Act Your Age
Live a Dynamic Life in Christ; Colossians • Sermon • Submitted
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Characteristics of Maturity
Characteristics of Maturity
We all want to be mature, we want to be seen as mature, we want to act maturely and make mature decisions.
For some of us, this is harder than others; men.
Why? Because when ppl our age act immaturely, we mess things up. Immature ppl create chaos for themselves and everyone around them.
Chaos happens in our families, friendships, churches and communities. That hurts the ppl who care about us most.
We create chaos in our finances and our own health.
Men, think ladders.
I Googled characteristics of maturity. What does a mature person look like, act like, sound like?
We can look at someone and pretty much determine if they are physically mature. Our bodies develop.
I was in 7th grade and one of my classmates had a full beard. 13 or 14 years old. Not splotchy and spotty. Full and groomed.
Dude was mature. Not real tall, but, height is not necessarily a characteristic of physical maturity.
Emotional and mental maturity show up in our actions and attitudes. We know it when we see it. But it can be hard to pin down.
Interestingly, the websites I hit were all secular and non-religious psychology. Not a Xian site among them.
Yet, I could organize all their characteristics of emotional and mental maturity in spiritual categories.
Secular psychologists would recognize what the bible teaches as maturity whether they believe in it or not.
Here’s what I found. 10 categories of characteristics. There will be some overlap.
1st: Self-Awareness and self-acceptance
That is aware of, and okay with; strengths and weaknesses (okay w/ it); potential and limitations; personality traits, skills and talents (and lack there of); and IQ.
Spiritually: ID in Christ. Who you are. Who God created you to be. Unique. He gave all these things, he makes no mistakes, he didn’t give you other things b/c that’s not who He called you to be.
Be okay w/ it.
2nd: Self-control, patience, and compassion
No blown fuses, temper tantrums. Immature. Don’t give in to impulses and immediate urges.
Don’t over-react too quickly. Wait for perspective.
Hurt when others hurt. Carry their burden w/ them.
Spiritually: Fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5.
3rd: Humility
No better, no worse than anybody else. Just different.
Other centered. Think of their interests ahead of your own.
Open-minded. I don’t have all the good ideas and not all my ideas are good. Think Dems and GOP.
Flexible. Not rigid. Don’t have to get my way. Adapts to change.
Spiritually: Be humble. Philippians 2. Have the mindset and attitude of X.
4th: Attitude of gratitude
Be thankful. Say it often.
Aware of all the help you get; from everything God gave you to someone simply opening the door for your.
Spiritually: Thankful w/ an attitude of joy (last week).
5th: Strength
Resilient. Perseverance. Doesn’t quit just b/c life gets hard. Works harder. Work smarter.
Accountability. Responsible to do the right thing even when it’s the hard thing. Will do what you say you’re going to do.
Honest. Truth. No lies or deception or dropped balls.
Spiritually: Perseverance and endurance. Speaking the truth in love. Strength from God. The power of the HS.
6th: Sense of wonder
Awe. Understanding of deeper and greater things. And our smallness in relation to creation.
Spiritually: Awareness of God and His greatness.
7th: Does not hold grudges
Spiritually: Forgives. Lets God get even. Lets things go.
8th: Aware nobody is perfect
Self first.
Sees past 1st impressions. Gives 2nd and 3rd chances.
Realistic about love and relationships.
Strengths and weaknesses.
Differences are not weaknesses. Assets not liabilities.
Partner brings a different perspective it’s good.
Spiritually: No plucking splinters when there’s a log in your own eye. Grace for 2nd chances.
9th: Overcomes
Not defined as a victim. Does not let victimhood define them.
Sees the good in bad situation.
Not overwhelmed by unfairness. Life’s not fair.
Spiritually: Joseph. Sold by his brothers into slavery. The worst he was a punk. Potiphar’s wife had him thrown in prison. He saw the good that God had in it for him. Pharaoh saw that good and made him the 2nd most powerful person in the world.
10th: Optimistic
Hopeful. Realistic, but optimistic.
I will get thru this tough tim.
Spiritually: Faith is being assured of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see. God is at work in good ways that we can’t see and eventually, tomorrow will be better.
We always have hope in Christ.
Who would not want to be described like this?
We’re in the last half of ch.1 of Colossians. This is about Who Jesus is, who we are, and what happens to us the closer we are to Him.
Mature ppl make better decisions, respond more appropriately, and lead better lives. It’s not that it’s always easy, but they make it look that way b/c they are reacting better to what’s happening and managing things better.
“Your life is so easy! Mine is so hard!” “If only you knew.”
How do we get there?
Jesus is the Word, according to John. Jesus spoke the Word. He’s God so what He says is the Word of God. The entire bible is His story, from Genesis to Revelation. It is the Word of God.
So, the better we know and apply the Word, the better we can advise the Word, the better we believe and behave like the Word; then the more mature we will be.
More dynamic, less chaotic.
Who couldn’t do w/ a little less chaos in their life?
First we need to know Who Jesus is. If we’re going to know Him better then we need to know more about Him.
Who is Jesus
Who is Jesus
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
This is one of the strongest statements in all the bible of who Jesus is and what He’s done.
7 descriptors. 7 characteristics of the Jesus we believe in.
1st; Jesus is God. (v.15)
He is the image, that is, the manifestation, the same substance as the real thing. God is a spiritual being. Jesus became a man and represented God, as God.
Jesus said,
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Jesus was born on Christmas. Immanuel, God w/ us.
2nd; Jesus is the Firstborn over creation.
In time and position. He was not created. And all creation worships Him.
Even the angels worship Him
And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”
He existed prior to anything else. Before Genesis 1, He was here.
He is superior to all things. The firstborn son has a superior position; w/ added responsibility and privilege. The firstborn was designated to take over the family bsns in the absence of the father. He also received a double-portion of the father’s estate.
If there were 3 sons, the estate was divided by 4 and the eldest rec’d 2 fourths.
He is sovereign, that is, independent and authoritative over everything.
3rd; Jesus is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. (v.16-17)
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Jesus spoke on His Father’s behalf and His words caused everything to come into existence.
He is also the sustainer, He keeps everything alive and moving.
The earth spins on its axis creating gravity. If the earth stopped spinning, we’d float into space and die.
Seasons, climate, lifecycles, reproduction, all of it. Jesus keeps it going and has since He first created it.
4th; Jesus is the Head of His body, the Church. (v.18a)
He is the boss and the brains
He is the mind and the might.
He assigns our mission, provides the means, and makes it happen.
He tells us what to do and how to do it.
Just like your head directs the rest of your body.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
This is our personal lives. Married or not. Kids, or not. Careers, jobs, homes, communities, whatever. W/in who we become on earth, we are part of a greater whole of which Jesus is our Leader.
He gives us purpose, reason to get out of bed in the morning beyond what we can dream up to do in a day. Something bigger than family, friendships, and careers.
5th; Jesus is the Firstborn from the Dead (v.18b)
Once again, time and position. He was the first human to die and receive his resurrected body.
This is a little hard to explain. The bible doesn’t give us a lot of detail here.
While on the cross, one of the men crux’d w/ him believed in Jesus and rec’d him as a deathbed confession.
Jesus said,
Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
When we die, immediately we go to place where Jesus is that He called paradise. But, that’s not the last place we will go.
When Jesus returns, this will happen:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
We will get new bodies. Whatever we look like in paradise, we will look different when Jesus returns and we get our immortal bodies.
Don’t ask me to explain all this, I don’t fully understand it myself.
But, Jesus was the first to get his resurrected and physical body and showed it to the disciples before he ascended to heaven.
B/C Jesus got one, we know we will get one, too. He was the first.
6th; Jesus is the fullness of God (v.19).
He was while He was here as a man. Everything God could do in Heaven, Jesus could do on earth.
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Both fully human and fully God.
The son of a teenage girl and the son of God.
He had to eat and sleep. If he didn’t he suffered b/c of his humanity.
He was powerful and authoritative b/c He is God. Everything He did was what God was doing in Heaven.
7th; Jesus is the Reconciler of all things to Himself. (v.20)
He reconciles us to God b/c we’re the ones who make errors. He does not reconcile God to us. We join Him, where He is, in His perfect place.
We walked away from God. He didn’t walk away from us.
Jesus did the work of reconciliation when He died on the cross.
Our errors create a deficit between us and God. That deficit is only made up with a life.
Either, we pay for it w/ out own life and die.
Or, we let Jesus pay for us and we live. Letting Him pay for us makes peace between us and God. We’re even. All good.
That, and only that, makes it possible for us to go paradise when we die and then receive our new body when Jesus returns.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
This is Jesus. Who He is and what He’s done.
As big and powerful and important as He is, He would not have to give us the time of day.
There are all kinds of important ppl on earth who would not bother to give us a second thought. No consideration.
The Kardashians.
Tom Brady
Randy Johnson
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
But Jesus, God, Firstborn, Supreme, Most Important, Creator, Sustainer, Boss of the Body, First to rec His new body, Fully and Completely God, Reconciler.
Jesus, the most important person ever, sac’d his place in heaven and his body on earth so you and I could go the paradise and then spend eternity w/ him.
He did for us, what we cannot do for ourselves, what benefited him nothing, but benefitted us everything, just b/c He loves us.
That’s Jesus.
And you might be thinking, “Sure. But I’m me. And, I pretty special.” Which is not a mature thought. But any one of us might be thinking that.
Who were we? Who are we? Where are we going?
This is Us
This is Us
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
God gives everyone the freedom to choose what they want to do.
We value that freedom. But, sometimes that freedom causes us trouble. Sometimes it’s our own choices. Sometimes the choices of others.
Adam and Eve made a choice that still hurts us today. They corrupted our DNA. B/C of what they did, everything is dying.
Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes slow and ugly.
We are born w/ this corrupt DNA and it is Christ’s death on the cross that reconciles us and cleans up the corruption.
That’s who we were.
Jesus did not wait for us to clean up our own acts, if He did He’d still be waiting. We can’t.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Who we are now, is unconformed, transformed, and our heart beats for God.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Our emotions don’t have to betray us. Our minds have been renewed so we evaluate things differently and our choices are better.
Maturity is now a possibility.
You’re not going to let someone into your house, sit at your table, that you are in a serious conflict with.
God wouldn’t either. But b/c Jesus reconciled us, we have peace with God, and we now have a reservation for seat at His table.
When God looks at us now, He doesn’t see us as the error prone ppl we used to be. He sees saints whose deficit has been covered by the blood of Jesus.
We’ve been made whole. And He’s been made whole as everything we owed Him has now been paid.
We can’t even be accused of wrong-doing any more by anyone who knows the Truth.
But Satan is the accuser. He knows the factual truth. But He does not the person of Truth. So none of his accusations will stick on us.
Where we will be, where we will end up, is paradise. Heaven.
Our hope is as secure as Jesus’s hands and feet were secured to the cross.
Established and firm, like the foundation of a building that can w/stand the strongest earthquake or most powerful tornado.
Paul says, “If you continue in your faith.”
In the Greek, there are 3 ways to write conditional statements like this. All use different words. But each of those words are translated into English as “If…then.”
One of those ways is a complete toss up. If this happens then that will happen. But the if is completely up in the air.
Another of those ways is assumed certain. Although he says, if; it could easily be translated, since.
The 3rd way is somewhere in the middle.
It’s like the difference between these 2 statements:
If it snows again this winter, then we will have better protection against a fire next spring.
Or,
If we have an average monsoon season, then we will have better protection against a fire.
It is certainly going to snow again this season. Maybe not much, maybe a lot. We avg between 70 and 100 inches each year.
We have no idea how much rain we’ll get next monsoon season. Below average, or above.
See the difference?
The words Paul uses here is the certainty. He has no doubt they will continue in their faith. There is no doubt we will, either.
If you have faith, it’s secure.
Our hope, like theirs, is secure. And we will all certainly end up in heaven.
B/C of what Jesus did to secure our hope in heaven, why do we do what we do today, then?
If the work has been done? What’s left for us?
Well, the salvation work is done. But the maturity work still has to happen. And, we have a role in that. For ourselves and others.
Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
What is lacking in what Christ did? Nothing, except there is still work to be done.
Jesus started the work. He laid the foundation. In fact, He’s part of it. The apostles are the rest of it while Jesus is the cornerstone.
Now that we are saved, we have work to do (Acts).
And Paul considers it a privilege to face opposition to the work. We haven’t seen much here in this country. It’s getting worse. But it’s bad in other places.
Jesus suffered so much more for us. But for us to be able to suffer for him, it should be an honor. It’s not going to slow him down nor will it prevent the work from being done.
In fact, things seem to go better for the church when opposed.
Our job is to teach, study, and learn the Word. The bible is the story of Jesus, from beginning to end.
As we apply it, we become more like Him, mature. Demonstrating all those characteristics I listed in the intro.
Then, we represent Him in Munds Park. You might be the closest thing some of our friends and neighbors have ever gotten to Jesus.
So the closer they get to you, hopefully, the more they will want to get close to the one you act like.
Paul’s word, admonish, means counsel, guide, give advice to our friends based on what Jesus would tell them if they would ask Him themselves. So we need to know.
The goal then, is to get them to ask Him themselves. Until they will, we might be it.
Ultimately, what all this leads to, knowing the Word, applying the Word, advising the Word, believing the Word and behaving like the Word; is to lead everyone to maturity.
Mature ppl live dynamic lives. Immature ppl live chaotic lives.
Know Who Jesus is, what He came to do for you, and that He is the only One who can lead you to maturity.
Applications
Applications
Characteristics of Maturity
Characteristics of Maturity
Which do you need to work at exhibiting more of?
It’s a both/and deal.
Focus on that characteristic. Work at doing what it describes.
At the same time, work at knowing Christ better. If you do one w/out the other you will be less successful at what you’re trying to do.
These characteristics are like fruit. If you want an apple, plant an apple seed, care for it like an apple tree. But tend the soil and the branches right and you will get the fruit.
Characteristics of Christ
Characteristics of Christ
Which of these are you lacking in understanding.
Pick 1 or 2. Study them.
Know Christ better and end up more mature.
Studying Jesus is like tending the soil and the branches. Fruit will result.
The Word
The Word
It’s a lifetime of study. Genesis to Revelation.
The bible is the story of Jesus. Read it. Study it. Memorize parts of it.
It will unlock things in your life you never thought possible.
So, the better we know and apply the Word, the better we can advise the Word, the better we believe and behave like the Word; then the more mature we will be.
More dynamic, less chaotic.
Who couldn’t do w/ a little less chaos in their life?