Grow Up

You can open up to 1st Corinthians. We're going to circle back a little bit in Chapter 2 and we're going to get into chapter 3 because we need some context in order to understand a little bit of chapter 3 and then next week. We're going to look at foundation and what that looks like what we build upon what that actually looks like for our church as well. So let me just read this year to you this morning and 1st Corinthians chapter 2. It says you're among the mature. Would you impart wisdom? Although it is not a wisdom of the sage or the rulers of the sage who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed for the ages for our Glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this fourth. They had they would not have crucified the Lord Of Glory but as it is written with no eye has seen nor ear heard through the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him God is revealed to Astor the spirit the spirit searches. Everything in the depths of God who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him. So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the spirit of God. Now, we have received the spirit of the world of the spirit who is from God that we might understand things freely given us by God and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom and taught by the spirit interpreting spiritual truth to those who are spiritual but natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for their Folly to him. He's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned the spiritual person judges or another word. There be a examines all things but himself to be examined are judged by no one for who is understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ but I Brothers Cannot address you as spiritual people. But as people of Flesh as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk not solid food for you or not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for you're still at the flesh. We're all there is jealousy and strife among you are you not of The Flash and behaving only inhuman ways for when one says I follow Paul another says I follow Apollo's are you not merely being human? What did is Apollo's what is Paul servants or who you believed as a lord of sign to each I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the growth and neither plants nor he who Waters of anything but only God who gives growth of plants and he who waters are one that you shall receive his wages. According to his labor. We are Gods fellow workers. You work out the old gods. as we jump back into this one of the realities that we keep getting presented with with Corinth is that there is no perfect Church This Side of Heaven church thing is filled with all sorts of imperfections because the church is made up of all kinds of imperfect people people that bring division people that bring strike people that bring baggage people that have all kinds of issues and they're hungry maybe for power and positions and maybe for wealth and they're looking at ways in order to use God to get what they want and what happens if people desire their plans over God's plans, And I wish and everything inside of me truly wishes. I could say that there is a perfect Church perfect organization. And if you're new here today, one of the things that I cannot stress enough is redeemers is an incredibly in perfect place. It's an incredibly in perfect place because but we have been transformed and changed by Jesus for those who profess faith in Jesus Christ. There is still issues deep within a state called that you rub each other the wrong way at times and what we like to view this place as is a Beautiful Mess A Beautiful Mess. And if you agree that you're messed up and that there's inner Brokenness. You will fit in very well at this church. If you are not surprised when someone sends against you when someone hurts you when someone plans dinners and then they cancel on you. All right. I just trying to avoid the dinner when those things happen and they make us go. Do they like me do they care about me? I've been hurt. I've been wounded maybe there's been word said about me when we begin to feel those things. We realize that we are broken when we consider this term Brokenness, but we tend to do as we look at the world around us. We say yes broken. It's messed up there's problems and there's issues or we look at our own life and we think because of broken relationships. I'm experiencing pain. I'm experiencing suffering. I have problems in this life. That means it's broken. We need to come inside each and every person there is an inner Brokenness that has to be dealt with in our lives. And so if you're here with us today. I can tell you we are a bunch of broken people and there's no perfect church and as the saying goes if you find the perfect Church don't go to it cuz you won't ruin it. You will be the problem at and if we're looking at corn we're seeing at this church is incredibly imperfect why? They wanted to elevate teachers just like we do in our day and age. We want to have the wise teacher we want to have the influential teacher. I want a church that teaches what I want and what I desire for the hunt for the perfect Church we're going to think is the teaching tailor-made for me is the music made for me is the kids ministry made for me. And are they going to let me have my pet Ministries and let me call the shots and we have all of these ideas that get created in our heads and our heart when we're looking at a church. And the reality is what we're looking for doesn't exist This Side of Heaven. You're not going to find it cuz we all have issues Paul Tripp said the church would be perfect if it wasn't for the people. Amen Brother Talks to a lot of young pastors. He's a wide older man and he teaches and Seminary classes and I remember reading a book on pastoring by him and truly this idea that all I had to do is just study and teach to an empty room. That would be so perfect because people that's what we do. There's no perfect Church issues, but they're dealing with is there taking the wisdom of the world themes of the world and they're embracing them in a crate rhetoric and they would, they would cheat and you would sit at their feet and you would get into their camp and you would say I'm of this person and I'm of that person and I here to their teachings and I follow after their way into the church at Corinth and because of that there was divisions and there was split that were happening they embraced as it's saying here worldly wisdom of the world rather than the wisdom that comes from God the wisdom of God is going to reorder our lives and tell us how to live how to respond. In this world wisdom mystery is Christ himself. And because Christ has been given to you. The spirit of God is within you you have the ability to grow up and she received from God but the wisdom of the world I crept into the church. This is an ancient narrative and I'm not going to take us to Genesis 1 2 or 3 today. I'm going to get Genesis for all right. So afraid God hallelujah Brett has left for a little bit if we keep coming back there and I want to share something with you incredibly interesting This Is Us on a run and join that last little bit of sunshine a few weeks ago and I was a guy who's Hebrew scholar. He brought this point up and I went. Oh my goodness. This is The Narrative of the world. This is the narrative that plays all throughout the Bible. And here's what's happening in Genesis for Adam and Eve. They chose their way not God's way. They said we want to be wise in your own eyes. We wanted to CERN for ourselves. What is right and what is wrong? And so they've been rebelling against God and because of that they get the big boot. They're out of the garden. It doesn't mean that they're completely cut off and severed from God because as well see in Genesis 4 they were to come with sacrifices and got them in their Devastation and God has a plan for them and Genesis for opens up in a really interesting way. It opens up with Adam and Eve and the first words. They're really spoken. The first words with the next letter words we get from Eve her first words were blame and accusation. That's the Serpent's faults and all that going on. And what happens here? Says in chapter 4 verse 1 and she conceived and bore Cain saying I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord Morrow guy not immoral guy. World, I know tomorrow guy not okay. I got some not a moral guy. He killed his brother kind of big deal and a bad thing. We read in our English translation is this wonderful say she conceived and she bore a son with the help of the Lord and when we read this, what does it look like it looks like even starting to get it but she needs to depend on God. She needs to rely on God's that when she operated in her own wisdom when she took from the surf. Okay, this is where life is at. This is where satisfaction is that I will do things in my way will choose for us and it looks like in our English translation of the Bible. Yes with the help of the Lord. I have created a son in the Hebrew. There are four words that are Spoken Here by Eve. Not the eight or nine that we get in English in English. They're trying to fill in the Gap cuz it's a translation in order to give me some understanding of the context what she says is Kenai fish f

She says created the one where we absolutely no is man and she says with God. All she says they're trying to fill in the blanks with our understanding of what is going on here. Now in Exodus chapter 20 verse 23 Moses have been given what we got this great story. And God says something he says you shall have no God with me. You shall have no God with me know that word with is a very difficult word in the Hebrew to really have a grasp on in English when he said you shall have no other God with me what he's implying is that you should have no other God equal to me. You should have no other God that sits beside me. Here's what's happening many Hebrew Scholars will say here is what Eve is saying is I have created a man not with the help of God, but with on the same level as God

Broken Devastation in the narrative picks back up right in chapter 4 and she begins to elevate herself and says she like God created now. I have made a man to and story goes into Canaan this man and this isn't her wisdom speaking these words. I have done this like God. And we see the devastation that Kane brings. Tell that brother. Doesn't it here to God listens to his own wisdom build the city gets a series of Seven Generations in the city is his brutal and it ends in their lamech enslaving and then the narrative picked back up again in chapter 4 verse 25 and Adam knew his wife again, and she bore son for she said God has appointed for me another Offspring instead of April.

Sing a different tune now. Before it was look what I have done. Look at what I have made look for ice. We can do this on our own then it moved to God has appointed to me. the Sun what I want to do here is in this is contrast that wisdom. It says God look at what we have made look at what we have done we can do this apart from you whether it's in our own church systems. That was a today to move from God. We got the formula to make your own method thinking that that is where it's at this narrative happens over and over again in scripture with the receipt with Abraham Abraham goes oh sure. I got promised us to Sun over and over again. They don't have this sense of what do they do in their wisdom to adopt the system of culture and they say, you know what we got this handmade. And pretty good idea that maybe I sleep with her and then Sarah pictures this to Abraham and he's a dude and he's not acting really smart at the moment and he goes sure to me outside of a God had planned for them. They acted in their own wisdom wisdom that culture said was okay and they produced the Sun.

Then later on God euthanize I can we see a lot of problems with Ishmael and Isaac about Rebekah and Jacob.

Isaac is her husband. And there's this blessing that supposed to go to Jacob the younger but is all and Isaac to give it to the older son Isa. What are they? Do they cannot hide and trick their blind father to giving the blessing? I think this is to write this is so good. It promises just let's do it on our means our way. We'll take it for ourselves to get what we want and what it creates. Jacob had to run from family. He never saw his mom and dad again. He didn't Unite with his brother until years upon years upon years later and you got the horse and the wisdom of the world and the ways of the world factored into their belief systems that detour them from the heart of God and that narrative happened over and over and over. Here we find corn. Corn thinks we know. We know we should do. Let's get underneath these wise teachers and they'll tell us how to organize our allies and what it ended up doing with causing all sorts of strife and division amongst them we do this today. We do this in our own lives only go outside of God and things like power and sexuality and we think of what's most important we end up hoarding and we're greedy rather than being generous and we take but I've got to get get get I got to figure myself out. I got to ride to be an important person hears the way to be wise in our culture and society and we adopt over and over again the message in ways of the world. But they continue to lead to the same broken patterns that we see to this day humans constantly rely on their wisdom to get the good life and it brings about exploitation Devastation in the world today Corinth is in danger a building the foundation their Church on something that is other than Christ. They're building an app on personalities and their own wisdom and then 39 Paul talks about the foundation Paul is not worried that another preach the gospel. He's not worried that somebody else is going to Pastor the church that he started what he's worried about is the method that they are adopting and the weight of the I think we're going to expand and who they are aligning themselves with his worried about the way they are building. And they thought we're moving past price to truly be spiritual to get the truly be spiritual. It is to speak in tongues. It's the prophesied to act and behave in this way. Not that way and Corinth it turning to elevating the gifts rather than the Gift Giver and it's displaying disunity and problems amongst the church. And here's what we see in the greatest threat to the church does not come from outside, but from inside, If you think through acts Whenever there was persecution Whenever there are people coming against the church, it's when they began to expand and they went for from where they continue to share the gospel and the church grew during those times probably wanted to others meeting the year Perry supposed to me when the church is down. It is up when the world is coming against us the opportunity to go right when it goes left and this is a reality. The biggest problem Corinth was facing is not that people are mad and upset with them that only for just a kind of fire inside of them, but it was the divisions that splintered from within and Paul was to squelch that and put that out. read my sister so true for us to Can any local church? Tara congregational Terra people apart is when there is fighting and backbiting when there is division amongst ourselves. What are we divided over personalities preaching Styles Ministry Styles, maybe gifts talk really because of sin when this begins to be let into the church. Begins to tear us apart from within and the wisdom of God says no no. No, this is how you grow. God's wisdom goes against the grain of the world systems and its values but it's God's wisdom that goes with the grain of the good world that he created. That's what we need to get our minds around. Is it going to be all kinds of situations in our life personally as well as corporately where things happen that don't always make sense.

Play Broadchurch where our hearts are seeking Christ that are knitted together and we're seeking for the wisdom of God to lead and Rec are there personally or corporately we can be led by another were being led by the holy spirit's Twisted thinking for Corinth was the elevating of human personalities led to them feeling good about themselves or Jesus says his personalities aren't to be elevated because the way up is actually down who wants to be great in the kingdom of God make himself a servant in that Kingdom. The world said you need to get and get to be satisfied. Jesus came in the son of man. He had no place to even lay his head. Jesus said it's better to give than to receive. The world says to take power by force harm get what's yours Jesus laid down his life. running countercultural in today's society checklist where you do or don't watch certain movies with a rating or you do or do not listen to certain music or you do or do not visit certain establishments running countercultural looks very different in the sense that it's listening and acting on the wisdom of the god of God when the world says you should go this way. And God says no go that way even though it doesn't make sense. When the world says do it in your own power efforts and energy then you'll be someone you love created like Eve. You will be great like pain and build cities. You will get that son Abraham in your own power. You will be mighty. Don't wait on God. Don't wait for God don't listen to Cod. Emma. Paul says here. That's folly. If you need to hear receive and listen to God verses 14 through 16, he says the natural man is the man that cannot hear anything from God's of course, he's going to act in the way that he acts the spiritual man. He can actually hear from God because of that his ears out to be a tune the antenna up and listening to what God is saying. The world understands the world is broken. And so what the world does is it can't rise all sorts of great ideas systems and processes you how we're going to fix all the problems. We're ramping up for another political election. And so we're going to hear all sorts of ideas over the next year on how America can be made greater better and what we need to do now. I don't want to pick in a political sense. But this comes to all sorts of issues and problems that people have as individuals as well as we have Society at large. And so what we want to do is we have these great ways and ideas that will appeal to somebody's heart that says get in my Camp get behind me and the best the world can do is put Band-Aids on the problems that exist today. Now, you probably heard the story a few years ago, but two summers ago my good buddy Trevor and I we went to Paisley Oregon Paisley Oregon is in the middle of nowhere. Between the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere driving just to give you an idea if we were at so anybody here to summerlake keep going. All right. We're just a little past summer like you got this big hill and then you start to head down a hill and we're talking about the Takeover of Automation and like robots doing our jobs for us and Trevor and I are just Nordeen out on some podcast. We listen to and having this wonderful incredible conversation that was meaningless really but it's fun and all of a sudden my face goes to ghost white and he ask me question. Nothing. He has another question nothing and he looks over at me and he can just see I'm just there's no expression. In the car is dead silent and I put my truck that old dog. I had put her in neutral and we begin to Coast down this hill because the line on the radiator was in the Rat going up and up and up and up and if you know the spot, you know, you get to the top right before you drop down to a rest area on that Highway and we pulled into that rest area and there's a little store across the street and we turn the truck off and we assess what it happened and there was a hole in the tooth mean that went from the radiator to the engine filling it with coolant and it was not it was a gas. This thing was huge.

Apps that was the goal. We were going to fish before they got there and have this great time and that was the only other thing on our minds and so what we decided to do was Call of my buddies were still in band and they were going to go buy me a new hose and some other things that we needed to fix this but we don't want to wait and cross the street was the old store red building and they had some tape that you can patch stuff with. There's no way this works anyways, and we make this like granola crunchy hippie chick driving her Subaru and she's helping us and we meet this totally. Oh my goodness. I don't know. I can't even describe this guy like Grizzly Adams beard. He's the complete opposite of this other gal and they're kind of trying to help us together. This odd pair of people and sweet patch this thing up and we poured water in it because we were going to waste the fluid knowing that this wasn't really going to work to 15 miles down the road and turn off the red line goes up up up point where I can't control it and a Truck just shuts off. I think we're stuck on the side of the highway barely pulled off the road. Nobody's helping us until our buddies come to my problems and it's best wisdom. It patches it up to get us along. To do this you should do that. This will move you forward. So we have Oprah and Ellen and Fallon and maybe Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians and we have religious people and Dolly llamas and everybody else and they say here are the idea that you should have docked in order to progress and move forward in culture today. And because it's the wisdom of the world. It sounds a little bit of a peeling doesn't it? You can do it on your phone. You can make it on your own. And so what ends up happening then if you even in Western churches Finnegan to adopt these ideas and so what they'll do is it to set up their stage and it'll look like The Tonight Show with no play a nice little song and they're bringing celebrities and don't have this great preaching and everybody clapped and you don't even hear the gospel, but you hear this is a better life than this is a better marriage and this is how do you get married? If you're single. How to have good kids and then all of these ideas that are talked about in the church, but if you can show up on a And you're nothing different than you would here and listening to TV and you have not heard the gospel. And this is what happens in the church. This is a progression that we seen people move towards switching power the church's to they left out the power which is the gospel. It's a what people are doing their calling one another to a better life. Repent but they don't really know what the tree pet from or torn to and the reality is we all want the same good life. And so the wisdom of the World plays on that because you want the good life here is how to be happy healthy and sexually active or here's how to make money in your power and your success and when the church moves from the gospel shaping our values interviews and we move into the space where the world's thoughts come flooding down upon us and its opinions the church moves into advice-giving rather than the power of the gospel and we are Foundation. Let me tell you something redeemers. We are not going to lose our foundation. I don't care if we're not hip cool and up-to-date with everything. Yes, I would love to use all sorts of methods and ways to bring non-believers into here. But the reality is is the gospel regardless is going to be preached and we need to quit calling people to a worldly definition of the good life. We need to quit saying Jesus will make you happy happy healthy and Rich that what Jesus Does. We need to quit from sharing this message that everything just gets better. When the Praises go up the blessings come down and we call people to a god that radically reshaped and transform their life. And I know some of you might not want to hear this morning, but I will say this the calling of God. The free gift of God is absolutely that free. Jesus calls us Jesus days of Jesus. Jesus gives us hope Jesus gives us like I can go on and on with Jesus death, but Jesus an awesome place in demand on our life. So you might not like that legalistic you could be transformed into something new and it's called us to live differently in this world. That is not a checklist of things that we do like I better do meekness. I better do kindness. He's taking us from a place we have to do those things to where we are those things because the holy spirit is moving in and through us. This is what the gospel Dutch in transforming and changing us. Jesus to something radical in our lives. Will we see God's watching The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe with my kids. And there you have Edmund and the way even the book and the movie paint Edmond. You just kind of got this dark depiction of his demeanor and he enters into Narnia and he's already enchanted with the witch when he sees her. And there was a she do if she offers him Turkish delight. I don't know if that's good or not. Sounds horrible, but Edmund eats of the Turkish Delights. And he no longer sees clearly. He only sees himself and what will get him more, Turkish Delights. That my friends is the wisdom of the world you eat of it you take of it and all you'll see is yourself and you'll go deeper into yourself and you want only the things that'll satisfy you even at the cost of his siblings there. It's not until when is not until he sees as ones that it begins to change. Ashland and then you can actually didn't see himself clearly and then he's moved to a different place. That's spell the see if Lewis talks about their it's so wonderfully portrays the death and Brokenness but fills our lives and we buy into and we need more and more of it though. It's killing us and hurting us and wounding us then when you see Osmonds when you see Jesus begins to form a new identity and you and Paul the Claire's not here. I said at the end of chapter 2, you'll be given the mind of Christ. I like this description. The mind of Christ does not refer to some mystical Ecstasy but is related to sobriety watchfulness faith. Hope and life that refers to the Believers having their Outlook shaped by an awareness of Christ 2nd Corinthians, 5:15. He died for all so those who might live no longer for themselves before him who died and raised for them. It's the most beautiful thing when people grass this and they see the Savior and they see God bless you reshape reorder redirect their entire lives. And what you need is not a bigger brighter Grandeur minds, but she militi and receptive Parts. This is what makes us mature mad as appalled as declaring her you want to be mature. You need the gospel. You need to come back to that Foundation over and over again not in order to be saved again and again and again, but it's that well that we drink from that remind us who we actually are as human beings. If you are a follower of Jesus is the spirit of God. Therefore you listen cuz you have received his word. Interested in this passage is Paul turns to them and he says since you have the spirit of God, you should be able to judge all things that word means examine all things is actually a different word used for judge. If it's going to get used in 1st Corinthians 5 when it comes to Outsiders, it means to investigate to examine all sinks spiritual person. They have to be able to discern what is right what is wrong because they now have the mind of Christ and then it comes to them and he says you shouldn't be judged by any man his God through judges you You shouldn't be judged but you are immature and that's what we could connect it to chapter 3 and you're thinking I I have to correct you. Why are you immature because you're dividing your fighting you have problems Paul turns around and examines them. He judges them and he corrects them just like he did with Peter there when Peter was gathering with Jews and Gentiles and sharing a meal but Peter excluded the Gentile and showed preference to the Jews. It says that Paul stood up and he rebuked him. He said you need to listen Peter you need to repent you need to change of this. Peter was acting in his own wisdom or out of fear of what others might think of him rather than of the things of God the Paul corrects him and it's not that Believers can't speak correction into one another's lives that certainly must happen. Impala Dan is telling them you are immature you are babies their practice and not caught up with their principal wood would they had accepted and believed so here is the judgment and what we're going to finish out on his real quick. He says you guys corn your followers of Jesus chapter 1 verse 1 you are Saints. He's already identified and said who they are when he talks about into first sick the mature. We're going to impart wisdom. But in 3 verse 1 he says you guys are babies. You guys are babies. My wife is hitting me up for another baby the other day. Yeah, and I looked at her and said if he could come out as like a five-year-old or something, I'd be cool with it. I know you wouldn't be but I'd be cool with it. Why babies are needy? Babies are crying babies don't contribute to the family. They just take and take and take and they need to grow up literally healthy. This is what Paul is telling them. You guys ought to be mature. He's not saying you're some third classification of Christians that your carnal Christian to come to a lower level of heaven or something of that manner. He saying look you guys are immature and you need to be mature. You need to grow up. Why are they immature? Why are they stunts? It says I have fed you. People like babies are just constantly needing to be fed. I don't think for themselves. If you're not studying the word for themselves. They're absolutely immature and they're stunted. What happened in the church?

Maybe you just may not be you. This is probably me at some point. What you saying? Always feed me feed me feed me feed me. I can't feed myself. And listen. There's a season for that. Canoe and Christ. Yes, but the desire is for you to grow up and cry so that you then can teach the things that you have been taught a baby always has to be sir and can't serve maturity in the church that looks like serving. It looks like helping looks like being involved constantly having to be watched or Council they're fed seasons of that, but I'm able to have that healthy diet on your own. They had a malnourished diet. You can see that in chapter 3 verse 2 This idea that they were getting from this office and getting from the world what they thought was wise. I actually needed was Christ. I need the gospel. They shouldn't move beyond our graduate from it. But it's the gospel that keeps us humble. If the gospel it keeps up the pendants. It's the gospel that elevates price and lowers ourselves. And if we want to grow we continually come back to that idea to idea beside you have immaturity says look at me look after me feed me y'all care for me. Y'all do for me rather than saying, how can I care? How can I serve how can I do for others? This is why Paul is taking them back to the foundation. Lots of he wants to impart them. There's a lot that he wants to do. But if you've moved from the foundation, that is Christ, you're not going to grow up into the kind of building that you ought to be. That's what we're going to look at next week. We're going to be reminded of the foundation. That is Christ that really the redeemers church stands and rests upon but there weren't talking about the structure and what we do and why we do it and how to be a part of it next week as a person matures in Christ. They realize that every one of my emergencies is the most important emergency, but everything is happening in my life always have to be at Center, but how can I move from that and help others? Finally we saw on here that they were divided there was fighting and there was corals and it said you are not mature because of this. I want to be mature who want to be wise like we can disagree on style. We certainly can't disagree on substance. Substance is Christ. Dial you might want me in a tie next week could lock I learn how to tie one a month ago for the first time ever deal.

Substance is Christ and of Christ is at the center Christians we get along. We agree. There's far less that divides us from the other church. I think you think feeling like a big deal about it. But the actual reality is that we're on the same team for Jesus as some things might look different. Let's be mature redeemers. Let's be mature in this community. Let's be mature how we talk about other Christians immature how we talk about other churches. Let mature if we don't promote us would promote Jesus grow up. We don't know what needs to be served. We need to serve grow up. We don't know. We need to be fed. We need to feed other people so grow up. Are you growing and gospel dependency? Are you growing closer to God through what he's doing in your life between you and him? That's why he that's what he wants for our church, and that's my hope for us a prime Jesus. Thank you for your word. Are the areas that we need to be called out on? Father there is any division amongst us. Maybe talk with today. People of issues or problems that cause Strife in relationship in this church locally, maybe talk through before they come to the table.

When we come together in Christ because we can forgive we can repent. We're not too proud or not too. Great. Because of Who You Are God help us. I was not tear each other up as Christians in this community, but help us to build one another up and let's see your kingdom and your gospel Goforth. Use your church. We pray in Jesus name.