Good afternoon. It's very good to see each and
everyone of you who could be back and be with us.
I'm very thankful to once again be your speaker.
And we had a wonderful lunch together and I appreciate that
very much. And I know that means everyone's
going to be tired. And we'll, we'll do our best to
be able to not speak too long to put you to sleep and talk about
something relevant so that you actually have something to keep
you awake. So this afternoon, really all of
this, each and every, this lesson is meant for you to have
self reflection or reflection on yourself, introspection.
You need to decide how well you are doing on these things that
we're talking about. So you can't do that and sleep
at the same time. So I'm helping you out there.
It's very easy for us as humans to judge things according to the
way that they look. It's natural.
We live in a physical world, so we judge things usually by what
we see, by the circumstances around us.
But that means it's also very easy for us to judge
inappropriately or incorrectly. And if you've made this mistake,
you're not the only one. In First Samuel chapter 16,
there Samuel is told by God to go to the House of Jesse and to
anoint one of his sons to be the next king of Israel.
And so he comes to the oldest son.
And then first Samuel chapter 16 verse 6 it says, So it was when
they came that he looked at Elab and said, surely the Lord's
anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do
not look at his appearance or at the physical stature, because I
have refused him. For the Lord does not see a man
as man sees. For man looks at the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
That's what we're going to be talking really about today and
this evening is the heart. And what we want to talk about
is, are you a mature Christian? Are you a mature Christian?
You know, the fact that you're here in as the second service,
we often say, oh, well, you know, you have Sunday morning
Christians and then you have people come back.
And maybe if you have Wednesday, all the people come there.
And we tend to judge people just by how often they show up.
Or maybe we judge someone whether they're wearing a suit
and tie. And I took my tie off.
Do you think, oh, no, Aaron's. Aaron's getting more liberal.
He took his tie off. You know, we ended.
We make snap judgments about people by the way that they
dress, the way they present themselves.
And we need to be careful about that.
But at the same time, you may think, well, because I dressed
nice, because I've come Sunday afternoon, because I'm doing
these things, that that makes me a mature Christian.
Maybe I've been in a church 30 years, so I'm a mature
Christian. It's very easy for us to judge
inappropriately. But the Bible gives, it says
here in First Samuel that God judges the heart.
He judges the heart. And so there's a passage that I
believe that we should look at to be able to decide whether you
are a mature Christian, whether I am a mature Christian.
In Galatians chapter 5, verse 22 through 23, it says, but the
fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such there is no law. This is these are the fruits of
the spirit. The whole idea of fruits is
these are things that should be naturally coming from you and
naturally appearing in your life.
If you are walking with God, these are the characteristics
that you should have. And oftentimes we read that
passage and we say, Oh yeah, I'm kind of working on some of
those. And so we're going to spend just
a little bit of time this evening looking at these 9
characteristics that the Bible gives us and we could see that
it should be lead us to spiritual maturity.
The very first one is really foundational and the each of
these are broke up into categories of three and that's
how we're going to look at them. So the first 3, of course, is
Lovejoy and peace. And these are really fundamental
spiritual qualities that we should have that should be a
part of who you are. When someone describes you or
talks about you or says your name, these are qualities that
should come to other people's minds to describe you, to
describe me. That's what we're talking about
this evening. Love is foundational.
It is the source from which all other qualities come from.
It is the very beginning. Through the Holy Spirit we learn
to love one another and we love God.
Here in first Corinthians chapter 13 verse one through 8,
Paul talks about love of what it looks like, what it feels like.
Think about these things as we talked about is this describe
you? Is this who you are?
And I'm not saying right now, is this who you are?
I'm talking after you worked all day and you come home to
screaming children and you're tired and you're frustrated and
the tire blew on the way home. Does this describe us all the
time? Is this who we are?
Not just the best at the time, but all the time?
1st Corinthians 13 verse one says though I speak with the
tongues of men and angels but have not love.
I've become a sounding brass or clinging symbol.
I have a A7 year old who thinks that she's a musician.
I know what sounding brass sounds like.
Just play music, he says. That's what it's like.
That is what you're, that's what your life is like.
If you don't have love, that's that.
You don't have this foundational concept in your life.
Here, verse 2 says, and though I have the gift of prophecy and
understand all mystery and all knowledge, and though I have all
faith that I can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Not that I have a little bit of work to do, he says.
I am nothing. If you get up here and preach
and you don't have love. If you go and help somebody down
the street, you don't have love. If you're raising your children
and you don't have love. If you don't have love as a
foundational part of your daily life, it's worthless.
He goes on and says, and though verse 3 and though I better
still all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body
to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
You know, Paul talks about how he served the church and he
poured himself out like a drink offering.
You could spend every day, every waking moment, the rest of your
life serving the church. Maybe you come here and mow the
lawn. Maybe you give lessons.
Maybe you're helping people, maybe you're studying.
But if you don't have love as a foundation, motivation for all
of those things, you wasted your time.
That is amazing to me. You wasted your time.
He says love suffers long as kind.
Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself.
It's not puffed up. It does not behave rudely, does
not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil.
How often do we think evil of others does not rejoice in
iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If love is not the foundation of
our spiritual walk, you might as well just go watch football.
It's just a waste of time. Go get a second job.
Make your son days productive. It has to be foundational.
I remember I had a lesson for a congregation that I was a part
of and there was a real problem that needed to be handled and
this lesson needed to be given. But I was so angry about the
situation that I didn't think I could give the lesson and love.
And I went and talked to my dad about it was like, what am I
supposed to do? He said don't give it.
That's a waste of the lesson. Don't give it until you can give
it in love. That's exactly what I did.
I waited two weeks until I could get my mind where it needed to
be and then I was able to give that lesson in love.
That's what we're supposed to do, everything that we do.
If you need to correct someone and you're upset about it, don't
do it right now, then correct them tomorrow.
Wait till tonight. Wait till you cool down.
Do it in love. Once we have love as the
motivating factor for everything that we do in our lives, we will
have joy. This is a natural outgrowth from
love, he says. We see this joy is really divine
in origin. Christian joy is not about
having pleasant circumstances. Although we had a great meal, we
had joy during that time. That's not what we're talking
about. We're talking beyond that during
the difficult times as well. When things get hard in life, we
should be having joy in all aspects of our lives.
But joy is really about enduring, suffering, going
through very difficult times. And I know I've had difficult
times. I know you have.
That's part of life. Life is suffering, Life is
difficult and there's so many people that give up hope, that
have no joy in their lives, probably because they don't have
love, they don't have God. But if we have the right
attitude, then when we are tried and we are tested, then we can
have joy at the other side. And James chapter one verse 2
through 4 says, my brethren, count to all joy when you fall
into various trials, all joy when you fall into various
trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience,
but let patience have it's perfect work, that you may be
perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
It's so hard to see sometimes when we're going through those
trials. But if we have that right
attitude, when we come out the other side, we could see that we
are stronger for it, that we've been refined by that fire.
And Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, it says, looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
has set down at the right hand of the throne of God for the joy
of the cross. What kind of joy was that?
To be embarrassed, to be punished, to be beaten and spit
upon, stripped naked and hung on a cross.
The joy what came from his love for you and I.
He had that foundation of love that He was suffering for a
purpose, that He was suffering for you and I.
And therefore, with that right attitude, He can have joy in the
accomplishment of the salvation of our souls.
Once we have this love which produces joy in our lives, we
can have a peace like no one else has.
This is a natural outgrowth, again, from walking the
Christian life. Peace does not mean that we have
no conflict, but rather that we are whole in spite of conflict,
that we have peace in spite of conflict.
It comes from having that right relationship with God and also
talks. I think also the idea of that we
are actively seeking peace in our life, that we are
peacemakers. There are men and women in the
church who've been in the church 30 and 40 and 50 years who still
haven't figured out how to be peacemakers.
They're not spiritually mature. We should be peacemakers.
We should be searching for peace.
And John 16, verse 33, it says these things.
I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace in the world,
you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world. We have peace in Christ.
We already know the victory. We already have it.
The Bible, you can go read Revelation.
You see that God wins. If we're on God's eyes, if we
are faithful and to death, as we talked about this morning,
Revelation 2 and 10, then we have that crown of
righteousness. We already know how it is.
So that should give us peace when we're suffering, peace when
we're going through trials. Once we have this foundation,
these three things are the foundation that you have love
motivating every part of your life, which produces joy even
when you go through difficult times.
And this produces a peace in your life.
Now, when the real work gets going, dealing with other
people, you can act the way that you need to.
That's what the next three on this list are.
They're talking about our social interactions with one another.
And again, they build on one another.
He says long-suffering, kindness and goodness, man, we could talk
a long time about long-suffering.
I have two brothers. They are very annoying.
I'm not annoying, They're annoying.
I've had to be long-suffering over the years with them.
We all have that attitude. We all know, we all have people
that we love very dearly that we have to be long-suffering with.
And yet often times with our brothers and sisters in Christ,
we don't have any long-suffering for them.
I've shot my brother in the face with ABB gun, my other brother.
We've broken arms and just torn each other apart and yet we are
best friends today and yet stop that brother there.
He looked at me weird. They didn't shake my hand after
services. They did something.
They made the same dish that I made whatever it is and all of a
sudden we have this arch enemy in the church.
Maybe they understand the passage a little bit different
than either me and I'm not going to give them any time to study
it more and learn anything more about it.
Where is our long-suffering with one another?
And Second Timothy 4 verse 2 says preach the word, be ready
in season, out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with
all long-suffering and teaching. I love that this, that word just
appears here. You know, sometimes when you're
studying with somebody or working with some, trying to
build them up, it takes some long-suffering.
It takes some patience when bringing some of the Christ.
It takes some patience when you have a new Christian.
It is amazing to me how often times we convert somebody and
they come to church and say, OK, you better be perfect now.
And then we jump all over them when they're not.
There's a man right now who goes to church in Stockton.
He's come back to the church after 30 years and he had
doesn't really know, remember everything.
He was kind of young when he left and he missed this.
He came back on Sunday, missed the next Sunday and the next
Sunday after that. Where were you?
You better come up here and make the confession.
Give the guy a break. He's still trying to get his
life together. Let's have some patience.
Let's have some long-suffering with one another.
This door just popped open. We need to be patient with one
another. I have weaknesses, I have
struggles. I am imperfect.
And hopefully you know that you are too.
And hopefully you can love me with all my imperfections
because Christ loves me. Because God loves me.
Not that you want you ready for me to just be lazy and not try
to make myself any better. But you're willing to work with
me to overlook some of my shortcomings because you loved
me. Once we have long-suffering that
I'm putting up with you and you're putting up with me, then
it says now we need to have kindness.
So now we're stepping it up a little bit.
Now, even though you are testing my patience, I'm going to show
you kindness is what he says. That's a much mark of a mature
Christian. And I bring this right back to
that whole idea of how you treat your spouse after a long day
with streaming kids and the dinner's cold or whatever it is,
whatever the girl version of that for the guys, you can
insert that. Where is your pace?
Where is your kindness? In Romans 2, verse 3 through 4
says in the Christian standard Bible, Do you think any one of
you who judges those who do such things and yet do the same, that
you will escape God's judgement? Or do you despise the riches of
His kindness, restraint and patience, not recognizing that
God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.
The reason I show you kindness is because God shows me kindness
every single day. An unbelievable amount of
kindness. That's how much you're supposed
to offer for other people. How much I'm supposed to offer
for other people? Ephesians 4, verse 32, the new
American standard says be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving each other, just as God and Christ also forgave you.
But we are putting up with one another and then we're still
acting kind to one another. The next thing is that we go
even further than that is we have goodness for one another,
and goodness doesn't mean oh, I'm, I'm good or I'm perfect or
anything like that. This is talking about
graciousness. This is not what generosity.
This is talking about active goodwill towards other people,
not moral excellence. That means that you're willing
to go the second mile for one another.
This is a quality of a mark of a mature Christian.
If you're walking with God, this is who you should be.
This is what we should be on a daily basis, continually over
and over again, no matter what comes our way.
How often do we fail and slip up on these things?
Hopefully everyone here says, well, I'm not perfect at this
because all of us have room to grow.
All of us can do better in almost all of these categories,
I would assume. The final and 3rd category is
faithfulness, meekness, and self-control.
Now faithfulness is also defined as fidelity or the quality of
being trustworthy or true to be reliable in one's dealings.
And I was trying to think of how this works if we have love for
the for as a foundation which gives us this joy in our lives
and this peace in our lives, which allows us to be
long-suffering with one another, which allows us to be kind to
other people and even good to other people and gracious to
other people. But now we're talking about
doing this continually all the time, perfecting this
continually that we are known for being reliable.
Maybe you're known for being good sometimes.
Maybe you're known for helping people most the time, except for
when you're really tired, except for when your TV show comes on,
except for whatever it is. It's not always easy to be
reliable, to be faithful in, in their interactions with one
another and our actions with God.
You know, it's very easy to get sick or to get tired or to be
depressed or worn out or just long day and say, oh, churches,
I don't know if I can do it today.
But what you'll find is that when you go, you always feel
better afterward. Faithfulness means making the
choice no matter what. Obviously if you're on your
deathbed that that gets a pass, but that you are doing is your
very best to be here. There was a a woman who used to
go to church in Lodi named Lizzie White and the last time I
saw her before her funeral was them Wheeling her out of the
church building in an ambulance because she literally came to
church to the day she died. And I know not everyone can do
that for health reasons but man that stuck with me my entire
life. Faithfulness.
No matter what was going on in her life, she was there.
Meekness or gentleness is the next category.
Depending on your translation. This is the the idea of strength
under control. And whenever we talk about this,
you know, we have talked about those, those Clydesdale horses
under control. But you I think a lot better
example, especially when I I see Daisy here is how I felt and I'm
sure most fathers feel when they have their first child.
Everyone always says, oh, I'm afraid I'm going to break this
thing, but you're not. You have the power to absolutely
to hurt this child, but you're so gentle with that child.
This is how we're supposed to be treating one another.
This is how I'm supposed to be. Am I gentle with each other when
I'm tired, when the kids are screaming, when you have a flat
tire, when life is difficult, when you're sick, when you got
horrible news from the doctor, Whatever it is, are you still
gentle? Is that how you still treat
people? The final thing that he talks
about here is self-control. self-control.
This is a this is up. My resolution for this year is
to be, to have more self-control.
And I've been reading books about it and studying it and
looking at it and thinking about it.
I think there's a reason why this is last on this list.
Because ultimately self-control is about the spirit controlling
the flesh, that I'm controlling my body in every aspect.
And that is very difficult. And the good thing is I see that
on this list, which gives me a lot of hope that it is something
that I can do. It's something I can work on and
the longer I walk with God, the more that I should have if I'm
growing as I should be. And 1st Corinthians 7 verse 9
says, but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them
marry for is better to to marry than to burn with passion.
Now this is talked about sexual immorality, but all all desires
of the flesh, all aspects of our body, the things that we want.
Do we have self-control? It's not an easy thing to do,
but it is required by God. It is something that we must do.
And all of these, if we're working on them, we will, we
will be a mature Christian. They are the qualities of being
a mature Christian. And of course, it should prompt
us to do all the things that we talked about, that you're giving
your best to God, that you're coming to church, you're doing
these things, but you're not doing it just because you were
raised in the church. You're not doing it because
other people see you. You're not doing it for all
these wrong reasons that people do it, but we're doing it
because of our relationship with God.
And I hope that's why you're here this afternoon.
And I hope that's why you're making the choices and the
sacrifices in your life for God that should motivate every
single thing that we do, every choice that we make here on this
earth. We should be asking, how does it
help me serve God? How does it make me a better
Christian? How does it bring me closer to
God? Every for you young people,
every relationship you have, how does this make me a better
Christian? Does this friend help me serve
God better? If I marry this person, will
they make me a better Christian? That's how we need to look at
our lives and judge our lives accordingly.
I hope I've said something that has been helpful to you this
evening, that has given you some opportunity to have some self
reflection, and I hope it has been helpful to each and
everyone of you. As we said this morning, we
don't want to offer in without offering the invitation, the
Lord's invitation, which is to hear, believe, repent, confess,
and be baptized to the remission of your sins.
And you live your life faithfully until we make it to
the end of our journey here in this life.
And we are promised a crown of righteousness.
If you need to render initial obedience or maybe you're
struggling with sin in some way, you know, we don't just offer
this so we can point out or know your sins or anything like that
so we can help you so we can bear one of those burdens.
We are the family of God and our goal is to have every single
person here to be in heaven, to spend eternity with one another
forever. If you want to be the class,
please come while we stand and sing the song of invitation.