Deeper Roots, Not Greener Pastures

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0:10Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Aaron Rothermell and I'm one of the pastors here at the North Church. Uh, you may have seen my lovely wife Liz, um, and three of my kids, uh, running around at some point. Uh, in your time here, um, I am a, in addition to pastor and elder, I also lead an incredible team of staff and volunteers to lead our children's ministry, uh, as the pastor for children and families. And so it's a privilege to open the word with you this morning. Join me as I open with, uh, word of prayer. Gracious Father, you have given us your word and your word is words, our words of life. And Father, I ask that you would speak, uh, to us this morning. Speak through through me. Uh, as I explain and expound on the word. Father, I pray that your spirit would be at work without your spirit.

1:11My words are in vain. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. Men, and there's an art to rhetoric that's not concerned with the truth, but with persuasion. In the ancient world, the world where Paul lived, they paid money pe, they paid people money to do this and called them rhetoricians. We live in a world that's surrounded by these rhetoricians, we just call them marketers. Marketers are not primarily concerned with what if they are saying is true, but does it work? Does it persuade? Does it get you to buy what they are selling? Now, these kinds of marketers are not just found on Madison Avenue.

1:58They can be found next door in that innocent looking little girl selling lemonade to the HV tech who tries to convince you to replace your entire heating and cooling system before August. Many of you are familiar with the Christmas movie Elf, in which buddy, the elf is taken in by the sign outside of New York City Coffee Shop saying the best coffee in the world.

2:28But such rhetoric can take more sinister forms as well. We don't have to be experts to see that our culture is playing fast and loose with categories as foundational as sex and gender. We don't know what kind of impact this will have on the next generation of children, but we do know the children don't yet have the capacity or the experience to understand even the significance of the time we are living in because this time is all they know. Five years, seven years, eight years, 10, 15, not long, but every parent that I've talked to wants their children to develop into godly maturity so that they will not be confused by such an ideology.

3:17Often this new ideology is described as crazy and for good reason, but the threat to the upcoming generations isn't in the insanity, it's in the plausibility. It's in the ways that such new ideas are explained using values and categories that Christians have for centuries championed as good. Many thinkers over the years have made the argument that the values of our contemporary culture are not completely foreign to Christianity, but they're just aberrations. They're distortions of Christian virtues and values, virtues like love and tolerance, principles of equality, justice and rights, concepts and ideas that are good and ultimately Christian.

4:04Now taking a different form, but this is not so different from the religious world that Paul lived in Pollen. His letter to the Colossian church is very encouraged by the gospel fruit that he has seen in their lives. He also knows the landscape and that while the church has not yet been deceived, there are many teachers around them that would gladly lead them astray from their commitment to Christ. In our study of Colossians, so far we've heard of Paul's thankfulness, his prayers for the Colossians, the excellencies of Christ, and a defense of the necessity of Paul's ministry. Now, for the very first time, we have the introduction of conflict, a foreshadowing of the sinister Paul has been marveling at the beauties of the fledgling colossian church. Now, Paul reminds us that we still live in a world marked by the fall, a world marred by the serpent just as Eve was deceived by the rhetoric of the serpent in the first garden.

5:13Paul is warning us, there are others who are here to deceive and not necessarily with radical departures, but with plausible ideas that sound good and dare we say, Christian, the burden of this text for this morning is that we would grow up into maturity in Christ so that we would not be led astray by plausible arguments. That's my burden for you this morning as I bring this text. Don't neglect the treasure that you've been given in Christ. Put your roots down deep into Christ. Don't look for greener pastures. Grow deeper. Paul says in verse one, I want you to know the struggle that I have for you for those in La Deia and all those I haven't yet seen in the flesh. I say, I want you to know the struggle that I have for you.

6:16Many of you, I, I haven't met personally, but but I see you. This is a vibrant church. There's so many wonderful people who call this place their home, this people home with children, young people, college students, the mature and the elderly, and as I've prepared this sermon, I've run through my list and faces of names and I've prayed. I've said, Lord, may this text minister to your people. I want you to know that I fight for you. I labored over this sermon because I wanted the truth to meet the fire. I wanted to bring you the word with an intensity that's approaching the intensity that Paul wrote it.

7:13I did my textual analysis. I read my commentaries, I wrote my drafts and I stopped and I said, Lord, make Paul's burden my burden. May I walk into this pulpit and say, don't neglect the treasure you've been given in Christ. Go deeper. Don't look elsewhere. Don't be fooled by words that sound nice but aren't real. Don't be led astray by plausible arguments. Paul was concerned with the church of Coloa and her neighbor, LA Deia. These towns were just 10 miles from each other with other towns nearby as well, like hi, which is just another six miles from Laia, and Paul shares his concern for this people because he loves them, he fights for them. He hasn't yet met them, but his love for them is real.

8:05Paul is like the adoptive parent who hasn't met his child yet, but he's bought his plane tickets And he's prepared to do whatever is needed to bring his child home. Paul is like the beaming father who's looking with joy on his daughter. He's watching her play, watching her imitate her mother, making cookies, making pancakes, washing dishes, climbing trees. He's looking at his daughter with joy and Paul's like the father who knows that this same daughter is facing a world full of adventure and danger and he wants her to be ready.

8:52I have three daughters and I have a plan for them. I want them to be wise. I want them to be tough. Proverbs 31 tough. I want them to be able to see a field and buy it. I want them to be strong. I want them to have sharp minds. I want them to have maturity. I want them to know who they are in Christ so they won't be let astray. I want them to grow up to be not independent but properly interdependent. I want them to help have healthy relationships with their parents, with one another, with friends, coworkers, mentors, and one day a husband. I want them to have a proper relationship with the church. I want them to grow.

9:42I want them to be women who serve the church well. We've named each one of our daughters with intentionality. I'll just highlight our oldest. We named our oldest Lydia because Lydia has for as long as I can remember, been one of my favorite female characters in the New Testament. She was a a mature woman who used her gifts to build up the church. We don't know much about her post-conversion, but we do know that Luke records her name in Acts and we do know that she was leading a prayer meeting down by the river with some other women as Paul came by and shared with her Jesus, each of our daughters has a name with that level of significance and we've chosen that name with their maturity in mind even as we received them as little babies and we've enjoyed the COOs and the giggles and we've enjoyed the, the tree climbing and not enjoyed the the other things that sometimes happen with childhood.

10:49We've delighted in them at their age and we also have this vision of what they will be like as young women who have grown up into maturity. This is Paul's burden for the church. He wants the church to grow up and be strong, to be mentally strong and fit. He tells the church, I'm fighting for you because he is aiming for their hearts. He wants to encourage their hearts. That's what my burden is for you this morning. I want you to be encouraged in your heart. Some of you are weary, you're getting beat down. Maybe work is taking it out of you, the kids, perhaps your teenager is doing things because he knows it hurts you.

11:35Perhaps you've just lost a parent or you have several people in your small group who are going a really difficult time of suffering and you don't know how to help them. Maybe you're at a crossroads this morning and you have a decision to that you need to make and you have a sense that the that decision you make will affect the rest of your life. I don't know what that decision is for you, but I do know this. Be encouraged because God has a word for us this morning. Paul has a vision for the church that it will be encouraged by the knowledge that he fights for it. I love this line to you and La Deia and those who haven't met in the flesh by extension, that's us. We fit in that category where people, Paul hasn't met but we are reading and benefiting from his ministry.

12:30Paul fought for you went on a study trip with several other schools and there's a lot of different perspectives on that trip. Some had very different perspectives on the Bible and I remember a couple outspoken individuals who did not like Paul at all, like they hated him, which was kind of news to me. I hadn't really encountered someone who was going to seminary, who didn't like the vast majority of the New Testament, but I'll never forget what one of my brothers from another school said to one of these individuals. Remember, without Paul we wouldn't have the church and that's stuck with me ever since. Without Paul, we wouldn't have the church, and this relates to the sermon that we heard last week about the necessity of Paul's ministry as a link completing what Christ, the completed work that Christ began in us, Paul's labor for the churches in the Lycos Valley, the land of Freia and a small once insignificant, once significant, now insignificant town of Coloa. That was for our good, so be encouraged. Paul thought, not just for the Colossians but for us.

14:00He says earlier in Colossians, I rejoice because the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing in you as it is in the whole world. Paul has a very optimistic view of the world. The Roman world was a dark world, a violent world. It was a cruel world. You know, you may have heard some legends of our founding fathers. Here in the US we have stories and myths about them that betray most frequently good character like the one you're probably familiar with. George Washington, a man who was so honest that when he chopped down a cherry tree he had no choice but to confess. The Roman myths about their founding fathers weren't about honesty.

14:55They were about two boys raised by wolves and in Roman society, if you were born and not wanted, they left you quite literally to the wolves. It was a dark world, the Roman one, and yet Paul sees that the gospel going forth bears fruit, the Roman society and ours are very different and yet there's a lot of similarities. We have darkness and the gospel is advancing and we desperately need maturity. Paul is concerned that we gain maturity that has three aspects and I'll first state them in summary in the negative for Paul, Christian maturity is not loveless, it's not aimless, it's not impoverished. Essentially. Paul says in verse two, just to sum up what he's saying, I say this so that you will be encouraged in your hearts being knit together in love, in confidence in Christ.

16:00Just take a look at the word being knit together. It's about connective tissue. It's the ligaments that hold your bones together at the joints. It's the ACL and mcl. It's what keeps your rib cage from floating around as random ribs inside your chest cavity. Such knitting together requires truth and love. Without truth, you have no shape to the body and without love you have no connection, just inflammation.

16:33These are the aspects of maturity that Paul brings to the table as we are in Christ, we are being knit together in love. Love is such a big part of maturity. When I was young, I used to think of maturity as doing the right things, knowing how to act and that sort of thing, but Paul here is describing a through line of maturity as being grounded in love. Paul says something similar in another letter he wrote to the same part of the world just west of Colossae. In the letter to the Ephesians, he says in chapter three, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father from whom every family and heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

17:53Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. I'll praise for the church to be strengthened in the inner man to handle God's love. God's love is so strong. We need to be strengthened so we can receive the bracing of God's love. We need to be strengthened to have the capacity to understand it. Our natural love is so weak compared to God's love. We can't handle it. Jesus draws sharp contrast between our natural loves and god's because God's love is so much greater in magnitude and order than ours.

18:48He says things like, unless you hate your father and mother, you can't have a part of me. He says things like you give a child a fish or bread when he asks and you're evil. How much more will God give good to those who ask? Jesus is inviting us to a Romeo and Juliet kind of spiritual romance, the passion cutting across all human ties. This kind of romance will make even Shakespeare speechless.

19:29Paul is saying, because you are in Christ, you're being knitted together in love. This is a work that God is doing in us and I think this is important because the work of being strengthened to handles God's love is not easy work and many of you can attest to this. It often feels a lot more like heart surgery or maybe a time in the ICU and then we need rehab some, we need to do some PT and then perhaps we're ready for the gym, the gym of God's love because maturity isn't aimless, it's not merely the feels. It's concerned with power, God's power at work in us and through us. It's about bringing about the fullness of the assurance of understanding that we see in verse two, Paul's prayer in Ephesians is as we just read parallel to this, Paul's saying, I'm praying for you that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and heightened depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

20:47This fullness of the assurance of understanding is not merely referring to the kind of confidence that comes from knowing something really well. We all know that two plus two is four with certainty. We don't have a question in our mind if that's true because we know it. Each of us have different parts based on our vocations and and stations and place in life where we, we understand how those things work with mastery, we understand the fundamentals in our bones and we know how the things work together and it gives us confidence to act in the world. For some of us, that's things like the garden for others, the stock market, human nature, the laws of physics or how Legos fit together or what is the best flavor of ice cream to go with our chocolate chip cookies.

21:47There are things that we know with great confidence and we might even say with certainty, but that isn't the kind of understanding that Paul is talking about. He's talking about a spiritual understanding that comes from being connected to the head, being connected to Christ, having the mind of Christ, the fullness of the assurance of understanding comes to us when we are linked up to Jesus. He's describing a spiritual understanding that comes from a vital connection to the creator and the incarnate one when sons of Adam and daughters of Eve are united to the son of God. Jesus when he was with his disciple says, I am the vine.

22:31Unless you are a part of me, you will bear no fruit. Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. This is why Paul is so excited about the church bearing fruit around the world because you don't bear fruit without being connected to Jesus. Christian maturity is not loveless, it's not aimless and it's not impoverished because it has access to the mystery of God which is Christ are you Christ. Paul uses the word mystery here. Mystery means something that the Old Testament predicted, but we needed God to reveal. God needed to reveal its meaning. He needed to reveal the mystery for us to be able to understand he does this in Christ. Now, the first place we see mystery in the Bible is in Daniel chapter two.

23:28King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he's troubled by it. He can't understand it because it's a mystery to him. It's a mystery and he's suspicious of all his Wiseman advisors and sages and like most tyrants, he has a wonderful idea. I know I'll threaten everyone with losing their heads if they don't help me out And he says, I can't sleep because of what I've seen in my sleep. You need to tell me what I've dreamed and what it means or I'll kill every single one of you and Daniel hears of this and says, whoa, whoa, whoa. I will pray and ask the Lord to reveal this mystery to me so that I can tell you your dream and what it means, and Daniel says, the Lord is the revealer of mysteries.

24:31This is what Paul's talking about. He's talking about the fact that no one in the Old Testament would've guessed that Christ would dwell in his people and the new temple is a people and no one would've guessed that this people would be made up of both Jew and Gentile. It is all there in the Old Testament. All the signs are there pointing us to Christ, but no one could see Jesus until he was revealed. It's actually a lot like a mystery novel. How many of you here love a good mystery? The mystery novel on the first read through leaves you guessing who the killer is. You can't actually know. You can't have assurance or dare we say full assurance that you are right until the killer is revealed at the end.

25:24That's how a mystery novel works. It's a mystery that must be revealed by the author before we are certain and Paul's saying, look, the mystery has been revealed. The one we've been looking for and waiting for is Jesus, and Jesus is the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and understanding have been revealed, and Jesus is worth far more than rubies, far more than any kind of treasure. Christian maturity is not impoverished. Christian maturity has learned to tap into the deep wealth of riches found by going deeper into Christ and not looking elsewhere because all of reality is found in him.

26:12Anything outside of Christ is fantasy. Friends, we need to repent of looking for greener pastures in our hearts and not putting down deeper roots. All of us do this. We are often far too often indeed like sheep that have gone astray. We leave behind the spring that never runs dry and we go looking into all the dried up wells in rusted out old water towers hoping to find something to quench our thirst when all we need to do is return to Christ. Christ is the fountain head of all wisdom. Proverbs two says, seek wisdom like silver. Search for it like treasure. God gives wisdom to those who seek wisdom comes from his mouth.

27:09Jesus is that wisdom. Jesus is the fulfillment of wisdom. All the wisdom in the world is Jesus's wisdom. I think sometimes we have too small of a Jesus. Perhaps we shrink down Jesus to the size of our Sunday school classroom and fit him inside those walls and maybe even down to the size of a flannelgraph. We say in our hearts, I'm so glad we have a sweet flannelgraph Jesus. He always has nice things to say, but who's gonna help me with my real problems? I have grown up problems And My small Jesus doesn't seem to help.

28:01Shameless plug for children's ministry here, come join us as we capture children's imaginations and hearts for a Christ who created all of reality and in whom are all the soar houses of wisdom. There is something wild about a Jesus who all of reality is found within Jesus is not tame, but he's good. Open your heart to the wild but good Christ and you just might find that he is more than big enough to handle and help you with your problems. Friends, maybe the problem isn't that Jesus is too small to fix our problems, but our understanding of who Jesus is has not matured so it can handle God's love. Our hearts don't have the capacity, not yet, but that is the good news.

29:07We have an invitation here. We are invited to join the work that God is doing in our midst by being knit together by connection. We don't grow without being knit together in Christ's body. You can't be connected to the head without being connected to his neck, can't be connected to the head without being connected to his ax and we could go on. Are there ways that you're pulling back from belonging to God's people?

29:46Are there ways that you sense an invitation from the good shepherd to take a step further into connection and you're shrinking back just a little sense of fear, little sense of hesitation? Maybe it's from past hurt, maybe a pastor or a church hurt you and those wounds can make it difficult to trust. Again, the good news is God is in the process of shepherding us. God is in the process of healing us. Don't let your past define your future. Our past informs us, but God defines us. God is the author of our story and God loves to satisfy our deepest longings. Don't run away from desire. Run to the one who made it.

30:46Maybe the problem isn't your lust, but the problem is that you have substituted a pathetic thing in place of the eternal passion that God has for you. Maybe the problem isn't your envy but your shortsightedness, you're missing the wealth and riches that God has in store for you in Christ. Friends, we've gone to sleep and woken up in Alibaba's cave of treasure.

31:20We've deciphered the treasure map and found that we have a secret vault under our house with more gold than Fort Knox. Go deeper, don't look elsewhere. Stop wandering around impoverished and poor and destitute because Christ has offered us more. Far too often we treat the treasure of Christ like the administrators in the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. We just saw people's faces melted off and then we box it up and put it in a warehouse somewhere. We don't understand it, so we just put it in a crate and move on, but that's not the invitation for you this morning. The invitation is to receive the fullness of understanding that Christ offers to be the beneficiary of the treasure of Christ.

32:15That you and I can say with Paul, we carry around this treasure in jars of clay that the power of God may be visible in us, but the burden of the text for this morning is not merely that we would grow up into maturity in Christ. Not only that we would not live impoverished lives, but that we would not be led astray from the real by the plausible. See, the problem with living anemic Christian lives not pursuing maturity is it makes us susceptible to delusion. When we aren't experiencing the riches of Christ, The vapor sounds a lot better than what we've been eating.

33:12You may have heard the saying, why would I have a hamburger when I have a steak at home? It's a little bit of a crude expression, but it reflects a cultural understanding of comparative value. Why would I give up what is better for something that is not as good, but as a metaphor? It's lacking. See, a steak and a hamburger, both are very satisfying. They fill you, but that's exactly the illusion.

33:42There is satisfaction and there is illusion, there is reality and there is fantasy. I think a better comparison is why would I eat cotton candy when I can have a full three-course meal and three desserts? That which looks good, it tastes good, but it's, it's only that it lacks real substance or the difference between eating a bowl of fruity pebbles with skim milk in the morning versus a couple of eggs, sausage, whole wheat toast and a piece of fruit.

34:21I was talking with a friend this week who shared the story of a neighbor who looked at their family, very ordinary family like we'd have here at this church. Parents love Jesus. Kids are growing and maturing, And he looked at the husband and he said, you better not mess this up. Now, this neighbor is speaking from experience because this neighbor had a family, a wife and kids, and he left them pursuing an illusion of a better life. He's still living with his new lover, but he knows deep down he's giving up, given up something more valuable.

35:09The world is filled with those who will give us the plausible. It presents us with a vision of a better way and yet leaves us with vapor and ultimately death. As the Proverbs says, stolen bread is sweet to a man, but in the end his mouth will be filled with gravel or is the proverbs depict for us? Lady folly and lady wisdom both promise a better life, but only one is grounded in reality. One path, the path of wisdom leads to life and abundance and the other leads to death and disintegration. Plato and Aristotle used this word, Paul does in verse four for plausible arguments. Plato in one of his dialogues between Socrates and his student essentially says, you're young and easily fooled by those who make arguments that sound good, but to be a philosopher is to be concerned with what is true, not what is merely plausible.

36:12Aristotle in his book of ethics that he wrote to his son says, there's a difference between arguments of things that could be true and things that we can demonstrate to be true. Paul is saying Christ is demonstrable. Christ is not just plausible. He is real. Don't be led astray from what is real, for what is plausible. It's not worth it. It will lead to your destruction. The plausible is close to true, but it's not. It's just enough distortion tailor made for your delusion.

36:58Now, what's the antidote? The antidote isn't studying all the aberrations but knowing the real thing, so the imposters are evident. Counterfeit bills are caught not by handling lots of counterfeits, but by handling the real deal. Christian maturity makes us immune to plausible arguments because the intimate knowledge of Christ in our union with him and our fellowship with his body protects us from delusion. Paul's invitation for us today is to come to the fortress that is our God. We can see the reign of missiles and arrows and we can and we can know that we are secure. We have a God who is big enough and real enough that plausibility cannot sway us.

37:53Paul concludes this section with a return to his pastoral passion and heart. He says, even though I'm absent from you in the body, I'm with you in the spirit. I'm seeing and rejoicing in your good order and steadfastness, subtext, keep it up. Verse five, for though I am absent of the body, yet I'm with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. If Paul were a general doing an inspection of the troops, he would've given them high praise. They reflected good order and a stoutness of spirit. If the church at Colossae were an army, they were well disciplined and courageous.

38:34One that in the little details showed diligence and in their spirit demonstrated stability and faithfulness. They're an army that Paul can depend on. We see how a reminder of the small things, things like good order and steadfastness, There's a simplicity to Christian maturity that calls us to remember it is Christ at work in us. It's not our passion. It's not our fervor, it's not our intellect. It's not our skill at getting things accomplished. It's Christ at work. This is the fruit of the spirit that leads us towards Christian maturity. Paul is spurring the Colossians on in their faith, pointing them to the ordinary means of grace and signs of grace.

39:23A church that is ordered by scripture and lives characterized by the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The burden of the text for this morning is that we would grow up in into maturity in Christ so that we would not be led astray by plausible arguments for you this morning. I don't know what those plausible arguments are for you, but the invitation for us this morning is this, go deeper. Don't look elsewhere.

40:18Paul demonstrates his passion and investment. He points us to markers of maturity as he observes these things evident and at work in the Colossians, he calls us to take stock of the immeasurable wealth of wisdom available for us in Christ. He gives the reason for our need to continue in maturity because much is at stake and he leaves us with his pastoral concern and encouragement. There are two kinds of motivating speech. The one is stop doing that and do this, and the other is keep doing what you're doing and that's what Paul's doing here. He's saying, keep it up. When I look at the work of God that I see evident in you, I say keep it up, and that's the encouragement I want to bring to us as a church this morning.

41:14God is doing something here. Let's not grow weary in doing good for in due time we will reap. Let's raise up a generation who knows and loves Jesus, who's walking in maturity, not susceptible to plausible arguments because they've tasted let us taste and see that the Lord is good. All of us here today are coming from different places and I want to invite you following the service, following the sermon, we'll have a closing song following the service, coming up for prayer. I want it may be that you want to give thanks to God for something that he has been doing in your life and these ladies and gentlemen up here in front the end of service. That's a place to do that. Come up here and say, I have this burden. I have this thing I want to give thanks for, would you, I want, I wanna share it with someone, or perhaps the sermon has convicted you.

42:21Maybe the the spirit has been at work and you felt the pang of conviction. I just wanna say, if you feel the pang of conviction, the spirit of God does not condemn us, but invites us to repentance and healing and restoration. So come on up to the front after the surface and talk to one of the men or the women here who would love to pray with you because we are all sinners. We are all in desperate need of God's grace. Respond to the work of the Spirit today. Come and be ministered to you by your brothers and sisters, and now join me in prayers. We prepare for our closing song, gracious Father, work in us.

43:15This maturity that Paul speaks of protect us from the plausible and help us to clinging to the real, make us grow deep roots. Help us to drink deeply from your wealth of wisdom. You have freely given us in Christ. May we be knit together in love as we do this for the glory of our risen savior, Jesus Christ. We ask these things in his name. Amen.

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The End Is Not Yet

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