"If I have seen further than other men it's because I have stood on the shoulders of giants who have walked before me." - Isaac Newton
Disclaimer: If I have borrowed anything from a sermon you have preached, please consider yourself one of those giants whose path I have crossed at some point in my time. You will find that I have mixes things in that may be from another giant I have encountered somewhere along the way, but also there will be many things that God has inspired in me personally. Every sermon I preach, I give God the glory for and I leave open for anyone to use glean from or to borrow from as well. If I have borrowed anything from you, it is because your message has been an inspiration to me enough that I felt that it, or pieces from it were well worth passing on. I am not writing a book or selling my works, I am simply attempting to help bring folks to Christ, to help them grow in the Lord, and to bring glory to God. I don't take credit even for my own works, I give it all to God. I find that most people I learn from have learn have learned from someone since Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun."
1 Cor. 13: vs. 11
This is known at the love chapter because in it Paul talks about how love suffers long and is kind, does not envy, does not parade itself, is not full of pride and does not behave rudely.
Love is not rude, is not selfish, is not provoked, doesn’t think evil of one another, does not rejoice when one trespasses but rather love rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails.
The Physical Change
And then Paul begins to give an analogy of what it was like to be a child.
(Vs. 11) “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
The Spiritual Change
(Vs. 12) “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
(Vs. 9,10 ) “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part will be done away.”
A. There is apparently some confusion about the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with some desiring the gift of tongues because it was a little more out there. It seemed to be more spiritual because people could see it being put to use unlike faith, hope and love.
B. So Paul is exhorting them to grow up and desire spiritual gifts because they are spiritual and they are there to honor God, not to bring honor or attention to one’s self.
C. He was basically saying that “Nobody understands everything there is to know. Riht now, we just have bits and pieces of insight into these spiritual gifts, as well as into the Kingdom of God as a whole.”
D. In 1 Thess. 15:51 Paul is talking about the Second Coming of Christ, or what we refer to as the Rapture of the church and he says this …. “Behold I show you a mystery.”
So Paul is writing to the Corinthian church and telling them that there are some things that we aren’t going to know in full while we live here on this earth.
1. That is because there is a definite distinction between the spiritual and the natural.
2. But, he says that, as we grow in Christ, as we become more mature about the things of God and begin to understand spiritual things to the best of our ability, we should begin to act as if we are mature and we should put away childish things.
3. Because, he said, “When I was a child I acted like a child and I behaved like a child but when I became a man, I began to behave like a man. I behaved as if I had become more mature, and that happens in both the spiritual and the physical.
4. (1 Peter 2:2) “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation …”
The word desire doesn’t just mean to want something, but it means to literally long for something with all of one’s being .
SOUND FAMILIAR? IT SHOULD!
In Luke 10:25, A lawyer asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?
(Luke 10:27) "And he answered and said, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'” … And your neighbor as yourself.
A.) Jesus expresses this one commandment because it sums up the Top 10 given to Moses in Exodus 20.
B.) In the 10 Commandments the first 4 deal with man’s relationship with God …. Have no other gods before you, set up no idols or graven images, honor His name and keep it holy.
This requires loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind.
C.) In the next 6, He deals with man’s relationship with his fellow man….
This requires loving your neighbor as yourself….. Or, in other words, treat him the way you would want to be treated.
All of these things come with spiritual maturity, but they also come with a physical, mental and emotional maturity, as well.
- We need to learn how to behave like grown-ups.
- We can’t always behave like children.
We would become concerned about our children if they grew, as far as age goes, but didn’t mature as they got older.
The same is true with pastors … we become concerned about people who don’t seem to mature in the things of God.
All they want to do is live off of the milk of the word.
(Hebrews 5:12) “You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.”
1. You’re not little kids any more but you act like it.
2. You’re still wanting people to teach you and babysit you when you should be the ones doing the teaching.
i. There are people who will get upset if the pastor doesn’t get around to shaking their hand before or after the service.
ii. I had someone say about a church he attended one time that the pastor paid attention to him long enough to get him and his family into the church then he moved on to another new family and didn’t pay much attention to him any longer.
Well, after a while, you shouldn’t need the preacher holding your hand and making you feel good because you came to church on Sunday morning.
• As you mature in the things of God, such things should just come naturally.
• After a while, instead of someone greeting you and telling you how nice it is to have you this morning, you should be going to new ones and visitors and telling them how nice it is to see them here this morning.
• We become grown-ups
• We begin to behave like grown-ups
NOTE: We are referred to as being the sheep of Jesus’ pasture…..
- If you know anything about sheep, you know there is a distinct difference between a baby lamb and a mature sheep.
Little lambs need to be led around, watched after and protected.
(Luke 17:1,2) Jesus is giving us a lesson on the difference between little lambs and mature sheep.
1Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that temptations to sin will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
2It would be better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he was cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3Take heed to yourselves: If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
4And if he trespasses against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him.’
As a shepherd, Jesus was very protective of his little lambs…
- So much so that he put out the word and made it clear that if anyone caused one of them to stumble and fall, it would be better that a millstone be hanged around his neck and he be cast into the sea.
But then He went on to talk about maturity and said but you should be mature enough that if your brother offends you or trespasses against you, you should be grown up enough to forgive them.
What that means is:
1. We don’t start an all-out church war because someone did us wrong or hurt our feelings.
2. We don’t get upset and quit because someone else got more attention than what we got.
3. We don’t run around talking behind people’s backs because they were asked to do something and we weren’t.
No, we behave like mature adults … both spiritually and physically.
- Both spiritually and naturally.
1 Corinthians 3:1- 4 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
They were arguing over who they were following …..
For some, it was Paul, others Apollos and so on…
Whereas, they should all be followers of Christ (A MATURE CHRISTIAN WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT)
- Many of you have been serving God long enough you should be taking on leadership positions
- Many of you have been in this church long enough you should be bringing others to Christ
But again, there is a message here to Christians pertaining to our behavior in the church and out of the church.
A. It’s not about just growing up spiritually.
B. But our spiritual growth should also help us to grow up as far as our everyday behavior goes.
I’m going to be vulnerable before you this morning and tell you that it wasn’t always easy growing up in the shadow of 14 big brothers and sisters. And yes, I grew up the youngest of 15 children.
- It wasn’t always easy being the baby of the family.
- Being the last one born into the family, my parents (well, especially my mom) didn’t seem to want me to grow up.
- They had a tendency to want to be willing to do things for me and I had a tendency to be willing to let them do it.
It made things easier on me, at the time.
But as I got older, it really made things more difficult for me because I had never learned to do things for myself.
I had learned to become dependent and remained that way for well into my adulthood.
My parents didn’t teach me about how to handle money or to handle a checking account.
They didn’t teach me that taking out a loan meant there were certain obligations that came with it.
What I did learn real quick was that if I missed a payment, mom or dad or someone would make sure it was taken care of.
- That didn’t really help me in retrospect.
What it did teach me was a false sense of security because that couldn’t last forever.
That was going to have to change at some point and the sooner the better would have been more helpful to me in the long run.
I’m not passing the buck and placing all of the blame on someone else. I should have known better but being over protective isn’t always the best way to help someone learn responsibility and independence.
Paul said, when I became a man, I put away my irresponsible ways, and I became a man.
- I acted like a man.
- I behaved like a man.
Today one of the problems we face in our society is that we have babies having babies and they aren’t ready for the responsibility of becoming a mother or a father.
They tend to think that just because they have learned what sex is, they can have all of the fun without having the responsibility that comes with it.
And it’s not just the young children who are behaving irresponsibly.
• Abortions today are so commonplace that even older women are getting pregnant and deciding they don’t want the responsibility of a baby that the best way to handle it is just get rid of it.
• And so because of their decision to end the pregnancy, another unborn infant becomes a statistic and joins the hundreds of thousands of babies who die every year at the hands of an abortion doctor.
… And we hear things like, “Well, the father didn’t want anything to do with it and I couldn’t raise the baby on my own.”
Having irresponsible sex is bad enough, but to add to that is having unprotected sex and suddenly the lives of two young people are changed and at times the life of a third one is ended.
Paul said that there comes a point when we are to grow up and to put away childish behavior.
o So are you saying that I should become mature enough to NOT make any mistakes?
- A.) There are two things about maturity that should be true when it comes to making mistakes as a mature person, and even more so as a mature, Christian.
As we mature physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we should get to where we make fewer and fewer mistakes.
We shouldn’t be making the same mistakes over and over.
- B.) And secondly, we should be mature enough to take ownership of the mistakes we do make.
I know people who seem to always make their mistakes someone else’s fault.
It seems as if they never do any wrong.
There is always a reason and the reason doesn’t usually come back to them.
I had someone accuse me of it being my fault that they would outright lie to me.
They didn’t want to lie to me, but the problem was, I expected them to take responsibility for their actions and whenever they would explain their behavior, I apparently forced them to lie because I wanted them to tell me the truth.
“And if I didn’t push them for the truth, then they wouldn’t have to lie to me.”
I have a difficult time seeing that as “mature” thinking, or mature behavior.
When I became a man, I put away childish things.
o I began to behave like a grown-up
Parents, are you helping your children or are you hurting them by being overly protective?
Are you teaching them to take responsibility for their behavior?
Are you teaching them a learned behavior in allowing them to continuing to do wrong?
It’s a question every parent has to ask themselves at some point in their life.
Maybe on many occasions in their lives.
Let’s go back to those Top 10 Commandments God gave to Moses….
- Children, honor your parents that your days be long upon the earth.
1. We don’t do our children justice by letting them talk back and be disrespectful, as children.
2. As parents, we must know that if we are going to expect our children to take on more and more responsibility as they get older, we must also learn to let them take the responsibility of being irresponsible.
3. It’s important for them to learn early that there are consequences for their actions.
4. So just how do we know when to say NO to those we love?
a. We must learn to distinguish between when we are truly helping them out and when we are simply enabling them to continue on with the unhealthy behavior, whether it’s physical, emotional, social or even spiritually.
Solomon said that we are to “Train up a child in the way they should go.”
- That means teaching them right from wrong, good from bad and training them how to make good, healthy decisions.
By teaching them to become mature, we teach them to put away childish things …
“I spoke as a child, …. I REASONED AS A CHILD”
• Now, as mature adults we must learn to reason what is the best decision for us to make when it comes to making important decisions.
• We don’t just jump into irrational, unreasonable decisions that will cost us long term consequences.
o We learn to make decision, understanding that places where you can give them your car title or borrow against your paycheck at a rate of about 24 % isn’t one of the smartest moves.
o We learn to distinguish between our wants and our needs and we use rationale in deciding between the two.
- We need to be, and we need to teach our children to be men and women of character …
- “But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
After removing Saul from the throne, God made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (Acts 13:22)
- But we learn, as we talked last week, that we teach not only by words, but we teach by example’s sake.
Our children watch the deals we make with others
They watch the way we are at church …
The way we are toward our fellow Christians
The way we are toward sinners who come through the doors of our church
Whether we are talking about others behind their backs while pretending to be nice to them to their face.
They even notice whether or not we become involved and help carry the load of the church or whether or not we just let others do all the work.
They notice whether or not we support what we say we so strongly believe in.
When I was a child I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child, I behaved as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Spiritually speaking --- we see now as if we are looking in a mirror, dimly, but there will come a day when we will see things face to face, with understanding.
• People say, The first thing I’m going to ask God when I get to heaven is …..
• You won’t need to ask anything at that point because then we will see things face to face….
o We will understand fully
But for now, we seek to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
-To mature spiritually as well as physically, emotionally and all other ways.
