Last time, we made saw how Paul wrote to the Colossians to counter an error promoted by false teachers who denied the deity of Jesus. Paul describes Jesus with some of the loftiest language used in the New
Testament, emphasizing His preeminence in all things. Because He is Lord over all, the life of the Christian is to be a life of submission to Jesus. Our relationship with Christ should impact our life and our daily walk. Paul commended the Colossians on their walk with the Lord and offered counsel on how to continue to “work on their walk.”
One thing should be made clear: One can’t walk with Christ and stay where they are. If we’re walking with Christ, there will be life change. My thinking will change, feelings will change, choices will change, and actions will change. If I say I walk with Christ and nothing is changing, something’s wrong. Walking with Christ is all about life change.
Let’s look to see what Paul says about the life change we should be experiencing on as we work on our daily walk with Christ.
1. The basis of life change - vs. 3-8
The basis of experiencing genuine life change as we walk with Christ is the Gospel. This is why, if we are walking with Christ daily, we’ll be in His Word and in prayer. Through His Word, we learn Gospel truths and through prayer, we’re guided in applying them to our daily lives.
Truths like my sinfulness, God’s holiness, God’s forgiveness, God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s power, God’s love, God’s justice, etc. All these truths are found in the Gospel message, which tells how God came as a man to die in our place, paying the price for our sin, so we might be forgiven and have a personal relationship with Him, who not only paid sin’s penalty for us but was raised from the dead to prove it; and now welcomes us into an eternal love relationship with Himself, through faith in Christ. A Christian will never outgrow the Gospel!
All of God’s Word centers on the Gospel message: the Old Testament foreshadows it; the four Gospels describe it; and the rest of the New Testament, explains it.
Paul mentions three virtues that were true of the Colossians because of the impact the Gospel was having in their lives - faith, love and hope. Each of these speaks of how the Gospel impacts our life experience:
A. The Gospel message impacts my past - faith.
The Christian’s walk with Christ begins by placing his faith in Him as His Savior as a result of hearing the Gospel and heeding its invitation.
B. The Gospel message impacts my present - love.
The Christian’s walk with Christ continues as he learns to love God supremely and others selfishly as a he learns how to apply Gospel truths to his life, which are illustrated, taught, and clarified in Scripture.
C. The Gospel message impacts my future - hope.
Because of the Gospel, and our receiving Christ as Savior, we have an eternal love relationship with God; and we look forward to an eternity spent in His presence, learning more and more and more and more.
2. The look of life change - vs. 9-12
Carey Nieuwhof, pastor of Conexus Church in Ontario, Canada, writes about misconceptions among Christians today about maturity. Some end up criticizing others for not being ‘deep’ They apparently have maturity figured out, while the rest of us don’t. Yet often, what is called spiritual maturity, isn’t. Here are 5 things that often pass for spiritual maturity in our culture that probably show you lack it.
1) Pride in how much Bible you know.
Some strut their biblical knowledge and make others feel less worthy for not knowing what they do. That’s not maturity, that’s arrogance.
2) Truth without grace.
Some feel it’s okay to land on only one side of the equation. I’m a truth person, we tell people how it is. No, maybe you’re just a jerk.
3) Grace without truth.
The opposite is also true. Just as truth isn’t truth without grace, grace isn’t grace when separated from truth. Some avoid the truth side of the equation as though love floats with no backbone. Grace without truth isn’t maturity any more than truth without grace is truth.
4) Harshness toward outsiders while cutting insiders slack.
Many love to talk about how awful the world is. We rail against the world’s sins as though it shouldn’t be sinning while cutting ourselves tons of slack on our moral failures. We should expect unbelievers to live like unbelievers, and expect believers to act like believers.
What if the church started to take its own sin more seriously than we take the world’s sin? That’s what we’re supposed to do (1 Corinthians 5:12). If God so loved the world, who decided we shouldn’t? Very few people get judged into life change. Many get loved into it.
5) Telling people you are mature.
Telling people you’re mature is like telling people you’re wise…it’s kind of proof you’re not.
Maturity is a life-long process. The process of becoming more and more holy, or ‘set apart’ to God, basically, it means you’re different than you used to be. And that process will continue until you die. No one arrives on this side of heaven, spiritually. We are all a work in progress. What are are the signs that we are maturing as a Christian?
Paul prayed for the Colossians to grow in their walk with Christ by being “filled with the knowledge of God’s will and all spiritual understanding.” They could do this through the Scriptures they had in their day, along with the Apostolic writings that circulated among the churches, which we being recognized as authoritative.
In our Bibles, we have collected all those writings the early church saw as inspired. So if we’re going to be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will and all spiritual understanding,” we need to be students of the Bible. You can’t walk with Christ and ignore His Word and prayer. As we said, previously, through God’s Word, we learn Gospel truths and through prayer, we’re guided in applying these truths. Then we can live a life that pleases God (v. 10a).
A life characterized by:
A. Fruitful service to the glory of God - v. 10b
B. Dynamic growth in the knowledge of God - v. 10c
C. Total dependence on the power of God - v. 11a
D. Joyful thanksgiving for the grace of God - v. 11b-12
How are these seen in your life or mine? Am I involved in fruitful service to God’s glory? Am I dynamically growing in my knowledge of how God speaks and moves? Am I increasingly depending on God’s power? Do I daily express thanks to God for the blessings of His grace? Regarding spiritual maturity, Paul said this:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Let those of us who are mature think this way . . .” - Philippians 3:12; 15a (ESV)
We will never “arrive” on this side of heaven, but we should be “striving to arrive” until we go to heaven.
3. The power for life change - vs. 13-14
Paul brings us back to the Gospel, as he reminds us of the power by which we can experience genuine life change. It is the same power by which we have been rescued and redeemed. The power that made Christ’s supernatural incarnation possible, His sinless life possible, His substitutionary death possible, His glorious resurrection possible, and that made Christ’s triumphal ascension possible.
“I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand . . . the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.” - Ephesians 1:18a; 19b-20 (NLT)
Last time we mentioned that the basis of our victory as Christians is our position in Christ, that what is true of Christ is true of us spiritually. Today, we want to emphasize that the key to experiencing victory as Christians is Christ’s presence in us. He is present, by His Spirit to lead us to experience the victory that is ours as we walk daily with Him.
“The same power that rose Jesus from the grave, the same power that commands the dead to wake, Lives in us, lives in us. The same power that moves mountains when He speaks, the same power that can calm a raging sea, Lives in us, lives in us, He lives in us, lives in us.” - Jeremy Camp (Same Power)
Conclusion: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” - Romans 8:16 (ESV)
This is not just a verse about assurance of salvation, but about assistance in walking with Christ and become more like Christ. When Jesus walked this earth, He did what He did, and said what He said, not because he was the Messiah and that’s what He had to do; but because He was the Messiah and He behaved and spoke as he did because it was consistent with who He was. Likewise, when it comes to how we behave and how we speak, we aren’t to seek to do it because as a Christian we are supposed to behave or speak a certain way, but because it is consistent with who and whose we are - children of God.
As we spend time in God’s Word and in prayer, the Holy Spirit will work in us to lead us to live like the child of God we are!
