Thank you so much. Good morning everyone. We're in chapter 3, verse 1 to verse 4 of 1 Corinthians this morning. We're looking at stunted growth. These Corinthians were meant to be mature and growing in Jesus, but they have stunted growth. So just a little bit of a recap of where we've been in Corinthians so far. Paul has been saying that God's way of seeing the world is not at all the same way as how the Corinthians see the world. So it's just totally different. God has a way to see the world that's true and right, and the Corinthians have a way to see the world that has been twisted by the fall, by sin, and by culture around them. God's wisdom and human wisdom are opposed to each other. So God has a view of wisdom that is different than the world's view of wisdom. And in light of this then, there's two kinds of people. Paul's been telling us at the end of chapter two, there's two kinds of people. You've got the natural person. So the person who doesn't have God, who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, and they live their lives based off human wisdom. So human standards and judging each other by human standards. influenced by everything around them, by society, by culture, by what they think, by what they feel, by what they desire. They cannot understand God and they therefore receive the message of the cross as weak and as foolish. So they can't understand the message of the gospel. They don't want God in their lives. They're natural people and that's who we were. So we're not saying this in a judgmental tone. We're saying this like that was us. We were those people who were natural and then we have the spiritual person. And that's a person who has trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior. And as a result of that, they have received the Holy Spirit. And when they receive the Holy Spirit, they also receive the mind of Christ, which means a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of seeing the world. And the message of the cross to these people is powerful and wise. It's no longer foolish and weak. It is powerful and wise. So this is it. This is all there is. According to God's way of seeing the world, there is the natural unsaved person and there is the spiritual person. And again, what we emphasized, what Matt emphasized last time, is that you're not spiritual because you have read the Bible so much or because you do these things in church. You're spiritual because you have the Holy Spirit. So that's it, you're spiritual because you have the Holy Spirit, and no one is more spiritual than anyone else who has the Holy Spirit, okay? So you're positionally, your identity in Jesus Christ is spiritual if you have the Holy Spirit. Now, this is really important that we get to this next part. There's two parts of this. There's positional and there's practical. So we'll go over to the next slide here. We have these three words at the top, positional, You're standing and you're having. And what that means is when you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you became positionally righteous, positionally mature, someone who has a right standing with God and someone who has the Holy Spirit. So we call this passive. This is called passive righteousness. You didn't do anything to get it. You don't have it in yourself. You're not doing anything to achieve it. You just have it. It's your position. I have this. This is my standing. This is where I am. I can't do anything about this now that I have this in Jesus Christ. So this top line, if you're in Jesus, you have these things equally with everybody else in the room who has Jesus. There's no one in this room who has a better position, a better standing, or a better having than any other person in this room who's in Jesus Christ. Does that make sense? You can't have that. That's just who you are. And so that's just a fact. This is the gospel. This is freely given to you and me. But then after that, we have practical righteousness, or the state that we're living in, or again, how we live our lives. And this is what Paul's gonna start getting into now from chapter three, okay? So the first line, you call that our justification, being declared righteous by God. The second line is our sanctification, in the sense of us living out this life. So we are positionally righteous, But as you know, since you know yourself and you know other Christians, you can be positionally righteous, but not necessarily live righteously every day. Would that not be true? Are you consistently living a righteous life every day? No. So we're positionally righteous, and that's not touched. That can't be touched, that's safe because God gave us that and he's keeping it safe. But practical righteousness is how you then live out your life Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday, every day, all day, in all your relationships. And that's the state of your Christianity. So the standing of your Christianity is safe and secure and steady because of Jesus. The state of your Christianity, well this is up to how you walk with God. So the first line is your passive righteousness. The second line is your active living out of the righteousness of Jesus Christ in you. And what we're gonna see with the Corinthians is they have this top line, but they're not living out the bottom line at all. Like they're so messing this up big time. Okay, so there's this story back in 2009 where two brothers who were living in a cave near Budapest found out through some charity workers. Some charity workers came to them and told them, listen, we've been looking for you Your grandmother who you've never met, and you didn't even know you had, she died. And you guys are the people who will inherit everything she has. You will inherit her fortune. So they end up getting like 4.5 billion pounds. And they were living in a cave in absolute poverty. And they find out that they inherit 4.5 billion. Wouldn't it be nice to have a granny you don't know? I mean, it wouldn't be nice to have a granny you know die, but a granny you don't know die, and then you get 4.5 billion pounds? That'd be all right. So these guys get this. These guys get this inheritance. And here's what they say. They said this. We knew our mother came from a wealthy family, but she was a difficult person, and she severed her ties with them. And then she later abandoned us, and we lost touch with her and our father until she died. So we came from wealth. But because of severed ties, we ended up in absolute poverty. It was like, that's Christianity. We were like Adam and Eve in the garden, in right relationship with God, severed our ties, now we're living in complete poverty. But then these charity workers come, like the Apostle Paul is like, hey, you guys are rich now. All you need to do is receive it. And one of the brothers goes on to say this, if all of this works out, It will certainly make up for the life we have had until now. All we really had was each other. And he says this, no woman would ever look at us, because we live in a cave. But now, we can maybe find somebody, and we can have a normal life. He's like, man, we're going to live differently now that we're 4.5 billion pounds up. Now, I want you to imagine, these guys, they've got their inheritance. They receive the money. 4.5 billion pounds. And the charity workers who told them about this go back in five years later. And they go back into that cave to look after the people in the cave. And they find the two brothers sitting there still just living the life of squalor that they've always lived. And they're still scrapping. That's all they did to make money was scrap metal. They would find metal to scrap and sell that. That would make them a little bit of money to buy some food. And they go back to this cave. And the two brothers are sitting there still collecting scrap metal. Like, still living in poverty, still haven't changed their beds, still are living in the same old clothes. The charity workers are like, what? This doesn't make any sense. Like, you guys have 4.5 billion pounds. Why don't you buy a mansion for, like, everybody in the room? And we'd all just live in, like, absolute luxury. You could be buying cars and clothes and food, and you have everything you ever needed or wanted, and look after everybody else in this cave as well, and yet you're choosing to live in squalor and filth and poverty still. It doesn't make any sense. And that's really what Paul is going to be saying here in 1 Corinthians. You have everything. You've received everything in Jesus Christ. You're enriched in Him. You have everything you ever needed, everything you ever wanted. All the stuff is yours in Jesus Christ. And yet you're choosing to live as if you're poor. You're choosing to live in poverty still. You're not living out the life that Jesus Christ is calling you to live. So we have just two points for this morning. It's very simple. When Paul first came to the Corinthians, verse 1 to 2a, when he first came, his first missionary trip to Corinth, and then now that he's writing this letter. So that's the second point, verse 2b to 4. So Paul first came, and then now as he writes this letter. And this is, I have to say, verse 1 to 4 is quite a discouraging passage of Scripture. Just heads up, this is discouraging. So if you leave and you feel a bit challenged by this message, That is kind of the point, because this is challenging, what Paul has to say here. He's been saying some beautiful things, chapter 1 to 2. Now he's going to do some heavy hitting in this little bit that's really important for us to be thinking about. So here we go. When Paul first came, verse 1 to verse 2a, About three to five years before this letter, Paul first came to Corinth. So it's about three to five years ago, Paul arrives in Corinth and he lives there for 18 months. We see that in Acts chapter 18. Acts chapter 18, he gets there. After this, Paul left Athens. He went to Corinth. Many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul in a vision, don't be afraid. Go on speaking. Don't be silent. I'm with you. No one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people. Many people are going to come to me here in this city. And so he stayed there for a year and six months. So that's 18 months teaching the word of God among them. So Paul's telling them, in verse one to 2a, he's telling them what that was like when he first got there. That's what he's saying. When I first came to you, but I brothers, when I first came to you. So it's all in the past tense. If you look at these lines here, it's all in the past tense. And he tells us what they were like when they got saved. And he tells us what they were like that whole 18 months that he was with them. This is what you were like for that first 18 months. And again, by the way, this isn't the encouragement part. This is a bit heavy, what he's about to say to them here. So he tells us a bunch of things. First of all, he couldn't speak to them as spiritual. Now, who are the two types of people? Natural people and spiritual people. Natural people don't have the mind of Christ. Spiritual people have the mind of Christ. They have the Holy Spirit. They can think the way God wants them to think. Now, Paul says, even though you guys received that whole 18 months that I spent my life with you guys, I could not speak to you as spiritual people. So even though you did have the Holy Spirit, and even though you did have the mind of Christ, which meant you had the opportunity to think the way Jesus thinks, and to see the world the way He sees the world, and to teach that, and to treat each other like that, they weren't doing that, right? So they have the mind of Christ, they have the Holy Spirit, but they're not living like that's true. So all the top line, the positional stuff, the standing they had, they had all of that. But the bottom line, they're practically living it out, was so absent that Paul says, I had to keep talking to you guys as if you weren't saved, even though you were saved. I had to keep challenging you about the same old stuff over and over again. And then he goes on to say, I couldn't address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh. In other words, as if they were still natural people. They had the spirit of God, but they weren't yielding to the mind of Christ. They weren't allowing Jesus to change the way they view everything, which is what the gospel is meant to do. It's meant to change the way you view the world. It's meant to change the way you view yourself. It's meant to change the way you view other people, but it wasn't changing the way they were thinking. So they were still thinking like Corinthians instead of thinking like Christians. So Paul had to keep talking to them as if they had the mind of the world, the mind of a Corinthian rather than the mind of a Christian. He had to keep talking about the same basic stuff over and over. And then he goes on to say, I spoke to you as if you were infants in Christ. Okay, so they're 18 months old by this point, by the time he has to leave. And he says, that whole 18 months, you were still behaving like infants in Jesus. You're like, well, I mean, infants are infants at 18 months, but not in the spiritual realm, which we'll get to in a little bit. So you're infants. And what he means by that is not that you were childlike, because you and I were meant to be childlike, but you were being childish. You're being childish. So after 18 months, Paul saying, I saw so little growth in you that it was like you weren't growing at all as Christians. You were stubbornly refusing to grow, stubbornly refusing to grow in Jesus. And then he goes on to say in verse two, so I kept feeding you with milk. I kept feeding you with milk. Paul is saying that for the entire time he was in Corinth, he had to keep going back to the basics of the gospel with them over and over again. Not because they didn't understand the gospel, but because they didn't understand its implications for their life. They knew the gospel in their heads, but it wasn't changing the way they saw everything. It wasn't changing how they lived their lives. So Paul had to keep going back to it over and over again. It's vital that we understand this. It's vital here in Blorton Baptist that we can understand. You can give mental ascent to the gospel and yet still not be growing up in the gospel because you're not letting it change how you live your life. The Corinthians knew who Jesus was. They knew that he was God who humbled himself to become a man. They knew he lived in a backwater town doing a menial job. They knew he was humiliated and crucified for their salvation. They all knew that now they were forgiven and cleansed and adopted freely by God. They knew all that, but it was having very little impact on how they viewed the world and how they lived their lives. They heard it preached in their gatherings, just like we every single Sunday hear it preached in our gatherings. They would sing about it together constantly, just like we sing about it all of the time. And we specifically pick hymns every Sunday that are about Jesus and the gospel. That's why we choose the ones we choose. And some of them are a bit... Some of them you may not appreciate. Some of them are not quite the melody that you would choose. But we purposely choose those lyrics because it's like they talk about Jesus and what he's done for us. And that's what we want to keep celebrating. So that's why we do that. And they would have sang these hymns. Not those ones because they're like 1985 and all. They would have sang their own version in Corinth. They would say amen to certain points. They would say, that's right. They would say, oh yes, that's true. And they would be able to explain it to other people. So they knew the gospel. They got it. It made sense up here in their minds. This is the gospel. But, and here's the big problem. It did not change how they viewed or measured themselves and others on a random Tuesday afternoon. It wasn't changing that. And that's what the gospel is meant to do. It's meant to change you. It's meant to transform you and make you new and cause you to live a new life. But it wasn't changing these people, how they viewed themselves or measured other people. And it didn't change how they treated people. They kept treating people by the same world standards that they had when they first got saved. You're less than me. You're different from me. Therefore, I have nothing to do with you. Or I look down upon you. Or I look up at you with envy. It wasn't changing the Corinthians. So Paul, while he was living there, felt that he had to keep going over it again and again. Because he's like, we can't move on. Because something isn't clicking in your heart. We can't move on. And they were like, Corinthians was like, no, we're ready for this. We're ready for the big stuff. And he's like, no, the fact that you can't get this step, that you don't see the world the way Jesus sees it, you don't see people the way he sees them, you don't treat each other the way he's calling you to, means you're not ready. You're not ready. That's what he says. You were not ready for the next steps. They got gospel doctrine, but they didn't get gospel culture. Yeah? They got gospel doctrine, but they didn't get gospel culture. They got gospel theology, but they weren't experiencing gospel community. So Paul's like, we're not moving on until this clicks for you. And that's what he says. The next step here, I could not feed you with solid food because you were not ready. Paul could not wean these Corinthians off the milk. They were 18 months old, and they still weren't eating anything solid at all. Now, Kieran is nine months old this week. Nine months old. And he still likes his milk. He knows how to shout for milk when he wants it. But Kieran doesn't just eat milk. He loves food. If he sees me chewing, I can't even chew in front of him right now. Because if I'm chewing, he's like, ah, ah. I'm like, all right, man. I'll give you some of this. So he's hungry. He wants his grub. He's growing. He has a healthy appetite. So he loves his milk, but he loves his grub. He loves the food as well. We went to that cheese place. We went to this cheese shop, and we're getting really posh cheese. And Victoria and I are eating it. And Ciarán's like, rah, rah, give me the posh cheese. I want some too. And he's eating brie and all that. Like, give me more of this, you know? So he loves it. He loves his food. Now, Kieran's nine months old. If Kieran was still just having milk, you'd begin to think something's not quite right here. He should be moving on. We should be weaning him. We should be giving him something else. Something's not right here if he's not wanting anything else. And especially when Kieran's 18 months, like these Corinthians, and he's still only wanting milk, They're like, something's up here. Something's going on here that he can't eat anything else. He's not able to digest anything else but the milk. Now, this is a really important question. We have to understand this. What is solid food? What is it? So important that we understand this today. I could not give you solid food for you were not ready for it. And now all of us have different ideas about what solid food actually might be. I wanna tell you what it isn't first. What the solid food is not. And if you think it is this stuff, then I warn you, you still have the heart of a Corinthian. You may have the heart of Christ, but there's still a bit of a Corinthian in you. If you're thinking this is the stuff that's solid food. So let's look at it. Paul does not mean that he didn't get into the nitty gritty details of eschatology with them. He doesn't mean that. And some people believe that solid food equals, I know all about the future events. I've mastered Revelation and Ezekiel. I'm mature. I have solid food. It's not that. And we know it's not that because in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, you know this already about what Jesus is coming back to do. So it's not eschatology. It's not getting into the depths of election and predestination and what your position is on that. That's not solid food. It's not solid food that he couldn't draw the dispensational church for them or help them understand covenant theology. It's not solid food that he didn't teach them to win big debates with atheists or to understand complicated Greek grammar. That's not solid food. It's not solid food that he couldn't teach them to become incredibly gifted preachers or people involved in ministry. That's not solid food. And a lot of people think that's solid food. A lot of people would say, oh, the solid food is to go deeper into big theology and be able to master this eschatology stuff. It isn't, friends. It really is not. You can be doctrinally sharp. You can be able to understand complex theology. You can be gifted and yet at the same time be proud and divisive and unteachable and selfish and cold and condescending just like the Corinthians. The Corinthians knew their theology. probably knew it better than any of us, and they knew their Greek better than any of us. These were intelligent people, wise and smart people who grasped these things, and yet it didn't change their life. So I'm telling you, please understand this. It is not solid food, this stuff. So then the question is, what is solid food? What is solid food? What he means by this, please hear this this morning, he means he wasn't able to get them into the deeper implications of the gospel. We do not as Christians move on from the gospel. We do not move on from it ever. I need the gospel as much today as I needed on the day I got saved. And I need to go deeper and deeper and deeper into the implications of the gospel. And Ephesians chapter three says, the only way I can grow as a Christian is by going deeper and deeper and deeper into the gospel. Not further on, not away somewhere else, not distracted by some theology, but the gospel. That's what I need. That's the solid food. Solid food equals mature living out of the gospel in every corner of your life. Let me say that again. Solid food equals mature living out of the gospel in every corner of your life. And what that means, this is really good news, it sounds like heavy news, but it's really good news, because that means that solid food has got nothing to do with your intellect, with your mental capacity, with you being smart or clever, nothing to do with it whatsoever. And for them, the inability to receive solid food had nothing to do with them not having intellect. It had everything to do with them hearing how the gospel changes everything and yet refusing to live that out. That was the problem. The problem was not that they couldn't get it up here. The problem was that it wasn't clicking here. That was the issue for the Corinthians. They got it up here, but it wasn't getting here and they couldn't receive the deeper truths of the gospel. Their inability to go deeper had nothing to do with them being uneducated. It had everything to do with them resisting the Holy Spirit's work in them. It had everything to do with them refusing to think with the mind of Christ. That was the problem for the Corinthians. That was why they were on milk still. Because he had to go back to them and say, you know Jesus, right? And they're like, yes. He humbled himself. Yeah, right. And he humbled himself to become a man. And he humbled himself to become a servant. And he humbled himself to death. And he preferred others over himself. And he's made you all equal. And they're like, yes, yes. So live like that's true. And they would go out and they wouldn't live like it's true. So next Sunday would come and Paul would be like, right, Jesus became a man. Right, right. And he died for you. Yes. And he was humble and preferred others instead of himself. Yes. So go live that out. Yes. And then they wouldn't. So next Sunday would come. Guys, Jesus became a man. That's what he means by the milk. He couldn't go deeper with them. He couldn't get into the deeper truths of how the gospel changes the way you see the world. What is the mind of Christ? What were they refusing to think with? Let's go to Philippians chapter two, verse one to 11. I'm just gonna quickly read it, and we'll get back to Corinthians. This is the mind of Christ. Do nothing, right? This is the mind, this is it. If you wanna know what the mind of Christ is, this is it. Do nothing from selfish ambition. What's in it for me? What do these relationships do for me? Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. You walk in on a Sunday, you walk into work on a Tuesday, you walk into your family room on a Wednesday, and you think, the people in here, I will count them as more significant than me. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, what he likes, what he wants. I want it this way, my own preferences, but also the interests of others. Then we look at the next verse, it says, let this mind be among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. That's the mind of Christ. To have that way of thinking is the mind of Christ. And then after that, he tells us more about the mind of Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, born in the likeness of man, being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. And as a result, God has exalted him. That's the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ is, I will humble myself like my Savior humbled himself. I will stoop to serve. I will see other people as significant. I will prefer other people. I will lower myself because I know one day Jesus will exalt me. That's the mind of Christ. And the Corinthians had the mind of Christ, but it wasn't clicking here. So Paul has to keep going over the basics again and again with them until they got it. Now in one sense, you could argue, well of course these Corinthians needed milk. Of course they're still infants. They're brand new to their faith. They have so much to unlearn about Corinth and so much to learn. So now we fast forward three years to the time when Paul is writing this letter, having heard about things going on through the household of Chloe. So the second point, as Paul now writes, So it's been like five years for these Christians are now five years old to three years old. Now you might think to yourself, five-year-olds. are still quite young, humanly speaking. You wouldn't expect a five-year-old, like, hey man, what are you doing when you're older? You paying tax? Have you learned to drive yet? I'm five years old, what are you asking me those questions for, right? But these are five-year-old Christians. And five-year-old Christians who can still only have milk. Five-year-old Christians who still are not weaned. That's a problem. You see, your growth in Jesus Christ is not about years, being saved. It's not about how much knowledge you've accrued. And it's not about your experience or your influence or your position. You grow in Christ as you yield to Jesus as the Holy Spirit works in you. That's your growth in Jesus. That's your growth. The apostles, anyone know how old the apostles were when they became the leaders of the church? Like, I mean, Christian age, not like physical age. How old were the apostles when they became the leaders of this movement that you and I are a part of? They're three years old, three years old. And they're the apostles of this movement that's lasted 2000 years and it's gone internationally, right? Three years old, uneducated fishermen, three years old, So these Corinthian believers have the same Holy Spirit the apostles have, the mind of Christ the apostles have, which means because of that, they could have grown massively by this point. They could be seeing the world the way Jesus does. They could be viewing and treating people and one another through the lens of the gospel. They could have stopped measuring things by worldly standards by this point. They wouldn't be perfect, but they would be growing. But look what Paul says in verse 2, even now you're not yet ready. You're not ready. Five-year-old Christians and you're not ready. You're not ready to receive solid food, which basically means you haven't grown up at all. They have everything they need to grow, and yet they haven't grown. It's almost like, you know when you plant something, when you plant like a, like we have this tree, I find this little seedling about six years ago now, and it was a little ash sapling, and I planted it in a pot. And it's doing very well. It's like six years old now. But if you plant a six-year-old ash tree out in the fields, it'll grow quite big by six years' time. Mine's still quite small. Mine's up to my knee. And the reason it is... is because it's sitting inside a small pot. It's bind by the pot. And it's almost like that's what's happening to the Corinthians is that they are alive and they have Christ and they have the Holy Spirit, but the world's standards and values are stopping them from growing. It's like hindering their ability to just grow and be free, to root down into the gospel and grow. So they're still not ready. And then he goes on to say this, verse three, you are still off the flesh. You're acting like people who don't have the Holy Spirit, even though you do. You're acting like people who don't have the mind of Christ, even though you do. And you're acting like people who haven't been given God's wisdom, even though you have. You're acting like the world acts. You're acting more like a Christian, or more like a Corinthian than a Christian. And what does that look like? Verse three goes on. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, Jealousy and strife. So you get this word jealousy could be translated envy. They envy one another. They're measuring each other by the world's standards of value and worth. Who has more money? Who has less money? Who's better looking? Who's ugly? Who has more power? Who's weak? Who has more influence? Who's a nobody? Who has social rank? Who's forgettable? And either then they're thinking, I'm better than you because I'm here on that standard, or you're better than me and I envy you for that position. That's what jealousy means here. And then it says strife, which means dividing from one another. Because you're still measuring each other by the world's standards, you're dividing from one another based on those lines of division. So a Corinthian nobleman would never spend time with a Corinthian slave, but now in Jesus, they're made equal and they're supposed to spend time together. But the Corinthian nobleman's like, nah, he's beneath me still. And Paul's like, if you think that way, you're thinking like a Corinthian. You're still off the flesh. The wealthy avoiding the poor, the slaves envying the powerful, the Greeks sitting away from the Jews, the nobles looking down on the laborers. Either way, whether it's you looking up and saying, ah, or you looking down and saying, ha, ha, ha, it's envy and strife. And it is the flesh. And verse four says, I follow Paul. And another, I follow Paulus. Are you not being human? They're bringing spiritual leaders into all of this, having competition and picking favorites just like the world does. He says to them, you are behaving only in a human way. You're behaving just like the world. Their behavior made no distinction from them and the world around them. Which is like what Christianity is meant to do, is make us different to the world. We are meant to be salt and light, and the way we live is meant to change what people's perceptions are. But they're behaving just like the world, they're meant to be influencing. And Paul says you're behaving like you're a human. If you've ever made the excuse, I'm just a human, and you're a Christian, Paul says, no, no, no. You cannot make that excuse anymore. You're a human who has the Holy Spirit. You're a human who has the mind of Christ, and it's all gonna make a difference. So back to the positional and practical stuff and the standing and state stuff. He's saying in chapter one to two, you have everything. Your position and your standing and your having is all there. but you're not living like it's true at all. In chapter one, verse five to seven, we see what they have. And Paul says this, in every way you were enriched. Everything you needed, you had it. Not just had it in small supply, but in abundance, in all speech and all knowledge. And you're not lacking in any gift. So they had the gifts of the Spirit. They had the doctrines. They had the Holy Spirit. They had the mind of Christ, but they were not growing. And it's not a deficiency in the gospel. It's not a neglect on Christ's part or Paul's part. It's something deficient in them. They were refusing to grow. They were refusing to humble themselves and unlearn their culture. So what does that mean for us? How do we take this away? How do we make this alive in 2025? I just have three things and then we'll wrap it up. Number one, are you mature? Are you mature in Christ? Every one of us who's a Christian can say, yes, because Christ has given me the position of being mature, complete. That's what the word means. I am complete. Yes, I am mature. I'm in Christ. And no one's more mature than another when it comes to our position in Jesus. But when it comes to our practical maturity, are you mature? And the question we have to ask ourselves is this, how do you measure maturity? What is maturity? And I believe that the way some of us in this room and in Christianity and circles at large, the way some of us measure maturity is the mind of a Corinthian and not the mind of a Christian. I know my Bible really well. I've been saved for so many years. I've read commentaries. I've gone to Bible school. I know Greek. I know the future charts. I can discern the times that we're living in. I'm in full-time ministry. I'm involved in church. I have the right political views. I can debate points of theology. I can defend against heresy. I can argue with atheists. I'm really busy with church. I'm an effective communicator. These are not markers of maturity. And yet they have become, within Christianity, markers and standards of maturity by which we judge each other. And it is the mind of a Corinthian that does that, not the mind of Christ. These are not markers of maturity. They're not all bad things. Like you want to know your theology, you want to be involved, and you want to be able to share your faith and help an atheist be, see that the gospel is true. These are good things, but they are not markers of maturity. You know why? Because Judas Iscariot worked miracles. And Judas Iscariot served Jesus full time for at least two years. Was he a mature Christian? No, so none of this stuff makes you mature or marks you as mature. If you've been measured and mature that way, you're not thinking the way Jesus is calling us to think. No, maturity is marked. Please hear this, if nothing else this morning, maturity is marked by how you view and treat others. That's maturity, how you view and treat others, especially those who are different from you, and especially those who are difficult for you. That's it. How do you treat the people in this room who are different from you, whether it's age or political or theological or just personality? How do you treat them? That's the marker of maturity. And how do you treat the person who upset you, and offended you, and rubs you up the wrong way? That's your marker of maturity. Maturity equals having the mind of Christ and then living that out. Maturity equals Christ-likeness. Are you willing to stoop and serve? Are you willing to forgive? Are you willing to serve other people? Are you willing to be last and not first? Are you willing to let go of grudges? Are you willing to build bridges toward others? Are you willing to strive for unity? Are you willing to let go of your preferences? That's where maturity really is in Jesus Christ. If there's still people that you avoid in your life, especially brothers and sisters in Christ, simply because you don't get on with them, or because they're not like you, or because they have offended you in some way, but you've been saved for 20 years, or you've read a bunch of commentaries, or you're involved in ministry, in the name of Jesus I say to you, you're not mature by God's standards, because that is not maturity. Not the standard that actually matters. So are you mature? Humbly ask that question. Am I growing in Jesus? How am I treating other people? Especially the ones who are different from me. Especially the ones who are difficult for me. Number two, growth. How do we grow then? How do I grow in this? If it's not through reading all these commentaries and getting involved, how do I grow? Growth in Jesus is not measured by these things we've talked about. Your growth in Jesus, this is good news, will never be hindered by your lack of intellect, never hindered by your inability to understand complicated theology, never hindered by your lack of ministry experience. What hinders growth? It's only ever hindered by your refusal to grow. your pride and your ego, your lack of teachability, your stubborn resistance to do what you already know to do. That's the hindrance of growth as a Christian. The Corinthian believers were pride people. They thought they had it all together. And so they refused to humble themselves, admit they were wrong and repent. And as a result of that, five years and no growth. Which means this, you can be a Christian for 50 years and still be immature. You could be in ministry for decades and still be immature. You could have read whole volumes of books on complicated theology and still be immature. You could be really gifted and still be immature. It's our delusions of strength, our inflated view of ourselves, our independence, our measuring of ourselves by the wrong standards. That is what threatens our growth in Jesus Christ. It's our refusal to allow the gospel to shape how we see ourselves and the world and others that most stunts our growth as Christians. It's understanding the gospel message, but then not living out its implications in your life and relationships that is deadly to your maturing in Jesus. It's not about how many sermons you've heard. Judas Iscariot heard all of Jesus' sermons. It's not about how many notes you take. It's not even how many sermons you preach that marks you as mature. Not that it's bad to listen to sermons or take notes or preach, but those are not markers of growth. That's not how we grow. We grow as we get deeper into the gospel and then live it out in our lives with humility and gratitude, and then we just start growing. And we start growing and more and more. And ironically, If anyone's offended in this room by what I'm saying this morning, ironically, it might be the immature person who's offended. The immature among us may be offended at the idea of being described as immature and in need of the gospel. But a mature believer hears stuff like this, no matter who they are, and asks this question, Lord Jesus, are there areas in my life where there's stunted growth? Are there areas of my life where I'm still needing the basic milk stuff because I've not moved on in this area of my life and relationships? God help me to do that. The moment you do that, growth, maturing in Jesus, humility as we let the gospel get deeper and change how we live. Number three then, just to finish off, live like who you are. Live like who you are, your identity. If you're in Christ, positionally speaking, as we've talked about, you are wise and mature and spiritual. The question is, are you going to live like that's true now? Are you going to live like Jesus has given you wisdom and maturity and a spiritual nature? The Corinthians are forgiven by Christ, but they're not being formed by Christ. The Corinthians are saved by Christ, but they're not being shaped by Christ. The Corinthians have the mind of Christ, but they're not thinking like Christ. And what's sad is the Corinthians were busy and active and clever and gifted and skilled, and yet they weren't doing these things. And again, it's not because Christ is weak and unable, it's because they are still allowing the world's values to shape them. They're resisting the Holy Spirit's work in them. They're refusing to unlearn Corinthian culture, and they're still measuring everything by Corinthian scales. I don't know if you've ever seen those videos where someone receives colorblind glasses. You ever seen those? Where there's like this colorblind guy and he's given these glasses and there's just like really sad music. I cry at every one of them, especially the sad music ones. Oh my God, this guy can see color. It's beautiful. So, when you become a Christian, when you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, it's like you receive these glasses. But not even like, it's like you receive whole new eyes, whole new ways of seeing things. And it impacts everything when you do that. It impacts how you see everything. So what we're called to do then as a result of being given this new way of seeing is we're being called to unlearn the culture's standards of worth and value and status and greatness and learn how Jesus defines these things in his right way up kingdom. There's some of us who won't amount to very much in the world's eyes. Some of us in this room, we're gonna be forgotten in like two generations, probably, maybe all of us, maybe Matt Green will be remembered for his preaching, but all the rest of us will be forgotten, right? Two generations, like who's my great, what's my great-grandfather's name? Like it's gone, like a few generations, you'll be forgotten and gone. And we look, therefore, weak and small and low and not worth considering and not worth talking about. But when Jesus returns, we will be more glorious, more beautiful, more stunning, more radiant than the most successful, beautiful, famous, put-together, strongest, wisest, influential person you can think of in this world. You. and the people sitting around you, more beautiful than anyone in this world, more stunning, more radiant than anyone in this room. Oh, sorry, in this room, in this world, when Jesus returns. And we're taught to see the world that way. Let me finish with this hymn, and then I'm gonna pass it back over. This is the heart of a Christian who has unlearned Corinthian standards. I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather be his than have riches untold. I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land. I'd rather be led by his neo-purest hand. Why would you want that instead of those things? Because he's worth more, but only when you've got those glasses on. I'd rather have Jesus than worldly applause. I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause. I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame. Yes, I'd rather be true to His holy name than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin's dread sway. I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today. That's the mind of a Christian. Not just thinking it, but letting it change everything about how they view the world and how they live.