Pressing On Toward Maturity

Pressing On Toward Maturity

by Loren Sandford

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. And starting in this next verse, when you find yourself under spiritual attack, pray this scripture. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert, with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Now, I can finish that by saying God wants us to pray because we’re at war. And He wants us to pray as if someone else’s life depends upon it, because it does. How far back do you want me to go? This is an important word tonight, this word about spiritual maturity.

All right. Let me preface this before I step back. I need to emphasize to you that we are a people at war. Brothers and sisters, we’re an untrained, undisciplined army. I’m not even going to ask you how many of you have mastered the simple, basic training disciplines of spending some time praying and reading the word of God every day.

I’m not even going to ask you that, because I know in my heart that anywhere I ask that question, in any body of Christ, the response is embarrassing and dismaying. But I want to begin with that little exhortation. You know, we can come up here and have a wonderful time. But I heard Randy say the other morning that Glenn Clark’s dream for CFO was that this would be a place where you could come and get in shape spiritually and physically so that you would not be out of shape the rest of the year. At least I thought I heard that. You did. I thought it, yeah, I did. Okay. So we’re not here for an experience.

We’re here for training. So that we go home in army. Okay. Now, what did you ask me to step back to? Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Okay, here we go. I have said that I’m impressed with faithfulness, consistency, stability, and obedience to God. And I’ll say those again because they’re important. Faithfulness, consistency, stability, and obedience to God.

And then I followed that up by saying that dreams and visions and prophecies and tongues and high-sounding prayers are nothing more than spiritual fluff without faithfulness, consistency, stability, and obedience. Just fluff. I get, in our own congregation, so that I sometimes, I get to the point where I don’t want to hear any more prophecies. I don’t want to hear any more tongues of interpretation.

Or any high-sounding things about dreams and visions. Because the people who are delivering all of those things are people whose lives are inconsistent, unstable, disobedient, and disruptive. So we need to hear this word. As a pastor, I’m at the point where, dear God, if I had to choose between a church full of prophets and healers and tongue-speakers, if I had to choose between that kind of a church and a church full of the faithful and the obedient and the stable, give me the faithful, the obedient, and the stable. Because those people will turn the world upside down for God.

Those people know the meaning of commitment. You know? We have one man in our church… I’m glad this is sidetracked, but I have a passion here tonight. And especially since the enemy tried to cut it off, I’ve got a passion. We have one man in our church that has maybe prophesied twice in the last year. Very seldom praise aloud unless I ask him.

You just don’t hear much from him in the worship service. He doesn’t do anything amazing. But we started, when our church opened up, we started with three elders. Within four months, we had one. Guess who it was? He stood with me like a rock and a pillar through a year and a half of hell and never batted an eye.

Guess who people go to now for counseling? They go to that brother who stood fast. Fill my church up with that kind of an army, and we’ll turn the world upside down for Jesus. So I don’t care how eloquently we pray or about our high-sounding spiritual perceptions.

If we’re not consistent and stable, if we’re not faithful in pursuing the calling of disciples, we’re babes. Just babes. You know, we’re a bunch of untrained privates one week in basic training, running around shooting M16s and throwing hand grenades at each other. They put it another way: Don’t mistake giftedness for maturity. They’re not the same. Spiritual gifts are given by grace. They’re given because God loves us and we don’t deserve it. That’s how spiritual gifts come. Maturity comes by trial.

And what’s the scripture say? It says, “Those whom the Lord loves, He scourges.” And then he goes on to explain that. That’s Hebrews 12. He goes on to explain that for about ten verses. And then at the end of his explanation, he says, “For all this one for the moment seems not to be pleasant but unpleasant. But afterwards, it yields…” what? The peaceful fruit of righteousness. The peaceful fruit of righteousness.

I began to look at the Bible. The New Testament is written in Greek. And I began to look in the Greek of the New Testament to see what word is used for maturity. And I found that the word that is used for maturity is the same word that’s used for perfection. And it’s easy to remember, it’s variations of the word teleios, which is the root from which we get our word for television. Or telecommunications, it’s out there, it’s at a distance or at the end of the course, and it has to do with perfection or completion or being full, being complete.

And if we put it even more accurately, its root meaning is to carry through or to complete. Do you hear that? To carry through or to complete. That’s the root meaning. And just there again is that word of faithfulness and consistency when you’re talking about spiritual maturity.

Now, when you study math in school, you begin with one plus one equals two. And if you’re smarter than I am, you end up doing calculus. You see? And so what you do is you begin in school, you begin with the simple, and you progress to the more complex. And we’ve gotten the idea somehow that in Christianity it’s the same. And so those of us, especially in the charismatic movement, think that I’ve got to learn more and more and more and more and more so that I can be more mature. And the result of that is that we are exactly the opposite of Ephesians 4, which says that maturity means that you are not tossed here and there by waves and carried here and there by every wind of doctrine. And instead, whatever new teaching comes up, we go running after it with no criticism at all and just gobble it up until we’re off balance and then the world thinks we’re crazy. Isn’t that true?

One of those new teachings that came along was the teaching for which my family is known. The transformation of the inner man, some have called it healing of memories. And I’m so tired of Christians grabbing hold of every teaching and running right off the cliff with it because we don’t know how to be stable, because we think that being mature means accumulating lots and lots of knowledge. I’m so tired of that, that in our church, I don’t even want to teach it anymore.

Because we have a church full of amateur psychologists who think that the whole Christian faith is, “You’ve got this judgment, and you’ve got this one, and your father doesn’t love you and that’s why you are the way you are.”

And there’s nothing wrong with ministering to each other that way, it’s just that because we’re not mature, every new teaching we hear is suddenly all there is to the Christian faith. Now when you enter maturity as a Christian, you don’t proceed from the simple to the complex, you proceed from the complex to the simple.

And here’s the simple truth. It only has one element. Just one. That’s all you have to remember to be mature. And it is: I will obey God. And when I say obey God, I don’t mean taking my stand on dreams and visions. I mean taking my stand on the Word of God. I will obey God. And I will obey God no matter how I feel about it.

And that’s the beginning of maturity. That’s the beginning of wisdom. That is the meat of the Christian faith. I get to the point sometimes where people come and they’ll say, “Teach me some more.” And I’ll say, “You obey some more. Then I’ll teach you some more. You haven’t done what I taught you.”

Obey. Human law becomes so complex. You know, all you have to do is become a lawyer, you know, or work in government to find out how complex human law is. You know why human law is so complex? Because human beings don’t want to obey. And so you have to cover all the loopholes.

Now, you know when God’s law becomes complex? When we don’t have a heart for obedience. And we start trying to find the loopholes in God’s law. That’s when God’s law becomes difficult. Or complex. Turn with me to Philippians 3. Verse 8.

Paul starts out by saying, in verse 7, that whatever things were gained to him, these things he counted as loss for the sake of Christ. That’s the only way of saying I have nothing apart from Christ. “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” See how simple life gets for Paul? I’ve suffered the loss of all things. “And count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Christians aren’t supposed to suffer. Supposed to be happy all the time. We’re supposed to know the fellowship of His suffering. “Being conformed to His death, in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Now listen to the attitude he has here. He says, “Not that I’ve already obtained it, or have already become perfect.” He says, I know I’m not perfect. “But I press on.” Stick that word in your mind. That’s a watchword for him who would be mature. I press on. “In order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” He says, I failed in the past. But I’m not going to use that as an excuse.

I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to wallow around in my guilt, and be looking backward over my shoulder all the time because I failed yesterday. I’m going to forget what lies behind and I’m going to reach forward to what lies ahead. “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Now, listen to what he said. “Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect,” mature. Same word. “Let us, therefore, as many as are mature have this attitude.” It’s the attitude of not being bound by my failure yesterday. But having an attitude of continually pressing on so that I may attain to that for which Christ Jesus has called me. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. And then in the second half of verse 15 he says, “And if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.”

I want you to turn with me to Ephesians 4, 13 and 14. I referred to this a moment ago. That’s a left turn, one book. Ephesians 4, 13 and 14. Paul has a habit of writing interminable sentences, so we’re going to come right in the middle of it.

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man,” same word, “to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”

Turn to Hebrews 5 with me. And that will be verse 11. He’s speaking about Jesus. Hebrews 5, 11. He says, “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on, press on to maturity. Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instructions about washings,” the word there is baptizos, “of baptisms, of instruction about baptisms, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.” And he goes on to talk about those who have fallen away. Verse 12.

It says that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those… Listen to these perseverance words. “…who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” And I write that not accustomed to the word of righteousness. A baby can only handle milk because he’s not accustomed to sour food. We become accustomed to a thing because of constant exposure.

And I believe he’s talking here about constant exposure to the word of God. We’re not mature because we’re not constantly exposed to the word of God. We’re not accustomed to it. There’s a faithfulness involved, a consistency. Press on to maturity.

Maturity: to carry through or complete. Turn with me to Psalm 37, verse 3. I love this passage. “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” Now when I read that word, that means a lot to me because we just… We bought a new house in 1979.

Which means that our soil is absolutely dead. And all we had was dead dust and glacial rocks. We busted our backs cultivating our yard to get grass to grow. We busted our backs trying to make the garden grow something. And the first year we had little yellow bean plants that tall.

So we worked really hard putting good things into the soil. And this year, it’s a jungle. See? Cultivate faithfulness. Faithfulness doesn’t come easily. And I’ll tell you a secret. I don’t want to obey God. In my flesh. Part of the result of all the trial that the Lord has put me through.

Is that I know that in my heart of hearts, I’m consumed with the desire to obey the Lord. But present me a choice. And it’s a struggle. I could be walking through camp here and somebody looks like, you know, they really need somebody to come minister to them. Not me, Lord. I want to go lie down on my bed. I want to obey God. The last thing the flesh wants to do is submit to Him. And so we cultivate faithfulness. It doesn’t grow by itself.

And the scripture goes on and says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him and He will do it. And He,” listen to this, “and He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday.” He continues with the garden image. You cultivate faithfulness. See? You cultivate the faithfulness. He’ll bring forth the fruit. If your heart’s desire is to obey the Lord and you stand with it, He’ll bring forth the fruit. It’s His responsibility.

Years ago we heard Rev. F. speaking. You’ve probably seen her do her little thing. She says, “You ever see a cherry tree standing out in the field going, ‘Cherry!’” You know. She says, “A cherry tree bears fruit because that’s its nature. It’s a cherry tree.”

But the element that gets left out when we hear that is that, well, it’s just easy. But brothers and sisters, somebody has to dig around the tree, throw some fertilizer in the ground, and somebody has to prune it. And somebody has to water it. And that has to be faithfully done. And then God gives the fruit.

See? A lot of us aren’t bearing the fruit we want. Because we’re not putting any fertilizer on the tree. See? And then we wonder how come we’re weak. We wonder how come we’re not mature. We wonder how come we’re inconsistent. We want God to make us happy, but we don’t want to obey. See? I like to say that salvation is free. That comes by grace. But the blessings are not. They come by trial. James 1:22 says, “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

Those who are not obedient to God are fooling themselves. Sometimes people get mad at me when I talk like this. And at this point I include a little disclaimer. I didn’t say it. God did. God did. If in any way you’re not obeying God, you are fooling yourself.

Turn to Matthew 7, verse 24. And this is… This is one you all know. “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house. And yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.

“And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act upon them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.” Great was its fall. Second element of Christian maturity. Three words I’ve used already. Stability.

And I want you to put a preface to that word stability. Put emotional stability. And I want to… There are two more words that come under number two here. I’ll give them to you in a minute. But when I say emotional stability, I mean that we can make emotional choices.

I am so tired sometimes of Christians coming around and wanting me to make it easy for them to be happy. You know? And I’ll be perfectly faithful in the church as long as they feel good, but as soon as they feel bad, then, oh, I just can’t do it. Or I don’t feel like doing it. But we can make choices. If we couldn’t make choices, God wouldn’t command us to praise Him for all things. We can make a choice to praise God for all things. I can make a choice what I will do in relation to you, how I will feel. I can make a choice that I will read the Word of God whether I feel like it or not. I can make a choice in the deepest, darkest depression that I’ll serve the Lord my God whether I want to or not. I can make a choice to love the brother that I hate. I can make a choice to love my wife when she makes me angry.

I can make those choices. The second word under number two is faithfulness. And the third word is consistency. But by faithfulness I mean… I mean… this comes from a pastor’s heart. But by God I believe the Lord is doing His work through the church. And I believe the CFO is an auxiliary to that. But that the work of God is done in the local church and not on the television. That’s auxiliary to the local church. That’s a good work. And CFO is a good work. The God saving work day by day. Which roots people in… And the word of God is done in the local church. Okay? So when I talk about faithfulness, I’m talking about the person who’s there Sunday after Sunday, whether the preaching is good or not.

I’m talking about the person who prays faithfully for the brothers and sisters every day. I’m talking about the person who tells you he’ll do a job in the church and then follows through. I’m talking about the person who beats my door down saying, “Would you please give me a ministry? Because I want one.”

That’s faithfulness. Consistency. A simple word. Which means… consistency means that when I put a person in a position in a church, when I give a person a job to do, I can depend on them to do it with a certain evenness of quality. I can depend on that person that when they get into the position to do the job, they’re not going to let their emotions cut up the body of Christ.

I know they’re going to save those emotions for an acceptable time. I have one person in the music ministry in Cornerstone, but I never knew what was going to happen. One concert, she might be on fire, the life of the party. And the next concert, she can call me up a half an hour before the concert and fill me full of all kinds of rot about how she felt and how she felt about me. And then I have to work against that to make the concert fly. And she’s always so important, see? So the consistent person is one who bears consistent fruit when the Lord is called to be obedient and saves the feelings for an appropriate place.

Along with that, there’s another word in Scripture that’s sometimes translated mercy, sometimes translated loving kindness. In Hebrew, it’s pronounced chesed. And it really would be more completely translated loyalty to covenant obligations. Meaning that when God called me, we entered into an agreement together.

Now, He’s always more faithful to the agreement than I am. When He made an agreement with Israel, He was faithful to the agreement for hundreds of years after Israel started worshipping idols. But ultimately, when Israel had broken the covenant, God had to withdraw blessing. So chesed, mercy, loving kindness, when practiced by you and I, is that kind of faithfulness which makes God’s promises ultimately effective for us.

There’s a place in Scripture where He says, “If you’re not faithful over that which is another’s, how can He give you that which is your own?” How can He possibly give you that which is your own? Until you’ve been faithful over that which is another’s. “If you’re faithful over a little bit, I’ll place you over much.” How can He possibly give you much until you’ve been faithful over a little? Now, you may say, we’re not under the law. I’m not quoting a law. I’m quoting the New Testament.

“Faithful over a little, I’ll place you over much.” In difficult times, the mature remain constant in devotion. And that’s how you recognize the mature. It’s in the time of trial, who stands? Who stands? Who maintains his joy? Who focuses on Jesus? And who despairs? That’s how you tell the mature.

Third thing. If you get bored here, yawn really loudly. And I’ll chastise you and talk on it. Third thing is selfishness. Matthew 16, 24 and 25 reads this way. It says, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it. For whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.” Brothers and sisters, we’re living in the decade of a fulfillment of self. And that leads to death, because nobody gets fulfilled that way. That’s the law. Yes? Did you say selfishness or selflessness? Selflessness. Sorry. Selflessness. That was not the enemy interfering. That was me.

Selflessness. So we live in the decade of self. Me, I. And the shrinks are making a lot of money off of it. Because people aren’t happy and they want to know how come. There isn’t any happiness apart from giving. Turn to Matthew 25, 31 and following.

You get tired of looking up scriptures. Yawn real loud and I’ll chastise you. “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him. And He’ll separate them one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He’ll put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger and you invited Me in. Naked and you clothed Me. I was sick and you visited Me. I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You? Or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and invite You in? Or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

“Then He will say also to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in. Naked and you did not clothe Me. Sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of You?’ Then You will answer them saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment…” Turn with me. This is really an important story. 1 Samuel 13. Now this doesn’t sound like selfishness initially. This sounds like obedience. But it’s a perfect example of selfishness and I’ll show you why.

1 Samuel 15. Talking about what Saul has done. We’ll start at verse 3. The Lord is commanding Saul, “Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has. And do not spare him, but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, oxen, sheep, camel and donkey.” In other words, don’t spare anybody or anything. “Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them, and he counted them all. And he came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. And Saul said to the Kenites, ‘Go, depart from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them.’” In verse 7, “Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.” Now watch the compromise that he makes. This is a sign of immaturity. “But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly. But everything despised and worthless they utterly destroyed. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel,” pain in the neck as he was, “saying, ‘I regret that I have made Saul king.

“‘For he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.’ And Samuel was distressed and cried out to God all night. And Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul. And it was told Samuel, saying, ‘Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned and proceeded down to Gilgal.’ And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him,” listen to this greeting, “‘Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord.’ But Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?’”

And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God.” He knows he is in trouble. “But the rest we have utterly destroyed.”

Samuel said to Saul, “Wait, and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And then verse 22, Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” And the point is that when… This isn’t the first time this happened to Saul. I mean, it isn’t the only time this happened to Saul. The point is that when Saul gets caught, he starts making excuses. And when he is finally sorry, he is only sorry for one reason. Because he got caught. And because of how getting caught hurt him. Now, when I am talking about selflessness, let me tell you about the difference between an adult and a child.

A child has very little understanding of the consequences of the consequences of the life. And how they affect others. And so when he gets caught, he has remorse. Which is, I am sorry because it hurt me. Now, if he ever makes it to adulthood, the child will be sorry for what he has done because of the way it hurt other people.

Saul never got there. Now, David was that kind of a man. And you will find that when David sins, even to the extent, later on in the book of Samuel, even to the extent of stealing another man’s wife, having the man killed, and then marrying the other man’s wife, even when he sinned to that extent.

When Nathan the prophet comes and confronts him, he says, “I am the man,” and I repent. No excuses, nothing. Just wears it. And then his first concern is not for what will happen to him, but for what will happen to the child that he has fathered in the womb of Bathsheba by adultery. That’s his concern. You see the difference? Concern for the consequences of his acts in other people. That’s maturity.

David was not a perfect man. He was a rank sinner, but he was a man of selfless, godly maturity. I want to tell you a story about my son, because I remembered it. The Malarja sitting back there. I think it was about a year ago, wasn’t it, that we stopped at your house? My son Nathan and I have been going round and round about discipline.

And he’s stubborn as I am. He was out playing in the yard at their house, and he took a stick and without thinking began destroying a bush with it. The kids came in and told me. And the first thing I did was take Nathan into the bathroom and warm his fanny. And the second thing we did is I said, “Now son, you’ve got to go apologize to the Malarja.”

And, because I wanted him to understand how a serious thing it is to hurt someone else. And I explained that to him. He said, this was not yours. “You’ve hurt someone else’s thing because you didn’t think. And you have to apologize.” He was only five at the time. And I remember he went out under the porch, and it wasn’t any big thing to him, the Malarja at all. Just a couple of twigs on a bush. It was a big thing to me because of what I had to be training into my son. And in a small voice, he kind of came up behind me and said, “I’m sorry, I broke your tree.” They didn’t hear. So I had everybody get quiet. I made him say it again. And he said it again, and they forgave him. And then for a reason I can’t remember, everybody went inside. And the next thing I had on the porch was a little boy who was so mortified because of the harm he’d caused someone else. He cried so hard he vomited. And I cried with him because I knew that he’d heard. And that was the first step toward growing up.

Having a care for the harm that could cause others by your actions. So what I’m saying is that the adult can make the welfare of others more important than his own. For example, he’s come out of the life of the church. An adult can say these things. He can say, “I’m not getting anything out of that meeting.

“But someone there can get something out of me. Therefore, I’ll go.” I get so tired of Christians saying, “I’m not going to church anymore because I don’t get anything when I’m there.” And I want to say, what kind of a baby are you?

You go because somebody can get something out of you. Or, “I don’t feel like praying today. But if I don’t, my brothers and sisters will be without my prayer support and may be wounded thereby because we’re at war.”

Or, “I don’t want to spend my video game money on food for the hungry family. But how can I enjoy Pac-Man while someone else is hungry?” Or, “I don’t feel like voicing my praise to God today in the fellowship aloud. I just feel depressed. But if I don’t, how will the brothers and sisters who are less mature than I am be edified? How will they be fit?” Or, “I don’t want to pound nails in our yuckel old barn today that we’re converting to worship in. But if I don’t, someone who won’t worship in ugly surroundings may not come to know the Lord today.”

Or, “I don’t have the energy to play with my son this morning. But if I don’t play with him, how will he understand?” Or, well, here’s just a statement. Maturity chooses not to be offended by the actions of the immature.

Marietta, in our brother group the other day, said that as soon as she became a Christian, she was expected to know everything all at once and to behave as if she knew everything all at once. And I am really tired in the body of Christ of watching people who have been in the Lord ten years separate themselves from people who have been in the Lord for one year because they don’t act right.

Another way of putting that is that, in the presence of the immature, maturity chooses to feed rather than be fed. Another way to put it is that in the presence of the immature, sure, maturity chooses grace when judgment would be easier.

Here’s another one, same topic. Maturity grants nurture when the immature fail. Maturity edifies when complaint would be easier. When I hear somebody complaining about a pastor who isn’t what he ought to be, I know I’m not talking to a mature saint.

Nobody was ever condemned to life. Put only love to life. Maturity does not demand that everybody think, act, feel and do like me. Here’s your fourth thing. Let me wrap up and tell you a question the Lord asked me. Every once in a while the Lord asks me a question. And this has to do, I think, with selflessness.

The Lord asked me once. He said, “Son, would you be willing to serve Me? Would you be willing to serve Me in the doing of miracles and in the healing of lives, if in the doing of them no one ever knew that it was you and someone else got the credit?”

Now, I had to step back and take a long look at that one. Because I have this problem with ambition. But that was the question. And I think I’m growing toward being able to answer in the affirmative, yes, that I just want to see God’s will done. And I don’t care who does it. I don’t care if I facilitate somebody else doing it and they get the glory. I don’t care. See? But that’s where maturity comes from. That’s what maturity does. I don’t care if I get the glory. I don’t care if I get a pat on the back. Let somebody else get it. Just so God is served.

Now, here’s your fourth thing. Maturity is characterized by brokenness of heart. Now, you’ve heard a lot about that in the last few days. About brokenness of heart. And before I say anything about this, I don’t want you to get the idea that being a mature Christian and growing in the Lord means walking around all the time with a long mouth feeling terrible. Because that isn’t what we’re saying.

What we’re really trying to focus on is that the peaceful fruit of righteousness is wonderful and stable and fruit-bearing and fills your life and that there’s a deeper kind of joy than this giggly-gitty stuff. And the price for that deeper kind of joy is sometimes that the old man dies and that hurts. But the kind of joy which is the fruit of the Spirit is deeper than giggly-gitty. It’s that river springing up from in here which can never be quenched. Never be quenched. Okay. Brokenness of heart.

Matthew 5, 3 and 4. Which you should know before you look up. But look it up with me anyway. I can tell you’re getting tired. Your Bible didn’t flutter as quickly. I’m not through. Brokenness of heart. Matthew 5, 3 and 4. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

“for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The poor in spirit are those who know they have nothing apart from Christ. It’s that simple. See, that’s the defeated, right? That’s where you are when you’re defeated. You at last know that you have nothing apart from Christ. And that’s a glorious place to be because now you have everything. Now you’re God’s man. If you really know you have nothing in Christ and can get nothing for yourself. See, you know you have nothing apart from Christ and you can build nothing up for yourself. Then you’re ready to be used. Because then you don’t get in the way. “For blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Verse 4. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” I’m so tired of hearing this at the funeral. You know? Because the word blessed in the Greek of the New Testament is makarios. And it means, oh, the happiness of. You know? So we read that at a funeral. Oh, the happiness of the one who’s crying because he just lost his wife.

So we talk about the ones who mourn. We’re saying, oh, the happiness of those who weep and grieve and cry over the sin and the lostness of God’s people. For they shall be comforted. And I found that to be true. I have two strains going in me all the time. I weep and I cry inside for the condition of the saints. Because brothers and sisters, we’re not where we need to be.

And at the same time, there’s a bubbling joy inside. Because God’s Holy Spirit is working with where the saints are. And so I get to be comforted. But if you’re not mourning and weeping and grieving for the saints, if you don’t have eyes to see where they are and feel for that, then how can you possibly have eyes to see how they’re moving? And what God is doing and be rejoicing over that.

Psalm 51, verse 17. You can turn there very quickly, but I’m going to read it real quickly. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” The broken and the contrite heart. My will is broken. We’ve gone over that so many times. I’m not going to belabor the point. My will is broken. I’m out of gas. All I have is You. I’m wrong. You’re right. Okay? Isaiah 66, verse 2. “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

And then you read Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. And here’s one for the… I call it the formula faith people. You know? If you don’t get healed, it’s just because you don’t have enough faith. Name it, claim it. All right? Here’s one for them. 2 Corinthians 12. Where Paul is complaining. He says, I complained to the Lord about this affliction that I have. Scripture doesn’t tell us what the affliction was, but it was one that bugged him a whole lot. He said, “I besought the Lord about this three times that it might be taken from me.” And the Lord said, “No.

“Because My power is perfected in weakness.” It was given to him in order to keep his potentially prideful heart contrite. Always broken. Always relying on Jesus. Every servant that God ever called said, “I don’t have the resources.” If your pastor ever comes to you and says, “Wouldn’t you like to teach Sunday school?” And you say, “Oh yeah, I can do that.” You’re crazy.

Jeremiah said, “I can’t do it, Lord. I’m a kid. And I don’t know how to speak.” And the Lord said, “Don’t tell Me that you’re a kid. Everywhere I send you, go. And you won’t argue.” Isaiah said, “I’m a man of unclean lips and I dwell in a land of a people of unclean lips.” And the Lord said, “Doesn’t matter to Me.” And He sent a burning coal to touch his lips and make him clean. Moses had a longer list of objections than anybody else. “I don’t talk right. They won’t listen to me.” You know. Read that one. That’s entertaining.

And then you find out that in scripture, every time somebody struck out on his own, thinking that he at last had some strength, he gets his nose bloodied. See, King Uzziah is an example of that. If you want to read about him, that’s 2 Chronicles 26. But what happened was, he was so faithful to the Lord and really built Israel up neat, he became so proud that he went into the temple and began to burn incense as only the priests were allowed to do. And the Lord smote him.

The scripture put it that way. He became so proud, he forgot to depart from Jesus. He was nothing. And he overstepped his authority. He contracted leprosy. So the broken heart is that I have and you can have nothing but only what God by grace gives me.

And that way the world is mine. The world is mine. Just to reiterate, because I like to reiterate, what every one of us needs to be seeking is not all the wonderful dreams and visions and prophecies and spiritual sensitivities. At least not first. Those are all signposts. You know, those are all helpers. And I’m really not putting them down. But I’m saying that the first thing to seek is faithfulness and consistency and stability and a heart for obedience.

Let me share another question with you that the Lord asked me. There were basically two momentous questions in my life that He asked me. With this I’ll close. The first one was the one I shared with you earlier. Whether I’d be willing to serve if I never got the credit.

And the second one happened when I was complaining to the Lord that in my life… I… I’ll go back and tell this story in a different way. A lot of you, when you came into the Holy Spirit, got blown away, didn’t you? You got melted and you cried and you were so excited. And you know all the old jokes about when you first came into the Holy Spirit they had to lock you up and put you in the closet, you know, because you went crazy for a while. That never happened to me.

I can’t look back on a time when I burst through into the Holy Spirit and found myself speaking in tongues. I speak in tongues, but I speak in tongues because the Lord sent three brothers who said, “God commands you to speak in tongues because you need it for refreshment.” And I said, “But I feel stupid when I do.” And they said, “God doesn’t care when you feel stupid when you do.

“You’re supposed to for a while.” But I was complaining to the Lord about how I never had one of those mountaintop, flying-around experiences. My growth is like this. None of this stuff. You know, but… Like that. And right in the middle of my complaining He came on the scene. And He said, “Son, what would you rather have? Foolish power or powerful wisdom?”

That’s the question for us as Christians in this day. Which do we want? Foolish power or powerful wisdom? Founded on consistency and obedience, faithfulness and stability under fire. Because, brothers and sisters, the fire is going to get worse. And worse. And worse.

I’m not sure how to wrap this up tonight. I talked a long time. I see conviction written all over some faces. Anybody have an idea in the Lord? I felt like the camp has been coming toward a breakthrough of some kind.

Which I think is why the enemy bothered all that disruption earlier. And I was thinking earlier that maybe what we needed to do tonight, when I got done talking, would you sit? And pray? And worship? And not worry about somebody leading songs to stir up our emotions, you know? There’s a time for that. But just to sit, all of us, and pray. And praise God aloud. And listen. Until God speaks to us.

Does that bear some witness in some hearts? Because I kind of feel like, you know, it’s the middle of the week, and it’s a watershed. In the life of this camp. And we’ll know when it’s time to go. But let’s just pray. And listen. Until God speaks. And if He’s speaking through you, deliver it. If He’s speaking through the Word of God, you read it.

But I believe He would have an additional message for us tonight, which will break us through. Or maybe He’ll want us to do something else. Pray for healing for people. Whatever.