A
friend of mine always told me that growing older just happens, but
growing up is optional. We always applied it to ourselves as guys, making a
joke that as guys we never really grew up, relying on our wives to do the
growing up for us. Jesus encourages us to have a child-like faith, but he
really doesn’t want us to remain children in our faith; there’s a difference in
having a child-like faith that trusts deeply in God and Jesus, that obeys out
of love and trust, and a faith that’s just childish, lazy, and can’t be
bothered growing up and becoming mature, able to invest in and teach others
about the good new of Jesus.
The
writer of the letter of Hebrews talks about this. Hebrews 5:12–14, “In fact, though by
this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the
elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the
teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant
use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Paul’s
frustrated by a group of people in the church in Corinth who are not growing in
their faith,
“Brothers and sisters, I could not address
you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere
infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready
for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly.” Paul is watching them and he’s frustrated that they
are still holding so tightly onto the ways and values of the world instead of
embracing the bigger picture of the world found in Jesus.
What
does a mature follower of Jesus look like to you? Council was working on this
just before Covid and we needed to do a whole of changing and adapting really
quick, but we will be returning to finish that work this fall and winter. But
you don’t need to wait for us to figure all this stuff out, in your mail-slots
and on the welcome desk you will find a personal faith plan for you to reflect
on, pray over, and then create for yourselves a faith plan to help you grow in
your relationship with God and our church family over the next year by focusing
on specific areas of growth in your faith life. Our prayer is that you will
share this plan with your elder or pastor to help us in our work of leading
Bethel to grow deeper in faith, life, and into our community.
Our passage this morning is found in a part of Paul’s
letter to the church in the city of Colossae where he’s
encouraging them on how to live, focused on Jesus, where their minds and hearts
are oriented on Jesus’ teachings, loves, and values. Paul’s looking back at who
they used to be and is now challenging them to be different, to become mature
followers of Jesus by putting on Jesus like a new set of clothes. These clothes
will help the world to see that they are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly
loved, and living this out for the world to see.
If you’re looking for what a mature follower of Jesus looks like, this is a good place to start. Paul calls
us to wear compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience as we live with each
other. They say that the clothes make a person. Well, they do give us an image
of what we want others to think about who we are, it gives them a glimpse of
who we want to be or are. Growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut, or a cowboy,
or a detective. My brothers and I made a space helmet, we had cowboy hats and
toy guns when we played cowboys, and I remember getting a tin badge one
Christmas so I could be a detective. The clothes showed everyone who we were as
we played. I have a church robe that I used to wear in the church in Montreal
and it showed people that I’m a pastor, now I wear this wooden cross on Sundays
instead.
Is being mature always easy? No. Life and people can be hard and cruel, people’s skin
has become a lot thinner over the past couple of years. What people in our
church and community need and are searching for, are people who are working
hard at living compassionate, gentle lives with a spirit of humility; not claiming
to know everything about every topic that comes up, but who are patient and
kind. In our last pastoral elders meeting, we were talking about needing
affirmation and living with compassion for others. This isn’t always easy
though, I know there have been times in the past while when I haven’t been as
compassionate, gentle, kind or patient as I could have been. My skin too has
become thin in some areas and I need to keep turning to Jesus to keep growing
in these areas of my heart too.
Growing in these areas of our life and character helps us to bear with each other when stress and
conflict happen, and they do happen in every relationship and in every group of
people. The more mature we become in our faith and life, the more it drives us
to practice forgiveness. Relationships become more precious and important and
forgiveness builds strong community and fellowship. It helps us walk through
hard times together. As we grow in compassion, kindness, gentleness, and
patience, the more we grow in forgiveness. But the reverse is true too, the
more we practice forgiveness, the more we grow in compassion, kindness,
gentleness and patience.
Forgiveness and grace are strong indicators of a faith that’s growing and maturing. It shows we’re becoming
more rooted in Jesus who shows us the strength and power of forgiveness on the
cross where he accepts the dying thief’s plea to remember him when Jesus comes
into this kingdom, and even more powerfully when Jesus asks God to forgive all
the people who have hurt him and put him on the cross. Jesus goes to the cross
and takes the punishment for our sin on himself out of his love for us, a love
he pours into us through the Holy Spirit, a love that calls for us to pour it
out in forgiveness and grace, in compassion and patience to others.
Love is what connects all these virtues that lead to a
mature faith. Love of God and neighbour, a
love that compels us to share God’s love and the good news of Jesus with our
neighbours, co-workers, fellow students and even family as our love wants them
to know Jesus and accept him. Love, forgiveness, grace, peace and humility are
all amazing virtues, and when they’re lived out together as a church family, it
creates a vibrant, energetic church family filled with mature followers of
Jesus joyfully sharing the good news of Jesus everywhere they go, living in
fellowship together well, encouraging and building each other up naturally, and
completely oriented on Jesus. This leads to living lives shaped by gratitude
and thankfulness. This is what mature looks like.
But it takes hard work. It means digging into the Bible regularly, letting the message of Jesus
soak deep into us, shaping us into who God has created us to be. Mature
followers of Jesus live in an atmosphere of worship and praise, constantly open
to learning from the Bible in relationship with the Holy Spirit, holding each
other accountable, even loving someone deeply enough to tell them when they’re
wrong, and walking with them as you follow Jesus together to care for the
church, his bride, and growing deeper together.
This may seem easy, but it’s really hard. So many of us find it hard to be told we’re wrong. It
can easily lead to anger and bitterness. It’s hard to confess we were wrong, to
reflect on what happened and was said, confessing and repenting and working for
reconciliation. But when this happens, we know that we’re becoming more mature
in our faith, and in our relationship with God and each other. Maturity means
we take off our pretend childish clothes and put on the clothes and
responsibility of adulthood in the faith. Instead of demanding to be fed, we
take on the responsibility of helping to feed others by being a faith guide for
them to help them see Jesus in their lives and grow into maturity. One thing
I’ve learned from mentors and from mentoring, you know we’re getting more
mature when it becomes easier to say, “I’m sorry” and focus on
responsibilities over rights.
The Bible and our faith are always Jesus focused and lived out as “we.” Maturity looks like caring
about the “we” of the body of Christ over “me.” Maturity looks
like serving, sacrifice, doing all we can to build up the body of Christ, working
towards peace and unity within the church, because our love for others and God
has settled deep in our hearts and lives.
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