Marks of Maturity (Part 3)
Ephesians 4:14
Ted Williams, who died in 2002 was arguably the best hitter baseball has ever known. He was the last baseball player to hit better than .400 in a season. Upon his death George Will said in his column "There is no joy in Red Sox nation, a.k.a. New England, or in any heart where baseball matters." One of reasons Williams was unique in his ability to hit a baseball was because of how fastidious he was with the bats he used. For instance he used a postal scale to check that humidity had not added an ounce to the weight of his bats. He was once challenged to find from among six bats the one that was half an ounce heavier than the others without the scale…he quickly did. He once returned to the maker a batch of his Louisville Sluggers because he sensed that the handles were not quite right. The handles were off by five-thousandths of an inch." Some would call him obsessive, but it was hard to argue with the results. Ted Williams knew bats and could detect the smallest discrepancy.
The Apostle Paul has been urging Ephesian believers toward maturity and marking the road with signs on how to arrive there. Paul says a mature church will have a unity of the faith. It is unified in the essential truths of the gospel. Another sign of maturity is attaining to the knowledge of the Son of God. It means we are to be so convinced of who He is and what He has done for us that we respond to Him accordingly. We daily submit ourselves to Him. We daily follow His lead and allow Him to call the shots in our life. We live life in daily dependence upon Him. We respond daily to the reality of Jesus Christ in our life to the point that the balanced character of Christ is replicated or as Paul says, as “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Another signpost to maturity is to be as detailed and concerned for truth as Ted Williams is with a bat. A mature believer will be able to detect even the slightest imbalance or defect and will not be duped. Read Eph 4:11-14.
Our children live in a world that seems more dangerous than the world of my childhood. Even though we were taught as kids not to trust strangers, it wasn’t unusual in many neighborhoods to leave your home unlocked. A child could ride his/her bike in the neighborhood or spend the night at a friend’s house without much worry. We live in a different age now. The divorce rate has caused child-abduction by a parent to be a major concern. The Internet has put the abductor right in the bedroom and dens of our homes as kids communicate personal details of their life online. The Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard cases put fear in already suspecting parents today. In light of the times, how many parents today would allow a grown man who met our eleven year old daughter on-line come over and take her for a ride or visit in the home? It would be unthinkable. And yet many purveyors of false doctrine are welcomed into Christian homes and believers are like naïve children in not recognizing the deceit and putting ourselves in harms way. Here is my premise I hope to convince you of today. In the spiritual realm the dangers of false teaching are just as pervasive and may I suggest just as damaging as sexual abuse or kidnapping.
Certain qualities of a child are not to be emulated, such as being gullible and naïve especially when it comes to the truth of God. We have to teach our children early not to trust strangers because there are certain people who do not have their best interest in mind. The same is true in the spiritual world. Paul says there are some winds of doctrine that will cause a person to be tossed to and fro. This is a way of saying that many believers have no clue as to the implications of some of the beliefs they adopt. The different teachings of philosophers or of religious false teachers are represented as winds, blowing the unstable soul in every direction.
We live in world that says what you believe is all about you having the freedom to choose and no one is to judge your beliefs. To call another person’s system of belief wrong is the height of intolerance and arrogance. In light of the truths of the gospel, to be tolerant of all truth claims is childish naivety. The scripture describes being childish spiritually in a variety of ways. For instance, in Romans 2:20 and again in Galatians 4:3 being childish spiritually is akin to being legalistic and easily swayed by teachers of the law. In I Corinthians 3:1-4 Paul talked about the Corinthians being like infants because they could not eat solid food of the scripture, they were selfish and prideful and they easily succumbed to a partisan allegiance in the body of Christ. The point is being childish spiritually is a measured estimate from God and not just some personality trait or petty criticism. Are you interacting with scripture to where hard sayings are accepted as God’s truth or do you tend to stay away from real intimacy with God? Are you prone to grade the spirituality of other Christians merely through some external, manmade rules and are you highly critical of other believers? Are you trying to adopt a syncretistic view of truth whereby all religions are saying basically the same thing and Christianity has no more truth than any other? These are childish characteristics.
A child is not discerning. A spiritually immature person is tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. When as believers we acknowledge truth as an anchor we are not so prone to have our minds and hearts thrown asunder. The spiritual infant fails to recognize truth from error. Someone looks good or sounds good a child believes him. Listen, a mark of maturity is the ability to make a distinction of truth from error. Paul says a mature person is not carried away by every wind of doctrine. You can discern good doctrine from bad.
For instance in Matthew 15:9 Jesus speaks of vain worship and how there are folks who try to play a religious role, but they teach the doctrines that are merely commandments of men. I Timothy 4:1 speaks of doctrines of demons. Clearly there is such a thing as doctrines not to be believed and followed. The idea that all doctrine is the same or everyone speaks their own truth is certainly not fitting when you can classify some as doctrines of demons. The scripture mentions doctrines that are spoken with ill motives or are packaged with a bunch of man-made rules that take the focus off of Christ. What is especially interesting is that the Bible speaks of good doctrine, ways we can recognize teaching that is on target. READ I Timothy 1:6-11. Notice good doctrine is always followed by right behavior, never is it profane or immoral. READ I Timothy 4:6-12. Good doctrine does not get sidetracked on silly myths. If someone comes along and says they have the secret, they have the key no one else has, the slant for everyone else…they are likely to be avoided. Notice Christ is to be the focus, the source of our hope. All good doctrine points to Christ, not to the achievements of man.
I Timothy 6:3 says, “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions.” Good doctrine aligns with the words of Christ and promotes godliness. It is not prideful, but has the fruit that is befitting of followers of Christ. II Timothy 3:16-17 clearly says good doctrine is that which aligns with the Word of God. Titus 2:7-10 speaks of teaching well with integrity and not for your own personal gain. So the scripture gives us clear boundaries and defines what good doctrine is and what bad doctrine looks like. To say it is all the same or that truth is in the eye of the beholder is simply childish foolishness.
You know why knowing truth is so important? Because Paul says there are those who are crafty and use human cunning and devise schemes to trick the saints. The only other place this word for schemes is used in the NT is in Ephesians 6:11 and it refers to Satan who uses his schemes to attack the saints. My friends we have an enemy and he is wily and tricky and uses deception to bait and trap his prey. Listen to II Corinthians 11:12-15. READ.
Not every spiritual teacher speaks truth and just because they claim to speak for God doesn’t mean they have our best interest in mind. Paul says they do this by being cunning. The word literally means, “cube” and it is used of dice. The idea is that these people are like dice players who use slight of hand to cheat others. Craftiness speaks to someone who is subtle and has an ulterior motive. When the religious leaders in Jesus day tried to trap Him with a question about a coin it says in Luke 20:23, “But He perceived their craftiness.” It is used in II Corinthians 4:2 when Paul speaks about how he and the apostles handled the Word of God with great care, “but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” The English Standard Version says, “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.” There are underhanded ways that some people traffic in religion and they are to be rejected.
Paul had warned the elders from Ephesus in Acts 20:30 that even from their own number “men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.” We can no longer take it for granted that everyone in the church agrees that there is such as good doctrine and bad doctrine. Many minds have been duped to think to call something false or to point to a person and say they are wrong is proud and arrogant. We can proud and arrogant with any position. The point is one does not be necessity have to proud to say there is deception and falsehood. It is actually much more arrogant to claim no truth can be known because one would have to exhaust all truth claims to make such a statement.
Some of the other deceptions that creep into our psyche include the idea that religious beliefs should be kept out of the public square under the guise of neutrality. The claim is that one religion should not hold sway over lives and therefore kept private. Religious based positions are seen as sectarian and too controversial while purely secular positions are touted as universal. But what is religion? Religion is simply a way to answer major questions like who we are, where are we going, what is the purpose of life? We call this a worldview. Every person, including atheists have deep-seated convictions that answer these questions. With a slight of hand like a street card shark, those who oppose Christianity simply want their godless convictions to win the day and silence the arguments Christianity can make on issues. It is ridiculous to ask anyone to forfeit their deep seated convictions to any issue. It is the height of hypocrisy to dismiss your core beliefs in public or private. Besides, which worldview offers a brighter hope for humanity, a more peaceful existence? A godless, evolutionary worldview where might makes right or one that recognizes every person as made in the image of God?
There are many other deceptions that are inserted into our psyche including Isn’t Christianity a straight jacket on our freedom? Isn’t religion the chief cause of wars and conflict? A loving God would never allow hell to exist. It is not that sincere folks can’t ask such questions. The point is they still keep one from seeing God for who He is. These issues all have cogent answers that are satisfying to thoughtful people.
I have no magic wand to wave to help you in this regard. Thoughtful Christians will do the work necessary to arm themselves against such attacks by careful study of the Word of God. Every person needs a set of beliefs that can truly aid them with hope and love and reconciliation. Only the gospel in Christ fits the bill. When truly tested what is fake will fail you. Ask Ivan Segedin. Actually you can’t because Ivan is now dead. You see he lived in New Zealand and was ticketed 32 times for failing to wear a seatbelt. His claim to freedom was costing him some cash so he decided to out smart the cops by wearing a fake seat belt that hung over his shoulder and make it appear he was strapped in, but he was in fact just wearing a strap over the shoulder with nothing to attach to the seat or the door. All was fine and good until he had a head-on collision that threw him into the steering wheel and killed him. Likewise, fooling with philosophies that don’t address adequately the problem of sin and its solution in Christ lead to self-destruction. You say, “OK I get it. But what are we to do in light of all this?” Turn to Jude.
Jude 3 announces that this book is written so that we would contend for the truth or the faith that was once for all delivered to us. Jude was dealing with people who purposely worked against the faith in the church and were trying to pull believers out of the church. We then read in verses 20-23 READ.
Jude says to put ourselves in the best position, the most healthy place we must build ourselves up in the faith, get in the Word, know the Word. We cannot play fast and loose with scripture. Pray in the Holy Spirit. This means to pray with our hearts and minds filled with the Spirit of God, energized by Him. We can’t fake spirituality or play some religious game for others. Our relationship with God is to be sincere, passionate, fueled by the Holy Spirit. Never stray from the love of God. Invariably, all false teaching says we have to earn God’s love through obeying some code or law or system. We must never forget that God’s love is rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ and is always constant. And lastly, we must always look for the coming of Christ as this will impress upon us the urgency to live holy lives to not be ashamed at His appearing.
There are three groups of people addressed here. People in doubt have to be dealt with sensitively and with mercy. They ask honest questions and they don’t need to be criticized, but encouraged. Then there are nonbelievers who fall prey to false teachers and believe something other than the gospel for salvation. These people need the gospel because there is no other salvation from hell other than what Christ provides. Then there is a third group and it is believers who know the truth and deal with false teachers. They are to show mercy with fear because it says they can be contaminated. Say what? People who traffic in false teaching can be so corrupt that the stench of death has polluted them and even their clothing. It is way of saying be very careful because Satan is wily in getting other Christians involved in his web. A mark of maturity will be a passionate concern for truth.
