In for 2024: Christian Maturity
At the turn of every year I pay particular attention to what people say about resolutions. The topic is unavoidable whether it's couched in the language of resolutions, new habits, or month-long commitments adopted in January. This year in my, admittedly very limited, circles I noticed a lot of negative backlash to the idea of resolutions.
First, my teenaged daughter poo-pooed resolutions in favor of “outs and ins”—that is, what is out from 2023 and what is in for 2024. This objection to resolutions is more semantic than anything else, but it’s a telling perspective nonetheless, revealing that resolutions aren’t in style any more; they give off the wrong vibe.
I also came across several more explicitly negative takes on resolutions. There was supergroup boygenius dismissing the “illusion” of New Year’s resolutions. There was the anecdote from David Sedaris first recounting his mother scribbling frantically on index cards every New Year’s Eve, then revealing that upon her death he discovered the stash of these cards, on each of which she had scolded herself, “Be good.”
Although many people view resolutions as a form of shaming, a form of control, even a form of punishment, I’ve never shared such a negative view. I’m not intense about a commitment to resolutions (there are many years I haven’t made formal resolutions), but I’ve benefited from using the change of the year as opportunity to evaluate my life and make commitments to live in a different way.
There’s a sense in which making resolutions is a very Christian practice. Saints throughout the history of the church have made behavioral resolutions inspired by the gospel and God’s Word. Notably, 18th century pastor, Jonathan Edwards while still a teenager in 1722, composed a list of 40 resolutions, and he resolved to read over that list at least once a week.
For Christians resolutions may be an expression of obedience to the gospel! Take my daughter’s language of “outs and ins.” That’s eerily reminiscent of language the Bible itself uses to describe sanctification, when it admonishes believers to “put off and put on.” Resolutions flow out of the Christian understanding of union with Christ which serves both as an anchor for our identity and an engine for our growth in godliness. This means that we never have to keep a resolution in order to belong to God, but that we might make resolutions because we already belong to God and want to reflect God more in the world.
On our Good Morning, City Church podcast last week the first week of January, I introduced the theme of maturity and asked this question: “What would it look like for City Church to commit itself to Christian maturity this year?” That’s a resolution of sort isn’t it? Resolving to grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
I didn’t come up with that language on my own. I took it from Ephesians 4:11-16 where Paul writes, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
This year I’d like for us at City Church to resolve after greater maturity as a church through God’s Word, in our community, and through our speech. Surely there will be other avenues for our pursuit of maturity, but these summarize a few keys ways we can be growing into full adulthood as God’s people.
I started this post describing the negativity I’ve noticed around the idea of resolutions. But I’ve noticed hesitancy around “maturity”, too. But for every believer united to Christ—who knows that faith is both an anchor and an engine—there should be no hesitation towards maturity. Rather, individually and collectively, we should strive after maturity. We should want to grow up into Christ. We should be eager to leave childish ways behind.
A resolution of maturity this year will be good for us, City Church. It will help us to identify what’s behind our existing habits, especially our false loves and our misunderstandings about God’s grace. And it will help us to live more and more in ways that honor Christ and display the power of His Spirit in our lives. So, in 2024, I hope you’ll join with me in resolving after “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”