Embracing Spiritual Maturity: Growing Beyond Infancy in Faith

1) "Now why do I bring all that up? Because it is my belief that in the church of America today, there's a lot of Peter Pan Christians. You've come to a saving knowledge of Jesus and you've been called by the scriptures to grow and mature in your faith. But you wanna live in Neverland. You wanna spiritually stay as a child. And though the Bible continually, as it will, today calls you to grow in your faith, you are content with remaining in infancy, spiritual infancy because it then renders you unable to take on the responsibilities of mature Christianity. This Peter Pan Syndrome is what Paul is talking about to the Corinthian church. He's telling the church today it is time to grow up. And that's a word that all of us need to hear." [10:25] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Maturity is looking more and more, each and every day, more like Jesus and the longer we stay in infancy, the less we show the world that we're followers of his. Another scripture puts it this way in the book of Hebrews. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need to have someone teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, kind of what it's been talked about in First Corinthians three, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since they are a child, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained. How does growth happen in your life? You train it." [14:04] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Does someone have to look after you spiritually to tell you to pick up your Bible, to pray, to get to church? To spend time alone with the Lord? To center your thoughts and your decisions on the Lord? Does someone have to implore you over and over again? In my family, we raised three children, and in their infancy and their immaturity, we had to make sure, eat your food, put on clothes, clean clothes, take a bath, do your homework. Now our children are moving on to maturity, and I'm glad by the grace of God we're not having those conversations in their 20s, because that would be altogether unbecoming. We will have failed in our role." [16:10] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "A second sign of immaturity is a surface-level faith. He says that these individuals should be on solid food, and they're on spiritual milk. We'll talk about that in detail in a moment, but just see what happens. And so, let me ask you this morning, I want you to ask yourself, are you spiritually immature? What have you grown in your relationship with Jesus Christ from a month ago, six months ago, a year ago? What new truths do you know about your Savior? What new truths do you know from His Word? What new step of faith have you taken? How have you been stretched? What sin did you deal with then? What sin did you deal with then? What sin did you deal with then? What sin did you deal with then? That maybe you're now finding victory over now." [22:36] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "I want you to recognize the heart that's behind it. Paul says twice in the text, notice, and I would underline it as you take notes, that he says twice in the text, you're not ready for it. In verse two, he says, you're not ready for it, and then later in the text, he says, you're not ready for it again, and so he's telling you something. Well, what are you not ready for? What you're not ready for is the blessing, and the goodness, and the grace, and the fellowship that comes with walking closely with your God, and so what Paul is saying, what I'm reiterating to you today, what God is wanting to communicate to his people is, I love you so much. I love you so much that I want you to grow in your relationship with me, because growing in your relationship with me brings all new opportunities." [24:08] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "What could God be saying of our church that we're not ready for? What could a deeper walk and a deeper relationship with God as a church? What new ministry or kingdom initiative could God have for us? Where God would show us that we are going to see exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask for or imagine. But because we're immature, because we're focused in ourselves, we miss out on that great blessing. Well, right away, it's easy to say, well, village is a, it's a mature church. And in some ways, yeah, we might be. But there are some real areas of immaturity in this church. And as a pastor, I want to share corporately some areas of, of immaturity in this church." [25:41] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "I like what Paul says in first Corinthians chapter 13, when he says, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I gave up childish things. We're going to have to give up some things. If we want to be spiritually mature in Christ, we're going to have to change our patterns. We're going to have to change our attitude about Christ to do so. Two things are going to need to change. Write this down. Number one, your appetite. You're going to go from spiritual milk to solid food." [28:37] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "We must allow the word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency, and to overthrow our patterns of thoughts and behavior. Let's leave that there. That is a four-point to-do list of what should happen when you open the word. When you come to church, when you hear a sermon, does it confront you? Literally, does it alarm you? This morning I was awakened by an alarm. My slumber was taken from me. It was taken from me because the alarm wouldn't shut up. And so I had to wake up. The word of God in the mature's life doesn't stop echoing in our ears and we are confronted by it." [30:06] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "What role do you have? What place do you have in God's kingdom work? What are you doing? He says, God is farming a field, in verse 9, and building a building. What part of that process can you say, a matter of fact, I'm doing this? It doesn't have to be in the church, but I am furthering the kingdom of God in this tangible way. You could be praying and saying, I've dedicated myself to praying for this. It could be, I'm giving to this. I'm serving in this way. What tangible place? Immature people are unconcerned about the bigger picture. They're most concerned about themselves. Paul says, stop being infants and stop moving to adulthood. God's doing a work. What part are we going to play?" [34:43] (67 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)