So this morning, as we turn to God's word, we do so by beginning a new series for the fall. It's the 10-week series on Gospel GPS, the pathway for spiritual formation. It is the expressed desire of Paul to make known that the purpose of Christ and his kingdom is that the people of God might not only know Christ, but that we might grow in our maturity, that we might grow to, if you will, the telos, the completion, the fulfillment, wholeness in what it means to know Jesus. This was a continued theme that we see in Paul and not just in Paul but also the other writers of the New Testament. And over these 10 weeks what we're going to do is we're going to look at deeper elements of what it means to be spiritually formed in Jesus. And a part of that is understanding what is spiritual maturity? but also understanding and remembering that spiritual maturity isn't just a theology lesson. It's not just a head trip. It is also understanding how our whole bodies, souls and spirits are made whole and matured in Jesus Christ. So it is spiritual maturity, but spiritual maturity with greater emotional health. It is very possible to seek spiritual growth, but ignore our emotional spirituality, our emotional health. So our desire is to see that we are called to be a whole person before our God. But not just as individuals. This is not merely meant to be 10 weeks where you can learn how to apply this just to yourself, but also church, the church collectively, because this was the desire that Paul had when he wrote to the church. It wasn't just you singular, while it certainly applies to us individually, but what does it mean for the church as a whole, as a community? Because not only can individuals be taken off track in what it means to grow spiritually, the church institutionally can also become off, can go off track. Not only can an individual grow very spiritually unhealthy emotionally, so can a whole church. So it's ways in which we're trying to ask the question, what does it mean to be more deeply formed as followers of Jesus? spiritually, emotionally, but also relationally. And so we turn this morning to the second chapter of Colossians as it forms a key turning point in the letter. Before I read it, I want you to understand where it is in the book, in the letter to Colossians. For Paul at which is typical and certainly here Colossians is a beautiful example. He begins the letter with a general hello and a general greeting. And then he paints the picture of who we are, those who believe in Christ Jesus, who you are because of what he is and what he has done, his person and his work. And so we have embedded within the first chapter of Colossians, one of the greatest hymns ever written about who Jesus is. Then he comes to chapter two. He then says, with all of his might, with all of his strength, with every fiber in his body, his desire is to make known the work of Christ so that, the church of Jesus Christ might reach complete maturity, wholeness in who Jesus is. And so in some sense, it forms an hourglass. He sort of starts with this great hymn to Christ. He then comes to these two verses as a turning point. Then from there, he then begins to apply what it looks like in the rest of the church and in the Christian life itself. He's giving to us the gospel GPS. how the gospel resets our direction. And it's not something that we just check once in a while, it becomes the way in which we seek to live. We never can depart from it. We never grow out of it. We've never mature out of our need to continually come back to Christ and what it means to walk in him. So let's begin today, Gospel GPS, the pathway for spiritual formation in Colossians 2, verses six through seven. Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Will you pray with me again briefly. Father, we now ask that by the power of your Holy Spirit, which you have poured out on your church, that you would give us eyes to see and hearts to receive and our lives to be transformed and what it means to follow Jesus, not only individually, but corporately. Help us, oh Lord, that we might receive and attain greater wholeness and maturity in Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, amen. So a few years ago, roughly in the mid 2000s, Kate and I and our daughter Caroline went to see our friends in Central Connecticut. Maybe I've told this story before, but it's so perfect, it needs to be said again. So here we are, we're in Central Connecticut, never been, beautiful place. And at the time I was still, very much involved in racing my bicycle in whatever way I could in whatever time I could. And it was a great opportunity. Hey, there's gonna be a mountain bike race that very weekend that we're gonna be in Central Connecticut. So put my mountain bike on top of the car and we went and we told our friends, hey, we're coming to spend the weekend with you. We're looking forward to it. I'm gonna be racing my bike on Saturday morning. Hope you don't mind. Yeah, no problem. Okay, great. So we go and we're up there. Now this was, I didn't have one of those GPSs that some people had on their dashboards. I still was using MapQuest or whatever it was during the time. And I would map it out, you know, online and I'd print it off and I'd done all that. And I had my little folder ready to go. Saturday morning, wake up first thing, put the bike on the car, boom, let's go. So I'm driving off. And so it came to this point where you're sort of on the outskirts of the suburbs where we were. And there was this crucial moment where I needed to make the right turn so I didn't, to miss the start time, which has happened before. So I was like, okay, let me pull over to the side. I pulled over to the side and I'm rechecking MapQuest. And as I did, another man comes along and his bike is on top of his car. He sees mine. He rolls down the window, rolled down mine. He said, hey, are you headed to such and such bike race? Yes, I am. Oh, I am too. Hey, listen, do you know where you're going? I was like, he's like, he's like, Because I think I know where we are and I've got this GPS and I was like, yeah, I've got his map quest. Yeah, great. And then he says, you can just follow me. Great. So I pull in behind him and we go to the end of the street. I stop sign. He makes a right turn. I make a right turn. Go down to the next block. He makes a right turn. I make a right turn. Go to the stoplight. He makes a right turn. I make a right turn. And I think you know where this is going. Go to the next block. Make a right turn. Make a right turn. And he stops again. Now I pull up alongside him going, hey man. I don't think your GPS is taking us where I think it needs to go. So I'm gonna step on my MapQuest, you're free to follow me if you like, but we gotta go. And so fortunately made it on time, great. But it's a great lesson that regardless of what kind of GPS you might be using, and regardless of whether you actually have typed in the right coordinates of where you need to go, it doesn't always mean you're gonna end up where you're supposed to be. It requires observation. And if you're a Wazer, you know what I mean by that. You'll know that as you plunge in your coordinates of where you need to go, sometimes Waze needs a few minutes to catch up exactly where you are. And I've more than once have left a parking lot, a neighborhood, thinking I'm going in the right direction when I haven't been looking consistently where, and of course it's reoriented, but I haven't. So it's not a foolproof way of finding where you need to be. The gospel is intended to be our GPS. But if we forget that our finishing coordinates is full maturity in who Jesus is, and that requires constant rechecking, then we will have missed out on what it means to be more spiritually deeply formed in maturity in Christ. It matters too that we understand it's not just about where we're going, it's also about where we are and how we got here. All of it plays a role. But if we think also that merely all that Jesus was doing is coming that we might have life and forgiveness, but forget that there's an actual goal in mind, we too are robbing the gospel of its riches and missing out on what Jesus has intended for us. full maturity, fullness, wholeness, and what it means to know Jesus. So as we look at this passage this morning, Paul again takes us and reveals to us the truth that the gospel is moving us toward maturity, it's moving us toward deeper formation in who Jesus is, and greater spiritual emotional health. And so this morning, we're gonna look at three things from these two verses, receive, walk, and abound. Receive, walk, and abound. So let's look at it together. Paul says here is, I take the words directly from this passage. He says, therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so he's telling them that you have already received, you've already given testimony. But even though he acknowledges their reception and having received the truth of who Jesus is, that didn't stop him from reminding them of what exactly they have received. This is important because Paul wants them to know, and we need to be reminded, that receiving Christ Jesus is committing to formation and not merely conversion. formation and not merely conversion. What he says earlier in chapter two are these words. He says, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you. Now that word rendered in English seems like, well, okay, I get it, you're striving. But actually in the Greek is, every sense of who he is and what his calling is, is bent on this one desire. He is labored, he has struggled, he has given of himself that they might know that all who have seen him and who haven't yet seen him face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged and be knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance and knowledge of the mystery of who God is in Christ. For Christ, in Christ, we have all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I'm absent with you in the body, yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Jesus. He understood that there are those who would lead with plausible arguments that somehow Jesus and what salvation is in Christ may be one thing and not another. And he always brings them back, that Jesus is one thing. He is not merely our redeemer that you receive forgiveness, but rather he is the one through whom and by whom we live this life. Therefore, as a result, We are to understand that we are called in God in Christ to see that the end goal is greater maturity. In other words, if you will, to receive Jesus as King and Redeemer and not understand that he also brings with him a kingdom way of living is to make God in our own image. and to miss out on what is actually intended for in Christ. If on the other hand, your desire is to have a kingdom where we might live out a certain ethic or things to do, but forget or not acknowledge or not want Jesus as King, we again have made God in our own image. For to receive Christ is to receive him both as king and his kingdom as one. He is redeemer, who is the Lord, who also intends for us to live in certain ways, individually and corporately. If we don't, what we end up with is, as Dr. David Wells, professor and author and theologian, when he says, we end up with a weightless God, meaning we end up with a domesticated Christ. Here's the point, to receive Christ. shakes us to our core. If we begin to go deeper in what it means to know that in Jesus is all the wisdom and all the knowledge of who God is, means that it will thunder to the very roots of our life and reorient how we speak, how we act, how we understand our feelings, how we understand our relationships, every part of our life. Not one shred of our life is left outside the light of His grace and also His power. Let me say it another way. Not a shred of our life falls outside the light of His holiness. See, we can't have a God of grace without a God of holiness. We can't have a God of holiness without a God of grace. It's both together. And we begin to domesticate God if we think He's anything less than the holy, righteous, pure, awesome God of weight and power, whose searing light and eyes and mind knows everything about us. every motive, every thought spoken and unspoken, every act done in public or in private. He knows us and it is the light of his searing holiness that understands that at the very, very core of who we are, we're profoundly sinful and broken. but yet that same holy God gives us the weight and power of his grace to make us new. It is to receive him is to be deeply formed by both his kingship, but also his kingdom, his holiness and his grace. And so Paul says, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. Not just receive, but walk. And I think what he's talking about here is to be deeply rooted versus what author and pastor Rich Boyotas calls shallow formation. It is this deeply rooted versus shallow formation. For when Paul says here, so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. What he's saying to the church is that to walk in him is to remember that in our decisions, in our life, what's going on inside of us, or what's not going on inside of us, is all bound to the Lordship of Christ. All of it. We are bound to Him. So to walk in Him is a recognition that to call Him as Lord is to understand that all that we do, There is no such thing as secular and sacred. It's all His, and we walk in Him. We're bound to Him, but He is our example. Thanks be to God, He has gone before us and obeyed in every way. As the early church fathers and as the scriptures teach us, Jesus did not bypass being a child. He didn't bypass being a teenager. He didn't bypass being an adult. He walked in our place in every way and was fully obedient. And so now we follow him in our walk, bound him as Lord, and we follow him as an example. But also remember, thanks be to God that every bit of that walk, every step is under the same Lord who has obeyed in our place. But we're still called to walk. We're still invited. to do the work. And so as we go through this series, you're going to hear several questions that are gonna be asked, and we're gonna repeat them over and over again. So the point is, after 10 weeks, you're probably gonna get mad at us for saying it so much. So here's some questions I want you to write down and some questions I want you to think about. Number one, if you are a professing Christian, where are you? How are you doing? Number two, Do you know where you're going? Do you know that Christ in his grace and the power of his spirit means to grow you in maturity and what that looks like for you? Thirdly, who are you going, I mean, where have you been that has helped get you to where you are? Because where we're going and where we are is deeply shaped by where we've been. And final question in this subset is, who are you going with? Where are you? Where are you going? Where have you been? And who are you traveling with? to walk, to be rooted, to be built up in him involves all of these important questions as we will unpack them in the weeks to come. But more than that, it's going to actually mean we, to walk in him, we're gonna have to do some pretty difficult work. Work that cannot be forgotten, work that is not merely individual, but corporate in nature. And it is what Pastor Bobby Flahart calls the gospel waltz. Explain this way. Number one, to walk in him means to ask the question, what sin do I need to repent of? And to go even deeper, what sins underneath those sins do I need to really uncover and confess? Could it be pride? Could it be self-righteousness? Could it be selfishness? What sin do I need to confess and repent of? But that leads right to the second step in this gospel waltz, and that is this. How am I forgiven in Christ? Which means, how am I resting? How do I find rest in the righteousness of this Lord, the one with whom I walk? Because on the one hand, you can be all about beating yourself up. but forget to rest in the righteousness of Christ. We must ask both. Where do I need to confess? Where do I need to rest? And then thirdly, how am I called to obey? In another way, how am I called to move toward the Lord, but also move towards others? So what do I need to confess? Where do I need to rest? How do I need to move forward? This is what the scriptures give us. For to walk in him, to be rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, we understand that it involves deep rooted formation, which means to do the hard, difficult work of find out what's going on inside of us and inside of me. It's both and. And I must tell you in this hard work, we must also be aware of our tendency to want to bypass the hard work. Now, what works when it comes to getting where you need to go in the GPS and the Waze world of avoiding traffic is not healthy in the spiritual life. What do I mean? So if you're a Wazer like I am, you'll know the great thing about Waze is if something's happening up in front of you, people will alert it and then Waze will reroute you around whatever the accident is or traffic or whatever the case may be. Now that's great when it comes to driving a car. but it is completely unhealthy in the spiritual life. If what we're trying to do is either use spiritual practices, as my friend and practitioner, Dr. Chuck DeGroat says, spiritual bypassing happens when we use spiritual means or spiritual practices to bypass hard emotions. The best practices help us move through the wilderness and the wildness of pain and journey to greater spiritual maturity. We can actually use Bible study and prayer to avoid actually looking deeper to ask, where do I need to confess? Who do I need to go to to seek reconciliation? because it's hard and we wanna bypass it. We don't wanna have those hard conversations. We must be willing to lay ourselves bare before the Lord and say, Lord, what and how do I need to grow? Even if that means I have to look at difficult things. Finally, it's not just receive, it's not just walk, it is also to abound. You see, when what we have received, that is Christ, is by his spirit integrated with how we actually walk, what begins to break forth is a greater spiritual health and we begin to abound in the fruitfulness of what it means to be in relationship with Jesus. what we understand to be the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The question is, how can this be more integrated of receiving and walking so that we might abound more fully in what it means to know Christ? And as we grow in this integration of receiving and walking, Paul says here, that as we do so, we will abound in thanksgiving. We'll be thankful because we begin to see not just what other people can see is changing, but we know what's changing also is the parts that others can't see. We live in an age where we're very selective about what we want people to see. And we do it all over social media. We want people to see what we think, how we look, how we're doing. But underneath is not always a well-ordered, well-lived life. Oftentimes, when we're honest, there's a lot of disorder. And much of the time, what we want the world to see is what we wish and hope we actually are. But what intends is to abound means a wholeness, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, is beginning to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which Paul intends for us to grasp hold of. It is the abounding life. But here's the reality. Today, we can choose our church based on what parts we like and what parts we don't. Today, you can choose whatever church you want. If you're really into right theology, you can find that church. Maybe what you want is the right action, a church that focuses on what we need to do, be on mission. Or you can go find a church where it's focused on how you feel, emotion. because the church of Jesus Christ in the United States has a lot of the time fallen prey to individual consumerism, merely seeing congregants as customers so that we provide what scratches your itch. and you go to the church that scratches your back. I'm not suggesting that's why you're here, because that's not why you're here, right? But the realities are we can choose churches based on that. But what the gospel reminds us of is that the church is intended to be a place where we understand it's not just about theology or action experience, it's about an integrated whole of receiving and walking in Christ. In other words, if we have a domesticated God, we end up becoming domesticated followers. And our fruit of our lives of love and joy and peace, the aroma of the gospel at work isn't present. But you know, abounding in fruitfulness is also really messy work. Because sometimes you wanna produce a fragrant orange but sometimes you're just a putrid banana, right? Sometimes what you intend to be an act of love and surface actually ends up being your desire to just get more attention. What you intend to be the fruit of encouragement actually just ends up being a leverage tool so that you can gain that person's support. even when we are trying to do our best, all of our good works are still themselves, not untainted by the reality and presence of sin. So it's messy work, but it's still the work of the Holy Spirit bringing even good fruit, even when we mess up. that even when we do mess up and we confess and we're vulnerable to others asking for forgiveness, seeking wholeness, even that can be the instrument in Christ's hand to bring about glory to His name and deeper maturity in ourselves. I end with this. Fellow colleague and pastor in the PCA, who's pastor in Denver, Colorado, Brandon Washington, writes recently, he and his family live in a community not dissimilar to Columbia. They have a community that has an HOA, an agreement, and what things can be done. If you need a fence, you need approval, and you get the idea. But one of the things that happens every so often is, is that the community receives from the town, they go around and they do, they send around an arborist and they clean up the trees. And so the day arrived where the arborist was coming around to their house and gonna be dealing with all the trees that belong to the city, those that are right up near the streets edge. And he noticed that as the arborist was moving into his neighborhood, they completely bypassed the tree that he felt needed the most work. And so he goes out to the arborist and he says the following. He says, just out of curiosity, I need to ask you a question. Me and my family, we've lived here for seven years and that tree has never born one pear, but it's a pear tree. But you didn't touch it. It's clearly not doing what it's supposed to do. And the arborist responds, that's because it's a domesticated pear tree. Brandon says, wait. What? To which the arborist responds, some fruit trees are both pleasing to the eye and easy to maintain and would be ideal decorative species if not for the messy and inconvenient fruit that regularly falls to the ground and clutters your neat suburban lawn. And if neglected will rot right there where it lays. Thus domesticated fruit trees are trees that have had their fruit bearing genes bred out of their DNA. so that they could be visually pleasing and conveniently maintained with little effort. To which Brandon summarized, domesticated suburbanites wanted a fruit tree without the fruit. It's like a Christian who wants a king without his kingdom and who has literally made the gospel in their own image. when receiving Christ and walking in Christ is integrated, it will bring about the hard and even messy work of having the fruit abound in our lives. But it is work we are called to nonetheless because spiritual maturity and deep spiritual formation is the goal of the gospel, that we would be made like him and for him and to him. as we come to the table this morning, be reminded that it is the Lord, our Redeemer, who invites us, who has set this table to remind us. We can find renewal and newness and strength, not because of anything in the elements themselves, but because of the Holy Spirit that had been poured out on his church. And if we turn to him and we say, Holy Spirit, come and feed us, deeply form Christ in us, that he hears our prayers and he feeds us. because the Lord means to make us more and more into his image for the sake of his glory and the renowned of his name and the extension of his kingdom. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we now ask as we begin this journey of understanding what does spiritual maturity look like? What does it mean for us to be emotionally healthy as those who are followers of Jesus Christ? Father, I pray for your church that you would feed her. that you would mature her, and that the church of Jesus Christ, and that we would bear the fruit of the Spirit, because, oh Lord, by your Spirit, we have received Jesus. We are seeking to walk in him by your strength, and you are bringing about fruit for the glory of your name. Do this, we ask. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.