“Therefore, as you received 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.”
Colossians 2:6–7 · ESV
Ask many Christians how they came to faith and you will hear about grace. Ask how they are supposed to grow and the vocabulary often shifts to effort and trying harder. Few would say it out loud, but for many of us the gospel has become a diving board. It got us into the pool. From here we swim on our own.
J.D. Greear and the Summit Church use a phrase to correct that idea: “The gospel is not just the diving board; it’s the pool.” It is a memorable line, and Paul made the same point to a young church in Colossae.
The Colossians were being offered something more. Others were pressing philosophy on them, along with rules about food and festivals and talk of visions, all promising something fuller than what they already had in Christ. Paul did not answer with a more advanced program. He sent them back to the beginning: “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” The way in is the way on. You received Christ by faith, as a gift, with empty hands. That is how you keep walking. A few verses later Paul tells them why nothing needs to be added: “you have been filled in him.”
Look at the pictures Paul uses. Rooted, like a tree. Built up, like a house on its foundation. A tree never outgrows its roots; the taller it gets, the deeper they go. A house never graduates from its foundation; every floor you add leans on it harder. Growth in Christ works the same way.
Here is where it shows up in disciplemaking. Six months in, your Timothy tells you the same sin has him again. The natural move is a better plan. More accountability. A stricter reading schedule. Some of that may help. But if a plan is all you hand him, you have quietly taught him that grace saved him and effort will mature him. When the plan works he may grow proud, and when it fails he may lose heart.
The better move is to take him back to Christ, and further in than the first time. What did the cross accomplish for this very sin? What does it mean that he is already united to Christ, already forgiven, already filled in him? Obedience grows out of that soil. Scripture never separates the Christ who pardons us from the Christ who renews us. We receive both in him, and we never outgrow either.
Paul practiced this with Timothy himself. Just before 2 Timothy 2:2, the verse this journal is built on, he wrote, “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Only then did he tell Timothy to entrust what he had heard to faithful men. The disciplemaker draws on the same grace he hands on.
None of this makes effort unimportant. Paul says walk, and walking takes work. But it is work done leaning on Christ, not work done to earn him. Mature believers are not the ones who need the gospel less. They are the ones who have found out how much they need it and are no longer surprised by it. Notice how Paul ends the sentence: “abounding in thanksgiving.” That is what grace sounds like when it has gone deep.
This Week
When your Timothy tells you he has failed again, will he hear the gospel from you before he hears a plan?
Go Deeper
The Discipline of Grace
Jerry Bridges (NavPress). On God’s role and ours in the pursuit of holiness, including his well-known counsel to preach the gospel to yourself every day.
The Centrality of the Gospel
Timothy Keller (Gospel in Life). A free paper on how the gospel keeps renewing believers and the church long after conversion: “not just the ABCs but the A to Z” of Christianity.
The Gospel Is Not Just the Diving Board; It’s the Pool
J.D. Greear. A short read on why acceptance in Christ comes before change, and the source of this week’s title.
Ministry Note · Walker State Prison
Commissioning Dinner: Friday, October 30
About 18 men from Living Proof Adventure and Fruit That Won’t Spoil will be commissioned at our next dinner at Walker State Prison on Friday, October 30. Will Campbell, Lead Pastor at Citizens of Heaven, will bring the message, and the men of the Sunday Night Service at Walker State will lead the music.
This time we are grilling cheeseburgers on site, with chips, soda, and dessert, to feed about 430 men and about 20 staff.
The way in is still the way on.
Lee Truax
President, DiscipleMaking Mission
