Maturity in Christ for Everyone!

“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:28-29). 

It makes you want to pay attention when you see the same word three times in a verse that has only nineteen total words. That simple but critical word is “everyone”! And this has nothing to do with Paul having a limited vocabulary. He is trying to make sure we don’t miss the point. We are to proclaim, warn, and teach all people that maturity in Christ is our sure and profound calling. With so many infant “Christians” present in our culture there is no doubt this message is relevant for today. The Biblical writers were challenged by the immaturity of Christ-followers on more than one occasion (see I Corinthians 3:12, Hebrews 5:12). The idea? Grow up…in Christ!  

This should cut to the heart of the shallowness that plagues the visible contemporary American church. Wilbur Rees says this about our current “Christian” culture that seems to be 3000 miles wide but only 1 inch deep:

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please – not enough to
explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of
warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make
me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy,
not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want
a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I’d like to buy $3 worth of God,
please.” 

This passage makes it clear that all the truth of God is for all the people of God. As ministers of the Word we should have such an eternal perspective that we courageously proclaim, warn, and teach with all (not some) wisdom the “whole counsel of God”(Acts 20:27)! Disciples of Christ should have the same ravenous desire – more and more, deeper and deeper into the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). And we should do so by the sweat of our brow and all the energy He can muster in us, being totally reliant upon the power of God to do His mighty work of revelation, impartation, and application of His truth. 

This is the seed and the source of our proclamation of the wisdom that makes us grow up in Christ. Paul explains this purpose of maturity in Christ to the church at Ephesus: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). Now we see this all come together: Maturity in Christ is for everyone and for everyone in every way! 

And this maturity comes from our toil that is empowered God’s power. Notice the unique phrasing of Colossians 1:29: “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me”. There is human effort in the struggle to become mature in Christ but  “growing up into Christ” is only accomplished by the His energy and His power at work in us. Self-effort alone will end in frustration and defeat. I believe this was Paul’s point when he shared, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). This “working out your salvation” was not about obtaining or maintaining a right standing before God but about the obedience necessary to become more like Christ. 

Let us then have such and eternal perspective and rely on God’s eternal power. Maturity in Jesus is for everyone and in every way. It is developed by God-wrought desire, energy, and effort combined with God-induced power. Growing in Christ is to be the norm and not the exception for His disciples. Is this our reality? Is our passion to know Him more and make Him known in all wisdom and fullness? If not, cry out to Him with heart-wrenching tears of toil and struggle. Ask Him for the greatest Treasure and “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified…with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling…but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:2-5).