Series: Growing Up Into Christ
#3: Life of Discipleship
Colossians 2:6-7 (NRSV)
By John Gill ~ January 15, 2023

This morning, we are continuing our series of sermons on life’s spiritual journey, a series I’m calling “Growing Up Into Christ.” That title is based on a scripture from Ephesians, chapter four: “We must no longer be children… but… must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Whether we realize it or not, we all are on a spiritual journey that, if we stay on the path, will lead us into the very heart of God. The series of sermons is designed to help us along that “critical journey.”1

As you know by now, my series is loosely based on the book, The Critical Journey1 by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. They identify various stages we must all pass through as we “grow up into Christ.” These stages are: Our Recognition of God; The Life of Discipleship; The Productive Life; The Journey Inward; The Wall; The Journey Outward; and finally, The Life of Love.

Last week we considered the first of the stages in our life’s spiritual journey – our very first recognition that God is real and that this God has a claim on our lives. We called this “our epiphany,” the moment in our life that was a spiritual “Ah-ha” that sparked our desire to come to know this God. Thus begins our spiritual journey.

The second stage in our journey is, what Hagberg and Guelich call, “The Life of Discipleship” – the exploring and learning stage as we seek to find meaning in our experience of the Divine. They describe this stage as “a time of learning and belonging.” Because of our encounter with the Divine that initiated our desire to seek for meaning, “stage two frees us to explore, to learn, to quest, to absorb, to put into place our set of beliefs or faith principles.” In this stage, we learn the most about God as God is perceived by other more mature believers and teachers we respect and trust. We are apprentices. It is a time to be with other people in that process, a social time with companion searchers on the journey. Because we are relatively unsure and insecure at first in our growth and in what we believe, it is very useful to include others in this phase. In fact, it is crucial to this phase of the journey. We are taught by others…” In Stage 2, “we clearly are learners, not teachers.” 2

The first stage, our Recognition of God – our initial personal encounter with the Divine – is by its very nature individualistic. But if we are to move forward toward the heart of God, we must seek out others to help us along our path. We need a community of fellow seekers and learners, as well as trusted teachers to show us the way.

That’s why it is especially appropriate that we are receiving new members this morning. Not that those who have just joined are at the starting-line of faith – some may be, but others are already well-established Christians. But it is fitting that we receive members this day when our theme is “The Life of Discipleship,” because central to the act of “joining a church” is becoming a part of a faith-family of fellow seekers who can help us along the spiritual path and give us a sense of

belonging. Joining a congregation is also a commitment that you intend to become a learner under the tutelage of spiritual teachers and guides. “Joining the church” or baptism is the ritual act of becoming a disciple of Jesus.

In considering what scripture to use for our reflection this morning, I have chosen two verses from Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae. I think these short verses encapsulate this second stage of becoming a disciple:

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7)

What does this text teach us about the Life of Discipleship? I believe there are four lessons based on each of the phrases of these verses:

The first phrase, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord…” tells us that, key to moving forward in maturity, we must accept what God has done for us in Christ. The phrase itself makes this plain, it assumes that you can’t be a Christian disciple unless you accept that God has shown mercy on us and forgiven us of our sins – our faults and failings – through the gift of his Son, “Christ Jesus the Lord.”

Now, at this stage, obviously a person doesn’t fully understand all that this profession of faith in Jesus means – we will have a lifetime to figure that out. It means that, even with our limited understanding, we are willing to respond to God’s overture of love – in Jesus. In doing so, we experience forgiveness of our sins and failings, and are thankful for God’s grace and mercy in our lives that give us a fresh start.

So, “receiving Christ Jesus the Lord…” is the point of our transition from Stage 1 into Stage 2. I hope each of you have taken that step – if not, I urge you to do so today. You can’t proceed deeper in your faith until you have “received Christ Jesus the Lord.”

Now we are ready to grow in our faith. The next phrase spells that out: “continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him…” This part of the text tells us that this “discipleship” stage is really an ongoing process. Faith is not merely the acceptance of a set of beliefs that we agree to when we join the church – as if we were simply “checking the box” for our salvation, and then free to continue to live any old way we want to. Now we are on a life-long journey of discipleship, as we “continue to live our lives” in Christ. To do this, we have to be intentional in learning all that it means to follow Jesus.

In the first chapter of this same letter (vs. 9-10), Paul writes this: “We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.”

During Stage 2, we seek to grow in the knowledge of God. Are you growing in your knowledge of God? If not, there are many opportunities to do so here at Tomoka United Methodist. We offer Sunday School, Bible Studies, and soon the opportunity to join a covenant learning group we are calling “Plus One” Groups, designed to help you do just that. I hope you will take advantage of these learning opportunities.

The next phrase describes this process: we must be “rooted and built up in him…” The translation we read, the New Revised Standard Version, seems to imply that this faith is an accomplished fact – that we have achieved deep rootedness and already have well-established faith structures. That is one way to translate the phrase. But a better rendering would be more dynamic – that each of us are a “work-in-progress.” Listen to the way The Amplified Bible renders this verse: “Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith…”

Stage Two in our faith journey may well take many years to complete – and many people get stuck there, because they fail to invest the time or effort to learn what it means to be a fully-devoted follower of Jesus. But if we will stay-the-course in our journey, we will send the roots of our very being down deep into the bedrock of Christ, and we will let the Holy Spirit build our lives upon that firm foundation.

Which brings us to a third point from this scripture: “established in the faith, just as you were taught…” As disciples, we are learners. We are apprentices. We have to receive instruction in the faith.

We do this in several ways. By being part of a faith community of fellow seekers, we learn from one-another. All of us are at different stages on our own life’s spiritual journey. By attending Sunday school, Bible studies, and having spiritual conversations with others, we learn from their knowledge and benefit from their life-experience. This is why “community” is so essential to this stage of our development. We also seek out spiritual teachers to learn from. It’s one of the reasons our denomination has such high educational standards for our clergy – it is essential that every preacher in a United Methodist pulpit is knowledgeable about the Bible and theology, and has moved far down the spiritual path themselves.

This is also why my sermons contain lots of “teaching” in them. Throughout my ministry, people have always said that I am a “teaching preacher.” I happily claim that description because I take seriously my role as teacher of those who are just now in this stage of learning to be a follower of Jesus. I know most of you will not attend a Bible study or Sunday school – so I believe it is imperative that my messages both inspire and teach. I hope that they do both.

Slide #9

The final phrase of this scripture is the wonderful benefit of being faithful in this stage of growing as a disciple: “abounding in thanksgiving.” Or as The Message translation expresses it in modern language: “…do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.”

Being a learner should not be a chore, nor drudgery. The more we learn about what God has done for us in Jesus, the more gratitude we feel – and the more we want to learn. And the end-result is a sense of joy and thanksgiving that fills our life and spills-over into the lives of others.

Yes, the life of discipleship should be one of the most satisfying seasons of our spiritual life, though as with all the stages, we must not stop there. Once we are “established in the faith” (as Paul puts it), we must begin to put our faith into practice – we must live productive lives for the Kingdom of God. That is the theme for next Sunday’s message, a sermon that will be brought to you by Mary Yochum. She is one of our Lay Servants, and will be filling in for me as I recover from having all my wisdom teeth out this Friday. Pray for Mary – and for me!

As with each of these stages, there are positive and negative outcomes we can experience.

On the positive side, this Stage 2 is made possible because we have experienced God’s love – that when we say “yes” to God, our faith in Christ brings us forgiveness of our sins. We are freed from our load of guilt and begin life with a fresh start. We take to heart the words of that great hymn: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now and found, was blind but now I see!” It is an exciting and joyous time as we discover the depth of faith that can be ours. It’s just the beginning for us, but we feel as if we’ve reached a summit already! And we are grateful.

As I’ve already mentioned, this stage is beneficial in our journey because it draws us to a faith community where we have a new sense (perhaps for the first time) that we have a place where we belong – a place of love and acceptance and grace where we feel secure and encouraged and hopeful.

We also gain in our faith as we learn who we are in Christ, owning our identity as a beloved child of God. We learn through the study of the scriptures and the teachings of trusted faith-leaders the tenets of our faith and what God expects of us as we strive to draw nearer to him. We develop a level of trust, and pledge ourselves to obey.

All people who have called themselves “Christians” down through the centuries have at least moved into this stage, and those who continue to move forward grow as disciples until they become productive in their service to God. That is the positive aspect of this phase.

But, as with each stage, there are a number of possible negative outcomes – dangers we must avoid at all costs:

The main danger is that, because of our growing knowledge of the Bible and the doctrines we have been taught, we now think we have “figured out” God and what God expects of all followers of Jesus. In our enthusiasm for how far we have come, we can fail to recognize that we are still quite immature in our faith. In fact, we are still insecure – our faith is not yet fully developed. In an attempt to reinforce our newly-formed beliefs, we may begin to cling to the doctrines and rules we

were taught too rigidly, in an attempt to reassure us in the rightness of our beliefs. And we can become insistent that others also adhere to those same doctrines and religious rules. We become arrogant, insensitive, and uncompromising.

Jesus encountered such people among the religious elite – especially the Pharisees. They were the supreme “rule-keepers,” who demanded that everyone adhere, not just to the Ten Commandments, but obey every “dot and tittle” of the laws regulating Jewish life. And Jesus would have none of it. In Matthew, chapter 23, we read Jesus’s condemnation of the legalistic Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

Those Pharisees were stuck in Stage 2 of their Spiritual Journey. They had proclaimed themselves to be the referees of religion. They would declare people “faithful” or “sinners” based on their own narrow legalistic interpretation of the religious rules that they believed were essential to faith. And in the process, they completely missed the truth that Love is more important than obeying Rules.

Father Richard Rohr, my favorite interpreter of the Christian faith alive today, also has developed his own version of the stages of the spiritual life. His Stage 2 is very similar to the stage from our study that we are considering today. This is how he describes the danger of this stage:

“Most of human history up to now has been at stage 2 and, frankly, much of Jesus’s teaching is aimed at this level because it is all about purity codes, debt codes, dogmas, and external rituals-because that was the stage of most of his listeners.

At stage two, (Rohr says) your concern is to look on the outside. Your concern with pleasing the neighborhood, the village, your religion, or your kind of folks becomes such a way of life that you get very practiced at hiding or disguising any contrary evidence. That's why it is so dangerous…”3

When in our enthusiasm for our new-found faith, we cling too tightly to the rules of faithfulness that we were taught, we may conclude that others who may believe differently are wrong or bad. We may try to protect ourselves and our still fragile faith by not associating with people who do not believe as we do, or by actually taking an aggressive stance against them. We can close ourselves off from others, and stop listening to them, lest they threaten our belief system. We can begin to define ourselves by who we are NOT: we are not like those OTHER people – who we believe are wrong in their belief (because theirs differs from ours), or that they are heretics and evil.

Rohr addresses this as well:

“In stage 2 you have to start pretending that you ARE what looks good to your group and your religion. Your whole identity becomes defending your external behavior as more moral than other people, and defending your family, your community, your race, your church or temple or mosque, and your nation as superior to others. This is tribal thinking.

It is a necessary stage, however, so that you can feel like you are chosen, are significant, or have dignity. It gives you a strong sense of your identity and boundaries, which serves you well as a child. But many people remain trapped there, a worldview of win/lose and good guys/bad guys. Far right-wing thinking – the false conservative, in any country and in any religion – largely proceeds from stages one or two.”3

This can lead to infighting within our nation, our communities and congregations, and between churches – as we reject one another. Sadly, we are seeing this play out in our society today – and even more tragically, within the United Methodist Church. Some clergy and congregations seem to be more willing to separate from their sisters and brothers in Christ than to remain in fellowship – because they are more interested in enforcing rules than in extending grace.

We all must be careful that we don’t allow misplaced zealotry for what we see as “Truth” lead us to abandon Jesus’s command that his disciples love one another. When we begin engaging in these destructive behaviors, we are no longer on the Spiritual Path, but have lost our way.

So, let us stay on the path, recognizing that we are all “works in progress.” We are grateful to God for our new life in Christ. We are eager to learn of him. We find our place of belonging among fellow seekers who are also on a spiritual path. And we live a new life in him.

Stage 2 is a wonderful stage, so long as we don’t fall into the trap of arrogance and legalism and judgmentalism, and thereby come under the condemnation of Jesus, having (in Jesus’s words) “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”

Instead, let us remain humble, loving others as they are, while at the same time encouraging them in their own spiritual path. Or as Paul put it: Let us “continue to live our lives in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as we were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”4

That, my friends, is the only path that can lead us to the very heart of God – as we “grow up into Christ.”