Better Grow Up - April 26, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I want you to imagine this. Are you ready?

Imagine you walked into a kindergarten class modern era

i know what some of you are thinking man i barely

got out of kindergarten why do i want to go back and some of you that are kindergarten

teachers god bless you for what you do but just imagine for a moment you walk

in and and what do you see you see colorful carpets oh you see these wooden

blocks that are stacked so neatly on a table.

You see maybe the kids' backpacks and lunches all in their little cubbies.

You might see some other things. You might smell some things too.

You never know what a kindergarten classroom will smell like.

But just imagine for a moment you walk in and there's this great carpet and

there's numbers that are in an arch and there's kids sitting on each number.

But then you notice something that's off. I mean, really off.

Because in looking at the kids that are seated there,

right in the middle on square number six is a 30-year-old adult male that is

sitting Indian style and is so excited to receive the milk box that the teacher is handing out.

You might have some questions. You might be saying, what is going on?

And those questions might be amplified as you continue to observe this class,

wondering, is this a parent?

What's going on here? As the teacher begins to present the lessons on the differences

in color, specifically what a red crayon looks like and what a blue crayon looks like.

And the 30-year-old guy is there, so excited he can't wait for this lesson.

That might just astound you. you might be wondering what's going on.

You might be so confused that you don't know, but even more so when you notice

he's got a little tiny backpack on that doesn't fit him.

You notice there are other things about him and you just begin to wonder not

only what is wrong with this guy, but what happened to him that he's still in kindergarten?

You know, what is going on here? It kind of reminds me, and this is not an endorsement

for this movie, but it reminds me of the 1995 film, Adam Sandler movie,

Billy Madison, where this spoiled rich kid had to go through school all over

again in order to inherit the riches of his father.

Well, this wasn't a Billy Madison scene that I asked you to imagine.

But what it is, is something severely wrong if you're in a kindergarten class

and there's an adult sitting in there so eager to learn something that he should

have learned years, decades ago.

But, you know, the same problem can happen in our church here.

Now, not that you're going to go into the nursery and find a 30-year-old man

sitting there eager to learn about a red and a blue crayon.

But right here in these pews, sometimes we might find some spiritual people

that are not older than 30, and they're still content to learn the ABCs and

the 1-2-3s of the Christian faith.

They've never grown past those elementary truths that all of us learned while

we were kids in Sunday school.

Some of you may have been sitting in these pews for decades and still don't

have a grasp on those elementary truths of the Scripture, and you're eager for the milk of the Word,

not so much the T-bone or ribeye premium steak that may be offered to you.

You see, it's a serious thing that's not new to us, and it's not just our church,

but other churches as well, because sometimes we're content.

I mean, I like a good chocolate milk now and again.

Those are good things to have. But if I only have milk all the time,

that gets kind of old, especially if there's no cereal to go with it.

Then that's really, really not good.

But man, give me a nice steak and I'm really happy. Happy, happy, happy.

Hebrew 5 gives us a situation.

It's a continuing on from what we talked about a couple weeks ago,

but when we think about what the author of Hebrews is telling his Hebrew believers,

it's something that we should take note of because there's a warning in here,

and there's also a challenge in here for each and every person.

It doesn't matter if you're new to the faith, if you've been a Christian over

50 years, or if you're somewhere in between.

There's a warning here that God wants to give us today to pay attention,

but more than just pay attention, He wants us to grow up, just like this guy

sitting in the kindergarten classroom should have grown up by now.

Well, hear the Word of the Lord from Hebrews 5, verses 11 through 14,

Hebrews 5:11–14

and if you're willing and able, I just ask if you would stand,

honor the Word of the Lord this morning.

The Scripture says this, We have much to say about this, but it's hard to make

it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach

you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again.

You need milk, not solid food.

Anyone who lives on milk, still being an infant, is not acquainted with the

teachings about righteousness.

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves

to distinguish good from evil.

Let's pray. Father, thank you so much that you call Christians,

those who place their faith in Christ, to grow up.

God, you call us to grow up in what we know, and you call us to grow up in how

we live, and God, you call us to grow up in how we handle life.

And so, Lord, help us to do that this morning. May your word speak to our hearts,

and Father, may you be glorified. It's in Jesus' name we ask this today.

Amen. You can be seated.

I just want to give you three ways in which God wants us to grow up.

And here's my disclaimer as every Sunday, know that what I'm preaching to you

has to go through me before it hits you.

So it has to challenge my heart, and I have to make things align with God's

Word before I ever can preach it to you, before I will ever feel comfortable

preaching anything to you.

Just know that it has gone through my heart first. And so the first...

Way in which God wants us to grow is that He wants us to grow in knowledge.

You see, it's interesting as we look to the Scripture that the writer of Hebrews

says, hey, we've got some more to tell you about this.

Well, what is the this? If we go back, it's talking about a special priesthood that Jesus is,

a special order of priest in the order of Melchizedek,

that Jesus has earned the right to do that through obedience because He went

all the way for all of us, and he suffered in such horrendous ways,

but he has been designated as the go-between.

And if you want to see that sermon, it's a few weeks back, the better mediator is Jesus.

And that's what we talked about. And the author of Hebrews says,

we've got more to say about this, but you guys can't handle it.

You can't handle the truth.

I wish you could, he says, but you can't because he says you no longer try to understand.

As you dig into that, the phrasing in the Greek, especially,

you'll gain some nuggets of truth from that.

You see, what he's saying is Jesus didn't die for us to be spiritually sluggish and unresponsive.

I think the term really gets down to being numb.

Have you ever sat weird in church and when you got up to leave,

your leg was like totally asleep that you couldn't feel anything.

I mean, not just tingly, where if you touch it, you like giggle or something,

but I mean, like it's numb.

You really can't feel it. And so you start to step and your leg just doesn't work.

That's the kind of thing that the scripture is saying. It's like,

you're not even trying. You're numb to the truth.

You're so lazy. You've become numb to it. Like you can't feel it.

Maybe you felt like that sometimes sitting in a church service or a Sunday school

class and it's just felt numb, like it's not hitting you.

Like maybe God's speaking to everybody else, but you're just like,

well, how'd I miss the boat? And you just feel numb.

That's what the writer of Hebrews says, well, there's so much more to teach

you, but you just don't want to understand.

Sometimes we do that, right? Someone starts talking about something and we just

zone out because it's so far over our head. We don't even know what they're saying.

It's kind of like I saw a video not long ago of some young middle school slash

almost high school kids.

And they were using some kind of language talking about all kinds of different

things. And I did not understand what they were saying.

First, I thought they were talking about these Ritz crackers because they were

talking about Riz. And I'm like, is that a new kind of Ritz crackers?

And they were going on to talk about six, seven and all kinds of other things.

And I'm like, what has happened to the English language?

How did I get so old all of a sudden that I cannot even understand what they're saying?

Sometimes we feel like that. And what happens when you begin to feel like that?

Well, you just shut it off.

You shut off your learning mode. You don't try because you've missed the context

clues that will help you to grasp on to the truth that's being spoken.

You see, that happens to us.

If we just concentrate on the ABCs and the one, two, threes of the faith,

we miss out on the greater and the deeper things that God has for us.

And that's what's being accused here by the author of Hebrews to these first

century Hebrew Christians is that, hey, you're missing the meatier stuff.

You're missing the T-bone steaks because all you can handle,

all you want is the Nesquik chocolate milk of the word.

You want the sweet stuff, but you're not getting everything.

So what are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to build on the foundations of the ABCs and 1, 2, 3s of the faith.

Well, I've used that about three or four times already. What am I talking about?

Well, think about back when you first became a believer.

Some of you may be in the process of this if you've just given your life to Christ.

But when you're going through a new believer study, here's some of the topics that you cover.

One is, who is God? You want to know who God is. You want to know about His

character, that God is love.

You want to know about character that God is just, that God is gracious.

Some other things, you want to know about the authority of God's Word.

Why should we trust this ancient book that's over 2,000 years old?

Well, why is this resonated with people throughout time and history?

And what does it mean for me? And you want to know what authority does this book have over my life?

What authority does this book have that people have set out to disprove it or

to discredit it, and they themselves have ended up being believers in Jesus Christ.

Now, that's a basic thing that you go over when you're a new believer.

Assurance of salvation. How do I know that I'm saved and going to heaven?

Now, sometimes, Nazarenes even, we're accused of eternal insecurity because

we never know if we're going to heaven or not.

But you can know if you're going to heaven. You can know if you're saved.

And as a new believer, we talk about the assurance of faith.

We go over what it means to be baptized and have you taken that step of baptism.

We talk about the need for fellowship from other believers and being engaged

in that. These are all the basics.

We talk about walking in the Spirit and resisting temptation.

Not just resisting temptation, but we talk about overcoming temptation.

These are the basics, right, of the Christian faith. the basics of how we follow

Jesus. We talk about sharing our faith, about witnessing, sharing our story

with other people that don't know Jesus.

We talk about obedience, of just saying yes to Jesus and saying no to self.

And so the question we got to ask ourselves is, am I moving on beyond the basics

of the faith or am I still right now today where I was years ago?

Have you grown up into Jesus?

Have you grown up in your understanding of the Word?

Or are you still stuck on the assurance of salvation? You still don't know if

you're going to heaven or not?

Are you still stuck with temptation and you just can't help but sin?

Are you still stuck? Or have you moved on?

You see, the place where it starts is knowledge. Look at verse 12.

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach

you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again.

You need milk, not solid food.

Whoa, what an accusation. Saying by now, you should have graduated from Sunday

school and you should have your own class teaching others, the ABCs and 123s

and how that applies to life and how to move forward with that.

Now, I'm not saying everyone starts to leave their Sunday school class and start their own class.

You've got to trust God for that and you've got to be apt to teach,

but I'm saying at some point.

What was it someone told me once, Mike, did you notice that no one ever graduates

from the adult Sunday school class unless they die?

I said, whoa, I never really noticed that before. That's the only way you can

leave. No, it's not really.

But you get it. We need to grow in our knowledge. And growing in our knowledge

isn't just the facts, the ABCs and the one, two, threes of the Bible.

Man, I've met some incredible quiz kids. I've met some even more incredible quiz teens.

Jason's going to talk about them next Sunday. He's got a great announcement about that.

But I've also met some where they've got all the knowledge, they know the facts,

but it hasn't hit their life yet.

It hasn't translated yet from these 18 inches or so from the head to the heart,

maybe not 18, maybe a foot. I don't know. It depends on how tall the kid is, right?

It hasn't made it all the way, but there's some adults that's like that too. You know the facts.

You have the knowledge of Scripture, but you need to grow in that knowledge to this next part.

See, growing in your knowledge, knowing more about the Bible is great,

but it's not enough. You can still know a lot and act like a little kid.

You can act like a child. You see, what we have to do is to grow in our behavior,

grow in our lifestyle of following Christ.

Again, in verse 13, if I could go back to the word, it says,

anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the

teaching about righteousness.

You see, there's still more to know, but it's not just knowing about righteousness.

Righteousness is right standing before God, but it's living righteously.

It's living as a righteous dude or dudette.

Okay, it's living in that way that you're living out what you know.

You know that you can overcome temptation by the power of the Holy Spirit and resisting that.

But until you resist temptation, not give into it and overcome it,

do you really know what the Scripture is saying?

You see, I could know how to fly an airplane.

I have X-plane on my laptop PC, and I could fly anywhere.

And I would say I'm a good pilot. Noah's a greater pilot.

He'll spend a lot of time just mapping out routes and flying them.

Usually he does it at like 10 times speed, you know, that no physical airplane could ever do.

But he knows a lot about airplanes. He knows about the switches because that's part of the simulation.

But am I going to trust him to put him in the cockpit of the airplane going

to Indianapolis to fly me there no way the dude don't even have his driver's

license yet not much less a pilot's license.

He has some knowledge, but he doesn't have the practice of it, the behavior.

So not only do we need to grow in knowledge, we need to grow in our practice or our behavior of that.

You see, Jesus calls us in Matthew 18 to have this childlike spirit.

Remember when Jesus took the child into his arms and said, any of you that wants

to be great in my kingdom has to become like one of these as a child?

You have to possess that childlike spirit?

But oftentimes what happens with even believers is we act childish.

Instead of a childlike spirit, we have a childish spirit. And those two are

not the same. Let me explain really quickly.

What happens if you have a childish spirit?

You're demanding. I want my way and I want it right now.

Sometimes we can get into that. But what is a childlike faith? faith.

A child is very trusting of adults.

That's why we instruct our children, if someone is looking for their puppy dog, do not go with them.

You don't know if there's really a puppy dog or if they're just trying to get

you into their kidnapper van.

Don't go try to get free candy from this white van that is parked out in front

of your house or at the local park.

Naturally, kids are trusting. We're called to have that kind of faith to trust

God, who's not trying to lure us away into anything malicious,

but who has a great life plan for us.

So, we're not demanding, wanting our way, all about me.

We're wanting what God wants, and we're going to trust Him. Even if it seems

like it's working against us, we're going to trust Him that He's going to unfold that.

Another quality of being childish, and really this one's twofold,

is if you're childish, you're easily offended and you hold on to grudges.

We had a special speaker at District Assembly, and this guy was awesome.

I don't know if we can ever work with him in the future, but he was just great.

So spot on. He gave the illustration that some churches, some church boards,

I'm not saying this church board, but he used the example of a church board.

They're trying to do some church revitalization and wanting to plan to the future.

But when they got to the meeting, the guy gave the illustration during this

church board meeting that there was a conflict between two members.

One member didn't even know anything about it, but the other member had held

on to that grudge for years because something off was said way back when.

The person who said it didn't even remember it, but this person held on to it

tightly, and they had to spend four or five hours dealing with that before they

could move forward with the whole church planning and what was going on there.

Believers, sometimes we can act childish when we don't go to people that have

offended us and try to resolve that.

And you know, we hold those grudges and sometimes they don't make sense because

the other person has no idea they did anything,

but yet it's hurt us for years and we've let it stick at us and stick at us

when we could have just did what Jesus calls us to do in being childlike. Children are humble.

Children are forgiving. And they could be fighting one minute on the playground

and the next recess, they're best friends.

That's what Jesus calls us to, to be trusting, to be humble and forgiving.

When we're childish, many times we're self-centered. It's all about me.

It's all about my preferences.

Well, it was too hot in the sanctuary. It was too cold in the sanctuary.

The music was too quiet. The music was too loud. There's too many hymns.

There was too many contemporary songs.

There wasn't enough chanting going on.

The pastor preached too long. The pastor didn't preach long enough.

Prayer time was too long.

Prayer time wasn't long enough. and so it becomes all

about us and self-centered when if

God calls us to be childlike rather than childish instead

of being all about me we're all about the father we're depending upon

our heavenly father God what would you want father this song means nothing to

me but I see my sister across the way she is just getting down with you she's

worshiping you like I've never seen her worship thank you God well Lord I didn't

really connect with that scripture passage but I heard my brother and sister

talking as I was leaving church,

and it really hit their heart and impacted that. Thank you, God.

I mean, we could go down the list. We're trusting God that He's going to have

the result of everything that we do in here, from our fellowship time to our

greeting time to our giving time to our hearing from the Word,

responding to it, to our worship time.

All that we're trusting God and not just what's in it for me.

Remember, Jesus called us to have a childlike spirit, not a childish one.

What else is a characteristic of children? Well, they like to avoid responsibility.

Do they not? It's time to clean your room.

There's about 50 other things more exciting at that moment than cleaning the

room. And so it becomes sometimes a battle.

If we have a childlike spirit, we become teachable. Just like Jesus said,

whoever takes the lowly position of this child, Matthew 18, 4,

he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

She is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Someone that will be teachable.

Someone that will allow themselves, even if they know a lot about the Bible,

they will allow God to teach them something new and to live out life in a new way.

You see, once you know the truth of God, it's transformative.

And it has to be lived out. It can't just stay there.

And so, the question that we've got to ask ourselves, I think,

is do our attitudes and reactions look more like a child or a mature follower of Jesus?

And if I answer this honestly, I've got to tell you that sometimes it's more,

childish than childlike.

I blew it yesterday. I really did.

I was having a grumpy morning or something. Melanie asked me to hang up this basket.

And I'm like, yeah, I can do that.

And everything was cool until I started screwing in the second screw.

I was just so frustrated. And that frustration spilled over.

Man, I was kicking everything in sight. I was throwing a tantrum.

All because I couldn't get the second screw to go into the plaster.

I hate plaster walls and our house has all kinds of plaster walls.

And I was mad and I said something to my wife and went outside and I kind of

thought it was funny. But coming back, it wasn't funny.

She even said I acted like a jerk. Because I did.

Sometimes we find ourselves in that. I had to make up for it.

So I went down and cleaned two rooms in the basement where the girls used to be.

She had to help me finish it, though. Sometimes we mess up.

It's easy to get back to the childish. We were children. We know what it's like.

But Jesus called us past that behavior.

Jesus calls us out of that to live, yes, childlike, but living out what it means

to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

As the scripture said, to live in all righteousness.

Train themselves, as we'll see in just a minute. So we're called to grow in

knowledge and put that knowledge into practice in our behavior.

But finally, Hebrews points us toward this, which is the goal.

Growing toward full maturity.

Being complete, as we say in Wesleyan circles, being perfect,

which means completed, which means finished.

See, we look to verse 14 again. But solid food is for the mature who by constant

use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil, have trained themselves

in what righteousness, living right,

living the way God wants you to live, living the way God planned for you to live,

comes from taking the knowledge, applying it to your life, your behavior,

and then consistently living that out.

It's a simple formula, isn't it? It's so simple.

I think these Hebrew believers could have caught that, could have glommed onto that and said, yes.

You see, Jesus is our perfect example.

Jesus Christ, the only fully mature, fully complete human that's ever lived,

completed his life, died on the cross willingly for us, laid down his life for

us, and then took it up again and rose from the grave and completed that by

giving that mission he had to us today through the disciples and down through the ages here.

He is our example. He is the one. Don't ever compare yourself to me.

Do not. I am not the standard by which you will be judged.

You will be judged according to Jesus' standard. And you already know from the

story I just told you a few minutes ago.

That was much more dramatic than that, but I don't want to traumatize myself

anymore or my wife and remind her that I need a black eye.

Don't measure up to my standard. You measure to God's standard.

And what is God's standard? It's the holiness that's found in Jesus Christ.

Not just holy, something we can never attain, but Jesus showed us through the

life that he lived that we human beings can live like that.

So here's some practical signs. I'll just go through it really quickly in the time that we have.

Practical signs of spiritual maturity and,

Now, these involve the shift, okay? So I'm going to talk about being an infant and being an adult.

It's a shift from being reactive and self-centered, which is what I was yesterday,

to being intentional and responding like Christ would.

Okay, so take, for example, what the Scripture lays out here is your diet.

Now, we're not going to talk about what you're going to have for lunch,

but a little different at what the Scripture says here.

Remember, the Scripture says relying on the basics, the basic knowledge that you need.

Kind of like when you're in school, what's the least amount of things I need

to know so I can get out of this class and still pass and not have to take it again, right?

That's the basics. That's the milk. That's being an infant.

But if you're going to be an adult, if you want to grow into adulthood,

spiritual adulthood, you need that solid food.

You need the deeper truths of Scripture.

Well, what does it really mean for me to love my enemy?

How do I practically love my enemy who still hates me and who I do not have a relationship with?

And yet Jesus calls me to love them. How do I chew on that stake?

How do I chew on the discernment when the politics and Christianity kind of collide?

And where is the line? And how far can I go? Or when should I hold back?

When is it the kingdom of man? And when is it the kingdom of God?

And is it okay if the two are kind of converged on the same path for a while?

Wrestling, that's a deeper truth.

Man, that's scraping the meat off of that T-bone. You're trying to chew on that.

How do I reach out to other people in my community when they're different from me?

How do I like these people that I don't like their sin?

How do I enter into a relationship with them when I don't like what they do?

I don't like the words they use, but they need Jesus.

And God has put on my heart that I need to go to them and to share with them

what it means to love God.

I need to live out before them what it means to follow God.

Boy, that's taking a bite of that ribeye,

I know you're probably getting hungry, right? Can you tell I'm a little hungry

right now? I guess we're having steak for lunch, honey.

Not milkshakes, but steaks.

Now she's going to hold me to that, right?

Another dimension of spiritual maturity is our response to frustration.

As I illustrated, shared with you just a few moments ago, an infant will throw

a tantrum, sulk, or quit until they get what they want.

That's the response to frustration. Folks, we know life is one big frustration.

There are things that happen, but how do we respond that way as an infant?

Or do we respond as a spiritual adult, one maturing in Christ?

Do we endure those frustrations with steadfastness and with courage,

knowing that God has the ultimate word on this and God's going to see us through?

How about our motivation for prayer? If we're an infant, we pray primarily out of fear.

Lord, save me. I messed up and I don't want to go to hell.

Lord, I'm afraid we don't have any more money in the bank and we got 10 bills

that are coming due this week.

Oh, Lord, I'm afraid because I said this and now my sister won't speak to me anymore.

We respond and our prayer list is everything we're afraid of.

It's okay to pray those prayers. I'm not saying don't pray when you're afraid.

Pray when you're afraid Pray when you're anxious Pray when life doesn't make sense.

But can we step into another realm of maturity? And that is,

will you pray when you or when those around you are taking on great tasks for

the kingdom, great tasks for others?

When your friend tells you, I got a neighbor that does not know Jesus and God's

laid them on my heart and I really want to share Jesus with them,

I just don't know how to connect.

They're very standoffish and I don't know. Well, will you join them in praying for that person?

More than that, will you ask them to pray for the person that you are bringing

before God, that you want to

see saved, that you want to see their lives transformed in a better way?

That's praying in the maturity of Christ, praying for things that don't matter

just to you, praying for your brother or sister that's going through a hard

time at church, whether they've shared that with anyone or not, but you know the look.

You know what's on their face, and you know they're struggling with something.

We even have the courage to go and say, how can I pray for you?

I see your countenances down. That's an old word, but it just means I see you're looking down.

When we think about this maturity and prayer, it's getting past just what you

want, but it's getting to the needs of others as well, especially those that

aren't in the family of God, that aren't in the family of faith.

Last but not least, as we talk about different dimensions of being an infant

or an adult, Reaction to failure.

When you mess up, whether that be a sin or you just made a big mistake, how do you react to that?

Is your life just loaded down with a lot of guilt?

Man, I shouldn't have did that,

but I did. Man, I should have told the truth, but I just flat out lied.

Why did I do that? Oh, I'm never getting into heaven now. I keep lying.

I can't control my lying lips.

Or maybe you made an honest mistake and it's like, I really shouldn't have said that.

Oh, I couldn't get those words back. I knew as soon as they left my lips that,

I was going to hurt that person.

We might be loaded down with guilt. We might be loaded down with shame.

That's what happens with infants, with kids, if we're infantile in our faith.

We just have all this guilt and we never do anything with it.

It just eats at us and eats at us and eats at us.

Whereas what God wants us to do is, if we do fail, whether that is a sin or a mistake that is made,

God wants us to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, not for what we did

wrong, Although we do feel sorry for what we did wrong But the conviction comes

when we realize we missed God's standard We didn't live up to what is right, what is good.

More sorry about that we disappointed God than that we blew it in our own human brokenness.

It's this godly sorrow that comes upon us.

And it's that godly sorrow, Scripture says, that leads us to repentance.

It's not the fact that, well, I've already blown it 10 times.

I might as well blow it 11 more.

Well, I've already told her 10 lies. What's two more? And going down the spiral

that just leads down and down and down.

Rather than repenting, What's repentance? It's a 180.

You turn your back on what you were doing, what you were thinking,

how you used to be, and now you walk toward what is right and what is true.

And how does repentance happen?

Repentance happens by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It's not just that

little voice that Jiminy Cricket said, let your conscience be your guide. It's not that.

But it's the Holy Spirit of God speaking to your heart when you know that God

is talking to you and you feel your heart's broken because of what you did.

And you can't feel comfortable until you deal with that.

For some of you, maybe most of you, it's what led you down to an altar to first accept Christ.

Your heart was broken over your sin because you knew that separated you from God.

Maybe you came to an altar of prayer with someone else that you had offended,

and you both prayed and reconciliation happened right there because your heart was broken.

The Holy Spirit told you in your heart, you won't be comfortable until you solve

this with this other person.

Or maybe your heart was just broken for someone that doesn't know Jesus,

and you know without you sharing the good news with them that they're going

to be lost for all eternity, separated from God.

It's that broken heart. It's that conviction that leads you to that,

to repent of hiding the light under a bushel instead of shining it brightly for them to see.

See, all of this points of a transition from being infantile in your faith to

growing to completion, to growing to perfection, completeness, finished with Jesus.

It's that perfecting of love that we talk about in our church.

So the question for us is this, am I learning to trust Christ in both times

of joy and times of hardship?

And am I growing like Christ in my maturity?

Hey, are you more mature now than you were a year ago with Christ?

The spiritual disciplines you practice, are you practicing them more frequently?

Prayer, Bible study, maybe even fasting. I mean, there's a lot that we could

get into with that. That's a whole other sermon.

But are you showing forward progress with the Lord? Well, you're trying to get to the end zone.

You might feel like you get a penalty now and again, but what's more important

is the forward progress. You're trying to get a few more yards. Come on, let's go.

The end goal is in sight. We know it waits for us. We know we've already won

the game because of what Jesus has done.

I know it's not football season, but I couldn't resist. Let's get in there! Let's score!

So where do we go from here, practically speaking? How do we respond to this call to grow up?

Well, it comes down to looking at it again. Are we open to receiving the knowledge

of God and who he is? Folks, it's not a hidden knowledge.

Man, it's all laid bare right here.

There's nothing I'm telling you that, oh, for only 1995 and a special retreat,

you could know the full counsel of God. It's none of that kind of garbage.

There's no special offerings involved. It is your commitment and your time to

soak in the knowledge, not by osmosis as you sleep at night,

but by actively engaging with the Word,

engaging with other believers in the Word,

in the discussion that comes about. That's how you grow up in Christ.

I'll tell you, and I don't mean to say this because it hurts me more than it

hurts you, But you're not going to grow very much if you just sit and listen to me every Sunday.

As much as you would if you then take what I've told you, you talk amongst your

family, you study the scripture outside of this, you go to Sunday school,

you go to a life group, and you digest the word more and more.

That's the accelerated rate at which you grow in Jesus.

Now, my prayer is you do grow a little bit hearing the word and responding to it.

But come on, I only get one hour a week, if that, maybe 35, 40 minutes You know

how many hours you have listening to podcasts, watching YouTube,

looking at shorts Watching TV, checking out Fox News, it's more than one hour, I could tell you that.

We think about taking in the knowledge? We've got to grow in our knowledge.

Don't be content to stay with just the basics. Hey, venture off into something

that's a little bit more challenging.

So will you grow from your spiritual childhood into spiritual adulthood?

Will you take that knowledge and grow in your behavior, your practice?

Would you commit to refuse these childish reactions and choose Christ-like responses instead.

I know it's cliche, but it's cliche for my generation.

WWJD. Hey, what would Jesus do? I used to pass him out to my youth ministry kids all the time.

Some had helped. Some just said, what does that mean?

Well, it's a practice. What would Jesus do in this circumstance?

And then commit to growing to full maturity in Christ. Hey, none of us have arrived.

None of us have arrived at the place God wants us to be We have to continually fix our eyes on Jesus,

Again, the only truly fully grown person who's ever lived And let his life reshape

our life Think about that this morning, you guys,

I've got a prayer here from a senior saint some years ago Who prayed this And

maybe this could be our prayer this morning It's written in your bulletin even,

I'm not what I ought to be But thank the Lord I'm not what I was.

And let's grow in that humility together. Let's grow up into Jesus.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the challenge this morning.

The challenge is to take a step of faith, to, Lord, take one more step closer

to what it means to be like Christ.

Father, to be like him, not in his physical appearance, but,

Lord, like him in the way that he lived as a human being, perfect human being, complete human being.

Lord, conquering everything he conquered finally conquering sin and death for us,

Lord, we just pray that you will be glorified Lord, help us to grow in our knowledge,

may we grow in our practice and Father, as we practice we know that's not done

alone but it's done in community with other people,

in the context of our small groups of our church of our Sunday school classes for Bible studies,

and Lord, help us to grow in to being those fully mature people that you would have us to be.

Father, be glorified, we pray, in the mighty and the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org. It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that

recognizes the authority of the Bible.