How did you all do with the "growing up spiritually" thing this week? Do you feel like the events of this week built a little more of "reflecting God" into you. Did the people around you see a little more of God's character in you this week than they did last week?

T or F Becoming spiritually mature (godliness) is more about our verbal profession of faith in Christ than it is about our actual attitudes or actions?

T or F Our salvation is based solely on our faith in Jesus sacrifice on our behalf, but maturing in Christ does indeed affect our outward attitudes and actions!

T or F As we mature in Christ some of our attitudes and actions will become more and more like Christ, but some of our attitudes and actions will always stay sinful, more like satan than Christ.

T or F We should not be concerned if after walking with Christ for ten years we still often act more like our old sinful self than we do our new righteous self.

I heard again, this week, some non-Christian on the news say that the whole point of Christianity was supposed to be to teach us to be tolerant of every other person's differing viewpoints. Christianity should not be about pointing out the differences between a Christian and a non-Christian…it should be about all compassion, and understanding, and tolerance…. and love Real love, is to be like Jesus and never condemn what someone else is doing as wrong.

These people must have never actually read the Bible. Jesus was always compassionate, and understanding yet had a "zero tolerance policy" for sinful behavior. When people flaunted sinful attitudes Jesus became very aggressive.

Matthew 23:25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 You blind Pharisee!... 27…you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Kind compassionate Jesus… Kind enough to give up his own life… to save the world from their sins…too kind to let us then go on wallowing in those sins…

I. Our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior is supposed to affect every area of our existence

1 Timothy 4:12 …. be an example to the believers in word (what I say), in conduct (what I do), in love (what I give), in spirit (what I feel), in faith (what I believe), in purity (what I resist). (NIV) 15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. NLT

How much of your life is supposed to be affected by your relationship with Christ? How much of your attention should be given to walking this transformation out in your daily lives? How much effort are you supposed to give this part of your existence?

Here's a mental picture I want to keep in front of you all summer. Last week we had Debi Boerkel up here pressing a 25lb. barbell. She is now working out with that barbell at home (she'll be back) as an illustration of what we are all supposed to be doing in our spiritual lives, as well…..

1 Timothy 4:7 …. train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. 11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. (NLT)

If we were to allow God to pinpoint our most glaring areas of sinfulness and we all together set out on a "summer training program" where we consciously and consistently said no to the wrong things and yes to the right things… At first it would be a heavy weight that we could barely lift. As the summer wears on…I am convinced that one after another, of us, would get stronger and stronger until by summers end we would be "pressing spiritual weight" that we never imagined possible…ever.

II. Overcoming Spiritual Adolescence

The verses I have shown you, today, imply that this change that is supposed to take place in each of us… is a process. Nobody gets to start at the finish line. The Bible calls this process maturing/growing in maturity.

Maturing- the act or process of becoming fully developed

We are so familiar with this concept because it is happening all around us every day and, in fact, we are all physically living out this process… everyday.

At some point in the past, everyone in this room was a baby. Physically, mentally, emotionally…

We all grew past babyhood and slipped with some degree of effectiveness from one category to another:

1) Newborn/Infant

2) Toddler/Child

3) Adolescence

4) Teen

5) Young Adult

6) Adult

7) Veteran

Now we all know people who have slipped a gear in moving from category to category. You, daily, meet people who are physically in the adult category, but emotionally they are still a teenager. It's not unusual to meet a veteran in "years lived" who exhibits the psychological traits of a 10 year old. Often, when a person faces life traumas or becomes chemically addicted in earlier life… emotional development is stunted. A person with no mental handicap can simply under stimulate their mind until at midlife they still have the interests of childhood…etc.

None of that is actually my main point…My main point is this:

We all start out spiritually as babies in Christ and as time progresses we are supposed to move through childhood, adolescence, the turbulence of teen- hood… on to full adulthood.

We know this is to some degree true because the Apostle Paul uses that exact analogy in his letter to the Corinthian church:

1 Corinthians 3:1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. 2 I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, 3 for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? (NLT)

I wonder if Paul were writing a letter to you or me what he would say. Would he say we were able to eat only Gerber's applesauce , or would we have reached Mac and Cheese status, or have you reached the point of handling a big chunk of Angus steak.

He's talking to adult people who have been believers for some time and he's accusing them of acting like spiritual babies.

They've gone through the motions of growing up. They've used up enough sunrises and sunsets to have achieved maturity but somewhere your belt slipped off the pulley.

When other people look at them they see the spiritual body of a young adult or a veteran but when they get below the surface they find the spiritual actions (and reactions) of a child. In the case of the Corinthians, Paul said they were squabbling and clawing and scratching like a couple of self-absorbed kids at recess.

Q: If you were to honestly and objectively evaluate your own spiritual development where would you place yourself on this chart?

Q: If someone close to you were to honestly evaluate your spiritual development where would they place you on this chart?

Q: If God were to evaluate your spiritual development today where would He place you on this chart?

Whether we like it or not, this evaluation process is taking place in our lives everyday. God has absolutely no problem sorting through our rationalizations and seeing the motivations behind our actions.

We revel in the idea that because of God's grace, He extends us forgiveness and salvation regardless of who we have been. We, sometimes, tend to extend that thinking to include: that in the present and the future God can not/will not be able or willing to see us for who we really are.

God is so absorbed in extending us his grace to overcome our sinful behavior, that it is not to difficult to slip the occasional adolescent behavior past God.

* He won’t notice the door slamming

* He'll overlook our critical mutterings

* He'll understand, even smile, at our inner rage

While many of us are loudly proclaiming our deep spiritual maturity, God is lovingly and graciously filling our next bottle!

The people closest to us are sometimes less gracious than God. They are (all) consciously, or unconsciously forming deep and lasting impressions about our spiritual maturity (or lack thereof) everyday…

We can loudly proclaim our "adult" status to them but most are not easily fooled. We walk away thinking they're admiring our "strength of character" and they walk away thinking "what a child"!

III. Spiritual Adolescents Masquerading as Spiritual Adults.

I gathered a list of characteristics that human adolescents tend to exhibit. When you compare the behavior of human adolescents to the behavior of many Christians in churches across America today and draw a line between human maturity and spiritual maturity… it's gets downright unsettling. ..

1) Vacillates between being a child and being an adult

2) Fight restrictions while desperately needing them

3) Tends to rebel against those in "authority"

4) Is continually testing the boundaries

5) Is strongly influenced by negative peers

6) Is responsible one minute.. irresponsible the next

7) Has anxieties about growing up.. comfortable with status quo

8) Tends to exhibit impulsive behavior

9) Moods tend to swing wildly…from happy to crying… instantly

10) Exhibits aggressive behavior when ticked off like slamming doors, muttering,

"telling off" in private

11) When peeved…withdraws from family activities

I promise.. this list is not intended to describe Christian behavior (but it certainly does). I gathered this list solely to describe human adolescent characteristics.

Truth is…we can lower this template over many of our spiritual lives and see way too many similarities. We can lower this template over some churches, in America, and see reflections, not of the occasional attendees, but of those in positions of leadership.

If that's true… and this "Life Cycle of a Christian" is a valid concept… then we have many people sitting in churches somewhere this morning who have never made it spiritually past the point of adolescents.

If Paul were writing to them this morning he would say I can't give you a Longhorn sizzler… You still eating spiritual "Happy Meals"

Some of the adolescents aren't sitting in church seats this morning, They are, like me, standing behind pulpits. It's kind of hard to blame an adolescent for not growing up. Getting them on to teen-hood, and beyond, is the job of the adults responsible for them.

Some church leaders have driving passions that have little or nothing to do with "growing up" the spiritual children God has entrusted to their care. Oddly, in America, some of those churches are looked at as the most successful.

Spiritual Adolescents Masquerading as Spiritual Adults!

Conclusion:

Would you join me for the next three months in….

If we were to allow God to pinpoint our most glaring areas of sinfulness and we all together set out on a "summer training program" where we consciously and consistently said no to the wrong things and yes to the right things… At first it would be a heavy weight that we could barely lift. As the summer wears on…I am convinced that one after another, of us, would get stronger and stronger until by summers end we would be "pressing spiritual weight" that we never imagined possible…ever.