Episode Transcript
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In standing, if you're able,
and turn with me to first Corinthians chapter
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three. First Corinthians chapter three,
I'll be reading the first four verses of
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this chapter this morning. First Corinthians
three, verses one through four. But
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I, brothers, could not address
you as spiritual people, but as people
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of the Flesh, as infants in
Christ. I Fed you with milk,
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not solid food, for you were
not ready for it, and even now
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you are, you are not yet
ready, for you are still of the
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flesh. For while there is jealousy
and strife among you, are not?
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Are you not of the flesh and
behaving only in a human way? For
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when one says I follow Paul and
another I follow a police, are you
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not being nearly human? May God
bless his word to us. You may
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be seated. Have you ever been
in a situation where you left the room
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for a moment and you came back
in and there was a fight? Parents?
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Have you ever been in a situation
where you left the room for a
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moment and you came back in and
there was a fight kids? Have you
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ever been in a situation where you
left the room for a moment and you
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came back in and all of a
sudden there was a fight. You said.
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What happened here? I was gone
for thirty seconds and everything's falling apart.
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One Minute I asked you to fold
the laundry and next thing everybody's at
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each other's throats. Where did this
come from? Where did this even happen?
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Something similar to that was happening in
Corinth. Men of God had come
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to proclaim the Gospel, and indeed
they did that. They came to build
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up the church. They were servants
and messengers sharing the light of Christ with
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these gentiles. They came, in
the truth of Christ, to build up
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the Church in the love of Christ. And that's what Paul did and that's
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what a Paul has did and that's
what others did. And then Paul moved
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on, Paul moved away, and
then he gets this report. He gets
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a report. In Chapter One,
he mentions it in verse twelve that Chloe's
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people come to him. Or Chapter
One, verse eleven, he says it
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has been reported to me by chloe's
people that there is quarreling among you,
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my brothers. What I mean is
that each one of you says I follow
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Paul, I follow a police or
I follow Sephas or I follow Christ,
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Paul says, why am I hearing
about these things? What's going on?
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Instead of imitating Paul, instead of
imitating his fellow ministers in their love,
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in their doctrine, the Corinthians,
as we've considered before, we're treating these
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men like public speaking rock stars,
like social media influencers, and then dividing
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up in factions underneath banners. Paul
over here, Apollos over here. They
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were choosing teams, they were aligning
themselves and fighting, but there was never
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any competition. That's what Paul says
in verse thirteen. Is Christ divided?
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The answer is, of course not. Imagine if half your body decided to
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align with your right hand and half
of the other half of your body decide
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to align with your left hand,
and then they were going to vigorously fight
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against each other until one one right. It would be maybe funny at first
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to see you punching yourself, but
then it would be scary if it was
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serious, and ultimately it would be
deadly. This is what's happening in the
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body of Christ. It's dividing up
against itself in a ways that it was
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never intended for. The body of
Christ is not a competitive market place.
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It's not sports teams or armies at
war, the body of Christ as well,
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a body men, to be unified
and unified in Christ. And yet
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here are the Corinthians saying I follow
up, Paul, I follow a police
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and it's getting scary. If it
continues on, it could even be deadly.
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And so Paul, after getting the
stir disturbed, disturbing report from Chloe,
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writes this letter and he appeals to
them in love. He calls them
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brothers, but he does want to
humble them in their pride. He tells
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them that all this jealousy and strife
are not marks of advancing and spiritual maturity.
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It's just the opposite, that strife
and jealousy within the body of Christ,
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battling it out against itself, is
immaturity, its worldliness being brought into
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the body of Christ. In worldly
terms, it might look like they were
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progressing as one faction is gaining influence
and authority over another faction. In the
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eyes of Christ, to put it
in a term we might use, they're
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all acting like a bunch of babies. They're being immature her their fighting and
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quarreling, and that's what Paul is
addressing here. And Chapter Three. It's
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what he's been addressing really since chapter
one, and he brings this concern up
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after talking about some other things.
He brings this concern up again about who's
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following who, and this is good
for us to hear us here today.
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It's good for us to to hear
this because we need to be reminded of
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these things, just like they need
to be reminded of them. As long
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as we're in the world. We
need to be on guard against jealousy,
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against strife and the unspiritual divisions within
the church. And so that we might
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be on guard, so that we
might hear this warning and lesson, let's
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pay attention to what Paul says here
in these in these verses. The first
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thing to note is that Paul is
talking to Christians. He's talking to Christians.
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That's important to say because it's maybe
a little bit confusing the way he
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describes them as people of the flesh. Is he saying they're Christians? Are
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Not? I want to really impress
this point, that he is talking to
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them as Christians. How do we
know? Well, first, he calls
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them brothers, and he does that
not because they are his members of his
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biological family, but of his spiritual
family. We also know that in after
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one, verse two, he writes
this letter to the church to whom he's
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now speaking, and he says to
the Church of God that is in Corinth,
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to those sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints together. In
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Chapter One, verse thirty, he
says you are he says you are in
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Christ Jesus, who became to US
wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and
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redemption. In Chapter Three, the
chapter that were in verse twenty three,
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he says, and you are Christ's. In chapter six, he says you
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were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit
of our God. So very clearly,
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multiple times in this book alone,
we see how Paul identifies them and marks
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them out as Christians, fellow brothers
and sisters in Christ. So what's going
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on then? What is Paul saying
about them, if he's not saying that
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they aren't Christians? What is he
saying? Well, Paul begins by talking
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about the past. Right, he
talks. You use these past tense verbs,
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he says, but I, brothers, could not. This is in
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the past, could not address you
as spiritual people. He is explaining that
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when he first came to Corinth,
though, they were Babes in Christ.
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He couldn't address them yet as spiritual
people. Now some people, as I've
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said, say this because they didn't
have the spirit, but clearly they did.
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So why does Paul say it in
this way? I think Paul's addressing
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them in this way because he's speaking
to them according to their own vision of
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themselves. In other words, he's
not talking about them as those who are
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either regenerate or unregenerate. He Uses
Babes of Christ and brother those sorts of
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things to talk about their their regeneration. But when he says the word spiritual,
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he's using it in the in the
way that they thought about themselves.
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They were spiritual, that is,
born of the Holy Spirit, but they
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thought of themselves as spiritual. They
were proud, they were advancing, they
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were claiming apostles as their teachers,
they were following these men, they were
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emphasizing that point and pointing that out
to others. There was a lot of
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clamoring about wisdom, about place in
the church, about authority and and and
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a position within the church and in
all of this. They thought they were
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being, quote, spiritual. Paul
says, I couldn't address you as spiritual
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people, as truly spiritual as those
who act as Christ did, because you
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weren't, you're still not spiritual.
You are people of the flesh. As
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infants in Christ they were puffed up, and Paul is saying, when I
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came to you, you were still
people of the flesh, and the proof
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is your Babes in Christ acting in
fleshy ways. The proof is that I
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fed you with milk and not with
food. Now, what does Paul mean
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by this? Well, he's not
saying that he gave them a half portion
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of Christ. He's not saying that
he gave them a little bit of Jesus
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a here and a little bit of
Jesus there, but not all of Jesus.
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He's just saying he gave Jesus to
them in a simpler form. Milk
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is nourishing. It's intended to feed
the baby, to help it to grow.
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It's not poison, it's not partial. He gave them what they needed,
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but he gave them in a simply
gave them Christ in a simple form.
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And so, because he gave them
to the gave them in the simple
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form. This way, he's saying, you see what I mean, you
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weren't that impressive. You weren't yet
spiritual people. You hadn't yet grown up
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and matured into the things of the
spirit, although you were born of the
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spirit. So, if I could
put it really simply, Paul is talking
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to them as Christians, but he's
talking to Christians who are not acting like
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Christians. Have you ever known anyone
like that? Have you ever been someone
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like that? Clearly this is a
category that exists on Paul addresses it here
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and we've experienced at ourselves. But
though it's something that exists as a category,
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that exists Christians not acting like Christians, but Christians doing fleshly things and
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going after the way of the flesh, that doesn't mean it's good. Notice
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Paul's specific concern, however, his
pacipices specific concern is not that they once
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needed milk, but that they still
need milk. Notice what he says.
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I Fed you with milk, not
with solid food, for you were not
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ready for it, and even now
you are not yet ready. Of course
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they needed milk when they were Babes
in Christ when they had come to them
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in this church was just forming,
when they needed to hear the word of
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God and they needed to grow up. That's what babies need. Babies need
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milk. No one falls a baby
for needing milk. That's what how babies
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advance to solid foods is by getting
what they need. But the problem is
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is that the Corinthians were not advancing, the Corinthians were not growing. Paul
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is saying that they're not ready for
it, that they weren't ready for it,
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and then when he hears this report
some time later, they're still not
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ready for it. Now I don't
want you to be confused about this image,
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because scripture does speak positively about this
baby's and milk kind of image in
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terms of spirituality. The thing to
remember here is, and I'll give you
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some verses along those lines, is
that one image can be used in multiple
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ways. Right, you could use
a plant, for example, to it
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to make an analogy for one thing
and for another thing, and it's the
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same thing with babies and milk.
The scriptures do that. So we don't
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want to conflate these images. If
we do, we end up confused.
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So, for example, first Peter
to too says like newborn infants long for
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the purest spiritual milk that you may
grow up into salvation. Right. Paul's
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not saying don't pay attention to what
Peter said. He's talking about something else
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altogether. We should always be like
infants, and remember Jesus tells us if
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we to receive the children of the
Kingdom of God, we need to be
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as children. The image is here
in Peter and with Jesus's words, are
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images of longing, of trusting,
of sense of dependence, and that's something
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we never grow out of, that's
something we grow into. But Paul is
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making a different point, though with
the same image. He's talking about them
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being spiritual babies who need to grow
up. So it's important to keep them
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just in different categories and in your
minds, various members of the church.
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We're quite impressed with them themselves,
but Paul was not impressed with them,
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the Lord was not impressed with them. In essence, they were acting like
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babies, and this reminds us that
as Christians we are called to grow up,
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we are called to grow and to
mature again. First, Peter to
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too says that when we drink the
pure spiritual milk of the word of God,
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we do it so that we may, he says, grow up into
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salvation. In Second Peter Three eighteen, Peter Rights, but grow in the
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grace and knowledge of the Lord and
Save Your Jesus Christ, Paul says,
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in Second Corinthians three hundred and eighteen, and we all, with unveiled face,
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beholding the glory of God, are
being transformed into the same image,
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from one degree of glory from to
another. And First Corinthians Fourteen twenty,
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Paul writes, brothers, do not
be children in your thinking, be infants
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in evil, but in your thinking
be mature. And again Paul and a
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fusions for fourteen, he gives to
US apostles and prophets of angelist teachers,
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so that we may no longer be
children tossed to and fro by the waves
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and carried about by every wind of
doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness,
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in deceitful schemes. That's why Paul
came. Paul came to to bring
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this effect about, to help them
to grow. So we want to be
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Childi we want to be like babies, and we don't want to stay like
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babies. We always want to stay
like babies in the sense that we're always
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dependent, we're always in need and
we want the pure spiritual milk of God's
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word, but we don't want to
be like babies and stay like babies and
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that we never mature and never mature
in the Lord, never grow. What
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does maturity look like? In a
recent book called the Vine and the Trellis,
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the authors summarize maturity, I think, into three helpful, memorizable categories.
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They talk about conviction, character and
capabilities. Maturity is knowing what we
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believe and why we believe it.
It's not being blown arount by every wind
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of doctrine. It's knowing the truth
and being solid in it. But maturity
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isn't just knowledge, it's also character. It's not just having theological knowledge,
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knowledge of God, but it's also
acting like his children, being like his
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children, that it's having those true
seep down into our hearts that cause us
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then to act accordingly. There's conviction
and there's character and there's also capability.
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Maturity is putting ourselves in the nervous
of God and in the service of others
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and growing in it, in worship
and hospitality and mercy, and these are
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things that we make progress in while
we are here on earth, and so
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it's worth asking from time to time, am I growing? Because this is
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a goal. This is a goal, Paul States, for this church.
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He wants them to be growing,
and so it's right for us to ask,
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am I growing? Am I growing
in my conviction and my knowledge of
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the faith and the depth of it
in my heart? Am I growing in
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my character and integrity and in Godliness? Am I growing in my capabilities,
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my ability to serve and to use
the things that God has given me as
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a good steward and as his child? Here the Corinthians are not growing,
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and Paul describes one way that looks. It looks like jealousy and strife.
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Christ loved US first that we might
love him and love others, and when
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that takes root in our heart it
flows out into action. We know what
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that feels right. You know what
it feels like when somebody is truly loving,
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generous, and there's forgiveness, listening, helping, patience, kindness,
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long suffering. Indeed, Paul will
spend some time talking all about how love
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looks in chapter thirteen and other chapters
in this book. And when that comes,
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when we cut, when we know
the love of Christ, but when
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we separate ourselves from Christ, and
when we put ourselves at the center,
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what happens? Strife and jealousy,
divisions, when it's all about me,
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what I want right now, my
hopes, my fears, my frustrations,
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I need it right now, then
we get these kinds of divisions. Calvin
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says that they were undervaluing the apostle
and his preaching and were prepared more to
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listen and pay attention to the subtle
and showy ways of other teachers or looking
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only for Paul to be to be
a fancy speaker. And then, and
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and then, in not only treating
him poorly and treating the doctrine of Christ
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poorly, they then treated others poorly. We see in Corinthian in the Corinthian
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letters, that that wasn't just a
problem with the apostles and the other teachers,
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but there were problems with the Lord's
supper, problems with making other people
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stumble and difficult ethical situations, fighting
about spiritual gifts. It's just one thing
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after another after another. When we
read about all these problems in the Corinthian
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church, it's a little bit easy
to shake our heads and judge. Wells
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Corinthians, man what a mess.
Glad I didn't belong to that church.
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But isn't that just a sign of
our own pride to look at struggling brothers
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and sisters, even from long ago, and to mock them, shake our
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heads at them? What does that
say about our own hearts? What does
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that say about us? And what
about our brothers and sisters that are alive
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today in our own congregation and another
churches? Do we love them as we
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ought, or do we puff ourselves
up over them? Do we even doing
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it spiritual things, calling ourselves spiritual
wall at the very moment exhibiting great amount,
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great amounts of pride? This is
not to say that there's no difference
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between right doctrine or wrong doctrine,
or right practice and wrong practice. There
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is, of course, differences between
these things and we ought to make those
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distinctions if we are to hold fast
to Christ. But when does good doctrine
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or good practice excuse bad behavior?
Never, is the answer to that.
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It never does. In fact,
a failure to show humility really shows a
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failure to truly understand and truly believe
and be evicted about the grace that we
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have received in Christ. It's perhaps
the most ironic thing in the world for
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a Christian who is experienced the grace
of the Lord not to show that grace
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a to others. Christian had US
thinking the other night, from God's word,
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about the servant who was forgiven so
much. Let me ask you,
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did that servant in Jesus's parable there? Did He know that he was forgiven?
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I suppose so. Right. He
had been forgiven a lot. He
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seemed to be. There's no sense
that he wasn't aware of it, but
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that knowledge remained in his head.
It didn't penetrate into his heart, and
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so that's why he goes to this
other man and demands so in such a
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strong way, so little, at
least comparatively, and that's what immaturity looks
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like. Maturity is sort of starting, it's sort of knowing, it's having
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a beginning, but not moving forward, not flowering, not coming into the
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thing that we are called to be. And that's what God's desire for us
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is, beloved. He wants us
to grow, not just in one part
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of the Christian life but in all
of the Christian life. God's desire for
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us is just like your parents desire
for you. They wanted you to grow
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up, and God desires the same. Now, in pointing out these things
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and in intentionally calling us all to
humble ourselves a little bit, and maybe
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even a lot, I don't want
to overly wound you were overly depress you
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either. We need to be warned
and we need to be on guard against
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complacency and self centeredness. It's true, they seep in, they attack our
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hearts, they hold fast to us, and these things don't align with the
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Gospel. But it's because of the
Gospel that we also don't have to despair.
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It's because of the Gospel that,
even when we feel we are so
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controlled by it, by our self
centeredness, when we struggle with envy,
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when we struggle with jealousy, when
we find ourselves getting in fights all the
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time, getting in arguments all the
time, it's because of the Gospel that
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we have hope. It's because of
what God has done for us and his
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work, his spirits work in us, that we have hope. None of
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us have advanced to perfect maturity yet
and none of us will until the Lord
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returns. But in this life,
as we are humbled and reminded about these
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things, we also turn to the
Lord for forgiveness and for sanctification. We
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love these things sting. It hurts
to think about the divisions within the body
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of Christ. It hurts to think
about the ways in which we ourselves have
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caused them. But the Lord causes
the sting. He prods us to drive
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us to the cross. He does
it so that our pride might be homeled,
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so that we might see how much
we need him and not ourselves.
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You see, it's his work of
sanctification in us. He wants to show
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you how much you need Christ,
so that you might cling to Christ and
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not yourself. And when we look
to Christ, who went to the cross
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for us, who didn't grasp and
hold on to the glory of God or
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try to claw after it any way, but simply submitted himself out of love
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for us and went to a cross
and died for our sins. When we
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think about those things, when we
think about what he's overcome, when we
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think about like that servant should have, how much we've been forgiven, how
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big and broad God's love is,
how vast, he said, how vast
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the separation is between us and our
sins when the Lord forgives them, when
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we think about how this Gospel comes
into our lives and takes people who are
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once clamoring and fighting and always struggling
and striving against one another to make it
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to the top. And then the
Lord comes and says, I give you
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everything. You don't need to do
that anymore, you don't need to fight,
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you don't need to claw, you
don't need to clamor, I will
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take care of you. Every hair
in your head is numbered. You are
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so valuable to me, so so
precious to me, that my own son
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has died for you. When we
come to remember those things, beloved,
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and we come to believe those things, the Lord begins to dissipate the feelings
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of strife and self centeredness that are
in our hearts. He works in US
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and reminds us that we don't have
to clamor anymore, we don't have to
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fight anymore, we don't have to
prove ourselves anymore, because we have all
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that we need in Christ. And
as we begin to realize those things,
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as we begin to believe those things, to put faith in those promises,
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we will grow. One of the
good things about the Gospel. Well,
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the greatest things about the Gospel is
it's not all up to us. When
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the Lord chooses us and him each
blocks us out of all of this misery
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in which we've thrown ourselves into.
He doesn't just set us loose and say
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well, figure it out. He
works in us, even as he is
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doing in you this morning. So
trust him, put all your trust in
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him, and he will care for
you and care for the whole body,
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bringing healing and rest. Let's pray
that God would do that and that we
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would accept these things, receive them
by faith our
