I mentioned in my blog last week that recently I began working through the book of Proverbs with my two older boys because it’s weighed on me lately how necessary it is for them to develop biblical wisdom in these complicated times. As I’ve worked through the first few chapters with them over the past weeks, some reoccurring themes have surfaced which I’ve tried to firmly pound into their seven- and eight-year-old brains. For one, wisdom is precious and you need to search out for it as diligently as you would dig to find the rarest of gems. Two, true wisdom is intimately connected with your relationship with God. Solomon says on multiple occasions that wisdom and the “fear of the LORD” go hand-in-hand, and both my boys picked up on the repetition of this all-important phrase (cf. Prov 1:7, 29; 2:5; 3:7, etc.).

But the other thing we talk a lot about was the connection between wisdom and consequences. Proverbs, after all, is a book that is focused on practical theology. Solomon doesn’t spend many verses addressing profound theological concepts. He’s far more concerned with showing how theology gets worked out practically in everyday life, and to do that, he reminds his son again and again that the wise person thinks about the consequences of his actions. Wisdom will bring consequences that are good. Foolishness will bring consequences that are bad. It doesn’t really get much simpler than that!

As we continue to look at the marks of a true believer from Colossians 1:9-12, we see that same focus from Paul as he prays earnestly for the believers in the church at Colossae to grow and mature spiritually. If you recall, his first prayer for them was for them to grow in their thinking, and from that we saw the first two marks that characterize a mature believer:

1. A mature believer knows biblical truth (1:9a)
2. A mature believer applies biblical truth (1:9b)

Now, at this point, Paul’s prayer begins to naturally shift from thinking to doing. The whole point of Paul’s initial prayer is so that right theology would translate into right conduct. Too often, Christians want to reverse the order. We want to know how we’re supposed to live, but we don’t really care to understand why we’re supposed to live that way. That’s a perfect recipe for legalism. Paul never operates in that order. The majority of his epistles—think Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians—begin with theological principles and then move onto how those principles apply to the various aspects of life.

Paul makes this clear when he writes,

⁹ And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10)

He introduces the idea of a worthy walk. It’s a concept found in a number of his letters. In Ephesians 4, after Paul expounds three full chapters on the riches of the gospel—how we were once dead in our trespasses, but we’ve been made alive in Christ by God’s grace, and how we’ve been joined together with the Jews into one new man called the church and made coheirs with them, he writes, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Eph 4:1). You know everything that’s involved in that calling—so make your conduct match it.

In Philippians, he writes, “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Phil 1:27). He writes in 1 Thessalonians, “You know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:11-12).

The word worthy carries the idea of weight—a weighty walk. But it’s always a weight in relation to something else—a standard. And the standard of our walk—the weight by which our walk is evaluated—is the Lord Himself. One commentator put it this way: “The saints are to see to it that their manner of life, their conduct, weighs as much as the character of their Lord” (Wuest).

A mature Christian understands the weight of the Lord’s character and live in such a way that his life measures up to that standard. Now, this gets worked out in a number of different ways in the Christian life, and Paul expounds of these in the rest of his prayer. This week, we’ll look at the first two, and we’ll finish his prayer off by looking at the remaining three next week.

A mature Christian desires to please the Lord

The first aspect of mature conduct is seen in the Christian’s motivation. “Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects.” The Christian’s ultimate desire, his ultimate drive in what he does, is to please the Lord. That’s part of the grid through which he evaluates life and makes decisions and ultimately acts.

That’s why later on in the letter, Paul can write, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17). He gives the same idea in 1 Corinthians 10:31—”Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Now, the driving attitude for pleasing the Lord is faith. That’s why the writer to the Hebrews said, “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Heb 11:6). Now, we could talk about faith from two different angles.

On the one hand, it must be said that a person can only please God if he or she really is a Christian. The Bible makes that clear. “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8). It doesn’t matter how hard you try, if you don’t know Christ, God is not pleased with you. You may be an upstanding citizen with no criminal record who helps the poor and contributes to all kinds of philanthropic activities. Your standing before God—a guilty sinner—makes you under his judgment, and while you’re under God’s judgment, he will never be pleased with you.

So, if that’s you, there’s only one path you can take that will please the Lord and that’s the narrow path of repentance and faith. While you’re still in the flesh, you can’t please God (Gal 5:8).

On the other hand, pleasing the Lord as a believer is intimately connected with that topic we discussed at the start of this post: the fear of the LORD. Most things in life shouldn’t be oversimplified and bifurcated, but with the fear of the LORD, it’s a necessity. There’s only two ways to go: you either fear the Lord or you fear man. You either desire to please the Lord or you desire to please man and yourself. It really doesn’t get any more simple, and it shouldn’t.

If “spiritual wisdom and knowledge” (Col 1:9) leads to anything, it should be to the fear of the Lord (cf. Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33). And when you fear God, you aim to please him above anyone else.

The mature Christian produces good works

A mature Christian not only desires to please God in everything, but he produces good works in his life. Paul continues in Colossians 1:10, “Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work.”

The Bible anticipates, expects, even demands, fruit in your life. All the way back in the OT, the picture of Psalm 1 is a picture of the wise man delighting in the Law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night, and so growing like a tree planted next to a canal, strong and prosperous and yielding fruit (Ps 1:3).

Anyone who gardens understands this fact. We plant our crops. We fertilize the soil. We keep it watered. We clear out any weeds that spring up. And we expect that at the right time, there will be a harvest. Our garden will be fruitful. But when that doesn’t happen, is signals to us that there’s something wrong.

And so, one of the ways we can assess our spiritual health and maturity is by looking at what our faith produces. The mature believer understands this connection. He understands that, while he was not saved by any of his own works, he was created by the Master Craftsman who created him “in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).

Now, fruit in the NT takes a variety of forms. In some cases, they are attitudes that begin in the heart but manifest in different ways. Galatians 5:22-23 talk about the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

But spiritual fruit take on different expressions elsewhere in the NT. In Hebrews 13:15, it is the praise that you offer up to God in thankfulness to Him for who He is and what He’s done for you. In Romans 15:28, though, fruit is identified as the freewill offering given by the believers for the poor in Jerusalem. That means that our wallets and our checkbooks become an expression of our spiritual maturity. Not necessarily because of how much we give, but that we give and that we don’t hold onto our money with a stingy attitude. That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy,

¹⁷ As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. ¹⁸ They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, ¹⁹ thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

You see how “good works” gets manifested in the life of a rich person? Generosity. Readiness to share with those who are in need.

So as we wrap up this portion of Paul’s prayer, our portrait of a mature Christian is becoming clearer and clearer. What distinguishes mature Christians from an immature Christians is how they think and how they act. It’s what they will their minds with and what they fill their time with. It’s what they desire to do, and who they desire to please.

And as I’ve been teaching my boys each night in Proverbs, those kinds of decision points–the types of decisions that test wisdom and understanding–they come with consequences. They aren’t benign. And we’re going to see next week how our desire to please the Lord and do good works in our faith lead to spiritual consequences in our daily lives.