He addresses three different groups, young children, young men, and fathers. young in their faith, but more mature than a toddler and fathers or those who are older in their faith and are exercising. And there's different distinguishing marks. And today I'm going to talk about the children today and some of the characteristics if we find ourselves in the children phase of our spiritual growth. It's not a problem. When we're saved, we're in that young children's stage. All of us. It doesn't matter if, as I mentioned, six or sixty in the illustration that I gave. But God's desire is that we grow, we mature. And I'll talk more about that. How God's children's change. This one pastor, he writes, he says, when I was a child, my minister father brought home a 12-year-old boy named Roger, whose parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so my folks decided they'd raise him as if he were one of their sons. At first, it was pretty tricky for Roger to adjust to his new home, an environment free of heroin-addicted adults. Every day, several times a day, I heard my parents saying to Roger, no, no, that's not how we behave in this family. No, no, you don't have to scream, fight, or hurt others to get what you want. No, no, Roger, we expect you to show respect in this family. And in time, Roger began to change. Now, did Roger have to make all those changes to become a part of the family? No. He was made a part of the family simply by the grace of my father. But did he then have to do a lot of hard work because he was in the family? Yeah, you bet he did. It was tough for him to change, and he had to work at it. But he was motivated by gratitude for the incredible love he had received. Do you have a lot of hard work to do now that the Spirit has adopted you into God's family? Certainly. But not to become a son or a daughter of the Heavenly Father. No, you make those changes because you are a son or a daughter. And every time you start to revert to the old addictions to sin, the Holy Spirit will say to you, no, no, that's not how we act in this family. End quotes. wonderful truth and the Christian life is your spiritual life and God's desire as when you every one of us if we bring home a baby when we brought home our daughter you brought home one of your children if you have children or your grandchildren or nieces or nephews and and you brought that child home you expect that that child's gonna as they get older they're gonna advance they'll they'll learn how to crawl and then they'll I mean, they'll, spitting up is a natural thing, and messing their diaper, that's pretty natural. But learning how to crawl, and then learning how to walk, and then learning how to talk, and certain things, and then learning, you know, as they begin to get more solid food, it's all a growth. And you would expect, there's a real problem if that baby begins to get bigger without any developmental progress. God wants all of us to grow in our faith continually. And the Lord gives us today in our passage of scripture stages of development and the encompassing characteristics of each stage. Infants, young adults or young men and adult men or Obviously young men or women for both, young men and adult men and women. But knowing there is a God is essential in an early child's life. We understand here, he says, I read into you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. A young child, they need to learn when they do wrong, that is an offense, it is sin. teaching them that there's sin and there's consequences for sin and Knowing that there's a God in heaven who will forgive them many times the first verse a young child will learn is first John 3 16 For God so loved the world, right? I mean that's many times a first verse for children and and God's giving us here He's giving us some logical progression in our spiritual life but as well as some logical progression and teaching of young children to to young adults to adults and It's amazing. Man, this book is full of wisdom for life. And I love this passage of scripture, man, that when I was reading it some time ago, and then I was like, yes, I get to preach on that again. I thought, man, if you're a parent and you're wanting to know, how do I start with different stages of my children? The Bible gives it to you. I mean, you're talking about sin and forgiveness. You need to know the Father first. And I've been mentioning that here at the church, man. If you don't know Him, Christianity, you try doing Christianity on your own apart from Christ. Man, it's a burdensome thing. But if you get to know Christ, man, it's, I want to do it because I know Him, I've been forgiven, I've been redeemed, and I'm thankful for what Jesus has done. You see, Christians, we ought not to ever stop growing and never stop ceasing to abide in Christ. The idea of abiding is close in relationship, close That idea of also abiding is a dependence, and I'll talk about that. You see, our spiritual life ought to manifest these stages, or tiers of growth, so that this local body of Christ, the local church here, is edified in love. Look with me at Ephesians chapter four, just a little bit, and I'll come to prayer here in just a moment, but just a couple verses I wanna look at first. Ephesians chapter four, verse 14. The Bible mentions here a children, and you'll find this terminology children used throughout scripture. Sometimes children is talking about children in regards to age, and other times it's talking about children in regards to an affection of Paul or an apostle or a mature Christian to someone that's younger in the faith. But here we look at, and this would be the case of someone, the Apostle Paul, giving to the Church of Ephesus. He says, listen, we ought not to be young in our faith. Look with me here, that we henceforth be no more, Ephesians 4 verse 14. I gave you the chapter, not the verse. Verse 14 of Ephesians chapter 4. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro. And carried about with every wind of doctrine. That word doctrine there just means teaching. He says, you're changing. Man, there's all these sorts of various things that can happen in Christianity or in Christendom or whatever you want to call it. And man, there's all these various things, but we got to get back. What does the Bible say? By the slight of men. Man, they just twist it just a little. And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie and wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things. which is the head even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Look with me at 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3. 2 Thessalonians, all your T books are together, so 2 Thessalonians. So you have 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus, all those T books are together, 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3. It's warm in here this morning. Maybe some are cold, I apologize for that, I'm warm. 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3. As we look at this, a genuine Christian is going to grow in their faith. And this is what I want to really emphasize today, this child phase. If we're in a child phase, there's some characteristics of being in that phase. If we're a young adult, or we've grown some in our faith, there's some characteristics, there's some There's some things that we have done in our life that have demonstrated, I'm not in the early stages of my faith, I'm probably in the middle stages. And then there's some things that when we get a little bit more mature in our faith, there's some manifestations of things that happen. And again, 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3, We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meat, because that your, look with me again, that your faith groweth exceedingly. I mean, it's overabundant, it's just growing and growing and growing. And the charity of every one of you all toward each other abounded. We ourselves glory in the churches of God for your patience and faith and all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure What's he saying? He says man your faith is growing In 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 18, but grow in grace And in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be glory both now and forever. Amen God's desire for you and for me he says grow and And then in 1 Peter 2, verses two and three, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You know what, maturing is a part of everyone's life. You know what, if we're older and my grandparents weren't saved, my grandma was in her 40s, grandpa in his 50s, my parents were in their 30s, 20s, excuse me, 20s, and when they came to faith, but the thing here that we find Even if I'm older in age, doesn't necessarily mean I'm older spiritually. And the issue in the Christian life is there's things that can happen in our life and there's distractions that can slow our growth for God. What we need to see is, man, I want to move forward. I want to do more for the Lord. I want to grow. I remember as a young kid, maybe many of you here, when I get older, I want to drive a car. That was a big goal for me. I remember playing soccer. And one year I said, I don't want to do soccer this year. I want to take driver's education, driver's ed, so I can drive a car. That was a big thing for me. I wanted to learn to drive. I wanted to advance to the next stage, if you would, of growing up. Now I'm kind of like, I'd rather have played soccer. But anyways, mom and dad are like, go get this, go get this, and do this, you know? But that's okay. And just as you understand some things. But here's the principle this morning. Do not stall in your growth for Christ. progress toward a settled and confident faith in him for all situation. We'll pray, and then we'll continue our study this morning. Our Father, I thank you for this morning. Lord Jesus, I love you. And Lord, I pray in our lives that we would not be as settled where we're at spiritually, but that Father, for the rest of the days of our lives, every one of us, that we would wanna grow, we wanna mature, And Lord, we want to finish the race well. Father, I pray that you'd help me as I preach your precious word. I need your help. Lord, you take over my thoughts. The words that are spoken, may they be understandable, clear, and precise. Lord, I love you so much. Thank you for being our gracious savior and your precious. In holy name I pray, amen. I want to first of all look at a toddling child. A toddling is an unstable step of a young child who's a toddler, a toddling child. We look particularly in 1 John 2 verses 11 and 12. Now there's something I want you to notice with me here. In verse 12 he says, I write unto you little children. Then again, in verse 13, at the end of verse 13, I write unto you little children, because ye have known the Father. But look with me what he does in verse 13. I write unto you fathers. I write unto you young men, in verse 13. He's using a present tense. But then in verse 14, he doesn't bring up children. Verse 14, I have written unto you fathers. I have written unto you young men. What's happened is, and John, the apostle, by the inspiration of God's spirit, he's trying to get these young believers to say, listen, grow in your faith. Young people, young in their faith, they haven't grown. He says, I write presently. I write presently to you young children. But to the young adults, to the adults, he's saying, I have written unto you. I've seen progress. And some believers, for many years, we can get stagnated. Our Christian life can just be going through the motions. But we've never advanced. We've never grown. And he encourages these believers to advance beyond their emotions, to a faith that overcomes and is selfless. In fact, he even uses in verse 12, he uses, actually the word children in verse 12 is different than the children in verse 13 when you look at the text, the Greek text. And this first word in verse 12 is used by Jesus in a familiar, loving address to his disciples. Or by a Christian teacher to his spiritual children. Someone that maybe you led to the Lord or you've discipled. This idea here is someone that's new to the faith. and recently accepted Christ. How do we know this? The same usage in 1 John chapter 2, verse 28, and now little children. We find in this book, much of this book is written to believers to say, listen, please, here's some things that are maybe holding you back from growing in your faith. There's some things that are not allowing you to grow. Maybe when you're first saved, man, you're so excited. There's a freedom. There's an excitement. There's an inner peace that God has delivered you from sin and liberty, and you're just like, hallelujah! Then you live your life, and maybe you're still doing some things you did prior to salvation. And over time, that glow, that joy, begins to just become status quo. You've lost that fire, if you would. You've lost that impassion. much like maybe a young kid, but I remember when I first started playing soccer. Man, I was so excited to get on that field. It was fun. We were doing exercises and running around, and I was excited to be at practice. But after a while, we had a coach. Man, he ran us and ran us. I mean, even before games, we're running laps, and we were tired before the game even started. That's probably why we had a 0-13 record. We were terrible. But you know what? After a while of losing and losing and losing, I kind of lost some luster. You know what? In the Christian life, it can happen like that. We lose some of the luster of our faith in Christ. Because there's some things that have held us back. There's some things that maybe I haven't done in my life. And God's saying, let's grow. Let's get excited about what God wants to do. I want you to notice with me as we look at verse 12, I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. Now this idea, this is awesome here. The grammar here, and the only reason why I mention this, in the grammar of this, in the Greek, the grammar, it's a perfect tense. Meaning, it has completely and absolutely, it's finished, it's a finished work, it's forgiven. with a continuing consequence. I'm forgiven. And I'm not gonna be unforgiven. And you find this, and then it's in passive. It's a passive voice. You know what this means? This means I didn't do the work. If I threw you the ball, or the ball was thrown to you, if I said the ball was thrown to you, who's doing the action? I threw the ball, you received the ball. Or the ball was at least thrown to you, hopefully it didn't hit you. So there's a passive, and here you are, I am a recipient of being forgiven. I didn't do the work, Jesus did it all. Man, that's exciting. And as we look at it, one gentleman, David Allen, he says on this, this is the use of the perfect tense conveys that your sins have been once and all forgiven, and never be brought up before God again. This is listed first by John because forgiveness is the fundamental experience of the Christian life and the condition of fellowship with God, end quotes. I received an action that I did nothing for other than to receive the gift by faith alone. I didn't deserve it. And then we find something here. Notice with me what it says at the end of verse 12. For his name's sake. The idea here is of dependence. Just as our daughter Eliana, she's dependent on mom and dad to feed her. Now she's getting older. This morning I set out the cereal and she actually poured her cereal and I put the bowl in the cup there because the cereal's up high so she can't reach it. So I put them down on the counter. I gave her a couple options. I said, go pour your cereal. She was able to do it. But when children are young, you gotta feed them. Give them a bottle. But you know, there's still things we do. There's a reminder of our dependence for his name's sake. And look with me in John chapter 15, verse five. John chapter 15, verse five. The reminder of a young child is I am dependent on someone else. I'm dependent on a parent or a guardian, a parental figure. As a young believer, I need to be reminded that you and I, as believers in Christ, I am dependent on Christ. And sometimes, as a young kid, for myself particularly, my parents, if my dad's watching, he'll attest this is true. But as a young kid, oftentimes I would tell my parents, me do, me do. I wanted to do it by myself. And I would make a mess sometimes. I was wanting to be independent. You realize there were many times that in my independence I would have to resort to dependence because I needed some help. And as you get this idea, Jesus says in verse 5 of John 15, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit for Without me, ye can do nothing. That is a dependence. And God is saying, Christian, you can't accomplish anything spiritually without me. You gotta be attached. You gotta be attached. See, there's no Lone Rangers in the Christian life. A little illustration for this, an illustration. He gives us of his nature, in quotes, his fullness. We become his children, but we need him constantly and uninterruptedly. If we are to go on living spiritually, our lives as Christians cannot be maintained at all unless it is he who maintains them. This is unlike our earthly parent-child relationship in one sense, however. In our relationship with God, we never outgrow our need to be dependent on Him. Though in the New Testament, Christian maturity is enjoined on all believers, This process of spiritual growth never brings us to a point where we may become independent of God. We are given to understand that our relation to Him is always that of children. Woe unto anyone who ceases to be a child of God in his own estimation and thinks he has grown up sufficiently to be independent of God." I need God. If I'm 6, 60, or 106, man, I gotta be dependent. I need the air I breathe. Can you ever be independent of the air you breathe? You said, no, I need air to breathe. I need water to drink or some, I need liquid or I will die. In the same way in the Christian life, I am dependent on God for everything in my life. You realize that this idea in Isaiah 43, 25, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Look with me at Psalm 106, verse eight. Psalm 106, we'll come back to 1 John, but Psalm 106, verse eight. This idea of dependence, so many Christians believe that I have advanced enough that I am strong on my own strength. And can I tell you the moment we begin to think that we are in grave danger of falling. We're in grave danger of a realization that somehow I have achieved independent of God. David, do you realize this? When David committed the sin with Bathsheba, the adulterous affair, four people would die. Four people would die. When David numbered Israel, with which God told him, don't number Israel unless I tell you, he did a census, knowing how many soldiers and all of that. God says, don't do that. Why would David want to give a number, to number how many people? I want to know how strong my army is. Guess how many people died? 70,000. 70,000 people because of pride and independence. Can I tell you, God does not look very favorably when I'm trying to be independent of Him. In Psalm 106, verse 8, I want you to notice with me, this is talking about Israel and getting them out of Egypt, verse 7 will tell you that. But in verse 8, nevertheless He saved them for His namesake, that He might make His mighty power to be known. Can I tell you, when Israel went into Jericho, Rahab said, we knew what God did. We knew God delivered you from the Egyptians. We knew God got you across the Red Sea, and we feared. We feared. God's power was known, and the heathen would see it, and Rahab would get saved. She would put her faith in God. God does a work, we're saved because then God gets the glory. In Ephesians 4, verse 32, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 2, verse 14, for he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. That middle wall of partition, the idea is there of the holy of holies. None of us could enter into it. Jesus, when he died on that cross and that veil was rent, there it is from the top to the bottom, rent. It was separated, torn in two. We have direct access to God. Man, I can go straight to the throne of grace. You don't need to talk to somebody else. You can go straight to the Father. Jesus did that. There is no other reason that we're saved and that the Lord would get all the glory, hence, for His name's sake, that I am dependent upon Him, and it is the spiritually immature who will boast of their abilities. The Lord clarifies that our salvation is not for any boasting on our behalf, or yours or mine. But it's all for Christ. Would you look with me at Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9. And Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9. I'm definitely not going to get through all of this this morning, and that's okay. But I just want us to realize is this, man, isn't it amazing? I mean, we're, I don't even know how many weeks we've been on 1 John, but just verse by verse, looking little by little, it's so rich and so loving and endearing. And he's like, hey, children, let's grow. Let's do more for God. Let's get past some of these hurdles. Let's get past some of these things in your life that are causing you to not advance. You know, sometimes, as I was there in math class, and I would be going through school in math. And I love math. I really did. I enjoyed it. Now, there was some math class. Geometry, I didn't care for that one too much. And statistics, that wasn't too fun. But the other ones, I liked. I enjoyed them. But there were times, man, I'm just looking at a problem, and I'm like, I don't get it. And then someone would show me, or someone would say something, and I'm like, a light would go on. I'm like, aha, I got it. I would advance. I'm like, yes, okay, now I can solve these problems. And I would figure out the curriculum at that point and I would advance. I'd have to ask a lot of questions because it just something hadn't clicked. And in the Christian life, Apostle John, by God's Spirit, he's like, listen, you're stuck. Let's move forward. Here in Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, wherein he hath abounded, excuse me, Ephesians 2, verse 8, not 1, verse 8, chapter 2, verse 8 of Ephesians, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. You see, it's the gift of God. I didn't do anything for it. Not of works, lest any man should boast. God doesn't want you boasting. that I was a recipient of God's grace. No, I simply received it by faith just as you did. As simple childlike faith as Jesus would even tell these children to come unto him, bid them to come unto me. You realize this statistically that most people that are saved are saved in their youth. The children's ministry we have here in the teaching of the children is so important because most children that come to faith, come to faith at a young age. Now there's some when we're older, we get saved, praise the Lord for that. But if you want to look at the numbers of people that are professing Christians many times, it's the young kids. It's the young kids that sometimes even if they don't accept Christ and they go away for years, they'll still remember the words of their Sunday school teacher. And we need to understand, and as we move forward in this passage of scripture, that what he's taught, why does he deal with forgiveness first here in verse 12 of 1 John 2? Christ taught and modeled at the key to obey his example of forgiveness. In verse 11, if you take 1 John 2, 11. So we, God says, you're forgiven for God's sake. There's nothing you did for it, except for you received it by faith. But as a result that God forgave you all of your sins, every bad, everything you've done to offend and harm and hurt him, God forgave you. And then we find within context of verse 11, he that hateth his brother is in darkness. That's not forgiveness. God wants a young believer to realize their forgiveness in him and their need to forgive others because I'm dependent upon him. There's a command to not hate and not be bitter, because if I'm hating and I'm in bitterness, it brings darkness to the believer. Look with me at verse 11 of 1 John 2. It says, but he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. He'll wander. He'll go here and there, or she will, he or she, whatever. This believer will, I mean, they're wandering. They're trying to find their way in the dark because they've denied the forgiveness that they were given of God. The Apostle John is encouraging these believers, let's grow. Paul would admonish, the Apostle Paul would admonish the Church of Corinth to get beyond their schisms and divisions. How do we know this? This idea of little children here. Look with me at the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1. And this idea, how do I know? Here's some things that the Apostle Paul, in similarity of children here, that he encourages, he exhorts, he admonishes. This is 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1. There's some things that he does here that give us some idea of what a child in the faith would look like. Maybe some struggles that they have. He uses a word here, babes, babes in Christ, a young child, an infant, new to the faith. In 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1, and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. He says, listen. Corinth, Church of Corinth, he says, listen. He says, you're kind of babies. Man, I want to feed you with some meat, but you're just not ready for it. We notice something else. And so this is the idea that we get. And we're going to come back here to 1 Corinthians 3 in just a little bit. So you can mark your place there. I'm going to turn back over to 1 John. But we see the continuation, as I had mentioned, of the word. I write unto you little children. I write unto you little children, verse 13. And verse 13, the children that he uses of a young child, maybe a toddler. So they've gone from an infant to a toddler, a young kid. They've progressed a little bit. There is a change of the word for children in verse 12 and verse 13 when looking in the text. And so anyways, there is some maturity, but very little. It doesn't change much in the wording that he's doing in his admonishment. The first usage of little children represents like an infant, a newly saved person, and here it might be young children like toddlers. The only admonition we see is that they known the father. You're saved. There was one church I was at back when I was in the military. And this particular church, man, every week the pastor was preaching on salvation. And there's nothing wrong with salvation. Man, we all need to get saved if we're not. But man, I wanna learn some more things to grow as a Christian. I wanna know how to know Jesus better. I wanna know what God desires for me and expects of my life. And I wanna know, I mean, I wanna know this book. I mean, there's so much to know. I don't want to stay drinking the milk. Give me some meat. Man, give me. You know what? My wife this week, she made a marvelous steak. It was awesome. Nice and rare. Oh, it was perfect. I don't know if you like rare. And it's close. I mean, it's glorious. I like a rare steak. Nice, seasoned, tender, cut into it. Oh, it was glorious, beautiful. Oh, amen. But you know what? I don't want to stay on that formula milk. One time I was at this teen event and I was there helping and we came to a particular obstacle and on this one obstacle we had to lick Jolly Ranchers and I actually took these Jolly Ranchers and I licked them and I put them on my pastor's head. I was like, oh, that's gross. Well, then I got to the spot where I was to be in this team, and I guess we had adults together, and I had to drink a bottle. It was infant formula. It was disgusting. Ugh. Ugh. Vile. And it was warm, too. You know what? I don't want to drink that. And Apostle John is like, let's grow. Man, we look out there in the springtime, the springtime's beautiful, the grass is growing, we gotta cut it, but then flowers are coming up, people are planting their pots ready to have a harvest. We expect growth. You realize this, that God expects growth in your life and mine? And one of the things of a young child is an emotional volatility. Some children more than others, but children can be easily upset, angered, and distracted from their position in Christ. You didn't... She took my toy! She looked at me wrong! He did this! Right? There's an emotional volatility. That would be reminiscent of a young believer. Look with me at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. There's a great propensity, there's a great tendency towards emotionalism. We're easily offended. These are some signs of a young believer in Christ. They hurt my feelings. They didn't do this. And he's telling us, and the Apostle Paul gives us some ideas. He says, listen, I tried to feed you with meat, but you're not ready for it. Look with me at 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1. Thy brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? You see, a church that is full of envying and strife and divisions is a carnal church. You think about this idea of envying as an intense negative feeling. I don't like that you've achieved something that I haven't, and I'm envious, and I want what you have. There's envying. There's strife. There's divisions. I remember one time I was doing teen evangelism, and I was in a church, and there was a whole group of people that sat up front and a whole bunch of people that sat in the back, and man, it was a Red Sea party. There was no one in between. Man, it was a terrible, it was, you could walk into that church and feel the tension, it was thick. You know what it's saying? It's saying, listen, you're carnal. The word carnal is pertaining to being a human at a disappointing level of behavior or characteristic. There's divisions. We look in 1 Corinthians chapter three, verses five through seven, who then is Paul and who is a Paulist but ministers by whom you believed? He was the Lord gave to every man, I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. What's the truth here? The truth that he's saying here, he says, listen, one person might give someone the gospel and they don't get saved. Someone else gives the gospel and someone says, I want that, would you lead me in Christ? And so you sit down with him, you give him Christ. Is that person any greater than the person who initially gave the gospel? No, they're not. It doesn't matter where it's staged. Man, if I'm serving Jesus, it doesn't matter what I'm doing it because God gives the increase. And there can be, well, I'm more important. You know what, God's, and this would actually create many problems, this idea of somehow, you know, God gave different positions in a church, but it doesn't mean one person has some exclusive access to God that someone else doesn't have. You all can go directly to God just as I can. You're growing in your faith just as I am. And the idea here in the Church of Corinth had a lot of division and envying and Christ reminds us of an outstanding debt. Would you look with me in Matthew chapter 18? I might be able to finish it. Matthew 18, I'll have to hasten, but I'll abbreviate it a little bit here. I've just got a couple little bit left. In Matthew chapter 18, there's a man that owes the king 10,000 talents. Then that servant that owes the king 10,000, let's call him Servant John. Servant John owes the king 10,000. Well, let's say Paul. Paul owes John 100 pence. John would owe several million dollars, and today it would be maybe just a couple hundred dollars, if you want to kind of give a modern-day equivalent of it. Well, in Matthew 18, verse 24 and 25, and when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshiped, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him, forgave him the debt. What is God saying? The King, the Lord Jesus, man, I owed a huge debt to Christ. And God says, you're forgiven. And you know, the worst thing that you could do to me is but a few hundred dollars compared to the few million or however many dollars you want to make as a comparison of what I've done to Christ and what you've done. And you can read this in verse 32 through 34, that John, he's forgiven, but he comes to Paul and he says, Paul, pay me what you have. I'm gonna throw you into prison. Well, the servants of the king, they see John acting like a complete jerk. And they say, King, he wasn't so gracious. And then verse 32. And his lord, that's the king, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. And this is the idea that if you do not forgive, and there's bitterness in your heart, guaranteed, God delivers us to the tormentors, your mind will have problems. if I fail to forgive someone that's hurt me. We come in 1 Corinthians 1, it talks about, again, continuous division of these young believers in the faith. They might be older, but they're coming together with division. Look with me at 1 Corinthians 12, verse 25. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 25. One of the characteristics of a young believer is they can be much more easily offended. And as the older we grow in our faith, you know what? There's things that might be wrong, and I don't need to be quick to jump on them. I don't need to. I mean, there's things that you would want to bring up, but then there's other things, you know what? They might have certain things in their life, and whatever it is, music, or maybe their language is a little bit more coarse, and God's working on them about that. I'm not gonna jump all over them, I understand they're young in the faith. You know, if they're progressing and they're desiring to grow, and you know what, there's some people, they're pretty rough around the edges. But man, they're newly saved and they're doing some things, and God's saying, listen, I need to understand, Paul's like, he has to be very gentle with these young believers. But he's like, don't stay there, let's progress. I'm so thankful earlier in my faith that when I was there in the military, I had some older men. They were significantly older than me, but they were my friends. And they would lovingly and compassionately come alongside of me. And when I messed up, they would encourage me, hey, Chris, let's get back up. When you think about this, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 25, he's talking about here the local church, and it says that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. Whether one member suffer, this is verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 12, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you're the body of Christ and members in particular, and he's just saying, listen, he says there, in context and logistically, he's there in a local assembly. Actually, in Matthew chapter five, verses 21 through 24, he says, I don't even want you to bring a sacrifice if you can't make it right. And then, look with me at Ephesians chapter four, verse 29, then I'll come to my conclusion. Ephesians chapter four, verse 29. The young believer, the young child, young people in the faith, when someone newly gets saved, there's oftentimes a lot of rough edges. If we've been saved for any length of time, you know what, it took us some time to grow in our faith. It took us some time to learn some hard lessons. It took us some time to realize, you know what, I'm still growing in Christ. I'm still dependent upon Him. I've never advanced to the stage where I've arrived. None of us have arrived until the day I see Jesus. As we look at Ephesians chapter four, verse 29, The Bible tells us, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. That word let there is actually a command, it's an imperative. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying. that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed into the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. And he enjoins, he says, listen, that idea of edifying is, man, I want to grow. I want to see you grow. The grace that is there, grace afforded, is that which properly affords joy and pleasure and delight. The last verse before I come to the conclusion, Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight, verse seven. Can I tell you, as a young in the faith, we can be easily offended. We tend to have a tendency for people to say something to us, and, I'm not going there, I'm not doing that. You know, someone that says, well, I'm done with church. I was offended there, and I'm done with church. They're just saying, you know what, I'm still young in the faith. Because obviously I'm gonna be offended when I go to the grocery store. I'll be offended in my family. I'll be offended at work, but I'm not gonna stop going to work. What it's showing is our spiritual level that I need to grow. As he mentions the strife and the divisions and all of these things and understand this that in your life, you know, it's not wrong to be a young child, young in the faith. That's where we all start. Praise the Lord for that. But I want to grow out of emotionalism, that when offenses come, it doesn't deter my walk with Christ. It doesn't draw me away from Him. It draws me closer to Christ and has a desire to pray, as it says there in Matthew 5, about praying for your enemies, if you would call them that. In Romans 8, verse 7, because the carnal mind is enmity, it's at war with God, it's enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. And this is the idea of a carnal mind is a person that's a Christian, they've been a Christian for a while, but they've never really grown. Can I tell you, Christian, I don't know where your spiritual life is this morning, as I can come to the conclusion, God did all the work of forgiveness. As he said, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. Christian, I need to realize I'm dependent upon him. And when offenses come, man, I bring it to Jesus. You realize this in Luke 23, 34, Christ on that cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The emotionalism of being a young in the faith, when offenses, people are gonna offend you. People are gonna hurt you. If you're struggling with envy of someone, you're struggling with jealousy or strife or division, the Lord encourages you to realize where we came from. I forgave you. Can't you forgive another? You see, our benefits as a child of God are not for anything that I have done, but it's all of Christ. And next week, Lord willing, I'll discuss the young adults and fathers. Let me read this final illustration and I'm done. Well, you say, spiritual health is a mark of maturity. Not necessarily. A five-year-old can be perfectly healthy. He's not mature, so you can have spiritual health and not be mature. Well, you say, having spiritual gift, that's a mark of maturity. Oh, no. You can be greatly gifted and not be mature. Samson was mighty gifted. Samson was a man that had great gifts, but he was so immature. Paul had to talk to the Corinthian church. He had to tell them, you come behind in no gift. And he said, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. Now we're talking about not even spirituality. You can be instantly spiritual when you come to Christ. But I mean, we can get our heart right with God this morning. We can be filled with His Spirit and be as clean as the driven snow when you accept Christ. And then we can grow. What is maturity? Maturity is Christlikeness. But this verse in your margin, Ephesians 4, 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. That perfect there doesn't mean sinless, but it means mature. The mark of a church that's maturing is it's becoming more like Christ. You become more like Christ this morning, or you're struggling maybe with emotional volatility, maybe overcoming the flesh. God's desire for you and God's desire for me says I want you to grow. Don't be content. Say, I want to know Jesus more. I want to do more for Christ. Lord, whatever you lead me to do, I'll do. And all of this ultimately gets down to being dependent on Christ. So as I come to the invitation this morning, this afternoon now, but I just want to encourage you. A three tiers of learning crisis starts with being a young child. Now trust, we wouldn't have to have a change from an infant to a toddler. You know what, if that's where we started and maybe we're newly saved, praise the Lord that you've grown. Hallelujah, that's awesome. Don't take that as a negative thing. Don't take what I'm saying this morning. But if maybe you've been a Christian for a while and maybe there's some things in your life, there's some bitterness, there's some harshness towards others. God's saying, let's grow. Follow me. Let's get back attached to that vine and watch God do great things. So as the music will play this morning, I just want to encourage you and challenge you. The song we'll sing is 235. Pass me not, O gentle saver, with heads bowed and eyes closed, as the music plays. I trust you'd just take some time to just talk with the Lord. However, the Spirit of God spoke to you this morning. But if you're a young child, young in the faith, say, God, help me to grow. If you've been saved for a long time, whatever that long constitutes, say, God, help me to do more for you. And God wants to see us do great things. I gotta be willing to grow. Let God grow you and watch where you'll come from and watch what He'll do. It never surprises Him. So with heads bowed and eyes closed, the music will play. And if you do not know Christ as your Savior this morning, I'd love to tell you how you can know for sure Jesus is your Savior. There's a lot of fighting and bitterness and all these sorts of things. It's just a hallmark. I need to grow. We'll take it as a negative, take it as an admonishment. Let's do more for Jesus.