A story of Mommy and Johnny

Somewhere in the distance a door slams! Your motherly jaw tightens and deep inside you a dull ache starts at your heart and radiates up to your tired brain.

Little Johnny is at it again!

An hour ago… the sun was shining in Johnny's world He was happy… you were happy. Now sixty minutes later the great emotional pendulum has sharply swung… and Johnny, behind the still shuddering door is continuing his angry conversation with you, in just below audible tones. He's telling you all the things he wished he'd said before the door severed his conversation.

What just went wrong?

Little Johnny had run up against the dreaded monster of authority… Mom's authority!

1) He had acted irresponsibly

2) You had corrected him (for the hundredth time)

3) He pushed back against your correction

4) You pushed back with stronger correction

5) He exploded, stomped off, and slammed the door to teach you…..

You know from experience that you will now endure hours…maybe days of young Johnny's immature responses to you’r attempts to mother him.

1) He will withdraw from the rest of the family to nurse his perceived wounds

2) He will tell everyone who will listen what a vicious and unfair person you are

3) He will pointedly choose to spend his time with people who understand and appreciate him

4) When he shares with carefully selected friends how mean you are they will grunt in obvious agreement proving to him that "everyone" agrees with his point of view.

"Oh", Johnny cries deep within his soul, " If only I weren't condemned to be around people who don't understand me!... If only the people who get to boss me around could see life as clearly as I see it!... If only I were in charge!!!

You, of course, have a cry deep within your soul as well. It's much shorter.. much more to the point…much more practical:

" If only Johnny would grow up!

Johnny's actions are the actions of an immature adolescent. Johnny needs to leave his childish ways behind and mature on to adulthood.

Couple of definitions:

Adolescence: The unsettled time between childhood and adulthood- Webster

Maturing- the act or process of becoming fully developed

My point, in this set of sermons is….

I. The Bible paints our spiritual life cycle as developing much like our physical life cycle. Let me show you what I mean…

1) Newborn/Infant -must involve a birth! (Unborn babies do not grow!)

2) Toddler/Child- "to walk with short uncertain steps"

3) Adolescence- unsettled time between childhood and adulthood

4) Teen- literally comes from root meaning grief or suffering

5) Young Adult- Finding oneself, becoming settled and dependable

6) Adult- Solid settled maturity and integrity,

7) Veteran- Fountain of teachable wisdom

We discussed last week how the process of physical maturity can, sometimes, short circuit allowing an adult to act like a child, in attitude or actions. The Bible says this is also a problem in spiritual growth. You can be a Christian long enough to be a spiritual adult, but we have many of the spiritual attitudes and actions of a child.

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. Overcoming Spiritual Adolescence

The question I hope we were all seriously considering throughout this last week was:

Where am I in the "spiritual life cycle" of growth?

2) Toddler/Child- "to walk with short uncertain steps"

3) Adolescence- unsettled time between childhood and adulthood

5) Young Adult- Finding oneself, becoming settled and dependable

6) Adult- Solid settled maturity and integrity,

Can I give you my honest, from the heart, assessment? I have spent, from age 20, to age 50 working in one ministry position or another. I have worked directly in children's ministry, I was a youth pastor, and I have worked for many years with adults.

When I analyze this whole "spiritual life cycle" thing and compare what I have seen across Christianity, in the US and in other countries and cultures I have visited; I honestly think that the cycle that many Christians get locked into…and struggle to progress beyond is adolescence!

Spiritual Adolescence!

Our Elders had a meeting on Tuesday evening with the leadership of our Haitian church, Eglise Grace Emmanuel, and they described to us a Haitian Christian culture in this city that has taken the number of Haitian Churches in PSL from just eight a half decade ago to now, 50 churches. That has come about because if someone isn't perfectly happy with their church family, they tend to break off and start their own church with a half dozen people in their living room. When someone rises to a position of leadership in one church, instead of settling in to help grow mature Christians they want to big the "big cheese" in their own church.

On the "spiritual life cycle" chart: What does that remind you of?

I was with another pastor this last week and he was lamenting the shallowness of some in his congregation. He said that if he dares to mention that they turn from their sinfulness, they tend to get angry with him and they begin a campaign of grumbling against him.

I was in a church a while back, and I met people who had known each other their entire lives…they had been attending church together for decades, yet in church, they were careful to sit on opposite sides of the room, never look at each other, and they made sure when the arrived, and exited, that they would never pass with three yards of the other person.

On the "spiritual life cycle" chart: What does that remind you of?

II. Spiritual Adolescents Masquerading as Spiritual Adults.

I gave you a list, last week, of characteristics that human adolescents tend to exhibit. Let's compare a few of them to our lives and see where we stand:

2) Fight restrictions while desperately needing them- Nobody's gonna tell me what to do… This attitude is at the very foundation of what defines sin, starting with satan…

4) Is continually testing the boundaries…how close to the line can I live? If this life is truly about preparing for eternity with Christ, why would we be interested is seeing just how sinful we can live?

8) Tends to exhibit impulsively wrong behavior… Does God lack the power to keep us from impulsively yielding to temptation? Is the problem with God or with us? If the problem is with us, what can we do about it?

10) Exhibits aggressive behavior when ticked off like slamming doors, "telling off" in private or public, criticizing others… The New Testament Epistles are absolutely filled with teaching on how we are, and are not, supposed to respond in attitude and actions toward others. Many Christian people live their lives, seemingly unconcerned, at the huge gulf between their actions…and what the Bible says a Christian is supposed to act like.

11) When peeved…withdraws from family activities… Bill Gothard says that every Christian is surrounded by people, in their local church, who are handpicked by God to grow us up… That means that some of those people will rub like sandpaper against our lives until we are raw. If our reaction is to run from those people to another church, God will, just, have to bring along another person, who will accomplish, in us, what the first person was intended to do.

You parents do not/cannot, protect your children from everything that is uncomfortable/painful. If you did, your children would never mature to the point of being able to live in the harshness of the real world. So it is with our Heavenly Father…He is more interested in growing us up than in making us comfortable...

Some people teach you that if God really loves you He will take everything unpleasant out of your life…you will never have to endure sickness and you will have every material blessing life has to offer. You won't have to suffer any negative consequences for your wrong actions. What kind of kids does that produce? (Paris Hilton)

III. The Key to Growing up in our Faith

Does God even care if we grow up, spiritually. Maybe God is so happy we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, he really couldn't care less whether we move from sinfulness to righteousness….

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. (NIV)

The whole premise for this summer's messages is: that God, not only wants us all to grow up in our faith, but he has provided the perfect pathway for that to take place. God does expect us to take an active role in saying no to sin and yes to godliness..

….but when we do that He is prepared to work from within us to replace our sinfulness with his righteousness.

Philippians 1:9-11  I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. 11 May you always be filled with the fruit of righteousness (NIV))—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ…for this will bring much glory and praise to God. (NLT)

That is supposed to be an all encompassing, mind expanding, faith building, inner motivating, promise from God's mouth to your "new nature' ears. We all understand the concept of fruit…. It starts with seeds and grows… if allowed, into beautiful, succulent, plump fruit that brings nourishment to all around.

God isn't promising you an occasional seed or a segment of fruit in your life. He wants to:

Fill you... with the fruit of righteousness!

He wants truckload after truckload of spiritual fruit to be harvested from your life, season after season!

IV. The Fruit of Righteousness (Spirit)

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is:

1) Love

2) Joy

3) Peace

4) Patience

5) Kindness

6) Goodness

7) Faithfulness

8) Gentleness

9) Self-control

We have to loose any idea, that the "fruit of righteousness" is optional equipment for the Christian. God's divine plan is that he plants the seeds of the Fruit of righteousness in each one of us when we become believers and as time passes those seeds will sprout and bear larger and larger harvests.

If I came to Christ ten years ago and now a decade later I see no evidence in my life of Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Self Control…. I should get very, very concerned.

John 15:5 “… I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit…. 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. (NLT)

John 15:16 "You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you. (MSG)

If you line up any of the lists in the Bible of "sinful behavior" (we will next week) and in another column line up the Fruit of the Spirit/Righteousness you will discover a direct link between the two columns.

The fruit of the Spirit growing in one's life.. is the direct antidote to our sinfulness. We can't expect the sinfulness to leave our lives unless it is replaced by the Fruit of the Spirit.

If you are struggling with rage on the left side of the column…. A healthy mixture of Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, and Self-control will provide the antidote for your anger.

If you are struggling with critical-ness on the left side of the column…. A healthy mixture of Love, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, and Self-control will provide the antidote for your criticism.

If you are struggling with adultery on the left side of the column…. A healthy mixture of Love, Kindness, Faithfulness, Goodness, and Self-control will provide the antidote for your anger.

You can't possibly leave the sinfulness in your life behind without replacing it with the fruits of righteousness. The fruit are the antidote to the sinfulness. If you don't particularly care if you gain the Fruit of the Spirit in your life you are, in effect, saying: I'm content to remain sinful!

Conclusion: Applying the antidote…

Let's go back to the idea of spiritual adolescence, line up the fruit of righteousness

and see what effect the fruit on our immature spiritual behavior……

1) Vacillates between being a child and being an adult ((goodness, faithfulness, self-control)

2) Fight restrictions while desperately needing them (Peace, patience, gentleness, self-control)

3) Tends to rebel against those in "authority" (Peace, gentleness, kindness, self-control)

4) Is continually testing the boundaries ( Goodness, faithfulness, self-control)

5) Is strongly influenced by negative peers (Goodness, faithfulness, self-control)

6) Is responsible one minute.. irresponsible the next ( Patience, Faithfulness, self control)

7) Has anxieties about growing up.. comfortable with status quo (Peace, joy)

8) Tends to exhibit impulsive wrong behavior (goodness, self-control)

9) Moods tend to swing wildly…from happy to crying… instantly (peace, joy)

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

"telling off" in private (love, peace, goodness, gentleness, self-control)

11) When peeved…withdraws from family activities (love, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness)