The Five R’s to Christian Maturity
Receive: By Faith
Repent: Change of Heart
Remorse: Forgiveness of sin
Relationship: Build (Baptism) or Restoration
Righteousness:Maturity
Receive: By Faith
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Eternal Life is a gift given to us freely. We are told that whosoever believes in Jesus shall be given eternal life.Do you believe in Him?This is the first step to complete salvation, however, at this very moment, if you said yes, I believe then you have been given the gift of eternal life.It is what you do from this point on that determines whether you go beyond this or not.It is a decision you have to ask yourself.Do I believe?Then, do I want more?
John 1:12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Yes, if you will receive Jesus in your heart then you too can become an heir to the kingdom. Believing on Him shall grant you admission, and for some that may be enough. However, for most it will not be enough. How can this be explained?I do not wish to just enter into a restaurant, I wish to partake of the food.If I open the doors I can enter the place, however, if I do not go inside, sit down and order the food I will only have gained access to the place.If I buy a ticket to a football game, it gives me the right to enter the stadium. However, if I stand just inside the gate and don’t go to my seat, then I cannot enjoy the game.
You can receive the gift but then you must push for more.Just gaining admission to Heaven should never be enough for us. We should want to become children of God and strive to seek the kingdom. We will be covering these steps as we continue through this message. After we believe in Jesus then we can start moving forward.Now we have eternal life, so what do we do from here.
Repent: Change of Heart
Acts 3:19:Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
Here we are not being told to confess sin. We may not even know what we would be confessing at this point. All we probably know is that some Pastor or maybe a friend, who is a Christian, has told us that we are sinners. We will cover this in more detail later. This is not where we are going to cover sin. Instead we are going to talk about the important stuff. The changing of one’s heart.
You have to understand that it is through the heart that one feels emotion, and then our minds allow us to choose how to act or react to that emotion.If we believe in Jesus then we will also believe in Him who sent Jesus. This may sound alittle complicated but I am trying to make very understandable. I want you to understand God asks that you believe in Him, and just for that alone He gives you eternal life. Now that you believe in Him, then we have to start working on becoming like Him. So this is accomplished through a few steps.
The first, and most difficult I think, is the changing of one’s heart. It is the changing of one’s attitude towards life and people.It is changing your heart into a heart that is full of love. We have to choose to allow the heart that is full of love to act out according to love. We have to allow the heart to choose the direction for the mind; we have to allow our hearts to dictate to the mind. We, all too often, have an emotion and do not act on it.This I can explain a couple of ways.Suppose we suffer an emotion of pain or anger.Do we allow that emotion to control our actions?Or, do we allow the love to control our actions?See, God hates sinners and hated the world.Therefore, He destroyed the world by flood once. Then, instead of destroying the world again, He reached out with love and compassion that is incomparable to any you have probably seen. He sent the ultimate sacrifice to earth.He sent His Son to earth. He removed Him from the comfy confines of a mansion and sent Him down to earth. He was born to a poor carpenter and was, by no means, living like a king here.
Therefore, through love we learn to act in love. We learn to reach out to people and we learn to serve. Then, the second step is the repenting of the heart. We need to change the heart and allow the Holy Spirit to fill it with love. You need to allow the love of Christ to be ever present in your heart and allow the mind to be acting in love.Then, after we have changed our heart and begin to study the Word, then we become remorseful.
Remorse: Forgiveness of sin
A sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone. A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different. regrets A courteous expression of regret, especially at having to decline an invitation.
Now that we have started on our journey in Christianity, it is time that we start to learn more about God and about ourselves. We have a new heart now, a heart of love. The repentant heart then pushes us into an area of learning. Now is when we start to dig into the Word. We start to understand why Jesus came and what He did for us.Up until this point we merely needed to believe in Him and in Him who sent Him. Through this belief we began to have a changed heart. It is through the repenting process that we begin to understand the love God has for us. Through the understanding of the love He has, we begin to seek out answers.
Romans 7:7
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet
We start to learn of the law.Many will go to the ten commandments and that is good.However, that is not necessarily what we need to seek.We need to understand the law, and the ten commandments are the old testament laws.Christ, by coming to earth, fulfilled the old testament law.However, He did not destroy it.
Matthew 22:36-40
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Here Christ tells us that all the commandments are law based.See, if we love and act out of love we will not break the law.It is because of a loving heart that we suffer remorse. Until that point we are not able to truly seek forgiveness of sins. If we do not have the knowledge of the law we cannot have remorse for breaking it.
Another important issue I need to point out, until the point of understanding and having the knowledge we have no remorse. No remorse and, therefore, we would not have confessed the sin.However, there is still good news.
Acts 10:43
To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
In this verse we are taught that whosever believeth in God shall have remission of sin (Forgiveness; pardon.).God knows the human heart.He knows that due to a guilty conscious we would not be able to accept the gift freely and to begin a relationship. He releases us from that guilt. He gives us remission of the sins we have committed. He doesn’t ask for us to seek forgiveness, He has already given it.We start with a new slate. Our past is wiped clean and we are pardoned. God wants us to come as we are, He wants us to be able to come to Him and to be able to receive eternal life. Therefore, He has taken away the obstacles. He has pardoned the sin, no need to make up for things done in the past.Unlike a relationship here on earth, where if we do wrong, ask forgiveness and most likely prove that it would not happen again, we don’t have to ask Him for forgiveness.God is not asking you to give excuses.He is not asking you to prove you won’t sin again.He is not asking you to make promises. He is merely asking you to believe upon Him and to love Him with all your heart, body and soul.
Matthew 22:37
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Now we can start to really build a relationship.We begin to understand things a little. We begin to have remorse not for the past but for things present.God wants us to be His children. The importance of remorse is in the relationship from this day forward.It is important and a need for us to have remorse for sins we will commit.It is through this remorse that we are able to move forward.We are able to understand the law and the commands.It is after we have the knowledge that we have remorse.Now let us continue with the relationship we will have with Christ.
Relationship: Build (Baptism) or Restoration
I feel it is important for us to understand that our relationship starts the day we believe in Him.The relationship process could be one of restoration of the relationship or building a new one.Most Christians and churches believe, and teach, that your relationship with Christ starts with your public confession of Jesus.But understand this is not a confession of sins to Jesus, it is by your own mouth confessing Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
The baptism is the act of one professing their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, being washed clean and being risen to a new life in the Spirit.It is a life that will begin as little children. Baptism is the public act of confessing Christ. However, is not the beginning of the relationship. By the point of baptism, most have already done some studies in the Word. They have been counseled by the Pastor or others in the church. You will have had a thorough understanding that God sent His Son to die on the cross and was resurrected three days later. So to say that baptism is the start of the relationship would be wrong. The relationship started the day you believed on Him.Baptism is the public display to others of your relationship with Christ. It is the act of the old self being buried and the new creature being raised.
Romans 6:4
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life
You understand that as a Christian we are a new creature. We are converted and become like little children.
Matthew 18:3
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Now as children we need to be nurtured, we start out with milk and grow into the meat. Your Christian growth is the same as your human growth.You start out very basic and simple (milk) and advance through stages until you reach maturity (meat).In our human life we start out going to preschool, and work our way up through high school and then maybe even college.It is the same in our spiritual life.We may start out with alittle at a time until we come to a better knowledge of God’s Word.We have to start out slow and easy.God doesn’t expect you to start out in "high school".He expects you to start out drinking the milk.
Hebrews 5:13
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
As a new Christian we have attained the right to become children of God.Now we must begin to grow. We start out in a infant stage, getting the milk. Then we start to learn the Word and begin to apply it to our lives each day. We learn more and more each day until we reach the age of maturity.
Let’s look at it this way if it helps to understand a little better. As a child we attend grade school, then Jr High School and high school. We study the same subjects year after year however, each year it becomes a little more indepth and a little harder.God’s Word is to be taken in the same way.We start out with the easy on the surface stuff (the Milk) then we dig in deeper and deeper (the Meat).We start to learn more and more until we get to that point where we have graduated school.Even though there are always new things to learn, God’s Word is the same.The more we read it and the more we study it the more we learn from it.We will eventually get to the mature Christian stage (adulthood). We will never know all there is to know. We will never stop learning. However, we will be at the point where we can begin to seek righteousness.We can begin to teach others and start to store our rewards. Let’s look at Christian maturity or righteousness.
Righteousness: Maturity
Romans 3:20
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Now we have finished school and we have to start applying what we have learned.First, we have to acknowledge that we are sinners.Therefore, we all fall short of the glory of God.We start to work on earning the rewards in the kingdom of God.We have been taught, we have been given the knowledge and now we must apply that knowledge to our lives. We must become more Christ-like each day.Up to this point we have been working on building a relationship with Christ here while we are on the earth.Now is the time we start to work on gaining entry to the kingdom.
Righteousness is not a one time thing. We have to continually prove our righteousness. We have to continually do good works.God gave us the gift of eternal life.He wiped away our past sins and He gave us the abilty to become children of God.We have to accept our heritage.We become children of God, then we become Christ-like.It is now up to us to take the knowledge and apply it.
God has given us the right to inherit the kingdom.He has not held any of us back.It is we who have held ourselves back.Through our choices, we have proved ourselves unrighteous. God gave us eternal life by sending Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins.Christ, the only One ever to be free from sin, shed His blood to pay our debt.The debt has been paid in full and we cannot earn eternal life. What we do earn is the right to the kingdom of heaven.It is by our works, by what we do, what we say, and how we live that we earn the right to become heirs to the kingdom.
People, understand this please, God loves you!He sent Jesus Christ to this earth to live among men and to suffer a horrific death for you.Jesus Christ paid your debt, and you can have eternal life. Eternal life is a free gift, all that is needed is to believe in Him.If you believe in Jesus and in Him who sent Him, you have already been given the gift.It is after the gift that you decide where to go from there.
Another example might be this.You receive a gift of a piano.It is a gift.You can do nothing with it or you can decide to take the gift and use it. You begin by just hitting the keys and making noises(milk), then you progress through learning and start to play practice notes. You learn the keys and the notes. Then you finally learn a song, then more and more (meat).Now you have the wisdom and knowledge to read music and play songs.You can just sit on the knowledge or you can put it to use. It is up to you what you do with it. Are you satisfied with just the gift (eternal life), or do you learn to play it (relationship)? Are you happy at just playing or do you want to share the joy and happiness you get from the songs with others?It is the sharing of the music that shows that you are righteous.
See a relationship with Christ is not unlike any other relationship you have. God loves you and doesn’t expect more than you are capable of giving.He doesn’t expect perfection, He only asks that we believe.If you believe in Christ Jesus then you have received the gift.Now what are you going to do?Take the gift and hide it away? Or take the gift and add to it?
I chose to take the gift and add to it.I chose to accept the gift of eternal life and the invitation to become a child of God.I chose to grow in a relationship and mature into a Christian.I chose to not settle for the minimum but to strive for the maximum.
David Azbell
09/28/04
