A Call to Spiritual Maturity

Introduction

Turn in your Bibles this morning to 1 Corinthians 4:14; we will be looking at vv. 14-21 this morning and concluding this chapter.

We live in a society that does not encourage maturity.

For example, the latest statistics indicate that 33% of adults between the ages of 18-34 live at home with their parents. There are a number of reasons for this, some that are not related to maturity. For example, many young adults in the lower half of that age range are still pursuing their education, so it makes the most financial sense for them to live at home. We are also living during one of the worst periods in American history in terms of the affordability of housing.

Rental prices for apartments and homes are sky high, while home prices and interest rates make it nearly impossible for someone to get into the housing market if they don’t already own a home. These market conditions have made it impossible for many young adults to find a place to live besides their parents’ house because it simply is not affordable. While we need to factor in these conditions when we think about these statistics, we also need to factor in another statistic: 20% of young adults between 25-34 are not working.

That means that while we can understandably recognize that some of the reason young people are not becoming independent of their parents is because they are in school or because it is unaffordable to do so, a significant portion of those who are living depending on their parents are doing so simply because they do not have jobs and are not making an effort to grow up and live like independent adults. They are still living at home like children, depending on mom and dad to pay the rent, buy the groceries, provide electricity and water and gas and all the amenities of home life. Many young people in our society today simply are immature. They have not grown into maturity as adults; although they are physically mature and have adult bodies, they do not live as adults but as big children. Our society is structured in many ways to encourage immaturity.

Immaturity is not merely a problem in society at large but in the church as well as the culture filters into the church. The kind of immaturity I have in mind that is problematic in the church is not primarily societal but spiritual; the church is often filled with spiritual infants.

That was true, as we have seen, in the church at Corinth. Paul told them in 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 that they were spiritually immature. They should have been spiritual adults by the time Paul wrote this letter, but the church was filled with spiritual babies.

The church today often is no different, with people who have been in the church a long time, people who have professed Christ for many years, maybe even people who are or have been in positions of leadership in the church, but who are spiritually immature. When Paul saw that the church in Corinth was not growing to maturity, it caused him anguish of heart. Just like a wise parent would feel troubled if he saw his adult son living like a child, so Paul was troubled when he saw the Corinthians failing to reach any level of spiritual maturity.

The greatest problem that Paul had to address in the church at Corinth was their inability to grow, because if they could not get past this issue, none of the other issues could ever be resolved. If you want to solve issues of sin in the church, marriage issues in the church, idolatry in the church, spiritual gifts in the church, and so on, you have to have a church filled with people who are able to make spiritual progress. We have seen the reason why the Corinthians were not able to make spiritual progress, and it was because of their self-centered, prideful hearts.

When they gathered together as the church, everything was about them. They didn’t come together as a church to learn from God’s Word, to be challenged toward greater godliness, to be convicted of sin and encouraged to love and good deeds, to use their gifts to serve others and build up others. They came together as a church to show off their giftedness, to be praised by others, to gain status or prestige, to be admired, to feel better about themselves, to have their own egos enlarged, to have their itching ears tickled. They were like children who do what they do for the sole reason that they want to do it. As a parent, you deal with this problem of immaturity in children, and you try to teach them that our motivation for what we do is to serve others and to bless others, not just to do what we want to do.

Maybe you have a funeral to attend, and you bring your kids along. What do they inevitably say when they find out they’re getting dressed up for a funeral? “I don’t want to go. I’ll be bored.” So you have to teach them that they aren’t going for their own sake but to be a source of joy and comfort and peace for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. You are going to serve, to give, to benefit someone else. But children don’t necessarily comprehend that as children because they are immature. And the Corinthians were acting just like children. They had no thought in mind of how their attitudes and actions were impacting others, and they didn’t much care. They went to church for their own reasons and that was that. Paul, then, as a loving father to these baby Christians closes this opening section of the letter by calling them to spiritual maturity.

It’s time to leave infancy behind. It’s time to move on to spiritual adulthood, he says. It’s time for you to grow up and become the Christians that God has called you to be. The question that we have to ask, then, is how do we move from spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood?

How do we answer this call to spiritual maturity? Of course, this passage is not exhaustive on growing in our faith, as the doctrine of sanctification and the process of spiritual growth is discussed throughout the NT. But this passage is helpful for showing us the way forward when we think about growing in our walk with Christ. And I assume that everyone here this morning who is a Christian wants to grow spiritually, that you want to become spiritually mature; that’s why you’re here. If you’re not a Christian, then I would plead with you to forsake your sins and trust in Christ crucified and resurrected for your salvation.

That’s what you need to do this morning; nothing else really matters or is relevant until you abandon your sins, recognize your need of forgiveness and righteousness, and believe in Christ as the only source of forgiveness and righteousness. If you trust in Him, that He is the Son of God, that God raised Him from the dead, and you confess that He is Lord, the Bible says that you will be saved. Then you can start the process of growing to spiritual maturity, but until you have spiritual life, you can’t have spiritual growth. So please, if you have never put your faith in Christ, today is the day of salvation; don’t put it off any longer, but turn from your sin and trust in the Savior. For those who have trusted in Christ, I want you to see three steps this morning in this passage to grow to spiritual maturity. Step number one, if you want to move toward greater spiritual maturity in your walk with Christ, you need to…

Heed Biblical Admonition (vv. 14-15)

The first step for the Corinthians to move from spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood is to heed Paul’s admonition given in these first four chapters.

They need to be the kind of people who not only hear what Paul has to say, but who do it. They must apply and implement the Word of God into their lives if they want to grow. In v. 14, Paul takes a breath from his admonition to dispel any misconceptions about what he has said so far.

He has not written to shame them. There are a couple words in the NT used for shame.

One is used consistently with reference to Christ’s coming and those who will be put to shame when he comes.

That speaks of the shame that comes from judgment. It’s an objective shame that occurs outwardly because of a failure to be what you professed to be. But the other word, which is used here, speaks of being ashamed as an experience.

It literally has the idea of turning away from someone. It’s the idea of hiding your face in shame. That’s what Paul is saying here; he does not write to them to make them turn away in shame. The point is not to make them feel bad about themselves. We can understand why Paul inserts this note here, because what has he been saying to them since chapter 1?

Repeatedly, he has told them that they are nothings and nobodies, right?

In 1:26, he told them that they were not wise or mighty or noble. In 1:27, he reminded them that they were the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised, the nothings. In 3:1-2, he called them infants. In 3:1-4, he called them fleshly. In 3:18, he warned them about being self-deceived. In 4:7, he told them they are not superior to anyone and that they have nothing to boast about. The Corinthians might get to this point in the letter and feel beat down. They might think that Paul considers them to be total losers who should just hang their heads in shame. And so Paul tells them that all of these statements about them being weak and infants and nobodies have not been said to beat them down into a posture of shame. Paul is like a father to them, and a loving father doesn’t try to shame his children; his goal is not to make them feel bad about themselves. They might feel ashamed sometimes when their sin is pointed out to them, but the goal is never to shame. Instead, Paul says, he has written these things to admonish them as his beloved children.

He has said these things out of love for them.

He views them as his children. After all, it was Paul’s ministry that God had used to bring many of the Corinthian believers to faith in Christ. They knew the love that he had for them; they had seen it firsthand through his tireless ministry among them and how deeply he lived the truth and loved the people of God. Paul’s goal, then, was not to shame them but out of love for them, like a father to his child, to admonish them.

The word admonish is a great word in Greek.

It’s the word noutheteō, from which we get the phrase nouthetic counseling. It’s a word that aims at the intellect, the understanding, the mind. It has the idea of speaking and persuading someone using reason and truth to cease an improper course of conduct. It is often used in a negative context, of trying to warn someone to stop doing something that will lead to disaster, although at times it can simply mean to instruct as a synonym of to teach. Paul loved this word, and of the eight instances in the NT, all of them are attributed to Paul, either something he is quoted as saying in Acts or something he wrote in his letters.

For example, Paul wrote in Colossians 1:28…

Here we see the idea of admonishment as warning against a wrong way of thinking or living. Paul proclaims Christ, and in so doing, he admonishes and teaches every person. When he admonishes, he is warning about things people should avoid, either in doctrine or in conduct. And when he teaches, he is instructing in the right way to believe and behave. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:12 that the leaders of the church have the job of admonishing the body of Christ…

The phrase translated give you instruction is the same verb that means to admonish you. There it has a more neutral meaning, perhaps implying both the positive and negative aspects of teaching, both showing the right way and warning against the wrong way. We are to admonish one another, according to Romans 15:14…

We see a brother or sister on the wrong path, heading toward trouble, we should warn him or her. The Word of God admonishes us, church leaders should admonish the congregation, and the congregation should admonish one another! When Paul tells the Corinthians that he has written to admonish them, he is not doing anything extraordinary, see?

This is just the normal part of the Christian life. We sometimes get sideways in our walk with Christ, and we need someone to come alongside us and point it out, help us get pointed in the right direction. Maybe we get stuck spiritually, and we need someone to come alongside us and help us get moving toward maturity again. That’s what Paul is doing for the Corinthians. To show them that his motives are not to shame them but to help point them in the right direction and get them back on track, notice what he says in v. 15…

He highlights his special relationship to them! The tutor essentially was someone responsible for children when they were too immature to be responsible for themselves. We might better translate this term as a guide, like the ESV, or even better, a guardian. The guardian was to be shown respect and honor because of his role, but he was not the father and he did not have the same level of care and love for the children the father had. It’s important to realize that Paul is not speaking negatively of the guardians the Corinthians had, since they would have included people like Apollos and maybe even Peter! The point is not to put down other leaders in the church but to remind the Corinthians that Paul had a unique relationship with them because Paul led them to Christ and had a deep concern for them due to their longstanding relationship. Essentially, rather than putting down other teachers and leaders, Paul is expressing how much he loves the Corinthians, like a father loves his own children. The question that comes to us, then, is simply this: how do we respond when people who love us admonish us, warn us, instruct us about concerns they see in our lives?

Do we heed biblical admonition? Or do we get defensive? Do we get offended? This is especially important when that admonition comes to us from people who love us and have a close relationship with us.

We might think about a spouse, or a close friend, a pastor or Bible study leader, a parent. As Paul makes clear in this passage, not everyone has the same relationship with us as everyone else, but when someone who is a spiritual parent comes to us with a warning, a concern, how do we respond? See, if we get offended any time someone points out our spiritual immaturities, we’ll never grow!

You can’t grow to maturity if no one is allowed to highlight your immaturities. That doesn’t mean everyone who criticizes you is right or that you should listen to any and all criticism that comes your way. But it does mean that when people God has put in your life in certain relationships and roles offer criticism and admonition, it is wise to listen and heed what they say. So that’s step 1, heed biblical admonition; step 2, if you want to grow to maturity in Christ, you must…

Imitate Godly Examples (vv. 16-17)

Paul adds to what he says in vv. 14-15 by noting that not only has he given them godly counsel and loving admonition that aligns with God’s Word, but he himself has set a godly example for them…

Here’s where the power of admonition really hits hard: when the person who admonishes you lives out the maturity you desire to reach.

When the example matches the words. Paul has told them how they are to live throughout this section, in humility, in dependence on Christ and the gospel, in reliance on the Spirit, in weakness, willing to be fools for Christ’s sake, willing to suffer if God wills. But Paul has not merely told them this from his ivory tower as great theoretical advice; Paul embodies these truths and walks out these admonitions. Paul urges them, pleads with them, exhorts them to imitate him as their spiritual father.

The word translated exhort in modern Greek means please. Please, with urgency, with all seriousness, imitate me, Paul says. What does he want them to imitate?

He understands they are not apostles and they are not called to all the same tasks and sufferings that he has been called to perform and endure. He is not asking them to abandon their day jobs and become apostles and suffer and become homeless and impoverished. In fact, it’s much deeper than that. He is calling them to imitate him in his total lack of concern for worldly status, prestige, power, riches, nobility, honor, and comforts, and to seek solely to live a life shaped by the word of the cross. Paul has been calling them to this throughout this section and repeatedly Paul has shown how his own life models a cross-centered pattern, and now he brings everything home from the first four chapters and says, “Please, join me in living life shaped by the values and the truth of the gospel of Christ crucified.” This requires great introspection, doesn’t it?

It would be easier, in a sense, if Paul just said, “Quit your job, hit the road as a globe-trotting, church-planting evangelist, and become an apostle like me!” But that’s not the call. The call is to live completely for Christ and according to His cross right where you are right now. The challenge is to let the cross shape how you think, how you prioritize your time and energy and money, how you think about status and prestige and reputation, how you love your wife or submit to your husband, how you love and raise your kids, how you serve in your local church, how you act at work, and on and on and on. Imitate me, Paul says, so that the cross of Christ is everything to you in every sphere of life. For some, that might take you to South America or China or Iran as a missionary. But for most Christians, that means being faithful in the ordinary, mundane, normal tasks of every day life, so that the cross makes everything ordinary redound to God’s glory. Because Paul could not get to Corinth immediately to embody this for them, we learn in v. 17 that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of what it means to live a life shaped by the word of the cross…

Notice that Timothy is what Paul longs for the Corinthians to become: Paul’s beloved and faithful child.

They were already Paul’s children through the gospel. And they were already beloved by the apostle because of his close relationship with them. But what they were not at the time of this letter was faithful. But Paul had a child in the faith who was beloved and faithful, and that was Timothy. Timothy is Paul’s spiritual child par excellence, because it is required of stewards, v. 2, that they be found faithful, and that’s what Timothy was. So because Paul could not come, he sends someone who embodies the word of the cross the same way Paul does, his son in the faith, Timothy. And Timothy, whenever he arrives in Corinth after they receive this letter, will remind them of what he teaches in every church.

There was nothing unique about Paul’s instructions to Corinth. And I think that’s very important. Paul is not giving them some private information that only applied to them, or being harder on them than on other churches, or letting them off easy. The standard is the standard for every church in every place. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Desert Hills in Glendale, Arizona or Desert Hills Bible Church in Kenya in Africa, God’s standard remains what it is for every church everywhere. And Timothy would come and remind the Corinthians of God’s standard for His church. Here’s the question this passage raises for us: Whose example do we follow?

Do we have people in our lives that are further along in spiritual maturity than we are, and do we seek to imitate them as they allow their lives to be shaped by the gospel? Let me encourage you that the people you find to imitate should be people you actually know in real life. It’s great to listen to podcasts and sermons online, and we can learn from preachers we’ve never met to be sure; but the people we want to imitate are the people God has put in our lives that we know, the flesh and blood people that we see how they live and the outcome of their faith. To grow to spiritual maturity, then, we need to imitate godly examples. Third, you must…

Pursue Kingdom Power (vv. 18-21)

These verses have given rise to a number of discussions and debates about what or whom exactly Paul is discussing.

Who are the arrogant ones, why would they say Paul is not coming, and what kind of power contest does Paul have in mind? The ones who are arrogant, it seems to me, are the leaders in Corinth who think they can continue living like people of flesh and will never get held to account for it. They are the ones who think they can use the church for their own gratification and honor, and they truly believe that Paul will never come and deal with them or that even if he does, they are better speakers and more polished orators, and they will put Paul to shame. Some of them perhaps have argued that Paul would never show up in Corinth because he is such an inferior speaker and such a weak man in person. And so they have become arrogant, they are puffed up, regarding themselves as superior even to the Apostles themselves! Paul wants to make it clear that he plans to visit Corinth, and if the Lord wills, he will come and deal with anyone there who continues to live for the flesh and to abuse the church for their own ends, as we see in vv. 18-19… The question that is most significant involves what Paul means when he talks about power in vv. 19-20…

Some have suggested that Paul is going to have an Elijah vs. the prophets of Baal type of standoff with these fleshly leaders, and God will vindicate Paul with some show of divine power on his behalf. I think that’s rather unlikely because of how Paul has used the idea of power in this book up to this point.

Power has never been about flashy displays of divine omnipotence like on Mount Carmel with Elijah, nor has it been about spiritual gifts like miracles or prophecy or healings. The word power has been used four times leading up to this verse.

The first time is in 1:18…

What does power refer to? It refers to the gospel, and its power to save a sinner from death, grant eternal life, and sanctify us. We see the same idea again the second time it is used in 1:24…

Christ crucified, which is foolishness and weakness to the world, is the power of God and the wisdom of God to us. The power of God is not manifested in brilliant displays of majesty but at the cross where the Savior was crucified for our sins. Paul uses the word again in 2:4…

Notice here that divine power is opposed to persuasive words of wisdom and human power and glory. It’s opposed to everything that is designed to impress people. Paul did not preach with human power or in ways that were humanly impressive but ways that were divinely powerful. We see that reiterated in 2:5…

The wisdom of men is opposed to the power of God. Paul preached in divine power, and that power went against what people admired and applauded. When we looked at those verses in chapter 2, we saw that Paul explicitly was not talking about divine power in miracles or other supernatural displays; he wanted the Corinthians to understand that they came to faith not because of Paul, his intelligence, his wisdom, his skills, or anything that appealed to their flesh, but only through the power of the Spirit in the gospel. Paul was clear that Jews want signs and Greeks want wisdom, but Paul preached Christ crucified because the gospel is the power of God to save sinners. When we come to the end of the argument in chapter 4, then, it is unlikely that now Paul says he will put on some kind of display of supernatural signs to manifest the power of God. Something else must be in view. And that something else is the power of God inherent in the gospel that changes lives.

The power in view is the power of the cross to save sinners from death and destruction and to transform them into holy people who love, serve, and worship the risen Christ. The power is the power of a transformed life. The kingdom of God, Paul says, does not consist in words, or talk, or fancy speeches, or external displays of giftedness, but in the power of a transformed life through the gospel. The implication, then, is that Paul is not going to come and have a speaking contest to see who is the best orator.

Rather, Paul will come and see the fruit of the talk. What does the preaching produce? Does the preaching save sinners? Does the preaching transform lives? Does the preaching manifest the power of God in the heart of sinful people? Or does the preaching merely look nice and sound nice but accomplish nothing more than tickling itching ears? You know, we so easily can become content with words rather than with kingdom power, can’t we?

We can relate to the Pharisees, who outwardly looked clean and whitewashed, but inwardly were full of dead bones like whitewashed tombs.

As long as the outside looks good, we’re happy. As long as its attractive on the outside, we’re content. It’s tragic, and I hate that I even have to say it, but do you realize how many churches there are that are full of words but devoid of power? Everything looks great on the outside, all the ministries and the programs, but they depend on the flesh and the wisdom of men rather than on the power of God. Rather than seeing lives changed, people are confirmed in their sins, told they are on their way to heaven because they said this prayer or got baptized or whatever it is that they did, but they don’t really know Christ and they’re on their way to destruction. It’s tragic. We shouldn’t want preaching that entertains us or makes us feel good, or ministries and programs that are nice on the outside but devoid or power on the inside. We should crave nothing less than ministry that the Spirit of God is using to transform us into the likeness of Christ. How do you know if a preacher is a powerful man of God? Two ways:

Is his life transformed by the message he preaches? And are the lives of those who listen to him transformed by the message he preaches? Transformation is kingdom power.

Conclusion

Paul ends with a question in v. 21…

There are two ways kids can mature, aren’t there? One is they respond to admonition willingly and take steps toward maturity on their own without compulsion. The other is they can resist maturity and the parent can use the rod to discipline them and given them a different kind of encouragement toward maturity. And so Paul asks the Corinthians what they would prefer? Would they prefer to have him come and compel them to maturity with discipline in the church, which is what the rod symbolizes, or would they prefer to heed his words, move on from spiritual infancy, and enjoy a time of mutual affection and gentle fellowship when he arrives? The same question is put before us today as well, isn’t it?

It’s not always a person who comes to us with the rod to discipline, although sometimes church discipline is necessary.

But the Lord disciplines his sons, which is what the Word of God says. If we won’t move toward maturity by heeding God’s calls to us in His Word, sometimes God chastises and disciplines us to get us moving in the right direction. But it’s much more enjoyable when we obey willingly, without the compulsion of the Lord’s divine discipline, and we experience the joy of walking with our Lord and fellowshipping with His people. God wants us to grow to greater maturity in Christ.

Wherever you are in your walk with Christ, our Lord’s expectation is that you will grow to greater maturity. The way you do that is by heeding biblical admonition, imitating godly examples, and pursuing kingdom power that transforms your life and the lives of those around you. I pray that we all might heed this call to spiritual maturity and see ourselves and our church family continue to grow to greater growth in the Lord.