Welcome to Day 2116 of  Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Becoming A Radical Disciple 3 – Maturity and Creation Care – Daily Wisdom

Putnam Church Message – 08/15/2021

Becoming A Radical Disciple – Maturity and Creation Care

My purpose in this series is to consider eight character traits of Christian discipleship that are often neglected and deserve to be taken seriously. In the past two weeks, we have explored Nonconformity and Christlikeness. Today our focus will be on Maturity and Creation Care. Maturity What would be your answer if I were to ask you to summarize the Christian scene in the world today? While it is somewhat difficult to know with certainty, I would sum it up in just three words, namely “growth without depth.” There is no doubt of the church’s phenomenal growth in many parts of the world, including the western cultures. The statistics of church growth are tremendous. Unfortunately, the news media, even many Christian ministries, focus on the negative aspects. “Explosion” is not too dramatic a word to describe it. It is an exciting time to be alive as a citizen of God’s kingdom. For example, the church in China and India has grown at least one hundredfold since the middle of the twentieth century. More Christian believers now worship God every Sunday in China than in all the churches of Western Europe. Many churches have been forced underground, but persecution has grown and strengthened God’s kingdom throughout the ages. Bible.com and Biblegateway.com have experienced tremendous growth as more people are connected online. Never before have there been so many Biblical resources available today, especially on the internet, where many are either free or very inexpensive. For many years, the top category for podcasts worldwide has been Religion and Spirituality, with Christianity being the majority. A 2021 American Bible Society survey showed that 71% of Americans read the Bible regularly. To make a long story short, the kingdom of God is expanding rapidly, and when Christ returns a second time, it will be to establish His kingdom in a worldwide Eden. With all the negative news out today, this is the Good News that we can rally behind. While this is good news, we have to keep in perspective this is not an indication that many of these people desire to become radical disciples, for it is numeric growth without depth. Therefore, the third character trait of a radical disciple is maturity. A lack of maturity is an issue in western culture and the church worldwide. Church leaders throughout the world indicate that this is an issue. There are superficial disciples everywhere; as we see, there is a massive problem with a lack of godliness and integrity. The church universal lacks a solid biblical or theological foundation of its own. This rapid growth results in an increasing number of immature disciples because few mature, knowledgeable shepherds are available to train the sheep. This fact is one of our calls to radical discipleship. The lack of radical discipleship is not new; the church’s rapid growth fuels it. We can say this because the apostles whose letters we find in the New Testament rebuke their readers for their immaturity and urge them to grow up. Consider, for example, Paul’s critique of the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, “Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.  I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?” Because the church had many immature believers, Paul knew he had to teach them how to mature in their faith. Paul had to teach them (and us) how to become radical disciples. Colossians 1:28–29 So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me. When Paul indicates that he wanted to present the Colossian believers as perfect before God, the word perfect is from the Greek adjective teleios which occurs nineteen times in the New Testament, and whether it is translated “perfect” or “mature” depends mainly on its context. It rarely, if ever, means “perfect” in an absolute sense. Instead, the teleios (person) is contrasted with the child or infant. In this sense “mature”, I think it best to understand the meaning of teleios. Now to grasp the full significance of any biblical text, it is often a good thing to put it in the witness box and ply it with probing questions. So this is what I propose to do with Colossians 1:28–29. The first and essential question to ask concerns the nature of maturity. What is Christian maturity? The fact is that maturity is rather hard to pin down. Most of us suffer from lingering immaturity. Even in the grown adult, the little child is still hiding somewhere. In some people, it is more prominent. The author of Hebrews 5:11-14 explains it this way: There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.  For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right.  Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. Besides, there are different types of maturity. There is physical maturity, having a healthy, well-developed body. There is intellectual maturity, a trained mind, and a coherent worldview. Moral maturity refers to people who have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil, as described in Hebrews 5:14. Emotional maturity means having a balanced personality and being able to establish relationships and assume responsibilities. Above all, there is spiritual maturity. What is that? The apostle calls it maturity “in Christ,” that is, having a mature relationship with Christ. Paul’s most common way of defining Christians is to say that they are men and women “in Christ,” meaning not inside Christ as when our clothes are in a wardrobe and when tools are inside a chest, but rather as the branches are “in” the vine and our limbs are “in” the body, that is, united to Christ. So then, to be “in Christ” is to be personally, vitally, and organically related to him. In this sense, to be mature is to have a mature relationship with Christ in which we worship, trust, love, and obey him. The next question to ask is how do Christians become mature? Our text gives us a plain answer. Consider the basic skeleton of verse 28, “So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us.” To be mature is to have a mature relationship with Christ in which we worship, trust, love, and obey him. The clearer our vision of Christ, the more convinced we become that he is worthy of our commitment. So, to develop true Christian maturity, we need a fresh and authentic vision of who Christ is. One of the most distinct passages of Christ in the whole New Testament is found in Colossians 1:15-20. To be a radical disciple, you must mature in an understanding of Jesus Christ. So let me read that passage. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. We see in this passage that Jesus Christ has double supremacy. He is the head of the universe and the head of the church. He is the lord of both creations. Considering this, we see a dual responsibility for becoming radical disciples: maturity in Christ is the goal for both ourselves and our ministry to others. So then may God give us such a full, clear vision of Jesus Christ, first that we may grow into maturity ourselves, and second that, by our faithful proclamation of Christ in his fullness to others, we may present others mature as well. Creation-care When considering the character traits of becoming a radical disciple, we must not suppose that these are limited to personal and individual spheres. We should also be concerned with the broader perspective of our duties to God and our neighbors. We cannot neglect the care of our created environment. The Bible tells us that in creation, God established for human beings three fundamental relationships: first to himself, for he made them (us) as his imagers. Second, to each other, the human race was plural from the beginning. Third, to all physical creation, the earth and its creatures over which he set them. Moreover, all three relationships were skewed by the fall. First, Adam and Eve were banished from the presence of the Lord God in the garden. Second, Adam and Eve blamed each other for what had happened. Finally, God’s physical creation, the good earth, was cursed because of their disobedience. Therefore, it stands to reason that God’s restoration plan includes our reconciliation to God and each other and the liberation of the groaning creation. We can undoubtedly affirm that one day there will be a new heaven and earth. While many Biblical scholars interpret this to mean that the present heaven and earth will be destroyed, passages such as 2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1 can also be interpreted as being restored to their original state. The earth will be restored to the original Eden, but worldwide instead of just a garden on the earth. Although no one knows for sure, I lean towards this second interpretation because this is what God had intended for Adam and Eve during creation. Either way, this is an essential part of our hope for the perfect future that awaits us at the end of time. It also makes sense as we read the implications found in Romans 8:18–23, “Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.  For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.” What, then, should be our attitude to the earth? The Bible points the way by making two fundamental affirmations: Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. Psalm 115:16 The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all humanity. The assertions that “the earth is the Lord’s” and that “he has given the earth to all humanity” complement rather than contradict each other. For the earth belongs to God by creation and to us by delegation. This does not mean that he has handed it over to us in such a way as to give up his rights over it, but rather that he has given us the responsibility to preserve and develop the earth on his behalf. Genesis 2:14 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.  How, then, should we relate to the earth? If we remember its creation by God and its delegation to us, we will avoid two opposite extremes and instead develop a third and better relationship with nature. First, we will avoid the deification of nature. We are to worship the Creator, not his creation. All such confusions are insulting to the Creator. The Christian realization that nature is his creation, but not the Creator, is an indispensable prelude to the scientific enterprise and is essential to developing the earth’s resources today. We respect nature because God made it; we do not reverence nature as if it were God. Secondly, we must avoid the opposite extreme, the exploitation of nature. In Genesis 1:28, God said, “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’” But it would be absurd to imagine that he who created the earth then handed it over to us to be destroyed. No, the dominion God has given us should be seen as responsible stewardship, not destructive domination. The third and correct relationship between humans and nature is cooperation with God. To be sure, we are a part of creation, just as dependent on the Creator as all his creatures. But at the same time, he has deliberately humbled himself to make a divine-human partnership necessary. He created the earth but then told us to govern it. God planted the garden, putting Adam and Eve in it “to tend and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15). This command is often called the cultural mandate. For what God has given us is nature, whereas what we do with it is culture. We are not only to conserve the environment but also to develop its resources for the common good. It is a noble calling to cooperate with God to fulfill His purposes and to transform the created order for the pleasure and profit of all. Our work expresses our worship since our care of the creation will reflect our love for the Creator. What can the radical disciple do to care for the creation? First, as we have become aware of it, Christians have been concerned about significant and urgent issues in every generation. These have included the evils of disease, ignorance, slavery, and many other forms of brutality and exploitation. Accordingly, Christians have taken up the cause of widows, orphans, refugees, prisoners, and the hungry, eliminating poverty worldwide. It is hard for me to understand that some Christians claim to love and worship God, be disciples of Jesus, and yet have no concern for the earth that bears his ownership stamp. They do not care about the abuse of the earth, and indeed, by their wasteful and over-consumptive lifestyles, they collude in it. God intends our care of the creation to reflect our love for the Creator. As Deuteronomy 10:14 tells us, “Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belongs to the Lord your God.” Some Christian circles may say that God will destroy the world and make it new, so we don’t have to be concerned. What if he restores the world into a global Eden when he establishes His Kingdom on earth?  Do we want to stand before our Creator and answer to Him for the destruction of His creation? Today we have investigated becoming a radical disciples through maturity and caring for God’s creation in which he gave us responsibility. What will you do this week to put these into practice? During this series on becoming a radical disciple, take time each week to read our anchor verses. Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Next week we will consider the traits of simplicity and balance. Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most importantly, your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal. As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Everyday! See you next time for more wisdom from God’s Word!