09-08-13 How to Become Mature In Christ

Phil. 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;

Last week we pulled together

into three summery statements

a passage in the 3^rd chapter

of the book of Philippians,

a passage that we have been studying for the past several months.

The passage begins with Philippians. 3:7

and runs through verse 16.

And last week I told you that

I saw Paul offering us three major life attitudes in that passage,

three mental fundamentals

that will be a part of the thinking

of all growing Christians.

I want us to return to those three principles once again this morning

because of a comment Paul made

in Philippians 3:15,

a verse we skipped over last week.

It will take me most of the morning

to lay the background

for what I see happening in that verse,

but we will return to it before we close.

I won’t take the time

to read the passage in Philippians 3

that we’ve been studying,

but I do want to begin by restating

the three principles we developed out of that passage

the last time we were together.

Using his own life experience

as an illustration of these principles,

Paul offered us 3 major statements:

#1. Don’t be afraid to bet it all on growing in our knowledge of Christ.

I’m not going to launch into re-teaching

this concept again this morning,

but I do want to emphasis

that Paul is not referring to knowledge

about Christ,

he’s referring to knowledge of Christ.

He is talking about that daily,

sometimes deeply agonizing process

of discovering one step,

one issue,

one churning-point at a time

what kind of God we have.

It’s a little dangerous for me to get going on this again,

but just recently I came across

some verses in Psalm 88

that are great.

The Psalmist is in that churning point,

that agonizing point,

that “God, help me or I die!” point as he writes.

And, as he makes his case to God,

he calls out,

Ps. 88:10 Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You?...

Ps. 88:11 Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in the place of destruction?

Ps. 88:12 Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

That’s great!

He’s saying, “Look, Lord,

The dead can never praise you.

They can never glorify your name in the land of the living.

I’m all you’ve got to work with.

So God, deliver me!

Show yourself strong on my behalf

and I will tell the world what you’ve done.”

That’s all part of the process

of discovering who this God of ours is.

And that is altogether different

from learning Biblical facts about Him.

And then our second life attitude was,

Trust in Christ is not a point, it’s a daily process.

And the third was, Treasure the progress you have made thus far as a precious gift from God.

Those 3 statements are great stuff

just on their own.

But, in verse 15 Paul does something fascinating with them,

something that will make more sense

after we have talked a little bit

about the whole process of

what we commonly call “spiritual growth”.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not,

but the New Testament writers

frequently draw parallels between

physical growth in a person’s life

and spiritual growth in our walk with Christ.

Christ Himself began the parallel

in John 3 when He said to Nicodemus,

John 3:3 ..."Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

He was telling us that

just as there is a point in time

when we are born into this physical world,

so, for every true Christian

there is a point in time at which

we are born into the kingdom of God.

Then this parallel between physical and spiritual growth

is developed throughout the rest of the New Testament.

Both Paul and the author of the book of Hebrews

reprimand their readers

for still being “babies” in Christ.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

1 Cor. 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

1 Cor. 3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,...

And the author of Hebrews

told his readers:

Heb. 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Heb. 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

Heb. 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Heb. 6:1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity...

In I John 3 John directs special comments

to three specific groups of Christians:

he talks to the “little children”,

the “young men”,

and the “fathers”.

In context it is clear that he is using these terms

not to describe three levels of physical maturity,

but rather three levels of spiritual maturity in our walk with Christ.

And in the Book of Ephesians chapter 4

Paul talks about one of the crucial ingredients in this whole growth process.

He talks about the way in which

Christ established certain teaching/leadership gifts within the Body of Christ,

naming them specifically:

Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers,

for the equipping of God’s people.

Then he goes on to say that...

(Eph. 4:14) As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,

The pattern being presented

throughout the New Testament is clear -

we all start out our Christian lives

as spiritual infants.

It doesn’t matter whether we come to Christ

at age 3, or 13, or 30, or 50,

or 70, or 90.

When we enter the family of God

we are spiritual infants.

It’s not wrong to be an infant,

it’s not bad.

When an excited mother lifts the little blanky covering the bundle in her arms

and allows us to see her newborn baby

do we respond by saying,

“OH! How disgusting!

How pathetic!

A baby!

What good is it?

It just lays there all day sucking up milk

and making messes.

Get it out of my sight!”?

Of course not!

We look at the little thing

and share the excitement at this new miracle

and then, perhaps, remember when our child was that age,

and silently thank our Lord

that our children are finally past

the diapers,

and bottles,

and cribs,

and car seats,

and endless sleepless nights that always accompany the first few years of life.

Of course now there’s a whole new set of things going on in our children’s life

that keep us awake all night,

but we’re not going there this morning.

My point is that obviously it’s not wrong to be an infant physically,

nor is it wrong to be a spiritual infant.

It’s a beautiful thing

to be near someone

who has suddenly stepped inside the kingdom of God

and discovered the most amazing new world,

a world they never even knew existed,

a world all filled with the Person

and presence of God Himself,

discovering a multitude of changes

taking place inside themselves

because of the new birth of the Spirit within them.

Many of you know I was a sophomore in college

when I came to Christ.

There is one place in the first chapter of Colossians

where Paul says that God rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col. 1:13).

I recall that contrast of the two worlds so well

when I look back over the contrast

between my freshman

and sophomore years.

I began my freshman year

a faithful member of the religious community.

I went to church,

I called myself a Christian,

I did all the things that Christians were suppose to do.

I had a roommate at the time

who made no claim to being a Christian.

I remember feeling like it would be

a wonderful “witness” to him

if he would see me reading the Bible each night.

So every night before I went to sleep

I would try to remember to drag out my Bible and read a chapter.

Talk about BORING!!

If I wasn’t tired before I started reading

I sure was when I finished.

I kept up the “witness” for a few weeks,

and then just gave up.

Then, almost a year later, after several weeks of my own personal wrestling with my God,

I entered His kingdom

and discovered for the first time what Peter was talking about in I Peter 2:2

when he talked about the “pure milk of the Word”.

What once put me to sleep

now had life, and power,

and the ability to feed my spirit.

It was just one of the exciting new discoveries

as baby Larry was born into the Kingdom of God.

There is, however,

one striking difference

brought out in Scripture

between physical growth

and spiritual growth.

Whereas physical growth is a certainty

in the life of every living human being,

spiritual growth is not.

It is possible,

and in fact quite common,

for baby Christians

to remain baby Christians for years,

or even for their entire life.

This is the exact problem both Paul

and the author of Hebrews were addressing

in the comments I quoted a few minutes ago.

Paul said,

1 Cor. 3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able...

And the author of Hebrews wrote:Heb 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Heb. 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

Spiritual growth,

unlike physical growth,

is under the jurisdiction of the human will.

But not in the way

we are sometimes lead to believe.

A few of you here will remember

the “Leave It To Beaver” television show that was on during my childhood.

I remember a scene from that show

in which the Beaver wanted to try out for some sport in school -

I think it was wrestling,

but the coach had told him

he was about 3 pounds too light

for the weight class he wanted to wrestle.

So the Beaver went home,

got out the kitchen scales,

and started stacking bananas

and apples

and cookies on the scale

until he had three pounds worth.

Right in the middle of this

his older brother came in

and asked the Beaver what he was doing.

Beaver told him he had to gain 3 pounds.

His brother said, “Hey Beave, it doesn’t work that way.”

There is a similar misconception

in the church world,

a misconception that tells us that

BIBLICAL CONTENT=SPIRITUAL GROWTH.

“Read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow...grow...grow.”

Much of our Christian system

thrives on the belief

that we can take a man,

run him through four years of Bible School or seminary training,

fill him full of masses of Biblical content,

and produce a spiritually mature individual who is qualified

to give leadership

and oversight to a body of Believers.

The truth is

knowledge without growth

produces arrogance.

Paul says simply,

1 Cor. 8:1... Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.

Knowledge is an important ingredient

in the growth process,

just like food is an important ingredient in physical growth.

But, just as our bodies must process

and integrate food into our lives

before physical growth can take place,

so Biblical knowledge

must be processed and integrated into our walk with God

before we can grow in the Spirit.

So how do we do that?

Actually, it was that question,

along with Paul’s comment in Phil. 3:15

that got me into this whole area in the first place.

Scripture approaches this call to growth

from two different directions.

First of all,

it offers us the warning signs to watch for that will alert us to

when we are not growing as we should.

One of those warning signs

is revealed to us in I Corinthians 3.

And they are not what we might expect.

We might think the warning signs

would involve things like

not attending church very often,

or not getting involved in the life of the church,

or not reading our Bibles as often as we think we should.

And yet the babies at Corinth

were deeply involved in the life of the church,

they lived for it.

They were actively involved

in all sorts of “spiritual” activity -

spiritual gifts were everywhere.

They were engulfing huge quantities of knowledge,

and their whole identity

was bound up in the church.

And yet Paul called them infants:

1 Cor. 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

And then he tells them why-

1 Cor. 3:3 ...For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

1 Cor. 3:4 For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men?

Do you know what that says?

It says Christians who fight with other Christians over doctrine

are acting like baby Christians.

“My idea is right!”

“No, MY idea is right!”

“No, you got it all wrong. Its obvious to anyone who’s open to the truth!”

“Well, if you want truth, here’s a verse for you...”

“Oh yea, well here’s one for you...”

Paul’s response is simple: “GROW UP!

You’re acting like babies fighting over your favorite toy.

Grow up!”

But Scripture doesn’t just offer us

warning signs of infancy,

it also offers us several powerful descriptions of maturity,

and how we can make maturity

a growing reality in our lives.

And this is where we return to that verse

we started with this morning.

In Philippians 3:15 Paul says:

Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;

Now, for this to make sense I need to let you know

that the word we have translated as “perfect” in this verse

actually means “mature”.

In fact, it is translated as “mature”

in a number of other passages in the New Testament.

In 1 Cor. 2:6 Paul says,

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; ...

that’s exactly the same word.

In 1 Cor. 14:20 Paul says,

“Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be babes, but in your thinking be mature.”

Again, it’s the same word.

And when Paul says,

Phil. 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude...

he is saying, “Would you like to know

the attitudes that are guaranteed

to bring about growing maturity

in your life?

Do you want to not have to just hope,

or guess,

or discover through trial and error

what brings increasing richness

and depth in your walk with the King?

Do you want a path

that is certain to lead you clear

of the deceptive entanglements

and worthless facade

of man-made religious games?

Do you want an approach to your life

that will guarantee that 20 years from now

you will be exactly where your God wants you to be,

doing what He wants you to do?

Well, then, here you are.”

1. Don’t be afraid to bet it all on growing in your knowledge of Christ.

What are you looking for?

Self-worth?

A sense of meaningful identity?

Freedom from guilt?

True security in life?

A life without fear,

without regrets?

Well, what you’re looking for

will be found in the process of knowing Him.

#2.Trust in Christ is not a point, it’s a daily process.

One of Satan’s favorite games

is convincing the believer that there is a quick path,

a secret door to instant maturity.

He’ll tell you it’s this really incredible experience you can have with God,

or with His Spirit,

an experience that will set you above the masses,

and catapult you into the depths of God.

Or he’ll tell you it’s a special bit of Knowledge,

a secret principle,

or special insight that only a few have gained.

Or he’ll tell you that maturity can be yours

through conquering a block of learning,

getting a degree,

or a certificate that declares you ready.

Paul, the most mature Christian on the face of the earth

at the time he wrote,

said, “I’ve never had that experience,

I’ve never gained that knowledge,

I’ve never found anything or anyone on this earth that can certify me.”

Phil. 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

Phil. 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

#3. Treasure the progress you have made thus far as a precious gift from God.

And then, finally - true maturity comes

from clinging tightly

to the progress you have made

not kicking yourself because you are not farther along,

but overflowing with gratitude

because you are not where you once were.

Phil. 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are mature, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you...

The attitudes that lead to maturity

don’t just happen,

they become ours only when we choose to make them ours.

We cannot choose maturity,

but we can choose the attitudes

that will lead us into it.