, it has everything to do with what Christ has done for you, and the scorecard is gone.

So moralism is uh obey to be accepted by God.

In Christian faith, the gospel is you are accepted by God, so obey.

This changed my life.

When I went from and you living to in you living, it changed my life.

It went from burden of the Christian life and just always just not quite feeling like enough to a freedom of, yeah, I'm not enough.

And he is, and I'll rest in that, and I'm gonna trust him.

So I I saw an illustration years ago, it just stuck with me when it comes to this, it stuck with me.

So if you work with me just a little bit here, uh, let's pretend uh that this is you.

I know, I'm sorry.

Uh it's just a little Tupperware.

Maybe your ego's bigger and you think I should have been in a bigger piece of Tupperware, but this is it.

This is you.

I went to the kitchen this morning and grabbed a few things.

So uh, this is you.

Now, when you go into the kitchen, by the way, trying to find something symbolic of Jesus becomes much more difficult and uh of a process than us finding a so and then uh and let's just say this is this is Christ.

It's an almond.

I don't know if you can see this.

I mean, I looked in the cupboard, it's like a ritz bits, a fruit gummy, piece of a noodle.

I'm like an almond is sweet, it's good for us.

So let's let's just pretend like this is Jesus.

And so uh this is us.

In here is it's a mixed bag, isn't it?

I mean, I mean there's there's sin and sinful desires, there's good stuff, there's bad stuff.

When we shift our faith from us trying to get our act together, and we shift faith to in Jesus, God is the Spirit of God comes into us.

Christ actually comes into us.

And what the scriptures say is is when that happens, it's a sealed deal.

Like it's super tupperware, like it's done.

Now, still there's still sin in there, there's still past stuff and wounds and memories, but he's in there.

We are secure.

And he is changing us now from the inside out.

Now, what the scriptures also say, and work with me, right?

This is my three-year-old's lunchbox.

The scriptures also say uh that not only is Christ in us, but just that we understand the fullness of this, so we get a really good picture.

The scriptures say that we also are in Christ.

And we'll zip this up nice and secure because that's how it works, it's fully secure.

And so this is us, Christ in us, and then us in Christ.

Completely wrapped up and secure.

So here you are, and you're waking up in the morning and you're working out, you're going to school, you're going to class, and you're driving to work, and you're shh you're doing everything, all your errands around the house, or you're meeting business meetings, or you're texting friends, you're doing homework, and you're doing all of that, and you go to practice, or you have another late meeting, you have a lunch meeting, and you get home and you do your stuff, your chores, and you have dinner, and you're feeling lonely, or you're feeling like there's so many people around.

I wish I could only feel lonely for a moment.

That'd be fantastic.

And you have dinner and you settle down, you watch a TV show, and you shower, and you read your book, and you lay down, and finally you put your head on your pillow, right?

And finally you're not looking at your phone long enough, right?

It's still on the table next to you, but there's a moment there where you stop looking at it and you're not looking at your phone, and it's so easy, right, along the way, and even in that moment, to just revert back to that to that Christ and you, and to feel the accusation that comes with that sort of life, that moralistic kind of life.

But then you remember this.

You remember that almond, you remember that Tupperware, you remember this pink lunchbox, and you remember the verse.

Christ in you is your hope of glory.

Your hope for your inner being to be beautiful and to be mature is not an and you life.

And so there's that moment throughout the day, and there's that moment at the end of the day where you go, oh yeah, I am saved from an and you life.

I have a in you life, that he is in me, Christ in me, the hope of glory.

And in that moment you can whisper to your heart, not and me, in me.

In me, hope of glory.

I mean, isn't that I mean that's unbelievable.

That's marvelous.

That the obedience in us is not empowered by us, but it's Christ in us, changing us from the inside out.

So let's look at verse 28 and continue to kind of unpack this and see how Paul unpacks it.

Well, Paul's goal in verse 28.

Some translations say uh present everyone as perfect.

I really like it.

Present everyone as fully mature.

So, what is maturity?

Uh, Colossians 2, let's jump in there, uh part of verse 1.

I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally.

Seeing, I'm working hard for you, for you to know this, for you to be mature.

My goal, here you go, here it is.

My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Do you see it?

Because I love it.

Do you see it?

You've got to see it.

That verse 2, because he repeats his purpose, he repeats what maturity means, and it's to understand the full riches of complete understanding.

Let me make it clear.

He wants you to know how filthy rich you are.

That's maturity.

To know how absolutely filthy rich you are in Jesus.

And that the account is secure.

You don't have to keep adding.

So maturity is not getting all the behaviors perfect and watching the right movie or the wrong movie or dressing or talking the part or achieving certain things or befriending certain people.

It's deeper than that.

Perhaps it can inform all of that.

So, parents, you can relax just a little bit.

It can inform all of that, but it's deeper than that.

It can't begin there.

Maturity in its beginning, the core, is in our inner being the assurance of how rich you are in Jesus.

And that informs everything.

It informs your friends, it informs what you achieve, it informs your behaviors, it informs what you watch and don't watch.

Martin Luther, a renowned theologian from several hundred years ago, he wrote very simply, to progress is to always begin again.

So, yeah, we should progress.

But the progressing is like a backward walking.

So we mature, but it's not by adding to the work that Jesus has done for us.

It's by resting deeper and deeper and deeper in his sufficiency, in the work he's done for us, in his love for us, so we don't go so needy for other love.

So we we want to study him, we want to know him, we want to meditate on him, we want to meditate on the word who informs us about him, and we want to let the gospel go into deeper and deeper, all that insecurity that you hide from everybody else, but we all know you have it because we have it also.

All of that, we want the gospel to get into all of that insecurity, that's maturity.

So I wrote this sermon on Monday and Tuesday, and then we went to Virginia, and I spent four days with my lovely extended family, and I mean lovely, I'm not being sarcastic there.

Lovely extended family, my sister and her husband, and their two little girls, and we had my three little girls, and me and Christy, and then my mom came up, and and it's a it's it's a lot of people in a house for four days.

It's not your house, it's not my house.

I'm pretty good at my house, right?

I'm in control.

That's my domain, it's my little kingdom, and in me, everything comes out.

I'm not always a fun picnic to be around.

I get cranky, I'm in somebody else's house, I'm not in control of anything.

None of this is my stuff.

I don't even know what to do.

At times I just find myself walking around.

I'm just like, I'm just walking around.

I'm not even doing anything, I don't even know what to do.

I'm in somebody else's kingdom, I don't know what to do.

And all my control and impatience sort of like rises up.

Right?

None of you felt this this week when you're around other family, right?

I say that to say I'm I'm not sure I'm getting better.

Not sure I'm getting better.

But I'm I'm really sure I'm becoming more alive.

Here's what I mean.

Maturity is about awareness to our sinful heart tendencies, sorrow about it, and seeing him as sufficient for me, and he makes me more alive even when I feel like I'm not getting any better.

And in fact, that's what it means to get better.

But as soon as I turn to trying to be better and get better, I've set myself on a path.

I've turned my eyes away from them Christ sufficiently into the and you life.

And the burden and the accusation that comes from it.

What I see Paul saying here is maturity is knowing the rich security we already have.

Years ago, uh some friends of ours, a couple, and they had no children at the time, and they had they had a niece.

The girl was about 10 years old, and she was in an incredibly poor family.

I mean, like ghetto type poor she lived in, and and she was just being neglected.

On all levels, I mean, hunger, no parental supervision, and she's raising herself, she's 10 years old, and finally our friend stepped in and said, Hey, we'll take her.

You know, she she can come to our house.

And so our friends took her in, she's 10 years old, she's been living this sort of life for like five, six years, and and she gets in the house, and soon after getting in the house, she begins to hoard.

They would go into her room and they would find boxes of cookies, they'd find bananas, they'd find crackers.

Uh she would she would steal from other parts of the house and hoard it into her room.

And our friends would take her down into the kitchen and say, This is all paid for.

You don't have to do this anymore.

Like this will always be here.

You don't have to do that anymore.

They would say this over and over and over again.

The sad thing is, she could never stop.

Our friends just sang it to her, it's all yours, it's yours.

But she kept stealing, she kept hoarding.

So many of us are living in a state of inner poverty when the kitchen is fully stocked and it's paid for.

And we are filthy rich in our inner beings, but trusting it and believing it and resting in it instead of constantly trying to add to it.

Maturity is learning to be aware of the deep riches of Jesus and his love for you, but not adding to the wealth.

And that's why maturity is Christ in you, not Christ and you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that our hope to have inner beings that are beautiful, that are at peace, that are righteous, that are content, that are valid and valuable.

Thank you that it's not based on Christ and us.

Thank you that it is fully based on Christ in us.

Help us to rest in that more.

Help us to know it more, to take it in deeper and deeper to deeper levels where we have more insecurity that's fueling more and more behaviors that are not healthy for our lives.

Help us to trust that you're enough.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.