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Pastors have really big goals for their churches. As a church-planting pastor I know this all too well. Pastors want their churches to be vibrant, they want their churches to serve inside the church and outside, and they want their churches to grow. These are big, audacious goals!

The apostle Paul had even more audacious goals- not for the church as a whole, but specifically for the people of his church. You can read about his goals in Colossians 1:25-2:4. Take a look at these verses from this section.

“... so that we may present everyone perfect (mature) in Christ… so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding.” (1:28, 2:2)

Talk about ambitious goals! Paul wants to present everyone to God as mature Christians in Christ. He wants his people not just to have scraps of truth, he wants them to be rich in it. He doesn’t want them to have a partial, incomplete, half understanding of the gospel. He wants them to get it - really get it in a comprehensive way.

I'll tell you what. It’s no pie in the sky dream that God will bring us to complete knowledge. Christian maturity is not just some big, hairy, audacious goal that’s way out there in some kind of unknowable, possible future. The truth is that by the power of the gospel, that future is arriving right before our eyes, and it might be coming to you more immediately than you think.