Colossians: Unlocking Maturity
Pastor Fletcher preaches from Colossians 1:24-2:5 about developing spiritual maturity. Discussion points: Maturity is unlocked by the mystery of God, maturity is marked by humility and contentment, we have received the mystery of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit living in us.
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Scripture reader: [Colossians 1:24-2:5] Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the Word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.
To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of His glory of this 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. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for, for all who have may not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of the understanding and knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom all are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for though I am absent in the body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order in the firmness of your faith in Christ.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: All right, good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name's Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor here at the church, and I wanna invite you for just a moment to travel with me in time to the year 2007. some of you may have been children in 2007. I was 21 years old. George W. Bush was in the White House at that time, believe it or not. And that summer was one of the best summers of my life. I was a Bible study leader at this Christian camp in Panama City Beach, and each week, 700 new teenagers would travel to our little slice of the redneck Riviera to learn about Jesus and to flirt with other teenagers from other southern states.
During that summer, there were 11 male staff members, and so they said, let's get one house with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, that'll be fine. And they were 100% correct. Absolutely fine. Great memories in that place, just piled on top of one another, literally in bunk beds in every room. And we worked from 7 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. every single day, and I loved every minute of it.
Before the summer started, we, I, I had a, a desire within me to start memorizing scripture. And so before the summer started, I dedicated myself to memorizing the entire book of Colossians, which was a huge undertaking, but one that was quite fruitful and has stuck with me for many years now. And as I was working through this book, what I would do is I would learn a new verse every single day. I would try at least, and then on my walk to breakfast or in my shower or a walk on the beach at night, I would try to recite everything that I remembered from Colossians. And so this was my process.
And then one morning, I snuck out of breakfast kind of early and got back to the house and found this magical moment between breakfast and Bible study when no one else was in the house. And I remember it very, very clearly. I was sitting in the kitchen, and it smelled of sand and dirty socks, and the sun was shining just as you might expect a house with 11 boys, to smell like, young men. Um. The sun was shining through at just the right angle, and I came to this passage that we're reading. And as I read this passage, it was as if a 3-ton bomb exploded in my heart. That meteor that we heard yesterday, I don't know where you are. I was like running around my house looking for what exploded. I was, I was like calling all my neighbors like, hey, are you OK? That happened within me.
The, the truth of God's word just had such an impact in my heart that day, because I looked at this passage and I got to verse 26, and it says, the mystery hidden for ages and generations. But now revealed to his saints. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Up until that moment, I'd spent my entire Christian life wishing I could have been in the Old Testament. Wishing I could have seen the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke that led the people of Israel through the wilderness of Sinai. Wishing I could have seen what Moses saw when he saw just the back of the glory of God. Wishing I could have seen the Red Sea split, wishing I could have seen the sun. stand still as Joshua did. Wishing I could have seen that vision of valley of a dry bones coming to life. Wishing I could have just seen any of the wonders and the acts that you hear about in the Old Testament.
And in this moment, what happened with that meteor struck my heart as I realized that what I have is better. That it's more clear, that it's all the shadows of the Old Testament. What they're pointing to is what I possess, what I have in Christ, the riches of the mystery of the glory of God throughout the entire Old Testament, God seems like this mysterious being. You know, you can't even come anywhere near him. It's like the closer you get, the more dangerous you are coming to God. And you read these stories about like Uzzah, who's just doing nothing and he reaches up his hand and the Ark of the Covenant falls, and God strikes him dead because he came into God's presence and he was sinful in God's presence.
And so you have this mystery of what is the presence of God throughout the entire Old Testament, and then you get to this passage and it says, the mystery that's been kept hidden for ages and generations is now. Revealed to you saints. That you get the full picture, the hope of glory, it is Christ in you. This passage just blossomed in my heart. It, it became alive. When I, I, soon after this summer, I was already actually kind of working in ministry, but for the next couple years, I just lived off of this verse. I would preach in different churches at different times. It was always this passage that I would go to, because it's the one that felt the most alive to me as I came to it. As I was reading it. It's what just sang in my heart. And I hope that you might have a similar story about a verse that's come alive about how God has sunk into your heart deeply and made you come alive. And I hope that you can go back to those days from time to time and feel alive once again.
As I am doing this passage, I preached this no less than 20 times, my first 5 years preaching. I have not touched it in about 15 years. So it, it has been sitting there, and I have changed as a human. I'm a dad now. It's, you know, different year, different, different person in many ways. And so it's been just like going to see an old friend, to pick up this passage and to learn once again what God has for us here. I'm praying that God might use this passage to drop a meteor in your own heart, as he did mine. Then you might discover the mystery of God alive in you.
And so let's, let's look at what's going on in this book. We're going through the book of Colossians, and we like to do that verse by verse the best that we can. And so today we come to this section, and I just need to give you a little bit of background information. Maybe you haven't been with us this whole time. Colossians is a letter written from the apostle Paul, who was very busy planting churches all throughout the Mediterranean region. And it's written to one of his proteges, Epaphras. Now, Colossae is an interesting place. The book of Colossians is an interesting letter because it's one of the few letters where Paul never actually visited that church. He just knows the church through what Epaphras has told him, because Paul raised up Epaphras probably while he was in Ephesus. Sent Epaphras to plant the church in Colossae, and now what's happened as far as we know, is Epaphras has sent a letter to Paul, detailing some of the issues that he's facing, and basically being like, Paul, what should I do? How do I lead this? And instead of writing a letter back to Epaphras, Paul just writes a letter to the church and he's like, I hear what you guys have been doing. I've got some words for you. And so he sets them straight.
And so this is our letter answering many of the issues that came up in Epaphras' letter to Paul. And now back to the Colossians, we have words of God from Paul. And one of the major issues that seems to be going on in the Colossian Church is that the people in the Colossians Church are lacking maturity. They're lacking spiritual maturity and maybe just emotional maturity, and instead of acting in a mature way, what's what it's actually leading them to do is to be syncretistic. They're adding other things to their their way of God. They're saying that you have to be doing these things to be a Christian, and you you have to be adding more to what Christ has done.
And so what Paul is intending to do with this little passage, is to encourage the Colossians towards maturity in Christ, so that they might experience the full glories of God, and so they might be united, and so that they might show fruit in and of themselves. And so that's what's. Happening here.
He's writing this, Colossians chapter 1 verse 28. He says, we proclaim Jesus, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. And so the goal of this passage is actually spiritual maturity. And the point of the passage is this. That maturity is unlocked by the mystery of God. Nothing unlocks spiritual maturity and just maturity in general in your life, like embracing and experiencing the mystery of God.
Maturity is a tough thing to talk about in a sermon. And, and here's why it's a tough thing to talk about. no one is willing to call themselves spiritually immature. And so as I, I'm going to do this in just a few moments, I'm gonna list off a bunch of things that immature Christians do, and you're gonna be going through your head and be like, uh-huh, yeah, I know someone like that. And very few of us are gonna be like, it's me. I'm the person that's doing these things. It takes a certain amount of maturity to see that you have not arrived to maturity. And so the ones who need to hear the sermon the most are usually the ones that aren't listening, and the ones that are the most mature among us are usually torn asunder because they can see that. They haven't arrived, that they haven't actually matured in every single way.
And so as I read through these things, I just have a long list, and this is gonna help you guys to know if you are mature or not. And as I go through these things, I think it's gonna be easy to point a finger. A few fingers, you can keep, I'm gonna give you an allotment of 3 fingers in your mind, OK? That's, that's all you can do though. Once you get to 3, you gotta turn it off, OK? And, and then you have to say, OK, it's, it's me. All right? So hopefully for every finger that you point, you can point one back at yourself in here. And as we go through this, I just want you to consider, maybe I'm less mature than I thought I was.
To brainstorm these ideas, what I did was, first I thought about my past 20 years in ministry, and all the spiritually immature people that I've dealt with, some of which are here. And then I thought about my own children, because they're children, they're not supposed to be mature, and so I was like, what do what do children do? And then I thought about our political leaders and I kept on going, just kidding, just kidding, mostly, immaturity versus maturity, immaturity versus maturity.
Immature people look for easy fixes to complicated problems. Mature people thoughtfully get to the heart of the problem. Immature people fix superficial things on the outside without actually addressing the issues on the inside, but mature people are willing to actually do the work, to work on what's happening in their hearts, and what's actually the problem. Immature people complain about things they don't like, hoping someone else will solve their problems. Mature people recognize the good while working on what's wrong, showing ownership.
Immature people run away from difficult problems, they ghost people, they give up on relationships, they avoid hard conversations. Mature people seek to understand. They don't give up, they plow forward. Immature people look for answers that confirm what they already believe. They don't want to change their minds. Mature people are willing to admit when they're wrong.
Just to break it up a little bit with the story, I'm reading Eugene Peterson's biography. It was written a few years ago, and it's, it's fantastic, and he's talking about a time when he's in seminary and he's studying under this amazing professor, Doctor Albright. I mean, just world renowned archaeologist, the top archaeologist in the world at the time. And the students come and he's brilliant, he's eccentric, he's like the, the normal eccentric professor that is just absolutely brilliant. And he's, this is in I, I think it's at Johns Hopkins, and he's writing all over the board, and he's come to the class one day, having stayed up half the night, the night before, and he has figured out a big discovery. It's the location of Mount Moriah, where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac.
And so he comes into the class and he doesn't miss a beat, he doesn't allow for any questions, he just comes to display what he's found on the blackboard. He starts to write. He's writing in Arabic, he's writing in Hebrew, he's writing in at least 4 different ancient languages. I wrote them down. Arabic, Assyrian, Aramaic, and Ugaritic and Hebrew, all onto the chalkboard. He had found the location. He's just going to town on this chalkboard. And then one of the students, Prescott Williams, says, excuse me, Professor Albright. The class just goes silent. Everybody's like, how dare he interrupt our professor in this moment of brilliance. And he says, an argument to say, I think you've got it wrong, you're not considering this or that. And as the student objected, Professor Albright just sat back and quietly listened. And then picked up his eraser and started erasing everything on the board and said, forget everything I just said, Prescott's right. Let's continue into another topic.
It's a man who knows what it means to be mature, is that you don't have to be right all the time. You can listen to other, he could have easily just flexed his academic muscles and said be quiet. But instead, he was willing to receive the truth when he. was confronted about something that he had wrong. Eugene Peterson says this. He says, the people who stand out in my life are the people who don't flaunt what they are, do what they are doing, and aren't stuck on who they are. What, what a great description of a mature person. A mature person is someone who doesn't flaunt what they're doing and aren't stuck on who they are.
Immature people need to appear impressive. Mature people are content to be faithful. Immature people avoid admitting fault because they fear exposure. Mature people confess freely because their identity is secure in Christ. Immature people want platform before character. Mature people rarely care if they're even noticed. Their lives are hidden in Christ. Immature people function with a strict retribution principle. Immature people really love that that Bible passage that says an eye for an eye. And a tooth for a tooth. They're very good about this cycle of retribution. You did this, I'll do that. Mature people, on the other hand, are willing to absorb the debt, forgive, and move on as they have been forgiven.
Immature people divide the world into heroes and villains. Mature people recognize the grace and the sin in each person. Immature people are easily swayed by popular opinion and fads. Mature people stay grounded in the truth. Immature people crave novelty. Immature Christians are always chasing the new thing, often switching churches, chasing the best spiritual experience. Mature people, on the other hand, learn to treasure depth. Mature Christians keep digging deeper into the same gospel and relationships, committing to things like a small group or a membership at a church where they can be known. Immature people want spiritual experiences without spiritual formation. Mature people embrace slow transformation.
Out of every story in the Bible that I've read. I'm always amazed that God doesn't zap anybody's character. But instead, People have to grow throughout the scripture. That they have to go through the hardships of life, so that their character can be shaped. Not zapped into place. God forms people through ordinary obedience over decades. Not just spiritual moments. A lot of times the spiritual moments add up to ordinary obedience over decades. But through quiet prayer, repentance, forgiveness, scripture, community. All these things that add up to a formation of the soul into maturity.
Immature people assume hardship means that God's abandoned you. Mature people have deep roots to withstand life's difficulties. Just a quick illustration about a tree. I've told you guys the story of Melissa Maple Senora, I do believe, before, my tree that's out that was outside, I named her. And We had this tree, the, the city planted it. Within a couple of weeks, one of my neighbors had hit one of the stakes in the ground with, with his truck and broke the stake, and the tree then had a lean, had a little limp, a little lean, from that day forward. And um. Then it fell over one day. But what would have happened if the tree had been mature and my neighbor had hit his truck against it? Well, it wouldn't have bothered the tree hardly at all, but it would have bothered the truck a whole lot. And this is a very good illustration of the difference between how mature people can weather storms and immature people who don't have deep roots, how they weather storms.
Immature people ask, what, I promise I only have a few more of these, immature people ask, what can I get away with? Mature people ask what leads me closer to Christ. Immature people need certainty about everything, while mature believers are more comfortable saying things like, I don't know. Or I don't understand that completely. Or maybe I'm wrong. But I love Jesus.
As you go through each of these things, hopefully, hopefully you can recognize that. You aren't mature in every way. And look, the point isn't just to be a mature person. You know, if I gave you the list of the mature things, it's not meant to say, don't be that person, be this person. I mean, yeah, like, I would prefer you be the mature person than the immature person, but you don't just do that by like writing down my list and then like focusing on those things throughout the week.
Instead, I think that what actually has to happen is you have to have maturity gained over years, and it's unlocked by this idea of the mystery of Christ in you. This is the unlocking key to maturity. There's no way that you can move fully from immaturity to maturity, apart from that key. I mean, plenty of us have met adults, maybe even elderly adults who act like children, have we not? It's OK. It's OK. You can, you know, we've all met some people. Who get older but don't seem to mature. And I think that one of the main reasons for that is because they're neglecting the mystery of Christ in them.
There, there's no way to move from immaturity to maturity without God. You'll never have the security required to do it. Because to be a mature person just requires that you be an intensely secure person. Someone who is comfortable in their own skin. You'll always be looking to validate yourself. Without Christ. You'll always be looking to prove yourself. But look, what, if you're gonna boil down spiritual maturity to one thing, it's this maturity means that you become less self-obsessed. Immature people are just completely self-obsessed. And as you grow in maturity, you become less and less self-obsessed. That's the heart of it. To mature is to become progressively less obsessed with yourself.
And the way that you do that is that you rest easy, that God is pleased with you. Because you are found in Christ. That is the riches of the glory of God, that you don't have to prove yourself to anybody or to God, but because you are found in Christ, you are complete, you are accepted, you are loved, you no longer have to strive for those things. You have received them as a gift from God, that you are loved, that you are accepted. And so you can slowly start to be more self self forgetful. Without God, you'll never be able to forgive others because you haven't experienced forgiveness. But with God, you've experienced this deep forgiveness. You see that God can forgive you for your deepest sins. He take he bears the penalty himself, and so I can do the same. You'll always be holding a grudge, always be keeping score like a child. Without Christ, you'll always be seeking more from this world. But with Christ, you have so much more to live for.
So I just wanna go back to our passage, verse 27. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. The glory of this mystery, the great mystery of God is Christ in you, the hope of glory. When he says mystery, what we normally think of, OK, so there's a couple of different things that we think of when the Bible talks about mystery.
And the first thing that I thought this was actually for years, and it wasn't until this week where it really kinda like dawned to me. So look, this passage has been fueling my devotional life for like the better part of 20 years, and here I am learning new things as I go back to it again. mystery, we normally think about that as like a puzzle, you know, like, like we had to figure out the puzzle of God, like the, like something's being hidden from us, and we've gotta figure that out. But I actually think what's happening here is less a puzzle and more like the plan of God. The revelation of God. I love to, to read, and I guess it's somewhat like a puzzle, but, anybody else like mysteries? I love to read a good mystery. I enjoy reading a whodunit book, or maybe even watching a whodunit movie like Knives Out or something like that, or the Sheep Detectives. I haven't seen that one, but my son loved it. Thought that was super cool.
And the good thing about these is that what happens as you watch the movie is you're taking in all the pieces, and that what makes a good mystery is at the end, you see all the pieces come together, and you're like, oh, I should have seen that the whole time. You're like, oh, this just makes sense. You like had that Sherlock Holmes moment where everything just kind of makes sense. That's what this is talking about. That the mystery throughout the whole Old Testament where all the strands of the glory of God that we've seen throughout everywhere in the Old Testament, these powerful demonstrations of God's power. They come together and they're revealed as Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We have the answer to the mystery, to the puzzle. It's the answer of the great whodunit of life. All the Old Testament points to this greater reality that you can truly know the God who created the universe. That's what the Old Testament's about. That's what it's trying to communicate, it's setting it up for you, that he who spoke the world into the existence, he sent his very Son that we might know him, and that you might know him, that life has meaning and purpose, and that you can enjoy life with God.
That's at the heart of this whole thing. We want everyone to experience this reality. It is the key to life, not just Christian life, but life. This is why Paul says, him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone. He says everyone twice. You see that that that matters. He says it twice, he's trying to emphasize it. Warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ three times. This is not a message for a select few. Paul committed his entire life to declaring this great reality, struggling with all the energy that God powerfully placed within him.
And so when Paul sees immature people, OK, when when I see an immature person, I'm tempted, almost always to be impatient with them, because immature people are frustrating. Especially immature people who you expect more from. They're frustrating, but what does Paul say? He says, when we see immaturity, we proclaim him. We, we trust God. We know that their problem isn't actually that they just are self-obsessed. The problem is that they're not God obsessed. And that if we could just help them to see how they're replacing God with themselves, that they would move into maturity. And so in that moment, what I wish I could do with an immature person is have empathy. I think we need to be people of great empathy, especially when we see immature people, because we know that we also were those people, and we also are those people, that we all slip into self-obsession from time to time, and that we long for everyone to know Christ as we have known him.
The mystery of Christ in you unlocks maturity in your life and in our church. That's how we can be united. As a body, it's how we can grow as a church. It's how we can be a city on a hill. It's how we can shine the light of Christ throughout Somerville and beyond. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And so As I end the sermon today, I just wanna give you a few moments to reflect on this reality. Would you ask God to make this truth of the mystery of God come alive to you? I just wanna give you a moment to confess your immaturities. Maybe there, there might even be someone, and during communion, you can do this. There might even be someone you need to repent to, to confess to in this room today before you come and receive this, this sacred meal in just a few moments. And so I just wanna give us opportunity that for you to to hear the word of Christ. So what I'm gonna do, I wanna encourage you to bow your heads and close your eyes as I just read this verse over us one more time. And would you ask for Christ to make this verse come alive to you? As it has for me over the years. And then we'll pray together in just a few moments.
To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of God, which is Christ in yo, 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.
God, would you help us to move into the mysteries of Christ, not just maturity, that's a byproduct, but help us to see where we fall short, and to long and to love and to savor Christ above all. To become so totally God obsessed. Where we see the way you forgive and we're quick to forgive. Or we see the way that you love and we're quick to love, or we see the way you lay your life down and we lay our lives down. How you weren't in it for fame or fortune, but you were in it for God's glory. Help us to live. In that kind of way as we embrace Christ. In us the hope of our glory.
I'm gonna give us an opportunity to speak some words of confession and assurance this morning. If you'd like to join me, you can read the underlined portions along with me.
Father, we confess that we are often less mature than we imagine ourselves to be. We look for quick fixes instead of deep transformation. We avoid difficult conversations, difficult people, and difficult suffering. We want to appear impressive before others. We confess that we often seek validation more than faithfulness. We confess that our hearts are often restless apart from Christ, yet you have not abandoned us in our immaturity.
In your mercy, you have revealed the mystery hidden for ages and generations, Christ in us, the hope of glory. Make us secure enough to confess our sin. Make us humble enough to receive correction. Make us courageous enough to endure hardship without losing hope. Free us from shallow faith and self-obsession. Teach us to destroy, to treasure Christ above all things. Wow. OK. May we become a people who are mature in Christ. For in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And now, Father, let the mystery of Christ dwell richly among us. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Amen.
In just a moment we're going to receive a sacred meal. You're gonna have an opportunity to pray with someone. If you would like to pray in the back in this corner, you'll have, we'll have a few prayer counselors where you can receive prayer this morning if you'd like. it can be their first time receiving prayer, it can be your hundredth time. Anyone can come and receive prayer this morning with communion, this is a sacred meal. And this is the only part of our service that we ask. If you're a Christian, we want you to participate, to evaluate yourself, to confess your sins, and to come to Christ. And so let me invite you to stand and as we pray and, and prepare our hearts for this communion meal.
Christ, as we come to your table this morning, we pray that you would inspire us and awe us. We, as we come and recognize that your body was broken for us, that your blood was shed for us, that we remember what you've done through the sacred meal, that you have displayed the gospel to us in a way that we can not only hear, but we can tangibly touch and taste and, and smell. And God, I pray that as we receive this meal, that our hearts would be lifted to the heavenly places that we'll be reminded of Christ in us, the hope of glory. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.