Scripture: Colossians 1:28
Date: July 3, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Today marks our 26th Lord’s day of worship together as Trinity Evangel Church. Much has happened in these short six months and much remains to be done by God’s grace. This morning, I’d like for us to consider where we’ve been in light of where we’re going.
To take this look, let’s put on the glasses of Colossians 1:28. For anyone familiar with me over the last decade, you know that this verse, along with its next door neighbor, verse 29, colors almost everything I see. It salts all the food on my table (and the coffee in my cup, which would be gross if it weren’t an illustration). It shapes my priorities and it molds my ministry mindset. I never tire of thinking or talking about it.
One phrase in particular demands constant attention, the purpose clause: (in order) that we may present every man complete in Christ . Here is the purpose, the target, the destination that must govern all our ministry. We labor and strive to this end, for each and every person to be mature in Christ.
This is a great expectation, to be sure. Any number of tweaks could relax or lower the goal. To teach every person and to admonish every person so that every person would be complete in Christ may appear excessive. And to present them “complete” (NAS), “mature” (ESV), “perfect” (NIV) in Christ? Can that even be accomplished?
What does it mean to present anyway? Paul recognized that his ministry was a “stewardship from God” (Colossians 1:25). God assigned Paul to suffer for the sake of God’s people (verse 24, see also ) and “to make the word of God fully known” to them (verse 25). Hard suffering and thorough proclaiming were his work, but the people were his charge. He suffered “for the sake of his body, the church” (verse 24). The stewardship was “for you,” for the believers, the “saints” (verse 26). Paul was busy by God’s grace making a people.
He recognized that he would present people to God. He preached before God; God pays attention to the accuracy and faithfulness of preaching whether people receive it or not. However, God doesn’t judge preaching in a vacuum. Ministry, enduring difficulty and teaching the Word aims to save and equip and mature the saints.
Paul saw his work as people, and he anticipated the day when he would stand with those people before God. God would evaluate Paul’s work by the people, and God evaluates the people by how Christlike they are. Numbers of converts pales in comparison to the character of the converts.
Think about this expectation in light of the amazing story. In February we considered the eternal story of the Father’s love for His Son. The Father chose a gift for His Son, the gift was a people to be saved and sanctified into the Son’s image. The Father thinks so highly of His son that He makes a whole people who look just like His Son.
Paul states it concisely in Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Unabridged Christlikeness for every Christian is the Father’s plan and it is the object of our commission. Before He ascended to heaven, Jesus told His disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Trinity’s names and training the new disciples “to observe all that” He commanded (Matthew 28:20). Obey it all. Leave nothing out. That’s a great expectation.
The eternal purpose of God is to get glory for Himself and show love to His Son by making a people complete in Christ. The earthly purpose of disciple-making, shepherding, preaching, etc., is the same: help believers mature until Christ is fully formed. That’s a great expectation.
In fact, this is too great an expectation were it not for God’s doing. What would a fully-Christlike person look like? Think of Christ who was perfect in obedience to all of God’s righteous laws, externally and in His heart. Think of Christ who loves the Father above all and always whole-heartedly. Think of Christ who gave Himself in joyful sacrifice for others, loving the unlovely, caring for the weak and sick and poor, even giving Himself for and loving His enemies. Who can do all that?
We can NOT do any of that apart from the gospel, the evangel. The purpose of complete Christlikeness is unattainable apart from His Word-revealed promises and Spirit-indwelling presence. In the flesh, men can build and rally but they cannot create Christlikeness. Unless men aim to create a Christlike people, God will not be pleased with the presentation. We have a humanly impossible expectation to fulfill.
As if that weren’t an almost unbelievably high expectation, don’t forget how unbelievably broad the expectation is as well: every person. Being Christlike isn’t for pastors or leaders only. Being complete in Christ is the expectation for every believer. Obeying everything that Christ commanded applies not only to disciple-makers, but for all disciples.
A number of crucial requirements follow from this great expectation that our vision and purpose is to present every man complete in Christ.
In other words, we should always keep the end in sight. Unless we remember the destination, we may be distracted or even detoured in the wrong direction.
The thing I like least about GPS navigation devices, including Google maps on my phone, is that they only display the very next direction. Of course, I understand that the second, third, and tenth steps aren’t useful without following the first, but sometimes I want to see the atlas view and trace the course all the way along. In the Christian life, we may get in trouble if we look only at what exit we’re supposed to take next.
Yes, becoming a Christian, getting on the right road or taking the right exit is necessary. But we’re destined for complete Christlikeness. When Christ told the crowds to count the cost (Luke 14:25-33), the cost of discipleship wasn’t in the initial confession as much as it was in the ongoing life of loss.
We live in a minimalizing, reductionistic (and lazy) culture. Large pieces of the evangelical church pie work hard to not work hard, happy in their lack of depth and development. I’m not against summarizing and boiling things down, but Romans isn’t bullet points and seminary can’t be completed in a weekend. Take our “What We Believe” statement as an example. We’ve gotten great feedback that perhaps we should also have a smaller, more concise version that contains the basics. That is really good and I think we’re going to create something like that. And we absolutely can’t stop there.
That’s why we came out of the gate running. Our first series examined worship, not only to avoid the F.O.G. (fellowship of grievance), but because worship is where we’re headed for eternity. We’ve studied the affections that ours may abound still more and more because love never ceases. We started a series on the Gospel of John so that we might have life, abundant life, eternal life. You can’t put all that on a napkin.
Another way to say it is, God loves growth. God must not be against all immaturity. He doesn’t mind taking His time.
Don’t freak out about sinners or immature believers! Every Christian is born-again into spiritual immaturity! Fussing babies are living babies. Dirty kids are living kids.
We must be patient with those we shepherd as well as with each other, believing that Christ is at work, even if at a paint-drying pace. The mature exercise of (optimistic) patience is not compromise or carelessness, it is faith in Christ. It’s a sign of our immaturity to get bent out of shape because a five year old can’t frame a house. Don’t lower the expectations; keep calm and work hard. For example,
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)
Admonish. Encourage. Help. These all assume people aren’t where they could be, and it’s not meddling to leave them untouched. We are to rebuke the lazy and slothful. We are to stir up the timid and nervous. We are to aid the feeble and tired. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Discipleship is personal and it requires patience until Christ is formed in all of us.
The Trinity is at work and not freaking out over sinners or immature believers. Remember: He who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6). That changes our approach. Let us stimulate faith rather than stimulate doubt. Why do we plead progressive sanctification for ourselves and act frustrated without immediate sanctification in our disciples?
If the goal is to help others become independently dependent on Christ, then we must gradually train them to depend less and less on ourselves.
So: Explain why you do certain things and why they should, too, and do it as many times as it takes. Throw down the “Because I said so” card as little as possible, even when you’re frustrated that they don’t get it yet. Entertain their questions and their disagreements as they think things through. A fully-trained disciple is not a threat to the process, though it may seem so if we’re worried about our position; there is room in the harvest for two workers.
In other words, we must identify areas for growth and pursue them, identify areas of immaturity to mature. That applies to ourselves, to other individuals, and to all of us collectively.
Becoming complete in Christ is personal if the expectation is for every person. Quite diversity exists, including the lazy and timid and tired of 1 Thessalonians 5:14.
For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29)
The verb translated “toil” is kapiao. In wider Greek usage outside the NT this word typically referred to a “beating,” and the results of being struck repeatedly was a physical weariness. So here it is used to describe a kind of exertion, labor, or work that causes a person to be tired, exhausted, worn out, done in, beat.
The second verb revealing Paul’s effort in presenting complete disciples is “struggling,” from agonizomai. This word means to work to the point of agony (in fact, it is the origin of our English word agony). Perhaps this striving is even a stronger word than the first one. It compliments the first word with the image of engaging in an athletic contest, with the implication of giving oneself in the utmost effort, with all the self-discipline required to achieve the victory.
When these concepts are coupled, the sense is that the passion to make disciples is an all-encompassing drive that taps all the human resources. Paul expended himself and gave everything he had as a willing sacrifice for Christ to achieve His purpose of seeing his spiritual children mature.
Practically, ministry is tough, very tough! It cannot be done in your spare time or whenever you get a chance to do it, it cannot be just leftovers.
And this is something we all help each other with.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)
It’s exhausting, but all our effort is energized by His energy.
For needy souls and tired shepherds, apply this quote from Augustine, used by Calvin in his Institutes:
God bids us do what we cannot, that we may know what we ought to seek from Him.
God bids great things of our souls: things too righteous for our bodies of flesh, things too heavenly for our earth-bound affections, things too grand for our small-mindedness, things too sacrificial for our selfish selves, things too radical for our weak faith, and things too monotonous or mundane for our proud aspirations. God also bids great things of His disciple-makers. He urges us to growth and ministry and church beyond the common.
We’re aiming toward Trinitarian unity and relationship and joy. We’re aiming toward gospel believing and living. We’re aiming to be a church that makes a point to the heavenly beings.
It’s humbling because we can’t do it. It’s humbling because we’re still so far away ourselves.
We won’t, we cannot, meet God’s great expectations on our own apart from Christ. These are things we must do because God calls us to them in Christ. We will only live and serve in these uncommon, impossible ways if we are enlivened by grace, instructed by the Bible, and united with Christ. Our own souls, let alone our struggles for the souls of others, don’t have a prayer without feeling our last-gasp need and making “bothersome” appeal (see Luke 18:1-8) through Christ to God.