True Christian Maturity

[pescador]

As some of you know I have left the church of which I was the most senior elder. I could no longer continue in the church because of a unresolvable difference with the pastor. IMHO he is stuck in a fundamentalist, isolationist view of our relationship to God and to the world.

I wrote this essay to explain my point and would appreciate your comments...


Beyond the Cross

Much of the focus of today’s church is on the cross, or more properly, Jesus’ sacrificial death and what it has accomplished for all people. Those who have not heard the message of the efficacy of his blood in removing the penalty of sin and establishing a new covenant with God need to hear it and believe it. They need to understand that when Jesus died we all died, and when he was resurrected we all were resurrected with him. But the Christian life goes beyond that. We are resurrected into something.

When we are born it is the beginning of our life. As we grow into childhood and into maturity our life becomes fuller, richer, and more complex. So it is when we are born a second time -- spiritually. As Paul makes abundantly clear in his epistles, spiritual growth can be a confusing and sometimes difficult process, but through it all we are dearly loved by our Father in heaven, as we love our children through childhood and adolescence, only more so..

When we are young we are taught the fundamentals of manners, morals, and consideration of others -- “you must share your toys” -- but as we grow older we are taught issues of greater complexity: honesty, compassion, and responsibility, both personal and social. We do not teach our adolescents the same lessons that we taught them as toddlers. If they bothered to listen to us they would rightfully say “But I already know that. Why are you telling me it to me all over again, as if I were still a baby?”

The parable of the good Samaritan begins with these words (Luke 10:25-28)…

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Unfortunately too many churches focus on just the first part of this lesson or some variation thereof. God loves me, I love God, God gives me his grace, I am dead to sin, I am alive to God in Christ Jesus, etc. Every thought contains either “I” or “me”.

But as the Scripture clearly shows, we are to also love others -- actively, not just in our minds. The priest and the Levite, most probably coming down from the temple in Jerusalem, passed by the injured man. Were they repulsed by him, were they afraid, or were they wrapped up in their own religiosity? Scripture doesn’t tell us, but what it does tell us is that they did not reach out to their neighbor.

Any church that focuses primarily on itself is not fulfilling the spiritual lesson of the parable or fulfilling the great commission of Matthew 28. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit not to feel good about ourselves and our relationship to God but to bring the light of salvation to the unsaved of a dark world, just as Jesus and the apostles did.

John 3:16-17 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

God gave Jesus to the world because he loved the world. It was a deliberate act of love on his part and we should follow his example. We should actively love the world regardless of the sin that exists in those who haven’t accepted Christ as their savior. God didn’t send his son to condemn others and neither should we condemn others, regardless of their sin.

The church and the gospel message doesn’t need to be protected from the world or, as some preach, from other Christians. We have been given armor from God to be soldiers on his behalf, to participate in warfare against the dark forces of the spiritual realm. Not the natural world (people) but the spiritual world (demons).

If we are not loving others as ourselves, regardless of their “worldly" status or their sins, then we are not truly living as God intends us to live.

 

[Steeno7]

Of course, Jesus loved and accepted all, and we should do likewise. But He certainly didn’t condone, encourage or accept errant beliefs, attitudes or behaviors…and neither should we. That is a distinction that you seem unwilling or unable to maintain.

 

[BryanW92]

That's a very good essay. As you say, "we are resurrected into something." Does that mean that the person who comes to Christ living a life of sin (fornication, adultery, homosexuality, etc) and chooses to continue that life (especially those self-identify themselves by their sin with PRIDE) after claiming to choose to follow Christ has not been resurrected into something?

 

[pescador]

Of course, Jesus loved and accepted all, and we should do likewise. But He certainly didn’t condone, encourage or accept errant beliefs, attitudes or behaviors…and neither should we. That is a distinction that you seem unwilling or unable to maintain.

Jesus' disagreements were with the religious leaders. He ate with the worst sinners, a very intimate act that indicated full acceptance. It's unfortunate that you can't or won't see this fundamental principle of Christianity.

 

[Steeno7]

Jesus' disagreements were with the religious leaders. He ate with the worst sinners, a very intimate act that indicated full acceptance. It's unfortunate that you can't or won't see this fundamental principle of Christianity.

Are you actually saying that Jesus accepted not only the sinner but also the sinners sin?

 

[pescador]

That's a very good essay. As you say, "we are resurrected into something." Does that mean that the person who comes to Christ living a life of sin (fornication, adultery, homosexuality, etc) and chooses to continue that life (especially those self-identify themselves by their sin with PRIDE) after claiming to choose to follow Christ has not been resurrected into something?

Thanks. Everyone -- everyone -- has been resurrected into Christ. All they have to do is realize that and accept it. It's a wonder that only a certain percentage of people choose to have Jesus as their personal savior.


If somebody, after coming to Christ, chooses to continue living under sin's power, and in some cases are proud of it, then I question their salvation. Paul wrote "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."


All of us sin but if someone continues to sin without following the leading of the Holy Spirit then I'm not sure that they're saved. However, and this is extremely important, it is not our role to judge those people and condemn them because of their sinful behavior. We are called to love them because they are created in God's image and they are our neighbors. If I'm correctly "reading between the lines" we are called to love LGBTs without judging them. For God so loved the world...

 

[FanthatSpark]

True Christian Maturity...

We are all babes in the Spirit for where one has revelation another has a different revelation yet both hold to scripture yet both are ignorant of each other by lets say, distance of proximity. We as a people are stuck(greater % of Christians) to religion in the plethora of doctrines and are deaf to the living God, in what is taught in said religions and put our faith in the preacher/mankind and loose sight of Spiritual maturity in a living God for my preacher says.... Thus a believer is stuck in impressions of others and what they might think. A religion sets limitations of what is acceptable in their God. Taught ways. Which slams the door on a continual Spiritual walk with a living God; especially if one after following scripture tests the Spirit and finds it true but follows the preacher who is of mankind. Preacher is stuck in limitations & expectations of the flock in the religions boundaries.

To gain maturity (although of a babe in Gods eye) after one has been taught by another <-- preacher, teacher or loved one, it is time for a season to let God show us some wisdom, prayer, meditation, love , testing spirits, obedience through scripture but most important charity/love of self and another.

Pesc my brother, you are starting to see the flaws of religions and there limitations, yet we all must learn somewhere & somewho. To brake out one day and truly follow Prov 3:5 in His understanding (<--couple Rom 12 concentration on 2 &3) and not of mankind's mold of God (our own understandings), this is good ,not to suffer confusion in religion as it is written 2 Cor 11:13-15 & other verses.Not all come to His understanding when imparted to a vessel and find contentment in mankinds religions.

You, are church inside you, Matt 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.. As your title states, Maturity. Let no "one" lead us astray, Mark 13.1-37.

 

[Norah63]

As to the op, you gave a real good sermon in your post.
I hope you got to deliver it in that congregation before you left.
Sounds like you have grown from beginnings of salvation to wanting more.
Maybe a social outreach. Go ahead and be the church, dont just look for it in others.
The power of the early church members is sparce today. Heal and deliver all that come to you.
Jesus did!

 

[hopeinGod]

First, I am not one who believes ministries were intended to be occupations. It never was God's course for His body, and never will it be; therefore, we are having innumerable troubles throughout the body of Christ as "the one man shows" continue to abide, rather than the body of Christ working with one another, sharing their particular gifts, filling the space, as we are told, with that which a man's gift makes room for him.

The one man show is not healthy for any part of the body of Christ. It causes strife, contention, lack of balance and extremism. If you feel you are called to give as a pastor, then open your house, or another's home, in accordance with the structure the Lord set up, in home groups.

But do not leave them there. Ensure they are taught in the first principles of the oracle of God listed in Heb. 6, and if you've not been, then get that foundation laid in your life too. then learn to open up to the rest of the body as God gives them words of encouragement, songs, words of knowledge, etc.

The seminary system did not sustain the ministry of the disciples and, in fact, neither does it in this day. We are called to be a body, not a bunch of pew or folding chair warmers who sit week after week staring at the same man.

David

 

[Norah63]

Excellent, hopeinGod, you nailed it!

 

[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT

This thread has undergone a clean up. The topic is not tongues. The topic is in the OP.

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