Growing Up Spiritually: From Infancy to Maturity

1) "Spiritually speaking, there are those who get stunted in their growth. And in our passage this morning, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul is, he's looking at this church in Corinth. And he's basically saying, you're not hitting those benchmarks. Right, some of those things that, that might be expected to see in an infant, in a child. I would, I would expect to see. I would expect to see you growing out of those things. But you're remaining in them. You're still acting like a spiritual infant. And when it comes to our faith, like our physical development, we are called to continue to mature. To continue to grow up. And the problem comes in when sometimes we, we get stunted in it. And the growth begins to slow down. And it's not happening the way that it ought to be." [04:40] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "As brothers in Christ, as those who profess to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you are not acting your age. Anyone have that conversation as you were growing up? It's time to act your age, right? Maybe one time more than I wish to admit. When mom would say, hey, you're 14, start acting like a 14-year-old, not a 4-year-old. Okay, and that's what Paul is doing with them here. He's saying, listen, you ought to be more mature than you are. But you're continuing to struggle, right? And so he calls them in verse 1. He says, I can only refer to you as infants in Christ." [12:34] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "The desire is that all of us would take a look at our own hearts, that all of us would take a look at our own walk in the faith, say, are we growing, right? Are we exhibiting the spiritual maturity that should be expected of us at our spiritual age, right? That's what Paul wants to get us into. It's really what Hebrews chapter 5 says, right? We got it on the screen. It says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you. Again, the basic principles of the oracles of God. He says, you need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he's a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." [14:03] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "It's time to grow up in our appetites. It's in the natural development for a baby. You've watched it happen. If not with your own kids, you've watched it happen with videos and stuff online. You're holding a little baby, and mom or dad, whoever's holding them, brings that bite up to their mouth. And what does the child do? They follow it with an open mouth, waiting, wanting to bite. And there's almost a disappointment. When they don't get that bite in their own mouth. And they're like, wait a second. I want in on that. Part of the development out of infancy is a discontentment with just the milk. I'm saying milk's great. It has its role. But at some point, we mature out of that. And a diet of milk alone is not going to bring the nutrients. It's not going to sustain you. It's not going to give you all that you need to continue to grow." [20:20] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "When it comes to these things, I quoted Donald Whitney. If you've ever read his book, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, I quoted it at a men's retreat. And the first words that he starts the book with is, discipline without direction is drudgery. And like those first words like hit me like a ton of bricks because what we'll do is we'll do exactly what we're talking about right now. We'll say, we ought to be digging into the word more. And we never talk about why. We just say you got to do it. And then you're going to go home and you're going to go on the YouVersion Bible app and you're going to download a huge Bible reading plan. You're going to be like, I'm going to do this every day. And for about four days, you're going to be faithful at it. And day five, you're going to miss it. Day six, you're going to miss it. And then day 12, you're like, I don't even know what I was doing anymore." [28:01] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "It's time to grow up in our attitudes. Right? Verse 3 says, You're not ready yet. You're still in the flesh or of the flesh. Right? He doesn't say you are the flesh. You're just acting like it. For while there is jealousy and strife. He uses these two things. Jealousy and strife among you. Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? And these two things, jealousy and strife, or you might have things like envy and quarreling or whatever the words are in your translation. These two things that he brings up, one of them speaks to an internal, personal, spiritual immaturity and the other one speaks to more of an external immaturity and they're both related. They're like two sides of the same coin. They go hand in hand with each other." [30:03] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "The world thrives on these things today. It's just where we are living. And so we need to examine this and say, well, where are we really at when it comes to these? We're not called as Christians to this hostile tribalism. We are called to growing up in maturity. And you know what tears down tribalism? Is love and humility. To serve somebody else. To love. To listen to somebody else. To understand somebody else. To care deeply enough about someone else. The Corinthians were dealing with their own tribalism. Many of the commentators and scholars that look at this issue of the Paul and Apollos, we think of it more of like, I just like that guy and they like this guy. And they're like, really? It seems like what was going on was much deeper." [39:13] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "There is a diversity of ministry that happens and that's a good thing. In the kingdom of God, it's a great thing that we're not all doing the same deal. There's a diversity of ministry, but amidst that, Paul highlights that there is a unity of mission. We're all on the same team, right? So we're not here this morning in all the different roles that people are serving and trying to compete with each other. We're here to try to complement each other. From the moment people are walking in the doors to the moment people are leaving and every experience that we have in between, we're on the same team, right? We're all doing different things, but the mission's the same. That's where he's like, he who plants, he who waters are one, right? We're not competing with one another. We are unified in our mission of making God known. We are unified in our mission of developing disciples. We are unified in our mission of discovering disciples." [45:37] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)