By Pastor Dan
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” – Colossians 1:28 (ESV)
Date: 28/04/19
Sermon Title: Is Your Christianity Living Up to the Hype?
Text: Colossians 1:28
Pastor Dan’s Thoughts:
This week Pastor Jon spoke from Colossians 1:28 and exhorted us to incarnate, to live-out our Christian faith in our daily lives through being Gospel-centered people, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t listened already or you need to listen again, then please do so HERE.
In light of this particular text we discussed how our RELOVUTIONARY Church plant, as well as every other local church, should be seeking this reality for the believers in our fellowships, this goal in Colossians 1:28 of presenting everyone “mature in Christ“. This means outworking the practical discipleship process in our everyday lives. If we’re not doing this then any commitment we claim to have to this end is ultimately all talk. If the primary command of our Lord’s great commission is to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:18-20), then how are we intentionally and obediently fulfilling this command in the power of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives?
And with whom?
How are we practically discipling people to our Lord?
This needs to look like something – it needs to be tangible. It can’t simply be wishful thinking or hoping for the best. It must mean getting our hands dirty, as it were, rolling up our sleeves and welcoming others into the living out of our daily lives in such a manner that displays the work of Christ in us and invites those whom we are discipling “to imitate me just as I imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this doesn’t mean that the discipler is perfect – but it does mean a commitment to intentionally bring another person up in the ways of our Lord – and that in both Word and action.
Pastor Jon highlighted how, in the context of Colossians chapter 1 which has a very high Christology (1:15-20). Paul essentially says: “You can’t get the place of Jesus wrong and get Christianity right.” We need to know who Jesus is! Perhaps the way we live our lives is reflective of the lack of clarity that we have about Jesus, and that we have about God’s Word. And if so, then this is a challenge to us. Let us not continuing to dilly-dally around in this state if it describes where we are currently situated. Rather, let us intentionally seek to more-wholeheartedly live out our faith in the entirety of our lives!
Pray, ask the Lord for the help of His Holy Spirit to have your understanding changed and to receive the empowerment to do so. Reach out to other more mature brothers and sisters! Perhaps this will mean getting an intentional mentoring relationship in order to be able to ask questions and to journey with another more mature believer as you seek to live out your faith with increasing all-of-life encompassing reality. But don’t delay!
As Pastor Jon warned, our flesh will indeed take the path of least resistance! We will by nature and by default walk the most comfortable path if left to our own devices and our own wisdom. This is because in our flesh we don’t really like the inconvenience of dying daily, of taking up our cross and following Jesus in the path of sacrifice and of suffering.
This leads to a tendency to say the right words, but with little-to-no follow through. We make the mistake of thinking that this process of sanctification will just sort of happen to us. And we do know that God will indeed bring His good work to completion in us (Philippians 1:6), our ultimately transformation is indeed assured on the basis of God! However, at precisely the same time, we are indeed also to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12)! If you’re on auto-pilot, then I encourage you – resolve today, and every subsequent, to walk with greater intentionality!
Maturing in Christ, living by faith, means looking at all things that are before our lives – all of the valleys, the trials, and the tribulations that come – and not allowing those to shift us from our practical standing in Christ, not losing our vision of Christ in the wake of them. Pastor Jon exhorted: “The incarnation was God’s line in the conceptual and redemptive sands of time. It was His line, saying: “this is what reality, ultimate reality looks like. This is what truth looks like, it’s embodied, it’s incarnated, it’s lived out.” And therefore so should ours…[we should] not just be people who talk, who can give the right answers but let’s embody it, let’s enflesh it, let’s incarnate it!” Let’s seek with a daily greater-intentionality to live out our faith in the entirety of our lives, with the help of God’s Spirit, under the authority of God’s Word and with the assistance of our fellow members of Christ’s Body, the Church!
Paul makes it clear in Colossians Chapter One that Jesus is entirely worthy of all of our worship! And all of our life is worship! Or said another way, all of our worship is reflected in our life! Does your life reflect your all-of-life worship of Jesus? Does your life reflect your confession that Jesus is Lord? That He is your Master?
Wisdom is knowledge translated into action. Wisdom is knowledge applied into life. It’s not enough to ask how much somebody knows, rather look into their life and see how much it has transformed their existence. How much has what you say you believe transformed your life? If you believe the gospel, if you’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then as you chew over God’s Word and seek to apply it into your own life with His help and empowerment then you will be changed! Your life will tell the ultimate tale.
A final exhortation from Pastor Jon in this regard: “Know the facts! But if you truly know the facts then you’ll live them out. And if you don’t live them out then you don’t really know them how you should.”
Where are you at with incarnating your Christian faith in your daily life?
Are you living out your life in Christ with the intentionality required of you?
Are you in community where this is being lived-out through practical discipleship?
If you know that change, and perhaps significant change, is needed in your life in order to bring about this increasing maturity in Christ, then resolve to do something about it – and do it! Today is the day to make the change! If you need someone to journey with you then please feel free to reach out.
God has saved us into community, to walk out our faith together, to grow together, and to encourage one another throughout our days under the sun.
We’re here to help if you need!