How Grown Up Are You

Introduction

I want to start off with a question this morning, “How grown up are you?”

Children are often times having a contest to see who is going to be the tallest. Being tall means being older to them or more grown up. Maybe you used to keep track of your kids height on a door frame with a pencil marking each years growth. I think that is a neat idea, but we never really did that. But as you get taller that is a sign of growth. It is how children gage that they are getting older and approaching adulthood. Some of them seem to not know when to stop growing and they pass up their parents. I am 5’11” though I wish I were taller. The men in my family have been traditionally taller men. My grandpa was 6’5” and my dad was 6’2”, but somehow I fell just short of 6 feet. Maybe I got dropped and lost a few inches.

As believers, we are growing; but unlike childhood, our growth is not intended to stop. Ephesians 4:13-15 “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” teaches that we should be continually growing to be a mature man. The word perfect there refers to being mature or reaching adulthood. We know we have reached adulthood when we are like Christ. That is our goal.

We know from verses like 1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” that we will not be perfect here on this earth in the sense that we use the word perfect.

But God is doing a work in us to mature us and make us more holy. Phil 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” says that we can be confident that we will experience that complete maturity in the day of Jesus Christ or as another passage says when we see Christ, we will be like Him for we shall see him as He is.

As a pastor, my job is to train you to be and help you to become more like Christ. Eph 4:11-12 “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”

Col 1:28-29 “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.” says the same thing. This verse even tells me how I do it:

Preaching

Warning

Teaching

So that is our goal, but here is the question I have for you today: How grown up are you? How spiritually mature are you?

We can gage how much a child has grown by keeping track of certain milestones in their lives like sitting up, eating real food, talking, learning to read, going through puberty, learning to drive, working a job, starting a family, retiring and finally death. All these things help us trace development across our lifespan.

But I believe we can trace the development of a person’s spiritual growth as well. To do this we are going to look at a passage in 1 John 2. I will not be preaching from this text exegetically, but I want to trace a theme that John uses in the passage to show the development across the lifespan of our spiritual growth. John divides the stages of spiritual growth into three groups: little children, young men, fathers. We will just be tracing the times when John says I write unto you and then he directly address each group.

Little Children

There are two words for little children in this text, but I am going to consider them the same because the difference in the two is negligible. There are certain things that we expect and can often times overlook in children because they are still learning and growing. We could expect that a little kid might have trouble sitting still in church, but if Luke starts wiggling in his seat something is probably wrong. It is natural for children to be children. It is natural for spiritual children to be children. We should not expect them to be mature adults if they just got saved or have never had any teaching in their lives. So every christian goes through a stage of being a little child. But according to John, how do we know someone is a little child spiritually?

Little Children know Jesus Christ as their savior. vs13- One thing is always true about all of my kids, my wife and I produced them and Katy gave birth to them. There is a difference to me between my children and your children. My kids get to come into my house and help themselves to the snacks in the house, they can redecorate their rooms, they can jump on top of me and have a tickling match. They can do all these things because they are my children. The first step in spiritual maturity is being a child of God. 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:” Every true Christian, child of God has one thing in common: They have all received Jesus Christ as their savior, by faith alone in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without that salvation experience you are not even one of God’s children. I am taking these descriptions a little out of order because I think this one needs to be foundation to our discussion today. Vs 13 says he is writing to the little children because ye have known the Father. Do you know Jesus Christ as your savior today.

Little children struggle with sin vs 1 John addresses his first command to these little children to Not sin. When a person becomes a believer, there is a change in them, but it is not the type of change that automatically makes them never sin again. One sign of spiritual immaturity (I use this word to refer to those who naturally ought to be spiritual babes, but also to those who should be adults spiritually but act like children) is a consistent struggle with sin. Children do what they want to do and it takes training to get them to choose to do the right thing. Immature Christians often find that they lose more than they win in their struggle with sin. It isn’t because they don’t have God’s Spirit and everything they need to live holy lives, but usually it is because they don’t know how to fight that battle. We will come back to this verse in a second to finish out the thought, but lets jump ahead to vs 12.

Little children need to know about forgivingness and making sin right again. vs 12 This really ties back into the first point. There sins are forgiven, but sometimes little children struggle with living in that reality. I said we would come back to vs 1. The first verse ends with these words if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. These little children need to be told and be able to rest assured that even when they sin, their sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ. They need to be taught to confess their sins 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” and then to live in that forgiveness because Jesus is our advocate. An advocate is like a lawyer who argues on your behalf. When Satan brings his accusations against the believer, Jesus Christ is there arguing on your behalf. He says, “Those sins are paid for by the blood I shed on calvary.” Let me read the words of a song that speaks to this so strongly

In the Presence of Jehovah As I stand before the throne The accuser of the brethren Starts to read the things I've done As I hear the awful charges The question fills my mind Why should I not be put in hell To suffer for all time? Chorus: It's through the blood That's all I have to plea It's through the blood That Jesus shed for me Not by works of my own righteousness For filthy rags are they But because of that old rugged tree Hanging on dark Calvary That is my only plea It's through the blood

Little children run the risk of being ashamed at Jesus’ coming vs 28 If we fail to abide in Him, we run the risk of being ashamed when he appears. 2 Cor 5:8-10 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” The judgment seat of Christ does not punish believers for sins committed as we saw in the last point they are all under the blood; but it is a judgment for rewards. Jesus said in John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” If you do not abide in Christ, you won’t bring forth fruit. Little children do not abide in Christ and so they live fruitless lives.

But here is the thing, it is natural to be a child at some point in your life. The exciting thing is to see how God is growing you to become an adult believer. The danger is when you refuse to grow up spiritually. Like the guy who refuses to get a job and pay video games all day long; we can unnaturally stay little children.

Young Men

Between childhood and maturity there is an in between period. This refers to young men. Technically in this society these were fully men, but without the experience and maturity of years under their belt. One key distinguishing factor about young men (you can also say young ladies) is that they are not little children any more. They shouldn’t be treated as such either. But these young men are taking strides to become mature men of God. All of John’s descriptions of the young men are found in vs 14.

Young men are strong. If I were to have Joshua and Kenny arm wrestle, I think we all know who would win. Young men are growing in strength. When it comes to the spiritual realm, little children easily fall prey to temptation and lose heart when things get difficult, but young men are strong. Taking all of the bible into account, it isn’t their strength, but God’s. Eph 6:10 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Isa 41:10 “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: Be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Young men fight spiritual warfare and know where to draw their strength from. They live in dependence on God for the strength to fight.

The word of God abides in young men. Not only do they live in dependence on God for His strength, but they know how to get it. God’s strength comes from an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. Earlier we looked at a verse from John 15. Spiritual strength comes from abiding in Christ, but how do we do that?Back in John 15:7 “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Jesus described this abiding process as His words abiding in you. This is the same langauge we see (interestingly by the same author) to describe these young men. Young men spend time with God in His word, but they do it in such a way that God’s word finds a home in their hearts. They don’t study the word merely academically. They don’t read it to fulfill an obligation or commitment and then forget it the rest of the day. These men let the word of God make it down into their hearts and the fiber of their being. More could be said about how this works, but just know this young men do not have a casual relationship with the word of God.

Young men overcome sin and strongholds.

When we go to war, do we enlist the 50-70 year old men to go into battle? No, we grab the 20-30 year olds because they are physically strong. We also don’t send children into battle. The young adult days of our lives are some of the strongest days of our lives. These young men because they live in dependence on God for strength and they know where to get that strength, are able to overcome Satan’s temptations and the strongholds in their lives. Addictions fall, pet sins are put in the pound and Satan holds no sway in their hearts. This does not mean they never sin, but young men know how to fight and they win.

Fathers

The final stage that John uses is fathers. This speaks of spiritually mature men of God. I want to make one thing clear here, these categories are not limited to a certain age. Its funny how you can have a man who got saved in his 50’s and another man who has been saved since he was 9 but is now only 30 and the younger man can be more spiritually mature. There is also a tendency in Christians to grow so far and then stop. So a younger man may pass up an older Christian. Age is not the requirement to being spiritually mature.

There is only one description of a spiritually mature father in this passage in vs 13,14: ye have known him that is from the beginning. All Children know God, their father. All children are sons of God; but the older they get the better they know Him.

Fathers know God intimately. Notice it says they know him that is from the beginning. They know God in deeper and more intimate ways than the children or even the young men do. This is the only quality that is given of the mature, spiritual fathers in this text.

This state of spiritually maturity is not dependent on:

Knowing your systematic theology

Coming to church every service

Serving in Sunday school or some other ministry

Going soul-winning

I think the mature Christian is going to do these things, but you can do all these things and not be a mature Christian. A mature Christian is one who knows and passionately loves his God.

How many of you have been married for more than 25 years? Would you say that your love for your spouse has grown though it has changed over those 25 years? It has settled into a deeper, more truly intimate passion for your spouse.

The sign of a mature Christian is someone who doesn’t just read their bible to get it done legalistically, who doesn’t just not sin because they know its wrong, who doesn’t just come to church because it is something to do, but someone who truly knows and loves God.

Phil 3:10 “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;”

Conclusion

There probably are a lot of other characteristics that we could draw from other passages of scripture, but I believe this text gives us a pretty solid framework from which we can evaluate where we are on this spectrum of spiritual growth. There is no guilt intended if you are naturally an immature Christian but are you growing. If you stop growing, something is wrong. It has been said it is not so much important where you are right now in your life as which direction your feet are pointing. The purpose of this message is primarily to help you see where you truly are in your growth and to encourage you to keep moving forward. Hebrews 6:1-2 “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”

Immature christians struggle with sin and forgiveness.

Growing christians draw strength from an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ and are thus able to conquer sin in their lives.

Mature christians have a deeper and more intimate relationship with their God.

So here is the question, how mature are you really?