An
Encouragement from Scripture
It’s
time to grow up. And I’m not just saying
that to catch your attention this morning.
I’m serious. It’s time to grow
up. And I’m not directing that towards
somebody else either. I’m saying it to
you. It’s time to grow up. But not because I have observed all kinds of
immature behavior from you; on the contrary, I think this body of believers is
very spiritually mature for the most part.
And so I’m not specifically talking about outward actions per se; I’m
referring to the depth of understanding and knowledge of God’s Word. To know more.
To better understand. To be able
to apply God’s Word to your everyday life more consistently, more effectively,
and more often. That’s what I mean when
I say that it’s time to grow up. And
it’s not just me saying it. It’s not
some sort of personal agenda that’s driving this. I don’t stand up here on a soap box on Sunday
mornings. I stand behind a pulpit from
which you are supposed to hear the very words of God himself. It is
the Lord who gives us this strong encouragement in the pages of Scripture: It’s
time to grow up.
“We have much to say about this, but it is
hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you
ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of
God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an
infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by
constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary
teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.”
Milk to Solids
During
the first few months of a baby’s life after birth, that child will only be able
to drink milk or special baby formula from a bottle. They do not have the teeth to chew, a throat
large enough to swallow chunks of food, or the digestive system to manage more
than that. But as that child grows the
milk and the baby formula will not be enough.
That child will have to start eating “real” food, solid food, food with
some substance to it. Because that is
how the Lord has designed the human body: milk first, solid food soon after.
He has
designed your faith in the same way. After
the Lord grants a person the gift of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit
in God’s Word, that person is able to handle the basic elementary truths of
Scripture: those teachings about sin and a Savior, Jesus’ life and death, his
resurrection and the beautiful home of heaven.
But after a while that faith needs more.
That faith grows to such a degree that it needs more than milk, it needs
solid food. It needs the heavier
starches and the chewier pieces of meat.
Now,
theoretically, could a grown person live on bottles of baby formula and nothing
else? Sure, that person could
survive. But that person would not be
very healthy, he would not be very strong, and he would not be very capable of
fending off diseases and viruses with such a depleted immune system. Could the faith of a Christian survive on the
basic truths of Scripture and nothing else?
Sure, the faith of that person could survive. But that faith would not be very healthy, it
would not be very strong, and it would not be very capable of fending off
attacks from the devil and temptations from this world with such a depleted
immune system. A body needs solid
food. Faith needs solid food. And if that solid food is not consumed,
things could go seriously wrong in a hurry.
There’s a reason the Lord encourages all of us that it’s time to grow
up.
Immaturity
Every
evening around 9pm or so I try to mature a little bit. And I do that by sitting down to read my
Bible. I do it at that hour because I
usually don’t have any classes by that time and the kids are in bed so it is
relatively quiet. After I read the
section of Scripture assigned for that day (taking it slow, jotting down
notes), I read through a section of Hebrew Old Testament and then a section of
Greek New Testament that is set for that day in a book that I have. And about every other day I also read from
another one of the books that I have on the shelf. Now depending on what part of Scripture I’m
reading from and how hard the Greek or Hebrew is and how long I read, sometimes
that takes me a good hour to get through, sometimes 45 minutes, sometimes 30,
sometimes 20. But every day I try to
feed myself with the solid food of Scripture so that the Holy Spirit can work
in my heart as he sees fit.
Of
course, there are times (even entire weeks) when I read the Bible just to get
it done. I’ve got four chapters in the
middle of Ezekiel to get through on a given day so I just get through them
because I’m tired and my mind is exhausted and I have to get up early the next morning
and I’m just not in the mood to read right now.
And so although I’m technically attempting to eat “solid food” I’m more
or less swallowing it whole: I’m not chewing it, I’m not savoring it, I’m not even
really tasting it. I just shovel it down
as quickly as possible so that I can get on to more important things. How juvenile of me. How immature.
It’s time for me to grow up.
I hope
that every one of you here reads your Bible on a regular basis. But if you do, or if you are in the middle of
a Bible study, or if you are following along with one of the Scripture readings
in a church service, or if you are listening to the sermon, do you ever find
your mind wandering off? Do you ever catch
yourself just going through the motions?
Do you ever notice yourself shrugging off the tougher concepts, ignoring
the deeper issues, disregarding anything that might actually make you
think? And I do that too. There are certain things I come across in the
Bible that I don’t get right away, but instead of taking some time to figure it
out, I just pass them off. Because far
be it from me to actually look something up, to dig a little deeper, to put in
the effort of comparing similar passages of Scripture so that I can fully
understand the wonders of God’s Word! Sometimes
we are just a little bit too lazy. Sometimes
we just like to spend more time on ourselves than we do on our Lord. Sometimes we would rather spend more effort
on our lives in this world than on our lives in his Word. How juvenile of us. How immature.
It’s time for us to grow up.
Jesus Feeds You with What You Need
What
does a good parent do when a child refuses to eat any fruit, any vegetable, or
any food that is healthy? There might be
a meal or two when that parent will let it slide, but it will come to a point
where a faithful parent will make that child eat what is healthy. “You are not getting anything else until you
eat this! You are not getting up from
this table until you eat this! You are
not going to be allowed to do this fun thing until you eat this!” And why does the parent make such a demand? To be mean to the child? To show the child who’s boss? No!
The parent does this out love - because the child is too immature to
realize that this kind of food must be eaten and it’s the parent’s
responsibility to make sure it happens.
Our God does the same thing.
Our God
is oftentimes called our “Father.” And
we are his children - his immature children who do not always eat what he has
given us. And so sometimes he has to make us eat that solid food for our
souls. And he does that by putting us
into situations and positions where we can do nothing else than feed ourselves
with his Word. He does that by making us
go through difficulties and struggles that present only one way out: to eat
what we should have been eating all along.
He doesn’t force it down our mouths, he simply makes us aware that we
have been neglecting our spiritual health and have been harming our souls in
the process. Our Father is good at
that. He is good at revealing our
self-imposed malnutrition. But he is
also good at holding out to us exactly what we need for nourishment once again.
And so
our Father holds out to us something like the book of Romans - a letter that is
the focus of our women’s Bible study right now.
A 16 chapter book of the Bible that not only clarifies our sinfulness but
also illuminates our salvation as well.
It delves deep into what our Lord had to do for our forgiveness, the
sacrifice that he had to pay, and the peace, the joy, and the freedom we
receive because of it. The book of
Romans expounds on who we once were but who we now are because of Christ. It provides us with one of the most complete
pictures of God’s grace towards sinners and one of the most vivid explanations
of what faith in Jesus actually means.
These precious pages in the middle of the New Testament carefully lay
out how God chose us from the very beginning and what will become of us in the
end. It is a letter by the apostle Paul
that is filled with solid food. And our
good Father makes it available for us at every meal.
But
there is more food as well! The Father
holds out the story of David for us - something we are studying on Sunday
morning together. David was the great
king of God’s Old Testament people who not only modeled his faith, but someone
who carried on the line of the Savior himself.
The Father holds out for us a thorough explanation of his 10
Commandments that we will get to in the middle of the God’s Word Only course
starting this Thursday. An explanation
that is not just a cursory overview of the surface meaning of each commandment,
but an in depth discussion of the opportunities they provide for Christians to
praise our Lord. Our Father holds out
for us the many passages of Scripture that give us the charge to carry this
gospel to the world. A topic we will
visit once again in our Monday morning Bible study. But these are only a few of the main courses
offered on the Lord’s menu. There are 66
books of the Bible after all. Each one
of them containing multiple precious truths of God’s will; each one providing
an insight or a path that leads to the Savior who loves you and has saved you
and has promised you heaven. This is
the solid food that the Lord makes available for you every day. And he is thrilled when you are mature enough
to be able to enjoy it.
Exciting
Possibilities to Mature
It’s
exciting how much there is for us to learn.
It’s thrilling to think about all of the insights the Lord has stored up
for us in his Word and how many applications to our lives we will be able to
make. And it’s all right here in front
of us: in a worship service, in a Bible study, in a devotional book, in the
pages of Scripture itself. Solid
food. Food that will sustain you when
times are hard. Food that will provide
you with the energy and the direction to keep going. Food that is rich with flavor. Food that is filled with power. And so it’s time to grow up. “Let
us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.” Not leaving Christ behind but getting to know
him better. Spending more time on what
he has to say. Putting more effort into
what he has to teach. Leaving more room
in our spiritual stomachs for what he has already done.
An old
prayer that we had in our old hymnal years ago had a beautiful phrase in
it. After thanking our Lord for the
words of the Bible he had recorded for us, we would ask him that we might “read,
mark, learn and inwardly digest them.” What a great phrase! My good friends, I love inwardly digesting
this spiritual feast with you. I love
the worship services and the Bible studies and the personal conversations when
we get at least a sample of God’s wonderful Word. There is nothing better. And so let’s continue to mature
together. Let’s push each other and encourage
each other to eat more, to savor longer, to inwardly digest just a little bit
better. Because there’s so much of
it. And it’s all good. It’s time to grow up. Not because we have to, but because we get
to. And how exciting it is to think of
all the foods the Lord has in store for us that we have yet to taste. Amen.
“Grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and
forever! Amen.” - 2 Peter 3:18
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment