Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

“I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be.

But I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”—John

Newton

Maturity can be a confusing subject to talk about.

Everyone has different life experiences and everyone seems to mature at different speeds than others.

We know that maturity has nothing to do with your age.

We have all met people who are mature well beyond their years and we have met people who are much older and far less mature.

Psychology today listed 7 marks of mature people: 1- A mature person is able to keep long-term commitments.

2- A mature person is unshaken by flattery or criticism.

3- A mature person possesses a spirit of humility.

4- A mature person’s decisions are based on character, not feelings.

5- A mature person expresses gratitude consistently.

6- A mature person knows how to prioritize others before themselves.

7- A mature person seeks wisdom before acting.

Psychology Today is certainly a secular site, however these attributes are true for Christians as well.

Throughout Scripture, we see that mature Believers are called to remain faithful to Christ, even through suffering.

They express humility, they remain truthful even when they are persecuted, they praise God even when things get tough and they put others first while seeking wisdom, not their feelings.

It can be easy for us to buy into the lie that we must be totally mature to serve in the church - that is far from the truth.

Certainly, we must be a part of the family of God and growing in our faith, however if we all had to be the “perfect” Christian before we could serve, there would be no one eligible to serve in the church!

Service is a means of growth in maturity and we see the apostle Paul talk about service often in the letter of Ephesians, and he certainly hits on this topic in our text today in

This passage of Scripture shows us the third mark of a healthy, active Church: being united in Spiritual Maturity.

Not only is the church supposed to be united in faith and be diverse in gifting, but we are also called to grow up and give up our bib for a towel.

To transition from milk to meat!

In this passage, Paul gives us four traits of a spiritually mature person.

Maturity involves Christlikeness (13)

In a world that says to do whatever is right in your own eyes, being united in our faith in Christ and to be filled with the knowledge of God represents a stark contrast.

While there can certainly be mature non-Christians, a mature Christian is one who strives to be Christlike.

This means that they put silly things to the back-burner and they focus primarily on the Kingdom of God.

This individual is united in faith with other Believers and recognizes this fact.

Because of this, they do not cause disunity, but instead they try to stir up others to the work of the ministry.

We have all witnessed a mature Christian who does exactly this, have we not?

Maybe it was a mother, father, friend, pastor or even a child who demonstrated spiritual maturity by acting Christlike instead of “getting even”.

This certainly makes sense because this is what Christians are called to do, is it not?

We are called to represent Christ on this earth and we are united to Him by faith.

Whenever we are united with Christ, we realize that we are also in unity with one another.

Just as we see in the illustration of pianos being tuned to a tuning fork, Believers are to be tuned to Jesus Christ.

Whenever this transpires, we are also tuned with those around us because of the Holy Spirit.

Praise God for this, because if we were not filled with the same Holy Spirit, it would be impossible for us to carry on the work of the ministry because we would have 100 different ideas and opinions going on!

However, because we are called to be mature and to be Christlike, we are able to be tuned to Christ and tuned to one another because of the power of the Holy Spirit.

We must strive to be like Christ if we want to be a mature Christian, today.

This means that we must know our Bible.

This means that we must know who Jesus Christ was.

This means that we must know who Jesus Christ wasn’t - which leads us to the second point of our outline this morning...

Maturity involves Doctrinal Stability (14)

Whenever we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our new life begins!

We are quite literally a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

This is great news, however we cannot remain as infants in our walk with Christ.

Paul calls us to not be like little children tossed here and there by waves and carried about every wind of doctrine.

Certainly, there are some things out there that we can have a difference of opinion on as we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

We don’t all have to believe that Christians are going to have to live on the earth during the tribulation and we don’t all have to believe in the 5 points of Calvinism in order to be a Christian.

We can have some difference of opinion on secondary theological points, however we cannot be like children who believe absolutely everything that we hear!

Children are gullible and they are easily deceived.

False teachers can creep in and toss them around.

They can corrupt their minds and lead them astray!

As your pastor, it is my job to protect the flock!

This means that we can’t stay as children but we must grow in our walk with the Lord together.

Here are some horrifying stats: 45% of Christians polled said that they believe that Jesus Christ committed at least one sin.

More than 40% of “born again” Christians said that the Holy Spirit and Satan do not exist.

40% of people polled agreed with the statement that “God helps those who help themselves”.

Church, these stats and results break my heart and they ought to break the heart of every Christian in this room!

Jesus Christ never once sinned.

If He did, then He cannot be our Lord and Savior, you MUST believe that He lived a perfect life in order to have any hope of salvation.

The Holy Spirit and Satan certainly do in fact exist and God does not “help those who help themselves”.

American Christianity loves to say that God is our assistant rather than our foundation - when in actuality that is a boldface lie.

It sounds so good to our ears to hear that God wants us to be successful, prosperous and well off.

It sounds good to our culture to hear that all religions are basically the same and that there isn’t a place called hell.

It sounds good that you can get into heaven by being a “good person”.

It sounds good to hear that Jesus isn’t the only way and that we aren’t sinners.

Our world craves to hear that we are good and that we can earn our way into heaven!

The fact of the matter is that from Scripture we see that mankind has all fallen short of the glory of God, we are all sinners - join the club!

The punishment of our sin is eternal separation from God in a place called hell.

That is where our works get us on our own.

That is a message that is inclusive - everyone has messed up and stands guilty of treason before a Holy God.

The great news of Jesus Christ taking our place on Calvary is that His righteousness becomes our righteousness!

This is an exclusive message, though.

This only happens for those who call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Savior of their lives.

That is what Scripture tells us about salvation - not that everyone is fine as they are or that there isn’t a hell.

Our secular culture tells us a lot of things that are dangerous (whether it be that all religions are basically the same or that their good works will get them into heaven), however I would propose to you all that there is an even more dangerous belief in our world today that has deceived billions of people who profess to be “Christians”: the Prosperity Gospel.

You might be thinking, preacher you’ve talked about the prosperity gospel a couple of times already, we don’t need to talk about it because we don’t believe in it.

The problem is that there are millions of churches in our nation, including some of the fastest growing ones, that teach this message that God will keep you from suffering and that he wants you to be healthy, wealthy and prosperous.

They proclaim that God wills you from all suffering if you just have faith in Him.

If you find yourself in a situation of suffering, return to God in faith and your suffering will end in a very short time.

All you have to do is claim this and have faith because God wills us to prosper financially according to .

David Platt boldly shared a message about this passage of Scripture last week, and I want to share part of what he had to say.

tells us the exact opposite of prosperity teaching.

The Israelites were in exile because it was God’s will.

Their time in exile was not coming to an end anytime soon, either.

Hmm, almost like the apostle Paul who was in prison as he was writing the letter to the church in Ephesus.

Sometimes, God’s will involves suffering.

That message doesn’t sound very appealing, though, does it?

People in Jeremiah’s day flocked to the false prophets who said that the exile was coming to an end and people flock to pastors and churches who say that God wants you to be rich, healthy and for your suffering to end tomorrow.

THIS IS A LIE! Do not believe this teaching, church!

Don’t put your hope in these crowd pleasing words.

Jeremiah teaches that it is not God’s will to keep us from suffering but instead that God’s will is to bring us all through suffering.

Suffering is a reality for our world and for the people of God.

We will not escape suffering, regardless of what prosperity advocates might say, but according to , we know that God’s plan will prevail.

That suffering will not have the last laugh!

The problem for spiritually immature people who subscribe to this teaching is that whenever they claim healing or financial success, whenever they pray for the suffering to cease, for the marriage to be healed, and when it doesn’t happen, when the promotion goes to another person, when the healing doesn’t come and when the divorce papers are finalized, they cry out “Did I lack faith?” “God, are you even listening to me?” “God, are you even there at all?”

He’s there.