Note: the following is the manuscript for the message and will not match exactly the recorded message above.
Colossians 1:24 – 2:5 – A Mature Church
Context: Paul, in prison, sees his suffering as a continuation of Christ’s suffering – not in the form of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, but in the form of enduring the persecution due to proclaiming the gospel to the Gentiles.
He is grateful because his suffering is bearing fruit in Colossae.
Reason for this section of the letter: in 2:4 we see the reason – so that no one will deceive them with plausible arguments.
There were some among them who tried to convince them that there is knowledge that they lacked. But, Paul is saying that the only mystery they need to know is Jesus Christ.
This mystery is revealed in the church who is meant to display the hope of eternal life, which is what Paul means when he says Christ in you, the hope of glory.
His message is that the gospel is hope in a person, not in religious obedience, personal devotion, or the discovery of oneself or some hidden truth.
A mature church, then, will be an embodiment of the mystery revealed in Christ, and the hope that comes from participating in God’s plan to rescue his creation from sin and death.
What does this maturity look like?
First, let’s get on the same page as to what Paul means by mature. Another translation of this word is perfect. It is similar to the word used to describe a sacrifice that is without blemish.
It implies completeness, not lacking anything. In order for a sacrifice to be acceptable to God, it needed to be without blemish.
A helpful way to understand maturity is to think of it as an undivided or exclusive dedication and obedience to God. In Deuteronomy 18, God said to the Israelites,
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there… You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
That word blameless is the same word as mature in Colossians. God is concerned about their loyalty to him alone.
This is how Jesus used it when he instructed about love for enemies in Matthew 5:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
He is saying, do not hold up the standards of this world as the standard of perfection. God’s standard of perfection requires unwavering devotion to his way, without a hint of anything other.
James 1:2-4:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
The question it should prompt is, what do I lack? What is preventing me from being mature?
Consider this passage from Matthew 19:16-27:
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
By now, I hope you are getting the sense that the word mature, as is used in all these passages, communicates impossibility.
We cannot present ourselves as perfect to God. We are all blemished, imperfect, incomplete.
We come to this passage, then, in Colossians, with a more complete understanding.
Here is what Paul is saying: As a good shepherd desires to prepare an unblemished sheep for sacrifice, I want to prepare you, unblemished.
And, how does he suggest this is done? What brings us to maturity, to perfection?
By embodying the hope of glory, which is Christ in us. There are three elements that can help us to this end: Wisdom, Unity, Faith.
Maturity in Wisdom
1:27-28 – Christ in you the hope of glory… is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.
I will spend only a little time here because we covered the topic of wisdom a couple weeks ago.
We will mature in wisdom as we dedicate ourselves to prayer and to humility. Wisdom is communal, we grow in it together.
Wisdom is about how we use knowledge. Knowing about something is easy. Wisdom is about how we use our knowledge.
What is wisdom’s role in becoming mature?
There are times in our life when we will face unbearable struggle. This can come in the form of loss, temptation, betrayal, disruption, or any number of unexpected and undesirable circumstances.
The wisdom of the world will tell us how to deal with these. These will sound plausible and desirable. But, they may not be the way to maturity.
Our world has become exceedingly good at avoiding pain. For me, my greatest pain is scarcity. The world has all sorts of remedies for scarcity.
But, if I want to become mature, God is asking me to embrace scarcity.
20 years ago, Lynn and I chose Psalm 33 as our wedding passage.
Here is a portion of it:
“No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.”
The call of this and countless passages in Scripture is to trust in the provision of God, which often seems unwise by the wisdom of the world.
My assumption that scarcity is a bad thing is not based on God’s wisdom because I have a wrong view of scarcity. True scarcity is a lack of the presence of God.
Perhaps what brings you pain is different. Regardless of our struggle, God’s wisdom will prevent us from improperly handling the struggle.
His wisdom will show us what is really going on and how the struggle is the natural result of being pulled further away from our sinful nature and closer toward perfection.
Maturity in Unity
2:2 – My goal is that [the church] 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.
You may be familiar with the African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That is a picture of the benefits of unity.
But, it’s not only that we are journeying together. Unity requires a bonding agent. Without a bonding agent, we will quickly fall apart. It needs to be something that will not fade or become irrelevant.
For the church, this is Jesus Christ. Any other bond will fail. And it is expressed through love.
Unity is similar to humility in that it requires us to assume that someone else has what I am lacking. Even when, and maybe especially when, it is someone with whom I disagree.
Maturity will require us to set aside personal agendas for the sake of protecting our unity. This can be challenging because of the pain associated with losing what I believed was most important.
As I already mentioned, maturity will come through struggle. It will involve a continuous struggle to love those who are different than me, even those who seek to harm me.
There is a way to think about unity that includes the same line of thinking as maturity. Which is, to be complete. A body is held together and strengthened through unity.
Any disconnection will result in the suffering of the entire body.
The temptation, on our journey, is to leave the body when things are not going my way. To find a place where I can fit in better.
This is when you must ask yourself if leaving will help you be more comfortable at the expense of maturity.
I am no stranger to this temptation. I believe that my own maturity has suffered as a result of leaving when I should have stayed.
Maturity in Faith
2:5 – For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Finally, maturity will be helped by a firm trust in Christ and his promises.
The less I say here, the better. I want to really hone in on the centrality of what is meant by faith and how it helps with maturity.
Faith is trust. What is required in order to trust someone? You have a teenage child who says they are going one place and later you discover they went to another place that they know you would not have approved of.
What happens in that case? Can you trust that child the next time they go out?
Who is responsible in this case for the parent trusting the child? Surely not the parent. It would be foolish for the parent to say, if only I had more faith in my child, things would go better next time.
No, that isn’t how trust works.
The way faith works is that the object of your faith is trustworthy.
This is the most important thing to know about faith. It has little to do with the amount of faith you have. It has everything to do with the object of your faith.
On your journey of following Jesus, you need to decide if you can trust him. Once you decide that, you are on your way. He will help you.
He’s the only one who can.
Conclusion
Our journey toward maturity will be strengthened by faith, unity, and wisdom. Faith that what is promised to us will be ours, that Jesus is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.
Unity with one another for each other’s benefit as we journey together.
Wisdom to discern unworthy ideas about what will bring us to maturity.
These, however, are not what perfect us. It is only Christ in us that brings perfection.
But, the journey will involve struggle. And when we struggle, we will be strengthened and equipped by wisdom, unity, and faith to go through the struggle.
The temptation and the great hindrance to our maturity is our unwillingness to go through the struggle. We distract and medicate ourselves, and come up with ways to avoid struggle.
That is not the way to maturity.
Last Sunday I referenced Philippians 3. Prior to encountering Jesus, Paul was striving for perfection. But, he was going about it all wrong.
He said, “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.”
He goes on in 3:10-15,
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things.