Childish Things
Maturity in the Body • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Today’s Reading from God’s Word
Today’s Reading from God’s Word
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
Introduction
Introduction
I want you to do something with me this morning. I want you to forget every wedding you've ever been to. Just for about ten seconds.
Because if you grew up in church, you've heard 1 Corinthians 13 at most of them.
You've seen it on cross-stitched pillows.
You've seen it on a wall in somebody's living room, in cursive, over the couch.
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast.
We've practically domesticated this chapter.
We've made it cozy.
We've made it the thing you read before you cut the cake.
But here's what we usually forget.
About halfway through this chapter, right in the middle of all the patient-and-kind, all the bears-and-believes-and-hopes, Paul changes lanes without warning.
He says this. Listen for the lurch.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
And I want you to feel how strange that is to find in the love chapter.
Nobody puts that line on a wedding invitation.
Nobody cross-stitches that.
When I was a child, I reasoned like a child — that's not the part you write in the card.
So what's it doing in here?
Why is the love chapter suddenly a chapter about growing up?
You know, Paul puts it there on purpose.
Because the thing love finally puts an end to in us isn't hate or apathy.
The thing love is summoning us out of is something more embarrassing than either of those.
It's our childishness.
The grown-up version of us that the love chapter is calling into being is on the other side of putting down a whole pile of stuff.
Stuff most of us should've put down years ago.
Stuff a lot of us are still carrying around at forty, at sixty, at eighty, with no plans of letting go.
So we came to the love chapter for patience and kindness.
Paul wants to talk about us still being kids.
This morning, let's figure out why.
Diet, Reach, Process, and Now: The Put-Down
Diet, Reach, Process, and Now: The Put-Down
We are three Sundays into this series on maturity in the body, and we've been building one idea from three angles.
Three weeks ago, in Hebrews 5, we talked about milk versus solid food.
That some of us are still nursing on the simple stuff when we ought to be cutting our teeth on harder food.
Immaturity isn't a category problem; it's a diet problem.
Two Sundays ago, in Philippians 3, we watched Paul say not that I have already attained.
Paul. With the resume. With the pedigree. With the credentials. Still reaching. Still pressing on.
Maturity isn't standing still and admiring the ground you've covered. It's a reach.
Last Sunday, James 1.
The trials we'd give anything to avoid are the trials God uses to forge maturity in us.
We don't get to bypass the heat. It’s a process. Maturity gets made.
So we've talked about the diet, the reach, and the process.
Today, we add one more thing.
And it might be the most uncomfortable one yet.
Today is about the put-down.
The thing nobody told us about growing up is this:
getting bigger doesn't make you grown.
Time alone won't do it.
You can put on the years and never put down the toys.
You can be forty and still keeping score like you're seven.
So this morning we name what has to come off the table before maturity has anywhere to land.
Next Sunday, in Colossians 1, we get to lift our eyes and see what a mature, Christ-shaped church actually looks like.
But you can't picture the destination while you're still dragging the toy box behind you.
So today is the step before next Sunday.
Diet, reach, process. And today: the put-down.
Childish Speech: Words Without Weight
Childish Speech: Words Without Weight
Now, let’s take a close look at the first part of v. 11:
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
We really need to focus on the verb tense:
It's not "I once said something silly."
It's the imperfect — habitual, characteristic, ongoing.
I used to live in a kind of talk.
That was how I lived. Not how I slipped.
Now, let me show you something the Corinthians would have heard immediately, and we may miss if we take the chapter out of context.
The verb for “spoke” runs all through chapter 14 - where Paul is straightening out their fight about tongues.
The Corinthians had built their identity on a certain kind of talk.
The flashier, the more spiritual.
The more impressive-sounding, the more advanced.
They thought eloquent, ecstatic, in-the-Spirit speech was the badge of maturity.
And Paul, has already told them:
1 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Hear what he just did. Their proudest talk — he just called it noise.
And then in 13:11 he says: I used to talk like a child too. I grew out of it.
So when Paul says childish speech, he's not just talking about little kids babbling.
He's talking about the kind of talk that sounds spiritual, that sounds mature, that fills the room — and lands like nothing.
Volume isn't maturity.
Fluency isn't maturity. A child can talk all day.
Here's what childish speech looks like for us.
It looks like complaining.
Turning every observation into a grievance.
The drive to work, the weather, the way the meeting went, the way somebody loaded the dishwasher.
A whole running commentary that's just one sustained low-grade gripe.
That's a child's relationship with the world. Everything is something to fuss about.
It looks like gossip.
Passing along what wasn't ours to pass along.
Treating somebody else's private business like it's a casserole to share at the potluck.
A child does that. A child can't hold a secret because a child hasn't yet learned that some things weigh enough to carry alone.
It looks like snapping.
Using the tongue like a weapon the second we're tired, cornered, hungry, hot.
Saying the cutting thing because in the moment it feels good to say it.
It looks like performative talk.
The God-words. The right phrases.
Sounding spiritual without actually being spiritual.
That was the Corinthians' exact problem. This is not just a first-century problem.
Can you see it?
A child babbles because a child hasn't yet learned that words weigh something.
They throw them out like they're free. They're not.
The grown-up has learned, sometimes the hard way, that my words land somewhere.
They mark somebody.
They build something. Or they break something.
They follow somebody home and play on a loop in their head at 2 a.m.
Childish speech, at the bottom, is the cheap use of an expensive thing.
Now here's where the love-cure shows up in the same chapter.
Look back at v. 4:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. …
When we read that, we think of those from an emotional feeling.
They're not, primarily. They're speech qualities first.
What does patient love sound like in your mouth?
What does kind love sound like in your mouth?
Patience is what doesn't say the cutting thing when you have the perfect chance.
Kindness is what reaches for the gracious word when the snippy word is already loaded.
Paul starts his love-list with patient and kind because that's where most of our childishness leaks first.
Out of our mouth. Into the room. Onto somebody who didn't deserve it.
And by the way, it's not "do I cuss?"
That's not the question.
The question is: what register does my mouth normally live in?
Is my talk in the patient-and-kind register, or is it in the noisy-gong register?
Because the room can hear the difference.
Your spouse can hear it. Your kids can hear it. The brother sitting next to you in the pew can hear it.
Your mouth is the loudest thing about you.
And if it's still operating on a kindergarten budget, the room will know.
That's the first thing Paul says he put away. The childish talk.
Childish Understanding: Surface Reads and Quick Offense
Childish Understanding: Surface Reads and Quick Offense
The second verb in 13:11 goes one layer deeper.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
The word for thought is referring to your mindset or orientation.
It's the angle from which you read the world.
It's the same word in Philippians 2:5
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
The same word is also found in Colossians 3 where Paul says set your minds on things above.
It's the word in Romans 8:5 for what you're oriented toward.
Now, back to v. 11:
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
So when Paul says he used to think like a child, he means:
I used to read the room from the angle a child reads the room.
I used to have a child's frame of reference.
A child's world is exactly as big as the child standing in the middle of it.
Everything that happens, happens to them.
Everything anybody says is either for them or against them.
Nothing has a wider story than the child's immediate experience of it.
That's what childish understanding is.
Not stupidity. Smallness.
A field of vision that doesn't stretch any further out than the end of my own nose.
What does this look like in the church?
Childish understanding reads the worst into people's motives.
Somebody walks past you in the foyer without saying hi, and your mind goes — they're mad at me. They've heard something. I bet so-and-so told them.
You spin up a whole novel in eight seconds.
Meanwhile that person is just trying to find their kid before service starts and didn't see you.
But your frame is too small to hold that possibility, so the worst story wins by default.
Childish understanding takes offense at things that weren't aimed at us in the first place.
Somebody says something general in a class, and we feel personally targeted.
Somebody preaches a sermon, and we're sure they preached it at us.
Somebody posts something online, and we read it as a coded message about our living room.
The world becomes a series of subtweets aimed at us.
Childish understanding draws conclusions before it's gathered the evidence.
We render the verdict in the first five seconds, and then we spend the next five years defending it.
That's a child's mindset.
And it isn't because the child is dumb.
It's because the child's frame is small. The horizon doesn't go far enough out.
And here's the cure — and Paul has it right in the same chapter, four verses earlier.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Four verbs.
These are the love-shaped way of reading the room.
Bears all things.
Love carries the load before it complains about the weight.
Love absorbs the friction.
Believes all things.
Not gullibly. But charitably.
Love leans toward the better explanation before it leans toward the worse one.
Love extends to the brother and sister next to it the same benefit of the doubt that love extends to itself.
Hopes all things.
Love can see further out than today's interaction.
Love can hold longer for somebody.
Love refuses to write the final chapter of a person's story in pencil based on a two-minute interaction inside the entryway.
Endures all things.
Love sticks around long enough for the truer picture to come into focus.
It doesn't bail at the first sour read.
You see what those four verbs are doing? They're stretching the frame.
They're forcing the small child's horizon out to a grown-up's horizon.
They're making the field of vision bigger than the end of my nose.
And that. That is grown-up. That's mature understanding.
It's not "am I smart?" Paul doesn't care.
The question is, how wide a frame am I holding around the person in front of me?
Am I rendering the small, fast, self-centered read?
Or am I making room for a bigger story than the one I can see from where I'm standing?
Maturity isn't measured by what you know.
It's measured by how wide a frame you can hold around the person in front of you.
That's the second thing Paul says he put away. The childish read.
Childish Thinking: The Ledger
Childish Thinking: The Ledger
Now we get to the third verb. Once you you see this, you can't unsee it.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
“reasoned” is a bookkeeping word. An accounting word.
It means to reckon, to count, to credit, to put on the ledger.
It's the word for what counts as what.
"I used to reckon like a child."
Now, go back to v. 5:
5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
Love. Does not. Reckon.
Same verb. Same word. Six verses apart.
v. 5: love does not reckon.
v. 11: I used to reckon like a child.
Childish reckoning is exactly what love refuses to do.
You know what childish reckoning is? It's score-keeping.
Childish thinking is the ledger.
Think about where we’ve been today.
First point: Our speech is the leak — the noise that comes out the top.
Second point: Understanding is the lens — the angle from which you read the room.
But reckoning is the ledger.
It's the place underneath both of those where you decide what counts.
Who owes you. What you're owed. It's your internal accounting.
And the childish ledger is always wrong. Always.
Let me show you what a child's accounting looks like, …
A child doesn't reckon by the value of the thing. A child reckons by the feel of the thing.
Hand a four-year-old the choice between a candy bar today or a college fund tomorrow, and the kid takes the candy bar without blinking. Doesn't even pause. Why? Because the candy bar sparkles in the moment, and the college fund is invisible.
Offer a kid five quarters or a twenty-dollar bill. A lot of kids will take the quarters. Because there are more of them. And they jingle.
That's the childish ledger.
It weighs the immediate above the long-term.
The shiny above the substantial.
Now, have we updated our math?
How many of us spend hours on things that won't matter in a week and ten minutes on something that'll matter for eternity?
We’re ranking the loud blessings over the quiet ones — exactly what the Corinthians were doing with their tongues over love.
They counted the spectacular as more valuable than the substantial.
What does the childish ledger look like in our relationships?
keeping a mental file on every slight.
Every time he said the wrong thing. Every time she didn't come through. Every time the brother let you down.
The file is open. The notebook is out. Pencil is in hand. We're keeping the books.
after all I've done for them.
Have you ever said that sentence? Or thought it? After all I've done for them. That's a ledger sentence.
That's somebody opening a spreadsheet inside their chest. Look at column A. Look at column B. Look how much I'm owed.
demanding our own way because, well, we've earned it. Look at the receipts.
being irritable because the math is not coming out in our favor today.
Things are going our way and now we're snippy because the ledger isn't balancing.
How many of us act seven years old and are still keeping score?
What’s the cure?
5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
Love throws out the ledger. Closes the notebook. Shreds the spreadsheet.
Doesn't tally. Doesn't track. Doesn't run the books on what you owe me.
This is not natural to any of us. But it is grown-up.
This is what putting away childish things actually means down at the foundation.
Not just cleaning up the mouth. Not just widening the frame. We are closing the ledger.
This is the place.
This is the layer where most of us are still living in the nursery.
We've gotten our talk mostly cleaned up.
We've stretched the frame a little.
But the ledger? The ledger is still open. The pencil is still in our hand. We're still keeping score.
So, Who's on your ledger?
Whose name is still in the book? What grievance are you still tallying?
What slight from 2017 is still drawing interest in your chest? What "after all I've done for them" sentence have you said in your head this week?
That's where the childish thing still lives.
And it will only go away when you decide to grow up.
Nobody's going to close it for you.
Nobody's going to take the pencil out of your hand.
Paul didn't say I outgrew the childish things. He said:
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
I put them away. That's a decision. With a verdict on it.
As We Close
As We Close
Remember what Paul is trying to do here. He's trying to grow a church.
The childish verbs in verse 11 aren't just about us as individuals growing up.
They're about a body growing up.
Read this chapter in view of chapters 12, 13, and 14.
The whole thing is about a church.
About a congregation where these failures are bumping into each other every Sunday.
Putting them down IS how we love each other.
The Corinthian church was a hard place to be.
Their speech, their mindset, their reckoning had made the room exhausting.
People were ranking each other. Talking past each other. Keeping books on each other.
Paul says: that's the childish version of church.
The grown-up version is what verses 4 through 7 describe. Patient. Kind. Bears. Believes. Hopes. Endures.
That's the church Paul is writing toward. And the way that comes to exist is by one of us deciding to put one thing down this afternoon.
And then another one of us doing the same. And then another one.
That's how a body grows up. One put-down at a time.
We each, individually, must decide to quit dragging the toy box behind us.
Today is the put-down. Next week is the picture, as we’ll look at Colossians 1:28 and see how a mature congregation is growing to look like Jesus.
Remember:
Maturity isn't a birthday.
It's a verdict you render.
On the way you used to talk.
On the lens you used to look through.
And on the ledger you used to keep.
Render the verdict this afternoon.
And let the people next to you finally meet the grown-up you were called to be.
