Maturity in Christ
Colossians 1:9-14
Transcript
You got to be strong to move the new podium. Goodness. Everybody give. Where's Charlie? Charlie, raise your hand. Charlie.
Charlie. Charlie made this for us. It is actually very beautiful. Well, I hope everybody's doing good tonight. Just wanted to say thank you for coming and worshiping with us. I know it's Memorial Day weekend, and so I hope you have taken some time to just rest and relax and spend time with family, but also to remember the sacrifice that people have made on our behalf so that we can actually have the religious freedom that we have together as a church family.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Matt Freeman. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And you're not usually used to seeing me in this context. I'm usually leading worship. But I am humbled and honored to share God's word with you tonight.
So if you've got a Bible, you're going to want to have it. We're not going to be putting the scripture on the screen because I want you to have a Bible in your hand. So if you've got one of the ones that we had by the door, that's actually going to be page 638. And I've got a couple of guys. Basically, they're going to walk to the front of the room and then walk to the back. And so if you need a Bible, just lift your hand up.
They'll be happy to hand one to you. And that's our gift to you. So if you don't have one, we'd love for you to take that one and keep it. Or if you know somebody who doesn't have a Bible and you'd like to take one with you, we've got plenty. That's what they're for. All right.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate that. All right. So last week we began a brand new series and it's entitled Colossians. It's all about Jesus. And so we're going to be spending the next 10 or so weeks, basically the entire summer, walking through Paul's letter to the church at Colossae.
And what's really neat about this is, first of all, Paul's writing to a relatively young church, a church that's about six or seven years old. So it's good for us to hear what Paul's writing to a young church. And he's writing to a relatively healthy church. So what we're going to see is that Paul is writing to encourage this church in the gospel. And he's going to do so in a couple of different ways. He's going to point them to the sufficiency of Jesus.
He's going to point to how they should be living out their faith in the context of community. And he's going to take some time to talk about how their actions are actually lived out, how they walk out their faith on a day in and day out basis. So I'm very excited to talk with you tonight. But before we do so, I just want to pray and ask that God would speak to us. If you would, let's bow our heads and pray. God, truly, I am unworthy to stand before your people and preach.
I'm thankful that your grace has covered me and has made me new. God, that I do not stand here in my own flesh. Holy Spirit, I'm asking that you would speak through me, that you would encourage your people tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So as we're hopping in, I want to ask a question.
How many of you in this room, at a heart level, in some form or fashion, just wish you were better? Okay. I would say that most of us would follow. At some stage in the game, we just wish we were better. Wish we were a better dad. Wish you were a better wife, a better student, a better athlete, a better worker.
So you start thinking things like, if I could just get that promotion, if I could just set aside a once a week date night with my spouse, if I could just get my bench press up 15 pounds, if I could move from a B to an A, if I could move from getting $3 an hour, getting paid $3 more an hour. So I don't, in fact, I don't think there's anything that we do or anything that we experience, even ourselves, that we don't wish in some form or fashion was a little bit better. And I'll show you. All right, so let's say you go to a nice restaurant and you sit down and you start eating. What's the first thing you're going to start talking about?
Five other places. Kids, that's great. Ha ha, yeah. Five other places that you've probably eaten. So instead of appreciating the piece of bacon that's on your plate, you're going, oh, I've had peppered bacon before.
In fact, I've had beef wrapped in bacon. What is this? So at some stage in the game, we wish things were better. Another way to look at it would be if you are walking out of the movie theater and you said, that was the best movie I've ever seen. And it would have just been perfect if Mark Wahlberg would have been the lead actor. Yeah, you're right.
Nobody says that. That's true. Oh, Mark Wahlberg. And I know some of you are sports fans. Okay, so let's say you're watching Carolina play, and Carolina pulls it out in the last couple of seconds of the game. The quarterback throws a game-winning touchdown.
In fact, he threw four touchdowns in that game. But all that we can seem to talk about is the two interceptions he threw in the third quarter that might have cost us the game. Instead of realizing that he won the game, we always want things to be better. I do this. Some of you guys know that my wife Katie and I make pallet art. You can't tell, right?
I mean, there's not pallets anywhere. But I'm sure you guys are familiar with Pinterest. But Katie was on Pinterest, and she found this cool do-it-yourself project. She goes, why don't we try this? So we did.
We took a Sunday afternoon, and we took an old pallet, and we cut it down, and we put the boards together and basically just made a frame. And then we painted it and painted the South Carolina flag on it. And, of course, we painted the base color orange because we're Christians, right? And we hung it on the wall. And it took us about five hours to do it from start to finish, and we were really proud of it. Honestly, we were very proud of it.
But now that I look at it on the wall, I realize that it's gigrundous. It takes up like a whole wall in our man cave. And if you look at it, the boards are kind of cattywampus. It's not actually square. It's not the dimensions of a flag. And so we started to do more and more of them.
And I was like, okay, I want to get better. The next time I actually put the boards side by side, and I made sure it was square. And then it was still a slow process. I mean, I was hand sawing things, guys, like this. Okay? So I bought a Sawzall.
So I have a reciprocating saw so I could cut the nails and cut the boards. All along the way, I wanted my process to be better. And the reason we approach things in life like that is that we, deep down, we have a deep desire within us to actually be better, to accomplish something, to do something big, to make much of the lives that we've been given. And I would say that this is especially true for those of you in the room who are Christians. Christians, I'd imagine that some of you sitting there as Christians have had the thought, I wish I was a better Christian. I'm sure you have.
I'm sure you've had that thought. I wish I was a better Christian. I wish I read my Bible more. I wish my prayer life was stronger. I wish I had faith to submit my finances to Jesus. I wish I had boldness and courage to serve in Kid City.
I wish I could just tell my boss about Jesus and his people who are wired to do better, to be better, to search for more. Paul is actually going to be writing this letter to the Colossians, the section we're looking at. He's going to be talking about what it looks like to grow in maturity, to grow into maturity in Christ. So, again, if you've got your Bibles, we're going to be at Colossians 1, verse 9, 638 in the Bibles that we have by the door. Let's read this together.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So, that's the chunk we're going to be looking at tonight.
And if you're a note taker, our title for tonight, the title of our sermon is actually Maturity in Christ. That's what we're going to be talking about. And when you hear that word maturity, you're automatically going to associate it with growth. I think that's the thing we think about the most when you're putting maturity in your mind. You're thinking about growth. And that's going to come in all different forms and fashions.
Okay? So, you're going to see physical maturity like Mitch Stoiku, who has all of a sudden grown four inches in like four days. For real. I don't know what the Stoikus are feeding him, but he's ginormous now. So, you've got physical maturity. You've got emotional maturity.
I don't know if you guys got to see the kids playing around before they went back to Kid City. But we've got parents who are getting to teach their children to obey, to be able to control their emotions. So, that's fun. And they need your prayers. Thank you. I'm sure they're wanting that.
There's also like mental and intellectual maturity. So, we've got students of all ages in the room. We've got middle school students, high school students, college students, those that are doing postgraduate work, and some students that are in seminary. And what we're actually going to be dealing with tonight is spiritual maturity. And we're going to be seeking to answer one question. And I'm going to ask it in a few different ways.
That way, we can actually put a handle on it. The question we're going to try to answer is, how do we spiritually mature in Christ? How do we do that? How do we grow to be more like Jesus? How do we learn to follow Jesus more closely? And as you might have picked up in our first reading of the text, Paul's going to address this idea of growing in maturity in Christ in two different ways.
So, he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge. As he says, I want you to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And he's going to talk about the pursuit of actions. So, how do we actually walk that out? And if you think about it for a second, we're going to lean probably one way or the other when it comes to those two ideas. The pursuit of knowledge to grow or the pursuit of action to grow.
You're going to grow in one of those two ways. So, some of you are like, okay, I want to read a book. I want to take a class. I want to go sit down and have a conversation with somebody who can actually help me grow, help me mature, tell me things. Some of you are like, nah, I don't want a book. I don't want anybody to tell me.
I just want to jump in and give it my best effort, and I'll learn as I go. I'll learn from my mistakes. I'll give you an example of how this plays out. Okay, so let's say you're going furniture shopping, and you're looking for a bookcase. So, of course, the first place you're going to go is Big Lots because you're classy because you want a good Big Lots. This is a true story, so I'll go ahead and give the spoiler.
So, Katie and I moved to Columbia, and we were actually looking for a bookcase. We went to Big Lots, and we got the $20 bookcase in a box. And the way that – I know, it's shameful – the way that Katie and I would build that bookcase would be completely different than each other, completely different. If Katie's going to build that bookcase, here's how it's going to go, and I can say this because she's in Kid City. Katie's going to carefully cut the box open. She's going to take the front that actually has a picture on it and set it to where she can see it.
She's going to pull out all the tools and lay them on a rag because she doesn't want to get the carpet dirty. She's going to take all the pieces and lay them out all over the floor so that she can see them and organize them by size, color, and shape. And then she's going to take the owner's manual, and she's going to read it three times to make sure that she's got it all done. And seven hours later, she's going to have a perfectly built bookcase that will actually hold books. Now, me, on the other hand, I'm going to rip this box up beyond all recognition. I'm going to find the owner's manual, too, and I'm going to unfold it so that I can put my tools on it.
I don't want to get the carpet dirty either. And then I'm going to find pieces as I go, and I'm going to put this thing together. And seven hours later, I'm going to have a bookcase, too, and it may or may not hold books. I don't know. I don't know. So Paul's going to address the church at Colossae in how they grow in Christ.
And he's going to talk about the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of action and how those are actually going to work together. And as people who are wired to actually be better, to do better, to strive for more, I want us to listen as to how we can grow in Christ. Let's jump back into the text, verse 9. And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
So, the first thing that we're going to see in the text is actually our first point for tonight. So, if you're a note taker, this is going to be our first point. We grow in maturity through both knowledge and action. So, while we may have a propensity to lean one way or the other, what we're actually going to see is we're going to grow in both. We're going to grow in both knowledge and in action. And I love the way this verse starts off.
I love it. Jump back there with me. It says, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray. Who? Who's praying here? What we looked at last week is that Paul and Timothy are actually writing this letter together.
And it actually, verse 3 that we looked at actually begins kind of the same way. They're talking about what they're praying for the church at Colossae. And what they're actually praying is that they would be filled with knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. They're praying for wisdom, understanding, and the knowledge of God's will. And it even qualifies it there. It says spiritual.
And that word spiritual is going to be of the Holy Spirit or from the Holy Spirit. That's a big prayer that Timothy and Paul are praying, that they may be filled with the knowledge of His will, growing in understanding and wisdom. And I love that. I love that. Paul and Timothy are imprisoned in Rome. They don't even know these people.
And in a jail cell of sorts, they are praying. They are laboring in prayer that they would grow, that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. And I just love that. And so if you're wanting to, that's a great prayer. If you're wanting to pray something for our church, if you're going, man, I actually want to grow in praying things for our church, that's actually a great place to start. And so that's what Paul's praying.
He says, I want you to grow in understanding, in knowledge, and in wisdom. Why? Why does he pray that? Let's keep going. As we're going into verse 10, it says, So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Okay, so we see it.
He clarifies why he's praying that. So Paul and Timothy are praying that they would grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And the word that Paul's going to use there for to walk is literally going to refer to all of life. So Paul says, I'm praying for this so as to help you walk in all of life. And I think he's being very intentional there. He's using that word because he doesn't want them to grow in understanding, wisdom, and knowledge for knowledge's sake.
He wants them to grow so that it will actually affect all of their lives. How many of you have ever seen the show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? You ever seen that show? Okay, I was down on it when it first started. I didn't know if I was going to like it. But the premise of the show is that they take architects and attorneys and surgeons and they put them on this TV show.
It's basically like a game show where they're having to answer questions against elementary students based off of the standards that the elementary students are learning. And so you'll have an architect standing there and they'll say, okay, you choose a category. And he'll go, okay, fourth grade geography, fourth grade geography. Okay, sir, what is the capital of Wyoming? Idaho? Yes, Sally?
Cheyenne? And it's just a really funny show. And what that show is actually exposing is the fact that all of us, all the way through school, have learned things that we're never going to use again. Ever. I don't need to know what the capital of Wyoming is unless I'm there or I'm on that show. Those are pretty much my two opportunities.
But basically what he's exposing here is that we're not to learn things just to know them. It's that knowledge should actually lead to action. So what he's showing here is that this idea that we pursue either knowledge or action is not what we're going for, but actually that both of them work together as we follow Jesus. I want you to think about it like this. The more you know about Jesus, the more you want to follow him. And that leads you into action.
And by doing things, you actually learn in the process, which drives you deeper into action. You see how those work together? As you start to grow and know things, you start to do. And as you start to do, you learn more things. And it becomes a cyclical process. And what Paul is saying here is that knowledge should lead us into action.
And the group that we can look to that exemplifies this the best is the disciples of Jesus. I want you to think about this for a second. I want you to think about the disciples of Jesus. This was a ragtag group of numbskulls comprised of tax collectors and fishermen. And Jesus comes to them and he says, come follow me. And so they drop everything and they start following Jesus.
And Jesus teaches them and he trains them. So he helps them grow in knowledge and understanding. And then he sends them out. He sends them out two by two and they cast out demons. And they heal the sick. And then they come back.
So their knowledge impacted their actions. And they came back and they talked about it. And Jesus continued to pour into them. And then we see the disciples getting to be involved in things like the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus used them as part of that. So we see this cyclical process of knowledge leading to action, knowledge leading to action.
And we've read the Gospels. We know that the disciples don't get this right all the time. Peter, right? That's who you want to think about? Peter. So in the same chapter in Scripture, Peter says, you are the Christ.
And then a little bit later, Jesus has to say, get behind me, Satan. This is the same Peter that would deny Jesus three times. But what we see is they continue to grow. Even as they messed up, even as they screwed up, they continue to grow and mature in Christ. And when Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the grave, he gave him a new commandment. He said, go and make disciples.
And what we're going to see is these same disciples that were the stumbling bumbling as they followed Jesus, the same disciples that Acts is going to say in chapter 17 that they turned the world upside down. They turned the world upside down. So that's what it's actually going to look like for us. And the way that we do this as believers, the way that we grow in knowledge and action, is we do that in the context of community. That's going to be our greatest place to actually grow in these things. And remember, Paul's writing to a church.
He's writing to a group of believers. And so every time you see that word you, I want you to think about it not as you rugged band of individuals, but you in the context of community, you the church. What Paul's saying here is you can't live out your faith. You can't grow to maturity in Christ outside of living with other believers. We did a series back in the fall. I'm actually wearing the band from it called One Another, where we actually walked through the one another's in the New Testament.
We only did like seven or eight, but there are even more than that. And I'm telling you, you can't do one another's without others. See how that works? How those words work? And this is where I think I've seen our church grow a lot. So we see where it says, be hospitable to one another.
We see that in scripture. So as a church, that means we open up our homes. That means we host community groups in our homes and we welcome people in and we serve them a meal. And when guests come, we want them to feel welcome too. That's why we have a host team for our gathering, so that as people come in, that they feel welcome, they feel loved. We want to be hospitable.
We see where it says, forgive one another. We do that in the context of community. So that when someone in my community group, I say something that's offensive or hurtful because I feel conviction, I get to go to them and repent of my sin and ask for their forgiveness. And they get to extend that forgiveness and grace back to me because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. And we get to be reconciled. Scripture is also going to say that we should bear one another's burdens.
That means that if someone doesn't have enough gas money to get to my house to hang out with our community group, I'm not okay with that. That I'm going to step in and bear burdens. And I'm going to tell you, this is where I have seen our church grow. And I'm glad to be a part of believers like you guys. I've seen people bear each other's burdens like never before. And it's been beautiful.
And it's been messy. And we've gotten to walk through it together. I've seen car payments made. I've seen people go and buy groceries and take it to someone's house. I've seen a mortgage paid. I've seen rent paid.
I've seen power bills paid. And not just monetary things. Just giving of their time. People moving from place to place. When the Pabones were moving off of Fort Jackson, I saw our church family rally around them night after night after night to make sure that they could get out. I'll give you an example.
On Friday, I was driving back to my house. And this is the worst, okay? Because this happened a lot. I was rolling up my passenger side window. And I got it to the top. And I went, kick, kick.
I said, oh, no. And I looked. And slowly, my window began to fall into my door. And there it was. And I knew that storm was coming. I knew that storm was coming.
And I was freaking out. And I didn't know who else to call. I knew one person. If anybody would try to help me get it back up, it was Daniel Gillett. And so I texted Daniel. I'm like, dude, I don't know what to do, man.
Can you help me? And I knew Daniel. I was going to the northeast. I knew Daniel was about 30 minutes away. He was on the way. And he's like, come on, man.
We'll get it up. And so at 2.30 on a Friday, when he had multiple jobs to do, he and I were out there sweating together, not knowing what we were doing, pulling parts of my door up, using like little wooden shunts to put up in there to just block my window up. And 30 minutes later, the window was up. That guy, he bore my burdens. He did. And that's how we grow together as a church family.
I want you to think about it like this. I'm just trying to give us some handles. If somebody came to me and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, I would immediately say no because that doesn't sound fun at all. But if they came and said, Matt, I want you to run a race, but you can only pick one leg. I don't even know. Okay.
I like that one. I like that one too. I can't run without two legs. Okay. I've got to have both my legs. And the same thing is true as we grow into maturity in Jesus.
I want you to think about it as two legs that you have to have. You have to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And that has to be put into practice so that as you grow in your understanding of who Jesus is and what he wants for your life, that leads you into action. And through those actions, you continue to grow in your knowledge of him. It's a cyclical process. And what I want you to understand is that we get to grow.
We don't outgrow the gospel of grace. We don't. We grow more deeply into it over time as we pursue Jesus and give our lives chasing after him. That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. He's praying this prayer.
He said, I want you to grow in wisdom and knowledge and understanding so you can walk through all of life with other believers, bearing each other's burdens, loving one another, walking that out together. And he's going to continue. He actually qualifies how we're to walk. Jump back into verse 10. Verse 10. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
So that's a game changer. He says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Guys, my nickname in our house is destructor. Guys, I'm clumsy as all get out. I can't walk a straight line. How in the world am I going to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord?
How are we going to grow in this together? He keeps going. Keep reading. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. What an incredibly intimidating task. What an incredibly intimidating task.
Walk back through it again. It says, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Fully, not partly. Not sometimes. Not on our best days. Fully pleasing to the Lord.
Bearing fruit. Good fruit. In our lives as evidence of our salvation. And ever increasing in the knowledge of the God who holds the universe in the palm of his hand. And as people who are wired to be better, to do better, this creates a problem. Because we were tracking with Paul's prayer.
We were really excited about it. Yes. I want to grow in my wisdom and knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. And I want to let that play into my actions so that I can follow him and I can walk in a manner worthy of. And that sentence starts to go. And what we start to do, as you hear that, you start to think, huh.
I wonder if I walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. I mean, I don't really think I do. Maybe I need to start doing this and this. I mean, I need to stop doing that. I need to stop doing that. And I need to do this and this.
And what we do is we start to pile up all these things that will actually help us walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And as you're listening, you're probably starting to feel a tremendous amount of weight and pressure stack up. Because you're saying, yes, I want to grow in knowledge. I want to grow in my understanding of who Jesus is. Yes, I want that to impact my actions. But if I'm supposed to walk this out in a manner worthy of the Lord, I don't think I can do it.
And so you start thinking like this. Okay, all right, so what can I do to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? All right, so I need to start listening to more sermons. I'll start listening to more sermons. So I'll listen to a guy like Francis Chan.
But maybe not just Francis Chan. I probably need a more intellectual thinker, a reformed guy, somebody like John Piper. But I don't just need Piper. I need somebody who's more of like a topical communicator who's easy to relate to. I need somebody like Perry Noble. So I need to be listening to all of those sermons.
And I need to make sure I'm doing my devotional every day. Oh, but before I do my devotional, maybe I should go check my email and see when the next Beth Moore series is coming out. Because I want to make sure I do that study. Got to be in that one. And when I'm doing my Bible reading, I need to make sure that I'm reading from the Pentateuch, from the history of Israel. I need to read from the Psalms and wisdom literature.
And I need to read from the New Testament. Every day. Twice, let's say. Maybe I should find out what the Pentateuch is. Who knows? But I probably need to start going to more conferences.
I probably need to go to a conference once a month. I can go to a conference about how to love Jesus more. How to be a better dad. How to help dads be better dads. How to be a dad of dads. Like God is a good dad.
Two dads of dads. Yes. Huh. But I know I work eight to ten hours a day. But I need to make sure I take some time to go by the homeless shelter before I go to my Bible study group.
Wait a minute. I need to spend time. I need to spend time praying. Prayer. I need to make sure that I'm praying for everyone. And he's not just talking to individuals here.
He's talking to a church. So how are we going to stack up as a church? We need to have a prayer calendar with everybody's name on it. We need to make sure that each one of our community groups is multiplying every two months. And we need to make sure that anybody who comes in our doors meets Jesus as soon as they walk in. Because the Holy Spirit is so present.
And all of a sudden, what we realize is that we'll never stack up. And on top of that, you start saying to yourself, I could be doing better. I could be helping people more. I could be making more time for Jesus. And the truth is, a lot of the things I said were actually good things. They were.
Reading our Bible is great. Praying is great. But what we do is when we're faced with this walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, we realize we can't do that. We don't stack up. There's no way I'll be able to do that. Yes, I want to pursue Jesus.
Yes, I want to let that affect my actions. But I just don't know how I'm going to walk that out. And if I can't do it, there's no way that the people around me are going to be able to help me do that. But the good part is that was only the first point. And so Paul actually keeps writing. So let's keep reading.
Verse 11. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And our second point tonight is going to be this. We are redeemed and reconciled to God in Christ. Everybody take a deep breath.
Let it out. So while Paul calls on the Colossian church to seek after Jesus, to pursue him and know more about him, to grow in our understanding of who he is, and to let that impact our actions as we grow in maturity, he's quick to remind them that it is not those actions that make them worthy of the Lord, but it is the work that Jesus has done on our behalf. And that's good news. So church, what I'm saying to you is that you don't become a better Christian. You can't. And that's actually good news.
And some of you might have just pushed back right there. Oh, no, no, no, I can get better. I can, I can be better. What I'm, what I'm telling you is you can grow in maturity, but you can't qualify your role. You cannot change your relationship to God on your own actions. And that's good news because Jesus has actually done that on our behalf.
This is what Paul's doing. He's actually encouraging them in the gospel. He's saying you get to pursue Jesus. And because you've already been qualified, he's already made you right with God. That's what this whole section is actually encouragement. Pick it back up in verse 11.
He says, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the father. So Paul's going to step in here with encouragement. He said, I want to encourage you to be strengthened with all power. What power? The power that raised Jesus from the dead, the power that exists in the hand of an almighty God who created the universe from his glorious might. And he's praying this so that in the midst of being in a culturally diverse area as a young church, they might be able to continue to endure, to be patient, to have joy all the while giving thanks to their father.
Why? Because it's already been accomplished by Jesus on their behalf. You see, the language here is not, look, look back at it. The language here is not what you do, but what he has done. Catch that because it's the most important thing you'll hear tonight. It's what he has done.
This is the past tense. This is what already has been accomplished. Paul says, it's not about what you do, but what Jesus has already done. Look at the verbs that it used. He says, he has qualified you, has delivered us, transferred us, redeemed us, and forgiven us our sins. It's already accomplished in Christ.
This life is going to be difficult. We're going to have our ups and downs as we pursue Jesus. But what Paul's encouraging him, and he's saying, you're already saved. This has already been accomplished on your behalf. You get to pursue Jesus. So let's walk through 12 through 14 to see how that encouragement continues.
Listen with ears, trying to hear what Jesus has already done. He says, beginning of verse 12, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so as a people who are wired to be better and do better, we hear this and we go, no, no, no, no, I can do it. I can earn it. And what Paul's saying is, you don't have to.
It's already been accomplished on your behalf. And so I want us to walk back through these verses and see how Jesus was already better on our behalf. We talk about as a church that we want to be fluent in the gospel of Jesus. We want the gospel of Jesus to be so ingrained in our hearts that the only way we can speak to each other is to encourage each other in the gospel. That when we're having life issues, it's not just wisdom and advice. It's hope in the gospel.
It's truth in the gospel. And that's exactly what Paul's going to do here. He's offering them hope in the gospel. Verse number 12. It says, Giving thanks to the father who has qualified you. Who qualified who?
Did we qualify Jesus? No. It says that Jesus has qualified us. That's not based off of our actions. In no way can our actions, even on our best day, can they stack up and give us a better quality of relationship with Jesus than what Jesus has already done on our behalf. But not just that.
He didn't just qualify us. It says that he's to share in an inheritance of the saints in light. Not only qualified, but giving us an inheritance, an eternal inheritance, an inheritance that started when the gospel was proclaimed to Abraham, that he was going to make, that God was going to make Abraham into a nation, that they were going to be a blessing to the whole world. And we see the history of redemption go through the Old Testament until it gets to Jesus. We are part of that inheritance. Until we step into an eternity, it's an eternal inheritance.
And not just that. It says an inheritance of the saints. We talked about this last week. In no way would I ever qualify myself as a saint. Some of you are shaking your head yes. I agree.
What saint means is holy ones or consecrated ones. What that means is those who have been made holy. You get that? It's past tense. Again, we're holied ones. You're holied.
You're actually made holy by Jesus. He keeps going. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. Did you do that? Can you do that? No.
But when Jesus went to the cross, Satan thought he'd won. He thought he had seen the Son of God dead on a tree. He thought it was over. But three days later, by the power of God, Jesus walked out of that grave, conquering sin, death, Satan, and hell on your behalf. And in doing so, it says he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Guys, as peasants, we don't walk into the presence of a king.
That's not how that works. The only way that you get audience with the king is you get invited in. It says you've been transferred into the kingdom by the king. The king has invited you in. He keeps going. The kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption.
The root word there is redeem. That means you have been bought with a price. The price of the Son of God that would give his life to shed his blood on your behalf. He did that. It's already been accomplished. And in doing so, it says the forgiveness of our sins.
He paid the penalty for the forgiveness of our sins. So in no way can you shove your 401k before God and say, this gives me, I've earned it, I've made enough money. But what this is saying is that Jesus has already accomplished this on your behalf. The price he paid was much greater than anything that you could offer to God. And that's actually really good news. That though we have done nothing to merit redeeming, yet God in his grace has given us forgiveness.
And so church, what I want you to feel is the burden lifted. That pressure that you mounted on yourself that says, I'm not good enough. I want to be better. Feel it lifted. Because what Paul is saying is, it's already been accomplished. You've already been qualified.
You've already been redeemed. So go and live this life pursuing Jesus. And if you're sitting in this room tonight, you're going, I want that to be true for me. And it's not. I want to tell you how. The way that you're qualified by Jesus, the way that you're redeemed by Jesus, is that you place your faith in him.
Is it believing and understanding who he is and what he has done for you. You confess your sins. You confess your faith in Jesus. You ask for the forgiveness of your sins. You place your faith in him. And you follow him for the rest of your life.
And if you want to talk a little bit more about that, I'd be happy to sit down with you after we're done tonight. But that is how you get to be qualified. And so to kind of sum up where we are, we looked at in point one that we're pursuing Jesus in both knowledge and action so that we can walk to live a life that is worthy of the Lord. And what we realize is we actually can't do that. We don't have the ability to. But the good news is we've already been qualified.
We've already been made right with God. So where does that leave us in terms of growing in maturity? It brings us to our third point. We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. That's what it brings us. That's our third point for tonight.
We are set free by Jesus to grow in maturity in Jesus. And we like to say this phrase a lot. And I think it's very helpful in this situation. You may want to jot this down. Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning.
Grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. So what we're seeing here is that Jesus in his grace invites us into a relationship where we get to give much effort, but not in a way that earns our salvation, but because we actually already have salvation. So our attitude begins to change. Instead of I have to do these things so that Jesus will love me, it becomes I get to do these things because Jesus loves me. We actually want to grow in maturity through knowledge and action because of the great love that Jesus has shown for us.
And this is a cyclical process. That as you grow in knowledge, it's going to lead you into action, which will lead you into more knowledge and more action. that the gospel would actually impact our actions and that we continue to grow more and more in spiritual maturity. And we get to do this together. This gets to affect all of our life together. It's not because I know things about God and do good things that I get to be in Christ. It's because of what Jesus has done on my behalf.
I get to be in Christ. Therefore, I pursue him in knowledge and wisdom that lead to action. And it gets even better than that. So you're not just left on your own to have to do that. From the very beginning, he said that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in spiritual wisdom and understanding. He actually gives us the ability to do that.
I want you to understand this. Check this out. It says that he has give thanks to the father who has qualified us through the work of the son. And we are given the ability to follow him that we may be filled with his Holy Spirit. You see how that works? Salvation actually begins and ends with God.
We say we see the work of the Trinity all through salvation. And I want you to realize, as a church, this is going to be messy. And that's the best part. Are we always going to be good at this? No. There's going to be times where we mess up, where we make mistakes.
And in that, we get to repent. We get to ask Jesus to forgive us. And we move forward learning from the mistakes that we've made. You want to see somebody who's growing in maturity, who's growing to be more like Jesus? What do their actions look like? How do they relate to community?
What does their schedule look like? Where does their money go? Are they building intentional relationships with people who don't know Jesus? Because knowledge without action doesn't make sense. As we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, it's going to lead us out, and that's going to impact our relationships. And that's why we as a church, we're wanting to read through the book of Colossians.
That's why as a church, we want to grow in our ability to read Scripture. We want to read the Bible. We want to pursue Jesus and let that affect our actions. We want to grow in setting aside time to intentionally have relationships with each other. We want to gather as a church family. We want to get together with our community groups.
We want to set aside time where our community groups are inviting friends who don't know Jesus to come hang out. We want to grow in serving other people. So be encouraged. You are free to actively pursue Jesus because you have already been qualified. So that when you're reading your Bible, you're doing so because you get to, not to earn God's favor.
That when you're praying, you're praying because you want God's will to be done, not to earn God points. You tithe and give your offerings, not to pay God off, but because he who is rich became poor on your behalf. And so I'm going to invite the band to come back up as we're closing up. Church, I want you to be encouraged tonight. I want you to know that you get to pursue Jesus wholeheartedly because of what he's done for you, because he has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.
That means as a church, we pray for one another. We confess and repent of sin with one another. We bring people into community. We make disciples. We're generous with our money, with our time, with our resources. It means we meet the needs of people in the church and outside of the church.
Why? Because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. Jesus has qualified us. Jesus was better on our behalf so that we could live a life not trying to be better, but instead giving much effort to grow into maturity in both knowledge and action as we follow Jesus because it's all about him. Let's pray.
God, I thank you that our relationship with you is not based off of our actions. It's not based off of how much we know. But God, it is fully based off of you. What you have done on our behalf, that you have changed us from the inside out. You've qualified the relationship. And so I pray that you would lead us in a life where we are free to give much effort as we follow you.
In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and sing as we respond.