Navigating Spiritual Growth: Lessons from First Corinthians

Going to go ahead and continue our sermon series looking at spiritual growth.

And let's turn to First Corinthians, chapter three, 1 Corinthians, chapter three.

We're going to look tonight at a few different aspects of spiritual growth that I think all of us can grow in our understanding of with within our Christian walk.

Obviously, we sometimes think that growth just means that I'm where I need to be.

Like, well, I'm in church, so I obviously have to be growing.

I'm serving, so I have to be growing.

But what we're going to see here in First Corinthians, chapter three is that there were people within the church at Corinth, but they were not growing at the pace that was expected to be seen within their church.

And actually what we see is that they're stunted in their growth.

And we know what it means to have our growth stunted physically.

Maybe there's a specific, a physical problem in our life that causes us not to grow at the proper rate, and we have to go get that addressed with the doctor.

But here, the spiritual condition of the church at Corinth was that they should have been growing and maturing and able to do things that God had called them to do, but they were not ready for that.

And in so doing, Paul basically gives them a challenge to take the next step in their Christian walk.

And really what it boiled down to was where was their focus?

Their focus was on the wrong thing.

And I want you to understand that here this evening as we're walking in our Christian walk, there must be the right focus, because if we're focused on the wrong things in our Christian walk, we are going to be limited in our growth, and we're going to be stunted in our growth.

So First Corinthians, chapter three.

Paul is speaking to the church of Corinth, and he says, and I brethren, now I'm going to stop there.

I want you to see that he's talking to believers when he uses that term, brethren.

He's speaking to people that were considered to be Christians.

He was talking to what he would consider to be his brothers and sisters in Christ.

He says, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual.

He says, I can't even speak to you about these spiritual things, the things that are really to matter in your life.

Why?

But he says, I have to speak to you as a carnal person.

He says, but as unto carnal, that word, carnal means fleshly.

You go to, you know, you go get.

It means meat, flesh, like you go to A restaurant, a Mexican restaurant.

And the carne means meat, right?

Flesh.

And then the idea is, is that he says, I can't speak to you in the spiritual sense because you're so caught up in the fleshly sense.

You're so focused on the material.

You're not past that stage in your spiritual walk.

So he says, I can't even address you in the way that you should be addressed because you have a limitation, you have a barrier.

You have the blinders up.

He says, because of this, because of this fleshly focus, you are as babes in Christ.

He says, I'm speaking to you as babes in Christ.

Babies in Christ stunted in their growth.

What we're going to see here in the next few verses is that they were supposed to be on the meat.

They were supposed to be at the next step of their Christian life, where they could grow, where they could serve, where they could flourish in their faith.

But he says, I can't even get to that place.

Because you're limited because of your focus.

He says, you're babies in Christ.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having babies in Christ.

I believe a church should have babies in Christ because then there's not really any sense of growth within the church.

If you show me a church and there's no babes in Christ, there's a problem.

You say, well, I thought we're all supposed to mature.

Well, we are supposed to mature, but if we didn't have any physical babies in the church, guess what?

We're not seeing a physical reproduction.

And it's the same thing within the spiritual sense.

If we don't see any babes in Christ within the church, it means that we're not having any spiritual multiplication.

So there is a proper time to have a babe in Christ.

But it's not supposed to be that they stay babies in Christ forever, let's say, you know, obviously now pretty much is pretty clear that Alicia is expecting.

And everyone has, at least for the most part, heard that she's expecting.

And am I allowed to say the other thing?

Okay, so we.

We got news this week that it's a girl, so we're excited about that.

So we'll have a second girl on the way.

So two boys and two girls, and we're excited about that.

And that'll be a timeless celebration right when the baby's born, we're excited.

But if it became five, six, seven, eight, nine years, and that baby was the same size and it was at the same level of maturity, there would be people in the church there thinking, right, that baby, it's not a baby anymore.

That child is nine years old.

But there's obviously something wrong.

And sometimes that is the case.

And unfortunately, because of the marring of sin in this world, there are instances where individuals aren't properly able to grow.

And it's what he's talking about here.

He says, some of you were babies at one point, and that was a good thing.

But at some point you're supposed to grow.

If there's a healthy Christian, he or she is going to be growing.

And he says in verse two, I have fed you with milk.

And again, there's a proper time and a place in the spiritual growth process to be feeding on the milk.

I use this analogy all the time.

But if one of our children was born and they were a baby, and I said, you know what?

I really love them.

I want to feed them a great meal.

I'm going to cook up a ribeye steak on the grill here, medium rare, the way I like it.

I'm going to put some salt and pepper and garlic on it, and I'm going to throw it in front of them with a steak knife and a fork.

That's not going to be much help to them.

That's actually probably going to harm them in a great way.

Even if I cut it up for them, it's still going to be a problem.

So there is a proper place to give a baby milk.

And he says, here there was a proper time for an immature Christian to receive the milk.

But he says, and not with meat.

For hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

He said there was a time and a place when the milk was appropriate.

But you should be at that next step where the milk is not enough and you need the meat.

Now, what's the meat?

Those are the deeper things of our faith.

That's the application of our faith.

That's.

That's taking it a step further than just knowing the basics.

So he says, I gave you the milk at the proper time, and then I was not able to give you any meat.

And then we see the end of verse two.

He says, neither yet now are ye able.

That's where we see that there's a problem in their spiritual growth.

They're not able to now receive the meat even though they should be receiving the meat.

And there's a difference, obviously, in this case, we know that as a.

As a church, not everyone is able to receive all of the different elements of teaching.

If we had a new person come into the church and they got saved.

Today, we're not necessarily going to pull them aside and talk to them about every nuance of prophecy.

And Romans chapter 14 and Romans chapter 13, and some of these deep elements, there are going to be times and places for that to be inserted into their learning process.

But we have to give people the right thing at the right time.

But now Paul is saying, you're not able to receive this.

Why are you not able to receive this?

He says, verse three.

The reason why they were not able to receive the next step of their spiritual growth process, for ye are yet carnal, fleshly says there's not the proper spiritual growth because the focus is still on the material, the fleshly, the earthly things.

For whereas there is among you.

And then he's going to give them the test.

He's going to say, this is how I know that you are carnal.

This is how I know that you're acting fleshly, because this is what's going to be manifested in our life.

And he's essentially going to describe what an immature Christian looks like and even what one might say is a carnal Christian, a fleshly Christian would look like.

He says, among you, there's envy.

So.

So between the believers, there's.

They.

There was envy between them.

They were looking at what other people had and they wanted what they had.

There was this understanding of greed and selfishness.

He says, there's envying and strife.

The word strife means fighting.

They were fighting amongst themselves.

It's not even that they were fighting against the world, because as a believer, we're supposed to, to some degree fight against the things of evil.

Even in the book of Judah says, to contend for the faith, to fight for the faith.

So he's not talking about them fighting amongst the people there in Corinth.

He says, you guys are fighting amongst yourselves through envying and strife and divisions.

The understanding here is that he's saying, you guys aren't even living as you're called to live within the body of believers.

He says, are ye not carnal and walk as men?

He's really calling them out on their focus.

And essentially what he's saying is, is he goes, I can't even give you the solid food.

I can't even give you any more depth where you can grow, because you're so focused on these carnal things that are leading you to fighting and envying and division.

You are walking as carnal Christians.

And what I would say here in America, we see this so much.

We see people that go to church, we see people that understand that we're supposed to be different, but at the same time, we act very similar to what the world acts like.

And there's that carnality in our lives.

And if we're not focused on spiritual growth, what's going to happen is that we're going to grow, but we're not going to be growing in the right direction because everyone's going a certain direction.

Whether it's the fleshly direction or the selfish direction or the Christlike direction.

All of us are going to be on a direction in our life.

The question is, where is our focus and which way are we going?

And he's telling them, you guys are going in the wrong way and you're stunted in your growth.

The Corinthian Christians thought of themselves as spiritual, but what we saw is that they're not being defined as spiritual because their lifestyle is full of envy, strife and division.

And envy, strife and division amongst Christians is a sign of fleshliness.

This, again, is not a matter of opinion.

If there is a church that is full of envying strife and division, we can safely say that it's not being driven by the Spirit.

They're not being.

They're not following the Spirit.

They're not being guided by the Spirit.

They're being guided by some level of fleshliness within their midst.

And let me show you what I mean by that.

If we have two Christians who say that they're walking in the Spirit, the Spirit is within them.

And one Christian says, okay, I'm being guided by the Spirit, but I'm going to have the vision with this person that's being guided by the Spirit, and we're going to have a conflict between us.

Do you see the disconnect there?

Do you see the problem there?

Because the Spirit is not going to fight against the Spirit.

So one or both of those individuals is being guided by something other than the Spirit.

Now, that doesn't mean we're going to be agreeing about everything, right?

Jesus didn't always agree with the disciples, and probably the disciples didn't always agree with Jesus and certain things that he did.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we're always going to agree, but it means that we always can come together with a sense of unity and understanding that there's a bigger picture in mind.

And he says that you are being described as someone who's being separate and fighting, and that cannot be the case.

And then he goes a little bit further here and he speaks to some of the reasons behind their Fleshliness and their carnality.

He says, Verse 4.

For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal?

He says, some of you are saying, hey, you know what?

I'm a follower of Paul.

I mean, I'm Paul's guy.

Everything about Paul I'm following.

And then another might say, well, yeah, I'm not about Paul.

I don't like his preaching, I don't like his style, but I really like the way Apollos teaches.

And by the way, the Bible tells us that Apollos was a very good teacher.

He was a.

He was a compelling teacher.

He was.

He was very gifted in that gift of teaching.

And so there were people that were saying, well, I like Paul, I like Paulus.

And basically Paul calls them out and says, that's a carnal way of thinking, that, that you're focused on a person to give you spiritual growth.

He goes a little bit further and says this.

Who then is Paul and who is Apollos?

He's asking them legitimate questions.

Who do you think Paul is?

Who do you think Apollos is?

But ministers.

And that word minister means servant.

They're just servants by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.

So he says, really, Paul and Apollos are just ministers of the one who you're trusting in.

You're trusting in Jesus.

You're not trusting in the Gospel of Paul or the gospel of Apollos.

You're trusting in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul and Apollos are just ministers, deliverers of that gospel.

So keep your eyes off of man and put it on the Lord.

Then he goes on to say a little bit more.

He says, Verse 6, I have planted.

We know in this case this is Paul speaking.

He says, I have planted.

Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

And really, verse six is where I want us to focus on here this evening.

When it comes to spiritual growth, where does the growth come from?

Well, what we're seeing in this passage is it's not coming from Paul.

That that would be contrary to what most people at that time would have understood.

And it's contrary to what many people today understand.

They think, well, you have to have a Paul to see the growth.

Well, certainly God uses people like Paul and like apollos.

But verse 6 tells us where the fruit comes from.

Verse 6 tells us where the growth comes from.

Verse 6 tells us where the multiplication comes from.

It's God who gives the increase.

I can take the seeds that I buy from the store and I can plant them in the dirt and I can water them, I can, you know, get all the things out of the way where the sunlight can come in and shine on that.

But I cannot get into that seed and make that seed grow.

That's not something that I can do.

That is a work of God.

That's beyond us.

All we can do is be the ones like Paul and Apollos, plant, water and allow God to give the increase.

That's spiritual growth.

So if I'm discipling somebody, I cannot force them to grow.

All I can do is plant the seed in their life.

I can water that seed, I can encourage that person, I can pray with that person, I can strengthen that person, I can weep with that person.

I can do all the things that God has called us to do, but I cannot make that person grow.

I must trust that the Lord is going to do his work in their life and he will give the increase.

We talked about it this morning in John chapter 15, John chapter 15, verse 5.

Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Without me, you can do nothing.

And the understanding here is that spiritual growth and everything about it essentially boils down to trusting in the work of the Lord.

It's not a work of man, it's not a work of Paul, it's not a work of Apollos.

And what the problem was at that time is that their eyes were on man and not on God.

Their eyes were on the physical and not the spiritual.

Verse 7, he goes on to say more.

So then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth.

But again he says, but God that giveth the increase.

He reiterates the same truth.

Though Paul and Apollos can be faithful and they get the blessings of being part of that process of seeing people grow, it's ultimately God who gives the increase.

And so when we see the church, and we see ministries within the church, and when we see discipleship happening and Sunday school classes happening and Bible studies happening, folks, I. I do believe that we are called to be Paul's and Apollises and plants and water.

But it's also a point of faith to trust that it is God who is going to give the increase in our lives.

And then he goes on to say in verse eight, now, he that planteth and he that watereth are one.

We're all part of the same team.

This speaks to the insanity of division within the church.

It would.

It would be like saying the guy who comes and plants the seed is more important than the guy who comes and waters the seed.

And what we would say, is this.

How silly would it be that if the guy plants the seed and then the other guy, that's the waterer, goes, well, I don't want the guy who plants the seed to get the credit, so I'm going to dig up that seed.

It's silly, right?

And that's what sometimes happens within the church.

We are.

Some of us are planters, some of us are waterers.

But then we fight against ourselves in division because there's competition, there's envying strife and divisions.

And that's that focus that we are not supposed to have within the Christian life because it's not going to bring fruit.

Why?

Because we're not trusting in ourselves.

We're trusting in the Lord, and instead of trusting in ourselves, and when we trust in ourselves, there's always going to be that type of infighting that we don't want within the church.

So he says, he that planted and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his labor.

So there is a responsibility for us as Christians to do certain things within the spiritual growth process for ourselves and for others.

It's not just a matter of, well, I'm just going to sit at home and God's going to send something through my house and I'm going to have the spiritual growth force that just comes in.

No, obviously there's cooperation with the individual, but God is using certain people for this work, and there is a reward for that.

In verses 9 through 11, talk about this reward.

It's this idea of our motivation.

What's our motivation behind the spiritual growth process?

If, if my motivation is to receive praise from man, I'm missing the point.

And he's going to talk a little bit about that later on.

But he says in verse nine, for we are laborers together with God, for you are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

Now, we see Paul use many different analogies here.

The first analogy he used was the baby and adult analogy, right?

He talks about how someone can be a spiritual baby and they should be a spiritual adult, but they're not there yet because of the wrong intake.

And so he uses that analogy.

And then he goes to that analogy of planting the seed, watering the seed, God gives the increase.

And then he transitions there in verse number nine to a new analogy of building a building.

So Paul was a master of these examples.

And he gives that example of baby.

He gives the example of the planter.

Now he's going to give example of a builder, and he says, in verse 10, according to the grace of God which is given unto me.

So the only thing that Paul says here is that anything that we do within building this spiritual house is done through the grace of God.

As a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon.

So he says we have to lay the foundation somewhere for people to build upon within the spiritual growth process.

We have to lay a foundation to create a culture where spiritual growth can happen.

And he says, how do we do that?

He says, but let every man take heed how he built thereupon.

He says there is a right way to build and there's a wrong way to build.

There's a right way to build and there's the right foundation that's going to be a sure foundation that can sustain.

And there's a wrong way to build.

So he says, let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

How am I going to build this spiritual house?

In the book of First Peter, our Christian life is likened to a spiritual house.

We're the living stones built upon a sure foundation.

What's that?

Foundation, verse 11.

For other foundation can no man lay that is laid which is Jesus Christ.

The foundation is Jesus Christ.

That's what Paul is saying throughout this whole passage, is that if we build on Jesus Christ with the right focus, with the right motivation, with the right understanding, we are able to see spiritual growth happen.

But if we're not building on the foundation of Jesus Christ, if our focus is on the wrong things, whatever that wrong thing might be outside of Jesus Christ, it's going to stunt our growth and we're not going to be able to build ourselves up in Jesus Christ.

Then he goes on to talk about the Reward in verse 12 he says, for if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and stubble, and every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire.

And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

I believe this is talking about the good works that we do in our life.

What is our motivation if our motivation was for the Lord and the foundation was built upon the Lord?

Well, it's gold, silver and precious stones and that's going to last and there's going to be reward there.

But if what we do for God is motivated out of anything else in the material sense, it'll be wood, hand stubble and it'll be caught up in the fire.

Now that doesn't mean that we lose our Salvation.

We see that there in verse 15, he says, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved.

Yet so as by fire.

So it's not that we lose our salvation if we have the wrong motivations, but what it is doing is, it's removing the opportunity for us to see.

See blessings in our life and ultimately gain rewards in heaven.

So what can we learn about here in these just first 15 verses of First Corinthians, chapter three.

Well, we see that many people, including the church at Corinth and churches today, are stunted in their growth and they're sustaining with just being satisfied with that milk.

Now, there's nothing wrong with the milk.

I think that we should teach the milk to children, to, to new Christians.

And sometimes we need to be reminded of the milk.

Sometimes as Christians, we get so engrossed in things in our life that we lose sight of the importance of those basic things that enamored us before as, as young Christians.

So there is an important time to talk about the milk.

But as other places in time, the Bible teaches us that we're supposed to move on to the next step in our Christian faith.

So what's.

What's the next step for you?

What's the next step for me?

Well, the next step for you might be the different from the next step for me, but all of us are called to take the next step in our Christian walk.

For some, the next step is simply just getting involved.

For some people, the next step is the first step of just getting saved.

For some people, the next step is taking someone else under their wing and allowing them to see what it means to understand the truths of God and grow in the Lord.

But I think that one of the many things that churches are lacking today, and I think if we're honest, in many situations in our life, we're lacking is that proper focus on understanding that it's not about me, it's not about the fleshly desires, it's not about the division, it's not about the strife, it's not about the envy.

Ultimately, it's pointing to the focus of God and what he calls us to be focused on.

And that is, as you saw there in verse 11, that's Jesus Christ.

That's the foundation that no one else can lay better.

I want to take you to another passage of Scripture that speaks in a similar sense.

It's First Peter.

If you go with me to First Peter, and we'll look at First Peter, chapter two.

And I think that this is among many passages of scripture, one that, that we could look to in this sense of building this foundation.

And, and I've struggled with this even in my own life because sometimes for me, I want, I want both.

I want the things that make me feel good and I also want the things that God wants for my life.

And the book of James says that's a characteristic of a double minded man.

A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

We can't expect to grow in our walk if we're wanting to have one foot in the world, one foot in things of God.

So here in First Peter, chapter two, we see that we're to lay aside all of these things.

We're to lay aside all of those things in our life that are causing us to be hindered in our spiritual growth process.

First Peter, chapter two.

He says, wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speaking.

And then we see the analogy of the baby, but in a little bit different sense.

Here he says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby.

So he uses another analogy, but in this sense the milk is the milk of the Word.

And he says we're supposed to desire the word of God as much as a baby desires milk.

And many of you that have been around babies understand that nothing can satisfy a baby if they're hungry, okay, I, I'm holding the baby, you know, trying to rock the baby, trying to sing to the baby.

If they're hungry, they want that milk, they want that sustenance.

And so here he says, you know what?

We need to lay aside all these things and desire the things of God so much that it's all we can focus on.

He says, if so, be that you have tasted, the Lord is gracious.

If you tasted that the Lord is gracious, you should want more of him.

You should desire to be more aligned with his Word.

And he goes on to say, to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also are living stones.

Another analogy to this building being built.

He says, you are lively stones built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus.

I hope that you're seeing a theme.

Romans, chapter 12 spiritual sacrifice first Corinthians, chapter 3 building up a house.

First Peter, chapter 2.

He talks about a spiritual sacrifice and building up the spiritual house.

All here in this one passage.

I love how the Bible is so intertwined and connected.

You have different people writing with different styles and different times and different places.

But the same theme is here, and it's all about building on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ.

And he goes on to talk in verse number six of who that foundation is.

Behold, I lay in sion a chief cornerstone, elect and precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

What an amazing thing that is.

When we lay our lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ, There be a lot of things that go on in our life, but nothing can separate us from his love.

Nothing can leave us confounded.

And he talks about how that stone is a stumbling block for those who are in disobedience.

But those in verse nine are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, different people, that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

And so essentially what we're seeing is that God has called us to be different.

And I love the fact, and I know that many of us, maybe to some degree, struggle with the understanding of what is God asking from me.

I'm trying my best.

I'm doing my best.

I'm in church.

I'm in church on Sunday night.

Look, look, look.

I'm doing everything I can.

I completely understand what you mean by that.

I understand that.

But at the same time, we have to have the right focus.

What if I said to you, you know, I'm really fit, I go to the gym.

Wait.

Well, going to the gym is one thing, but I could go to the gym and sit down and just watch everyone walk into the gym and not really exercise.

And that means nothing.

I could sit at the gym and actually sit on one of the machines and pretend like I'm working.

And actually, I feel like there's some people who actually do that and they sit on the.

The machine that I want to go to, and I'm like, how long are you going to sit there and just talk with people?

But anyway, the gym is only going to be as good as if I exercise and use the things that are there.

The same thing within the church setting.

I can be in church, I can be in a ministry, I can sit in a Bible study, but that's only as good as if it's something that's real to me, that it's speaking to me if I'm just in the church setting, because I know it's just the place I need to be.

Now, folks, I'm going to tell you, it's better to be in church than not in church.

But what I also am saying is that there are many people who sit in church and think that it's enough, like, I'm here.

What else does God want from me?

But God wants more.

He wants your heart.

He wants everything.

And really, at the end of the day here in First Peter and in First Corinthians, there's.

There's this message that God wants more from us.

He wants us to focus on the right things and we should be on the meat instead of the.

The milk.

And, you know, I'm raising children.

I want my children to understand the truths of God.

I want them to fall in love with God.

But there is a point in time where I want my children to mature in their understanding.

It's more than just hearing Bible stories.

You know, even though Bible stories are a great thing, we should know the Bible stories.

But then also at the same time, we should understand what the Bible stories mean for me, what's the spiritual connection to Jesus Christ?

One of the challenges that I've always had in my life when I'm preaching is I always want to point back every story to the message of Jesus Christ.

I mean, if we're talking about Abraham, eventually it should get back to Jesus.

If we're talking about Joseph, it should eventually get back to Jesus.

Why?

Because ultimately, as a Christian, we are called to be so focused on Jesus that nothing else matters when it comes to the things of this world.

I want you to understand here tonight that I'm thankful for a church who loves the Word of God.

And 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 2, says we should look to the Word as the areas in our life where we can grow, where we can be strengthened.

But at the same time, there's a lot of things that we can do within the.

I've been here, A pastor's preached or someone has taught, and I've agreed with it.

I've said amen.

That's good.

That's good.

I love the Bible.

I love the Word.

If we love the Word, we should allow that Word to change us.

It should change the way that we think.

It should change the way that we walk.

It should change the way that we do everything in our life.

And that's what Paul is talking about.

So I want us to go back to First Corinthians, chapter three, and I want to just highlight a few last things that we see in this passage, then we'll conclude.

I do believe that this.

This season of studying spiritual growth within the church has been beneficial at least for me, because I think sometimes we.

I was talking about this in our Bible study this morning.

What if I came to you and you're a new business person and I would say, hey, what's your goal in life?

What.

What's your purpose?

And the.

And the person that's starting their own business says, well, I'm to make money.

I would say, okay, that's a good purpose to have a business.

But how are you going to do that?

Well, I don't know.

I'm just going to make money.

Well, you probably need to have a plan or a purpose to get to your ultimate goal of making money.

It's the same thing as a Christian.

Okay, I'm going to walk up to a Christian.

I'm going to say to you, okay, don't answer me out loud right now, but what's your purpose in life?

Well, to glorify God.

Great.

That is a good goal.

Now, how are you going to do that?

I have no idea.

Okay, well, that's a problem because we know what the end's supposed to be.

We know that we want to grow.

We.

We know that we want to glorify God.

We know that we want to serve God.

But oftentimes there's people that are walking around saying, I know that I should be growing, but I have no idea how to get there.

I have no idea what it looks like.

I just know that it's this thing that I'm supposed to be striving for.

So one of the goals that I have for our church across the board is I want all of us to understand what our purpose is within our Christian life and then what we are going to do to live out that purpose.

If you say, well, I. I know it's my goal to glorify God, well, that's a good place to start.

Now, how are you going to do that?

Well, I'm going to glorify God by coming to church.

That's a great start.

But then secondarily, where you how are you going to glorify God on a Monday morning?

How are you going to glorify God on a Friday night?

How are you going to glorify God in your workplace?

How are you going to glorify God in your home?

Well, these are some questions that we need to ask ourselves.

And I think that that's what this study is all about.

Because if we understand what.

What spiritual growth is, and if we understand how we go about that spiritual growth process, and if we understand how to teach other people about that spiritual growth process.

We're going to be a lot more effective in the goals that we have within our Christian life.

And, and I encourage you to think about that.

I'm not going to have the answer for you here this evening because I don't know what everyone's purpose is ultimately.

I do know it's our purpose to grow in the Lord, to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

But for you, that might be in a ministry in the church.

For you, that might be a ministry behind the scenes.

For you, that might be ministering to your family, whatever that might be.

That is the focus that we all are supposed to have.

Keep your finger in First Corinthians Chapter three, because I just thought of another passage that I think is important, and that is in Hebrews chapter five, we're talking about the milk and meat analogy.

And I think that we need to look at Hebrews chapter five to give us another perspective on this.

Hebrews chapter five.

The writer of Hebrews is speaking to the the folks here, and he says In Hebrews chapter 5, verse 13, actually, we could, we could go back to verse 11, because I think it's probably better for us to see it here in this context.

He says in, in Hebrews 5:11, of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered there, there's some hard things to teach within the Christian life.

It's not always easy to hear, it's not always easy to receive.

But he says it's hard for you to hear, seeing you are dull of hearing.

Now, he's not talking about them being literally deaf.

He's talking about them not listening to the things of God, verse 12.

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers.

So he's speaking to a group similar to 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

He's speaking to a group of people who should be teaching others.

He says, for ye ought to be teachers.

Ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God.

So his concern and challenge for the people is that you're supposed to be the ones passing it on to other people.

But you need to have someone come back and reteach you because of your lack of growth.

And he says, you have become such as of need of milk and not of strong meat.

For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is obeyed.

But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both evil and good.

Good and evil.

So verse 14 tells us that that strong meat comes with that maturity to identify what is good and evil.

And we're not able to be deceived as much as those that might be babes in Christ.

It was easy for me to deceive my.

Not that I was trying to deceive my children when they were younger, but I could have.

My.

My children were very gullible.

It was like, you know, there's a dinosaur in the backyard.

They believe me.

Oh, where is it?

Where is it?

You know?

And then as my kids get older, they're like, dad, stop messing with us.

And they're more discerning, right?

That's how Christians should be.

Obviously, a babe in Christ is going to be very gullible.

And.

And that's where a lot of people within churches over the years have attacked and been predators upon those young, immature Christians, and they've deceived them.

But as mature Christians, we should be growing so much that when someone comes in with deception, we should be able to identify that deception.

Why?

Because we know it doesn't match up with the truth.

If I was to teach you about counterfeit money, I wouldn't tell you all the different ways that people are going to counterfeit money, because there's a new way every single day.

What we do is we would teach you what it means to be the truth, what's the true sense of the real thing.

And that's the same thing with scripture.

If someone.

I can't tell you how people are going to teach you false teachings in the world today, there's probably a thousand different ways that someone would do that.

But ultimately, what we do is we understand the truth of God.

And anytime something comes in, in a sense that is not that same thing, we can discern that that's evil.

We can discern that that's heresy.

So my goal for you is not to come.

I. I'm open in every sense.

If you want to come to me and say, pastor Josh, I've been listening to this preacher.

Can you give me your opinion on this person?

Hey, I've been reading this book.

What do you think about that?

I'm open to that.

I would love to help you out with that.

But at the same time, my prayer for you is that you're so in tune with the word of God that you don't even need to come ask me.

Because you see that.

No, that's a red flag.

That's not what the Bible says.

That's not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I want to train you in the place of the church so that we all can be prepared and be discerning people and mature people as we go out into this world.

It's not that there's not a willingness to help, but at the same time, we understand this with our children.

Our children get to a certain age.

We don't want to have to do everything for them.

We want them to understand things for themselves.

We want them to be able to discern what's right and wrong for themselves.

And that's the understanding that the writer of Hebrews has here.

He says, some of you should be teaching people, and you're still not getting these lessons.

That's not to say that our church isn't growing.

I know that our church is growing.

But at the same time, we have to understand that it is upon us in the spiritual growth process to take responsibility to go to that next step from milk to meat.

The milk is not bad, but the meat is definitely something that we're all called to be growing into.

So what?

What does that mean for me?

What does that mean for you?

It means this.

God wants you to take the next step.

God wants you to mature.

God does not want us to stay stagnant.

He does not want us to stay stunted in our growth.

He does not want us to stay on the milk.

He doesn't want us to be living that fleshly life as we saw here in First Corinthians.

And I want us to go back to 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, and I want us to look at verse 3, because this is really the test.

Are we living carnally or are we living spiritually?

Well, he says here in verse three of first Corinthians, chapter three, the test of whether or not we're living carnally or spiritually.

He says, is there envying and strife and divisions among you?

Well, if so, we're living fleshly.

It's time to inspect our life.

It doesn't mean that we're going to agree with everyone.

It doesn't mean that I'm going to like everything that everyone does.

But what it does mean is that I'm not going to allow disagreements and different understandings and different opinions cause envy, strife and divisions.

He says, that's a fleshly, carnal response to the church.

And he says, no, there needs to be unity.

There needs to be understanding.

There needs to not have eyes on men.

That's the other thing he's warning here not to have our eyes fixed on man.

This is Paul talking.

He says, don't Keep your eyes on me.

Don't keep your eyes on Apollos.

Keep your eyes on the Lord who gives the increase.

You know, I. I think a lot of times there's pressure in.

In the ministry and in the church about failure.

What if my ministry doesn't have anybody show up to it?

Guess what?

No one shows up.

It's okay.

It's not a failure.

Why?

Because if we're doing the right things for the right reasons, it doesn't matter.

I can tell you there's been times in my life where I've looked at the amount of people in the church and gauged or judged my success in the ministry by saying, how many people are here today?

I'm going to tell you that that's a dangerous place to be because it's not always about the numbers.

It's not always about praise.

It's not always about acclamation.

What it's all about is about honoring God and seeing God give the increase.

If there's one person that hears the word, if there's one person that's growing, it's enough.

And what we have to see here in First Corinthians, chapter three is that it's not about keeping our eyes on the conflict.

It's not about keeping our eyes on our flesh.

It's not about keeping our eyes on a person.

It's about keeping our eyes on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And when we do that, we can't fail.

There's no stress, there's no worry.

There's no concern of failure.

When we're walking in Jesus Christ, people can say what they want to say about us in the world.

People can judge the church because of what programs we have and what programs we don't have.

But at the end of the day, if we're preaching and elevating Jesus Christ above all else, there's never a failure there.

And I'm going to tell you that that's the goal that we have for Middletown Baptist Church.

If we're known for anything, I don't necessarily want to be known for anything outside of that.

We preach the word of Jesus Christ and that we're proud of that.

Not proud in the sense of pride, but the Bible says there's one thing that we can boast in.

Did you know that there's one thing that you can have that pride in.

The Bible says you can boast in Jesus Christ.

And that's what we want to do.

We want to boast in Jesus Christ, not in how good of a ministry we have or not in how much we have within the bank account or how many buildings we have.

Those are all good things.

It's not about that being bad.

What it's saying here is that if we keep our eyes on any of that material stuff, we're missing the greater purpose of spiritual growth.

So I want to ask a few questions for you, then I'm done.

Number one, what is your purpose as a Christian?

What is your purpose?

And then number two, how are you going to live out that purpose in your life if you cannot answer those two questions?

It's time for evaluation.

Well, my purpose is to glorify God.

That's a great start.

My purpose is to spiritually grow.

That's a wonderful start.

Now, what steps am I going to take to grow?

Well, one.

I have to die to my flesh.

That's what it's talking about here.

Not to live carnally.

I have to die to my flesh.

I have to die to what I want.

There's a lot of things that I want in my life, but is it what God wants for me?

And that's a question that we have to ask.

I can tell you that when we were deciding where to move back in 2017, my first choice, I wish I could tell you my first choice was Middletown, Delaware.

It wasn't my first choice.

Okay.

Frankly, you know, and there's nothing negative about it, I just didn't know where Middletown, Delaware was.

I. I had served.

I think I've told you guys this before.

I've circled on the map areas of the country that I was like, yeah, Lord, just please don't call me there.

Call me anywhere else, but don't call me there.

And at that time, obviously, I was open for anywhere.

We said, lord, wherever you want us to go.

And as God opened that door, there were certain hesitancies that I had, you know, like, I don't know if that's a place that we could fit in.

I don't know if I could handle that weather.

I don't know.

There was a lot of fleshly reasons why that we could not, you know, move here.

But at the same time, looking back on it, I think all of us could have a testimony like this.

Looking back on it was the greatest decision that God ever made in my life to take me to a place that we could find a family, that we could find a ministry.

That's an amazing place to serve God.

And I believe there's something special about this area.

God is working and God is.

God is doing amazing, amazing things.

But if it would have been in my decision making process and my fleshly decisions, I would have missed out on that.

Think about all the things that we've missed out in our life because of fleshly decisions that we made a justification and said, no, I can never do that.

But I'm going to tell you the safest place to be, the most rewarding place to be, the most exciting place to be, is in the will of God as he's working.

And seeing him work in your life is an amazing thing.

So whatever your purpose is, find that purpose in the Lord and then say, these are the tangible steps that I am going to take to get to that place where I know that I'm doing what God has called me to do.

And that might mean that you have to remove things from your life.

That might mean that you have to add things to your life.

It might need that.

There, there's going to be spiritual disciplines that I have to infuse into my life.

And that's what First Corinthians, chapter three is all about, building upon that foundation.

We're not supposed to just look at a foundation.

There was a house that burned down in our neighborhood like a while ago and they have the, like the basement and all that, but it just stayed that way.

Well, that's not a house.

There's a foundation there, but it needs to be built upon.

And there's a foundation of Jesus Christ.

And that's great.

But a lot of times what people do is that they leave it right there.

I'm saved.

That's all I need.

That's good.

I've got the foundation.

But they're never building upon that foundation.

And biblically speaking, the Bible calls us to build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.

So yes, Jesus is enough, but he's also called us to take the next step in our life.

We're going to come back in this series just a couple more times and we're going to look at a few more steps.

We're actually going to look at some very practical ways in which we can take steps in our life to, to allow the Lord to move through the Holy Spirit to do certain elements of spiritual growth in our life.

So we're going to talk about Bible study, we're going to talk about prayer, we're going to talk about all the different elements of the spiritual disciplines.

Because you can't talk about spiritual growth without the spiritual disciplines.

So going back to the analogy of the gym, okay.

Going to the gym and there's machinery there.

Okay.

I can't just go to the gym and sit down and say, okay, I'm going to automatically be fit.

I have to sit on the machines and do it.

Now even then I can sit on the machines and do them wrong.

I don't know if you've ever been.

There was this video I was watching about people going to the gym and using the machines in the wrong way and it's pretty entertaining.

Like they're flipped all around and pushing out with their leg and like that's not how that machine works.

Okay.

There is a way that you can even go to the gym and exercise, but do it wrong and actually hurt yourself.

So just because we're at church and just because we're doing the spiritual disciplines doesn't essentially mean that we're going to be growing.

What we have to do is we have to understand the need for those things and then the proper way to do those spiritual disciplines and then allow the power of God to work through us and change us in our lives.

And when we do that, we can see spiritual growth.

But I'm going to tell you, there's a lot of Christians that are just walking blindly and in some places it's like the blind leading the blind.

Well, hey, just do whatever you want to do.

There's no wrong way to do it.

That sounds really good, but that's really bad because the Bible does tell us very clear ways that we're supposed to do things within our Christian life.

And I know that there are many well meaning people out there in the world that are trying to be inclusive and bring everyone in and not feel like anyone's being, you know, idolized.

But at the end of the day, there is a certain way to do things within our Christian life.

And I want to give you from the Bible some tangible, practical things that we can apply to our life.

As like 1 Peter, chapter 2 said, Desire the sincere milk of the word and then apply it thereby.

So I would encourage you to come back to this study as we continue looking at spiritual growth.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and close in a word of prayer then after that we'll have a few announcements and then we'll be dismissed here this evening.

Lord, I just thank you for this time that you've given us.

Thank you for the opportunity to come together tonight to look into your word and to study what it means to have you give us the increase.

Lord, we know that we want to see growth in the spiritual sense here in our church, but Lord, we know that we cannot manufacture that growth without a complete reliance on you.

Lord, we know that without you we can do nothing.

I pray that we can all strive to understand our purpose in our Christian life and also Lord, help us to know how we take steps to go about living out that purpose and the time that we have.

We're thankful for the hope that we can find in salvation, and we're also thankful for the fact that your love fuels our decision making process and changes the way that we think changes the way that we live.

And I pray that you can help us be the salt and light here this week that you've called us to be.

So I just pray that you be with us as we go our separate ways here this evening.

We ask all those things in Jesus name, Amen.