Rev. Terence Gray: Good morning. Good morning. Good to see you guys. Good morning to everyone tuning in online. So good to be with you today.
Today, we're continuing our series through the book of Colossians, and I'm so excited to dive into this book a little bit more together. But before we go any further, will you pray with me? Oh, father, we come before you in the mighty name of Jesus, thanking you for your word that you give to us today. God, I pray that you would move me out of the way, that I would decrease and that you would increase and be made much of in the lives of your people, minister to their hearts. Oh, God, you know what they're going through today.
You know what they brought into this room. You know what their worries are, their fears are, their distractions are. God, meet them right where they are with your word. For it's in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray together. Amen.
Amen. It was in the year 1990, and the urban poet M. C. Hammer, released a song titled, You Can't Touch This. Now what does you can't touch this have to do with the bible?
I'm not here to say that the M. C. Hammer was making a theological statement, but I kinda am this morning. See, ever since the beginning of time and let's go back to that video. MC Hammer was dancing around like he couldn't be touched.
I won't do the dance here because I don't want anybody to die of secondhand embarrassment from watching me do that, so I'll leave that alone. But do you remember he was dancing around like he couldn't be touched, he was evading contact. And ever since the beginning of time, humanity has kind of been telling God, you can't touch this. As we go back to the garden with Adam and Eve, when they sinned against God, they ran from him and they hid from him and they took cover from the presence of the Lord, evading accountability, evading vulnerability. In other words, telling God, no, no, no, you can't touch this.
Because of what I've seen, because of what I've done, God, you can't you can't touch this. And if we're being honest, we can fall into the same thing that Adam and Eve did. We can run from the presence of the Lord. We can run from vulnerability from God and others and essentially say to God, no, this habit, you can't touch this. This heartbreak that I've experienced is too painful to talk about.
It's too painful to share with you, God, you can't touch this. These hopes and dreams that I have for my life, these things that I wanna do for my life, I have a plan for my life, God. I know where I'm supposed to go. I know what I want to do with my life. So God, you can't touch this.
But here's the thing. Here here's the challenge with that. Untouched areas become undeveloped and immature areas. Those things that we're so sensitive about, those things that we're so touchy about, those things that we don't want no we don't want anyone to have access to, those areas over time can become undeveloped and immature. We're gonna talk about maturity today.
What does it mean to grow in maturity as a Christian? What does it mean to become mature as a Christ follower? And here's our big idea for today. Christian maturity occurs as we surrender to the reach and reign of Jesus Christ over every area of our lives. Christian maturity occurs as we surrender to the reach, meaning we allow God to touch these areas, our mind, our body, our soul, our hopes and dreams, our finances, and our resources, our greatest fears, our horror stories that we don't want to recall and remember.
As we allow God to reach those areas and reign over those areas, meaning we allow him to lead and take charge and guide and direct those areas, as we do that and only when we do that, Christian maturity occurs. But those areas that we guard and hide and defend from God and others, they will remain undeveloped in our lives. As we come to our text today, we see Paul speaking to the church at Colossae. And as you look at this text, I want you to feel the pastoral burden. Paul has a burden for this young church.
Many scholars say this was a young church, and they had begun well, but now they're being influenced by these various teachers and influencers, not too different from our day that we live in. Our world is surrounded by influencers. Everybody is saying, like my page, subscribe here, follow me. And this is what the Colossians were experiencing. They had a lot of people in their day that that were saying, subscribe here like this.
Follow me. And here are some of the teachings, that they were exposed to. Says Colace was dealing with a confusing mix of ideas and influencers. Spiritual elitism. Essentially, of these influencers and teachers were saying, if you follow me, I will take you to the next level spiritually.
Jesus alone can't get it done. If you really wanna grow, if you really wanna be spiritual, if you really wanna receive revelation and and and experience higher levels of spirituality, you have to add to Jesus. Jesus isn't enough. And Paul is burdened because he he's saying you began with the gospel. And if you wanna grow and mature in the faith, you don't need to add to Jesus or take anything away from Jesus.
But these influences were offering stuff that sounded good. Mystical visions, these these teachers were saying, if you follow me, you'll see things that you've never seen before. In this young church at Colossae, you know, they were tempted. They were tempted to follow these teachers. Also, were experiencing, Jewish legalism.
You had teachers of the law who were saying, if you really want to mature, if you really want to be declared righteous before God, the blood of Jesus alone isn't enough to declare you righteous before God. So you have to go back to the law. So they were being inundated with this. Ascetic practices, essentially, they were being told if you really, really, really wanna go to the next level, you have to punish your body. You have to do harm to your body in order to grow closer to God.
And Paul is burdened. He said, you began with Christ. You began with the gospel. Don't let these people deceive you with these ideas. If you begin with Christ, you can continue with him and grow with him.
You don't need all of these things. And all of these things did the same thing, which was diminish the value of Christ. Essentially, all of these false teachings were saying that Jesus is not enough. And if you could pull the Colossians and see what they were experiencing in their hearts, there would be an unbelief in their heart that would sound something like this. The unbelieving message would say, I struggle to believe that Jesus can get it done.
That that would be the belief. Jesus, you're good and and I'm thankful, but when it comes to real life, practical life, the things that I'm going through, my my trials and tribulations, the things that keep me up at night, the things that I'm afraid of, I struggle to believe that you can get it done. It would go like this, I struggle to believe that you really can protect me. I struggle to believe that you really can provide for me and my family and take care of us, so I'm gonna try to get a little help. I struggle to believe that you really know what's best for my life, so I'm gonna seek some outside counsel to guide me.
I struggle to believe that you can get it done, so I'm gonna seek power elsewhere. And that's what the Colossians were doing, and we can be tempted to do the same thing today. But here here's the the truth, brothers and sisters. When we seek power, especially spiritual power outside of Jesus Christ, we begin to dabble in the demonic realm. We begin to open ourselves up to demonic influences, and this is what the church at Colossae was experiencing.
And that's why Paul is so burdened. He says, don't open yourself up to that. And when we we do so, when we open ourselves up to these outside spiritual influences, we not only communicate that Jesus is not enough, but we expose ourselves to very dark demonic things. When we say, I don't believe that Jesus will heal me, but I'm going to use these crystals that I bought to heal me. I don't I don't know what Jesus I don't know if Jesus knows what's best for my life, so I'm gonna go let someone read my palms and and and and and read tarot cards.
When we do this type of thing, we say to Jesus, you're not enough. And and this is actually more more common in our day than it's been in a long time. There's something called witch talk. And if you and you're you participate in Witchtalk, I'm not trying to shame you, I'm saying this because I love you, but Witchtalk is an online subculture community online where people share spells and share tarot cards and crystals and things of that nature. And I'm telling you, if you're involved with that, you're not only dabbling with the demonic, but you're sending a message to Jesus that Jesus, you can't get it done.
Jesus can get it done. And that's what Paul is proclaiming. That's what he's proclaiming in this message. He has a message for this young church in Colossae. Paul says, him we proclaim, a big emphasis on him.
You don't need all of these outside influences, friend. All you need is him. Him who lived a perfect life and fulfilled all of the righteous requirements of the law so that you can be justified. Jesus is him who died on the cross for your sins so that your sins can be washed away. Jesus is him who resurrected from the grave so that you can receive that resurrection power for your life.
Jesus is him who ascended to the right hand of the father, and Jesus is him who's coming back again to bring healing and restoration to this world. Jesus is him, and him we proclaim alone. He needs no help. He needs no support from some outside entity. Jesus is him, and him we proclaim.
That's what Paul is saying. Him we proclaim over darkness. Him we proclaim over evil. Him we proclaim over sickness and disease and anxiety and depression and all of these other things. Him we proclaim over wickedness and evil in this world because he's gonna do a restoration work in this world.
Jesus is all we need in him we proclaim. And that's what Paul is trying to get this young church to understand. You can put away put away these idols. At the end of the day, they they won't help you at all. All you need is Jesus, so him we proclaim.
Paul says, him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone. That word warning in original language, it means to put in order, to put something in order that's out of alignment. And as Paul is preaching this message, he's essentially wanting to help the Colossians put their mind back in order, in alignment with the truth of Christ. They've been out of order. Their thoughts have been out of order.
They've been confused. They've been led astray. And this warning is essentially Paul saying, I wanna help you fall back in alignment with what is true, what's true of God and what's true of you. As I grow as a parent of young kids, I'm realizing that a part of my job is warning. I do a lot of warning these days.
Don't touch that. Don't eat that. Don't don't walk into the street backwards. Don't I really have to say that this week. I I do a lot of I do a lot of warning.
And I don't do this warning because I wake up in the morning saying that I wanna warn my kids. I I do this warning because I love my kids. And that's what Paul is saying here. I love you Colossians, and God loves you. And that's why I'm warning you to walk away from these idols that are leading you astray.
He says, I I have been warning. Can I go back? Warning and teaching. Teaching. False doctrine and these lies can lead you astray, but right doctrine and alignment with right doctrine can lead to right living.
The reason why they're so confused, the reason why they're so lost because they are out of alignment with God's truth. And Paul is pleading, hear the pastoral burden, he is pleading, walk away from darkness, Return back to the word of God. Return back to the gospel that you began with. He's warning, he's teaching, and I love this. We we can't overemphasize this.
This word shows up three times on our passage here. Everyone, everyone, and everyone. Paul says, I am warning and teaching everyone. See, lot of these false teachers, they were saying that, you know, I have a special message, and if you follow this special message, then it's gonna make you special, and then you can be a part of our special club. But Paul says, I don't have just this special message for a special group.
I have a gospel message for everyone. The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ is for everyone. A couple weeks ago at the Grammy Awards, there was artist by the name of Jelly Roll. He won best contemporary Christian no. Best contemporary country album of the year.
And when he gave his announcement for I mean, his his award speech for winning that Grammy Award, he he said that I just have to tell everybody. And he looked into that hall at the Grammy awards, and he says, Jesus is for everybody. Jesus is for everybody. Black and white, red and blue, people who like rap music, people who like country music. Alright?
Doesn't matter, background, socioeconomic status, Jesus is for everybody. And that's the message that Paul is sending here, and that's the message that still remains true today. Him we proclaim to everybody, every tribe, tongue, and nation. This is the hope of the world. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, and we don't have to add to him or take anything away from him.
He says, him we proclaim, teaching everyone with all wisdom. Wisdom. I I imagine that this young church at Colossae was trying to figure out how to navigate the world. They were trying to figure out how to make decisions, how to live, best practices. And you have all of these influencers saying, well, I have best practices.
I have a way for you to live. But Paul is sending the message here that all wisdom is found in Jesus. If you wanna know how to navigate this world, follow the person of Jesus, follow his character. You you don't need chat GPT. You you you don't need all these various influencers.
You don't need all these other voices. All you need is the person of Jesus, and he will show you how to navigate this life. He is the living word. He is the word of God with skin on the divine logos, the personification of wisdom. That's who Jesus Christ is.
So if you're confused about life or if you don't know what to do with your life or if you feel like you're at the end of your rope and you're trying to figure out what do I do, follow the person of Jesus. If you've reached a new point in your life where you're like, I don't know how to do this new thing that God has given me, like I'm confused about parenting or I'm confused about, you know, how do I live in my professional life? What do I do? Look to the person of Jesus. He is all the wisdom that we need.
And Paul is saying, him we proclaim that we may present everyone mature in Christ. He says, for this I toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Paul says, I am toiling I I am struggling to make sure that you get this understanding and my goal of Paul had a mission statement for his life. His mission statement was this, that I would present everyone mature in Christ. That word mature meaning complete, meaning we have become who God has designed us to be.
That is his that's his goal. And and if these Colossians were to follow this false doctrine and be led astray, that would impede upon their growth and their ability to be who God has called them to be. He he's burdened for these Colossians. So let's talk a little bit about maturity. You know, what does this look like practically for us?
Some practical instruments God uses to bring us into maturity because his burden is for us here today. Jesus didn't die on a cross just for us to show up to church on Sundays. He he died on the cross to transform our lives. He found you as you are, but he doesn't want to leave you as you are. He has a plan for your life to bring about transformation in you so that he can use you for his glory.
So how does that happen? One way, the word of God. As we read the word of God and allow it to pierce our hearts and allow it to guide our lives, and as we surrender all of us, we'll begin to experience transformation, the indwelling presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit begins to knock on the door of your heart and as you let him in and as you let him rearrange the furniture in your life, then you will begin to experience transformation from the inside out. The preaching and the teaching of scripture, as we open up the word of God and allow it to impact our lives, then we will experience growth.
And then all the various ministries and the fellowship of Christians Suffering, God uses that to bring about maturity in our lives. He wants to bring about this transformation. But sometimes that transformation is undermined in the local church. A guy by the name of Pete Scazzaro, who I love and I read a lot of his material, he wrote a book by the name of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. And in this book, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, he talks about some of the things that historically has undermined Christian maturity and Christian discipleship.
He was trying to get under the hood of the of this issue, how does a person show up for church Sunday after Sunday or be very involved, but still they're not changing and being transformed? And so he said this, he said the four failures that undermine deep discipleship. He says number one, in the church we tolerate emotional immaturity. What he means by that is, well, if a person is gifted or if they're serving a lot in the church, we can say, well, I know he's rude, I know he's mean, I know he kicked my dog, but hey, that that that brother's very gifted or that sister is very gifted and we're gonna let that slide. That's not love to let someone live into that.
So sometimes in a church because a person is very involved or very gifted very gifted, we can tolerate emotional immaturity. We emphasize doing for God over being with God. You know, we see we see this in the gospels with Martha and Mary where one of the sisters was busy doing for God and the other sister was being with God. If we emphasize doing for God at the expense of being with God, it's kinda like driving a car without gas. You won't get very far.
Right? If you got a little gas in there, you might you might get somewhere, but you're not getting very far. And so sometimes we emphasize doing over being. We ignore the treasures of church history. There are things we can look back at church history, we can we can learn from those things so that we don't repeat some of the things that that Christians have done in the past as we look back, or we can learn from some of the good things that Christians have done in the past.
And and he says, because we ignore that sometimes, we end up we end up repeating some of those or missing out on some of those great lessons. And he says, we define success wrongly. We define success. Well, If you're just here, I'm just I'm just glad that you're here. I don't really care about what's going on in your heart as long as you're here.
And that's not God's heart for his people. He wants us continuously growing in grace, being transformed, surrendering parts of our lives to him. I wanna I wanna do a little illustration here. I need your help though. We need to come up with a name for a person here.
What about the name Bob? Let's name him Bob. Alright. Bob. If your name is Bob, I love you and this is not any real Bob here.
But for the sake of this illustration, this is Bob. Okay. Bob comes to faith. Alright. And he starts he starts a relationship with Jesus.
So let's say he meets Jesus and we're excited for Bob to meet Jesus. Okay. Well, what's next for Bob? He meets Jesus and then he starts attending a church. And we're happy for Bob that he starts attending a church.
That's a good step. Bob meets Jesus. Bob attends a church. And then, let's say he gets involved in that church. He gets really involved in that church.
You know, Bob is serving, Bob is giving, Bob is attending, and, you know, that's that's Bob's that's Bob's Christian experience. But but but as we have already acknowledged, Jesus didn't just die for us to attend church, he he died to transform our lives so that his disciples can transform the world. So I wanna look at this iceberg. Let's say that this now this is my best version of a iceberg, so bear with me. Alright.
And so let's say up here, this is the tip of the iceberg. This is the top of it. So we see Bob's behavior. He's serving, he's giving, attending, very involved in church. But there's some hurts under that ice iceberg that Bob doesn't talk about, he doesn't share about, he doesn't let anyone touch.
There's some habits that Bob has that are going on underneath that iceberg that he kinda hides. There's some hopes and dreams. There's some horror stories here. And these are things that Bob doesn't really want anyone to know about or touch, not even God himself. Here's what happens.
Over time, Bob can get stuck right here. And here's the bigger issue. God has a plan for Bob that involves him impacting the world. And by the world, that just means the people around him, the things that God wants to do through him. But if Bob doesn't allow God to get to this area of his life, he'll just be stuck here doing this forever.
But God didn't just die for this, God died to transform this so that Bob can be a part of transforming the world. And if he doesn't, impact just is a little smaller. Maybe God wants to do that through him, but it more so looks like that. I think it's in a room this size. There's some Bobs and Bobettes, I'll say, for lack of a better name.
And somebody's waiting on you to take your next step in transformation. Somebody's waiting on that for you. Maybe it's your spouse who who needs you to take that next step in transformation. Maybe it's your kids who who who who need mommy or daddy to step into what God has for them, to not remain stuck. Maybe it's somebody on your job, maybe it's somebody in your community, maybe it's somebody across the world who is who is desperately waiting on you to allow God to get a hold of you, to transform you from the inside out.
And maybe you're saying it's too ugly, you don't understand. You don't understand my hurts. You don't understand these habits. They're embarrassing. You don't understand my hopes.
You don't understand my horror stories and what I've been through. And I know they're in a room this size and online. There's some tough stuff that people have gone through, but God says, let me get a hold of those things as we've already established. Christian maturity occurs as we surrender to the reach and the reign of Jesus Christ over every area of our lives. So my question to you is, what can't God touch in your life?
What can't God touch? Where are you dancing away like MC Hammer saying to God, can't touch this. What can't God touch in your life? In Jesus' day, there were these people called lepers. They were the untouchables.
They were alienated from society and they only could fellowship with with other lepers. They experienced something so alienating, so painful, and so scary to the people in society that no one wanted to touch them. According to the Mosaic law, something that was unclean would contaminate something that was clean. If an unclean person touched a clean person, the clean person is now unclean. But in steps Jesus Christ, the God man.
And for the first time, we see someone clean touching someone unclean and then the unclean thing becoming clean. Jesus says, if you allow me to touch these areas of your lives that you think are untouchable, that you think are too terrible, I'm here to tell you that's not true. If you allow me to touch these areas of your life, I can bring about transformation. Somebody's waiting on your transformation. Someone needs the transformed version of you in that area of your life.
Will you pray with me? Oh, father, we come before you in the mighty name of Jesus. Oh, God, we're grateful that nothing is too ugly, nothing is too broken, nothing is too scary for you to touch. God, what you touch becomes clean, and we surrender our lives to you, oh God. God, we want to grow into maturity and be the people that you have called us to be, acknowledging that there are people around us waiting for that version of us, God.
People that we love and care about. God, help us surrender ourselves fully to you. God, know that you love us, and for that reason, we can entrust ourselves to you. Of course, in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray together. Amen.
See,