Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this Friday,
Do you like to watch things grow? A friend gave me a tomato plant about a month ago. At the time it was maybe six inches tall. Today it’s nearly 6ft tall! With interest, I’m watching a few small budding tomatoes wondering if they’ll make it all the way to my dinner table. At the same time, I’m watching the calendar, for in a few days my wife and I will see and embrace our grandchildren who live 5000 miles away from us! Kids, like tomato plants, sure grow fast, don’t they?!
Now why all this talk about growing? We’re with the apostle Paul as he’s dictating his first letter from Ephesus to his Christian friends in Corinth, Greece in late 54ad. As we open chapter 3 Paul wants to talk about spiritual growth and his expectations of where these Corinthian Christians should be by this time. Paul had given them the Gospel about 3 years before and spent several months teaching them about Jesus. Time has passed, and Paul has received a disturbing report of what has been happening in Corinth. So, let’s watch as Paul speaks and Timothy writes: “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready. Indeed, you still are not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? For when one says ‘I follow Paul’ and another says, ‘I follow Apollos’ are you not mere worldly human beings? After all, what is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe…” (1 Cor. 3:1-5)
Paragraphs like this call us to reflection, don’t they? How easily do we get caught up in quarreling over insignificant things? Since when we each first heard the Gospel of Jesus, to the present day, how long has that been and how far have we each advanced in our spiritual maturity? How does that compare to the spiritual hunger and spiritual growth of people in other countries, far away from wherever you live? Of all the people you’ve known in your lifetime, who have been the ones who spiritually matured most quickly and who were stagnant spiritually or even regressed over time? What have you learned watching these people?
Remember Paul had been in Corinth at the end of his second long missionary journey. In those two adventurous trips Paul had pioneered the Gospel into towns and cities all across Central Asia, Macedonia and Greece. He’d seen some places where people strongly resisted the Gospel, other places where they embraced the Gospel. He’s seen some people embrace Jesus with few questions and other places where they asked many questions and investigated Paul’s preaching thoroughly.
Corinth was one of the biggest, most exciting, active cities of all those Paul had visited. It was a pagan city with many other religious ideas and a great deal of immorality and wickedness. These new Christians would need to pursue spiritual growth and that’s why Paul had been joined there by Timothy and Silas, Aquila and Priscilla. Paul had led this team in Corinth for 18 months teaching the new Christians. (Acts 18:1-18)
Since Paul’s departure from Corinth, the well-educated teacher Apollos had come to live and teach in Corinth. (Acts 19:1) In other words, Paul felt he had good reason to expect these Corinthians would have matured spiritually far beyond what he was hearing reported about them.
What about you and me, my friends? Have we been, are we now, maturing spiritually at the pace God has made possible for us? Are we spiritually at the place we should be by now in each of our lives? How is our maturity or immaturity affecting those our lives are touching, especially our families and our friends?
Paul says he taught them using ‘spiritual milk’, not solid food. I can’t tell you exactly what he meant by that in Corinth, but look at your city, your church, your personal spiritual appetite, your spiritual diet, the frequency and amount of Scripture you absorb, the Bible studies you have been engaged with, the maturity of your prayer life, the understanding of God that you have. Are you satisfied with your spiritual maturity?
Paul uses the phrase “you are still worldly” as he writes to the Corinthians Christians. Could he use the same phrase for you and me and other Christians we know? What are things of the world that should not be seen in the life of a mature follower of Jesus? How about alcohol consumption or foul language or dishonesty or lust or pride or unforgiveness or bitterness? Those are all things which are normal and rampant in the unsaved people of our world and would you agree, they should be absent from the life of a Christ follower? SO?? What do you see when you look in the mirror and at the people around you?
Let me take you back to yesterday and the closing line of Paul’s 2nd chapter: “But we have the mind of Christ.” So, what are some specific examples of how a Christian THINKS which evidences their spiritual maturity or immaturity? Listen to what Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what their sinful nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Holy Spirit have their minds set on what the Holy Spirit desires. The mind governed by the sinful nature is death, but the mind governed by the Holy Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the sinful nature is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who live according to their sinful nature cannot please God.” (Romans 8:5-8) Now, would you agree that’s fairly clear, my friends? Can you identify where you are on that spiritual continuum?
Here’s another example. This is Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians: “I insist on this, that you no longer live as the pagans do in the futility of their minds, their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality with a continual lust for more.” (Eph. 4:17-19) Can you see the contrast between this type of thinking, feeling and living, in contrast with someone who is spiritually mature?
And I give you one more: Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but to the interests of others…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – focus your mind on these things.” (Phil. 2:3,4; 4:8) So once again, can we look at HOW our minds and heart’s function and compare what we see to this challenge from Paul? Where are we on the spiritual maturity continuum?
Where are we as compared to where we could have been by this time if we had focused our efforts on pursuing knowing God, pursuing inviting the maturing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, pursuing living in lock step alignment with Jesus? Let’s reflect on that and how our conclusions should shape our future as we worship with this song my friends…
Today’s Scriptures are 1 Cor. 3:1-4; Rom.8:5-8.
Choose below to read or listen.
1 Cor. 3:1-4
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Romans 8:5-8
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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