Good morning, welcome to Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, Jackson, Georgia. It's November 29th, 2015. Join us now as Brother Steve Martin brings us a message from the Word. Well, let's pray. Father, we have just heard your servant pray for the accompanying Holy Spirit to make the Word of God real and powerful to us. No man can change another man's heart. Only the Holy Spirit working by and with the Scriptures can change a person's heart. And so we pray that you would meet with us regardless of where we're at. If we're a lost person, if we're still outside of Christ, if we're holding on to our pride and our self-will, would you meet us there? If we're a believer, but we've sunken into a low condition, would you meet us there? If we're walking closely with you and desire to continue to do so, would you meet us there? There's a thousand and one conditions we might be in. We pray that whatever they might be, that you would meet with us and make this a profitable time. To the honor and glory of your Son, we pray. Amen. Please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13. I gave this message here about ten years ago, and the elders asked me to repeat it again today. I gave it this summer down in Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Lenox. And so, you know 1 Corinthians 13 is the love chapter, and Paul talks about how love is superior to spiritual gifts. And then he talks a little bit about himself in passing, and I wanted to read those verses or two. He says in verse 11, when I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. This morning I wanted to preach to you on verse 11, Paul's thinking about the difference between being a mature Christian versus being a child, so to speak, in the faith. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. In 1985, I began keeping track of what was a problem that I saw in the church I pastored. And as I visited other countries and other churches, I saw there was a problem there too. I spoke to pastors in Ireland, France, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand, and they all said the same problem they faced. Where are the men? Paul says, when I became a man, he didn't start off as a man of God, he started off as a baby Christian. But he became a mature Christian, a man of God. Where are the men? Marriages, families, churches, companies, governments need godly men to lead them. Where are the men? As I examined what were some of the problems facing men, I realized it's a difficult culture to be a man in. Since the revolutions of the 60s and women were wanting to throw off the shackles of perceived injustice of hundreds if not thousands of years of being subservient to their husbands, it began to be a bad thing to be a man. And men were accused of all kinds of things. and boys who, by definition, are different than girls. You know, Time Magazine had that cover story, it showed a man looking at a woman, and the cover story was, men and women, are they different? I know, how pathetic. When you're lost, you're not only lost, but Romans 1 says you become stupid, you become ignorant, you make decisions against your own best interest. But men were penalized for being men. Boys were penalized for being boys. Homeschool moms discover this. Little girls being good or sitting there with their hand folded, having just completed one assignment, waiting for the next one. Boys are not that way. Boys are over there wrestling. One's giving the other one a noogie. And they're being good. Those are boys being good. But they're different. And boys were being penalized. And men were being penalized. I looked at some verses in the Bible that said that it's a problem that's gone on since the first century, it's gone on since the fall, the temptation not to grow up to maturity, to full manhood. God saved us in order that we might grow up to full maturity, that we wouldn't be boys of God, that we would be men of God. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul told the Corinthians, But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not yet ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still fleshly. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? In chapter 14 he reminds the Corinthians, brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants when it comes to evil, but in your thinking be mature. So there's a possibility that I might be chronologically 67, which I am, but I might be in terms of spiritual maturity only in my teens or twenties. In 2 Corinthians 6 he picks up the theme again. He says, I return to a previous subject. I speak to children. Widen your hearts. The author of Hebrews in chapter 5 talks about the fact that by this time in their lives the Hebrew Christians he was writing to ought to be mature men, but they were still children, and they were acting immaturely beneath their age. You might call this a spiritual arrested development. Now, I know there's a singing group called Arrested Development, and in case you don't know what the word means, it's not a good idea to have arrested development. It means a failure to grow up. You're stuck at a certain stage in your life. Under Christ's shepherds, The apostles were concerned and they wrote about it to us and so we need to look at it in our lives. Now while I'm speaking primarily to the men and boys, if you're 12 and above, I'm speaking to you directly today. But wives, you can certainly heed this. And out in the foyer is our greeter slash bouncer. And if our greeter slash bouncer would stand up and acknowledge me, I left something in my car. Is he sleeping out there? Dear brother, in my backseat there's a box of photocopied material I neglected to bring in. In my haste, would you mind bringing it in? It should be. Famous last words. It should be. I have a handout for all the men and boys by Dr. Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, and it's an article he wrote ten years ago on the marks of spiritual maturity in the different areas of our lives. And I've gone through it several times, went through it this week. It's still convicting. I have not arrived. If you think I have arrived, I have property in Florida that you would like also. We're all continuing to grow, we're all still a work in progress, but we have to be a work in progress. We can't just say, well, I got this far, and this is my spiritual plateau, and I'm going to stay here. You can't say that biblically. God doesn't want you to say that. He doesn't intend for you to stay at some plateau where you can just put it on cruise control and just coast into eternity. So this morning, we'll look at seven ways in which a man can remain immature and childish. Seven ways a man can remain immature and childish. Now, please note, ladies, when I'm going through different points, this is not acceptable behavior in church, neither is this acceptable behavior in church, neither is this acceptable behavior in church, or I told you so, or thank you, sir. If you want to pass them out, thank you. They're bilious green. You won't lose them on your desk. There's a bill to be reimbursed, but there's bilious green things you won't lose on your desk. Okay. I suppose I should take a minute and let the men do this. If your husband's not here, please feel free to take one. If you have an adult son who lives in another state and you think this would help him, please take one. If you want to know how to pray for your husband, please take one. If you want something to read during a boring sermon, please take one. And no wives, it's not acceptable to say, dear, take two. That would be very immature of you to say that. Several years ago, I got to reading a book on growing as a man and maturing, and it was called Manly Dominion. I wish I'd read it 25 years previously. But as I got through reading it, I realized there were areas of my life that were still not under the control of the Spirit and the Word. And I was standing looking out. It was about 5 o'clock at night. It was raining very hard. And one of my children had left something out in the yard that didn't need to be in the rain, didn't need to be outside at night. And I stood there looking at it. Somebody needs to take the initiative and go get that out of the yard and pick it up. I was like, the Lord goes, and who do you think that person might be, Buster, standing by the window looking out at it in the yard? Like, oh, duh, that would be me. I need to take the initiative. But I knew that if I left it out there long enough, I could get my wife to go get it, but that isn't the name of the game. The name of the game is being responsible, taking initiative. So I put on my slicker and I went out in the yard and got half-soaked and picked up the item and brought it in. Let's see if I have any more stories to tell here before we get going. Anybody who lacks one who wants one. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. Seven ways a man can remain immature and childish. Number one, a man can remain immature and childish because he has never really learned to put diligent hard work before playing or goofing off. Can you remember your first job, men? Can you remember your first job? that you had to show up at a certain time and do work. Mine was in the eighth grade, and it dawned on me that summer that working was not as fun as playing. You kind of go, you were a very advanced boy, weren't you? No, but I was a very typical boy that I enjoyed playing, and that summer I had to work all the time. I didn't have time to play. I was working all the time. But a childish person loves to play and doesn't like the responsibilities of working and learning to work hard. For example, do you rush through your work so that you can get home and play or go to the golf course or go into the woods or whatever your hobby is? A childish trait some of us may not have grown out of is that we love to play, but we struggle to work hard and to work thoroughly. It's amazing the number of men who I met when I was young and single and who marriage was a great shock for them because their wife didn't want to play sports all the time like they did. Their wife didn't want to do X, Y, and Z like they did. Their wife expected them to be home and be a husband. And they wanted to be a large boy who could go out and play. It was a shock to them. In Proverbs 10.4 it says, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Now slack means it's not engaged, it's not at work, it's not working. So the slacker is a goof-off, a person not engaged in the work. We have movies about slackers. We have movies that kind of glorify how fun it is to be a goofball. Well, the trouble is that it may make for a funny movie in your eyes, but it doesn't make for a successful life. A synonym for hard work for some of us might be practice. You know, practice means working at something over and over and over and over until you get it down until it's second nature. For example, some of you have said, I wish I could play a musical instrument. I wish I could wield power tools. I wish I could become really good at this sport or that avocation. But without practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, it's not going to happen. One of the things I deeply appreciate about the military and first responders is how much time they spend in hard work and practice, practice, practice, so that when crunch time comes, it's almost second nature what to do. Because we've thought ahead, we've thought about it, we've practiced at this. It's not, oh, I wish I could learn how to run into a burning building, or I wish I could learn how to fly this jet so I could shoot down an invading plane. But they practice until they know what they're doing, and it's really just a matter of working out their practice. In Proverbs 12.24 it says, the hand of the diligent will rule while the slothful will be put to forced labor. To put it in our terms, people who don't learn to work hard are never going to own a home, they're going to have their car repossessed, they're going to become a slave to the credit card companies because they've not learned to work hard. Proverbs 15.19, the way of the sluggard is like a hedge of thorns but the path of the upright is a level highway. He's contrasting the sluggard's hard life and complicated life because it seems like everything around him is thorns because by lack of hard work, everything is going to be hard. He can't pay his bills. He doesn't have a vehicle. I've known people who, well, they just didn't have a social security card and they didn't have a driver's license, so they need to be taken places. And they were a lazy person. And so we had to have some serious talks about hard work and diligence and having an alarm clock and getting up when the alarm clock says. Proverbs 24 says, ìThe slugger does not plow in the autumn, he will seek a harvest and have nothing.î Note here that Israel is in the southern hemisphere, everythingís opposite. Youíll notice when you go to South Africa or New Zealand, people are all walking upside down because things are not right. But it is opposite. Even toilets swirl the opposite way. And one of the things is you plow in the fall and you harvest in the spring, which is the reversal of how we do it in the northern hemisphere. He says the slugger doesn't plow in the appropriate time, so when the appropriate time for harvest comes, he has nothing. You've got to do the right thing at the right time. Proverbs 24 verses 30 through 34 says, I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was overgrown with thorns. The ground was covered with nettles and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw it and considered it. I thought about it. I pondered it. I looked and I received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. One of the great shocks for some people is that money doesn't grow on trees. And you get out of high school and start working, you get out of college and start working, or you get out of the military and start working a different job and you discover, hey, you've got to work really hard and they expect you to pay bills, they expect you to pay taxes. This is hard. Yeah? And you have to learn to work hard to make it. This is a very tough culture to be ignorant and lazy in because food doesn't grow on trees and money doesn't grow on trees. If he says here that the vineyard of a man lacking sense is overgrown with thorns, is your life covered up with thorns and thistles as a silent witness to any laziness or lack of hard work in your life? How about your academic progress? Are your grades? If you're a student, that's your job to go to school and get good grades. Are you working hard at school or are you sluggard there? Lamentations 327 answers the question, when is it good to start learning to become a hard worker? It's good for a man to bear the yoke when he is young. When are you going to learn to do this? Better be sometime. You don't want to wait until you're 50 and go, you know, I think I should start trying hard. Hello? It's good for a man to bear the yoke when he is young. When you're growing up is the best time to learn to work hard. And parents need to teach their children to work. I was always good at goofing off. I was always good at playing, but working and staying on the task is another matter. By learning to work hard, the Bible doesn't limit that to an occupation or a job, but all of your responsibilities were to work hard at it. Part of the reason why America has gone downhill and now faces many crises is because so many husbands and fathers have not been faithful to work hard at their God-given assignments, not just at their physical work, but at their being a husband, at being a father, being a churchman. Faithful husbands equal strong marriages. Faithful fathers bring for strong sons and daughters. For too many Americans, men play at their God-given responsibilities and then work hard at their play and their hobbies. And I've known a number of men like that. They work really hard at their fun. They just can't wait to get off work, clock out, go home, and goof off. Number two, too many men like children still prefer receiving than to giving. Supposedly something you grew up, you grew out of when you're a child, your greed glands are huge and you hope to massage them and teach them to give, but sometimes you can meet adults who never outgrew their childish greed glands where they want, they want, they want. Like we used to tease our children when they were little and there was such a thing as a Sears catalog or a Penny's catalog. For Christmas they go, I want all that, and I want all that, and I want all that. I go, is that all? Well, they wanted everything they saw, but they had to learn they couldn't have everything they saw. We couldn't pay for everything they saw. You have to work hard. Despite the tremendous investment in children by their parents, children are born selfish and self-centered and have to be taught to find joy in giving. Are you teaching your children now that it's better to give than to receive? For the unbelieving child and adult, everything is about them. They are the center of their own little universe of me, myself, and I. and the three of us are very happy in our little self-driven universe. Proverbs 21, 25, and 26 says, the desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back. Well said. Where are the men in our culture who give themselves sacrificially to others, beginning with their wives and children? Selfish people don't have friends, they only have acquaintances. Selfish people are fine if you want to go out of your way to help them, but they won't lay aside their agenda of self to help you and invest in you. I know several people that if I call them up and wanted to talk to them or do something with them, they wouldn't have the time. But if I knew they had a need and I offered to help meet it, they would want to spend time with me instantly because everything is still about them. It's so interesting that our God is so different. All the places in the Bible which speak of the love of God is that He didn't wait for us to become lovable. He didn't wait for us to get our act together. He saves sinners while they're not lovable. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave. Romans 5, 7, and 8, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one could dare even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 8.32, he who did not spare his own son. The most precious thing in eternity has been the Father's relationship with the Son and the Spirit's relationship with both of them. And in giving to meet the needs of human beings, God didn't spare the very best thing He has. He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things? He will take care of us now that we're His blood-bought children. Galatians 2.20, Paul says, In the life I now live, in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Does it hit you that Christ died not just for nebulous people in general, but He had died for each and every one of His elect? And if you're a believer, then He died for you personally. Paul says, He died for me. He just didn't die for people. He died for each person that He knew He was saving. Are you becoming more and more like the Savior, brother? Are you becoming a more loving, giving person? If you would take your spouse aside and say, Dear, over the last 10 years, do you think I'm becoming a more giving person, a more loving person? See what they say. Maybe you are. Maybe you're not. Maybe that's an area you need to look at. Are you becoming more like the father who gave his only son? If you're becoming better at giving, are you becoming sacrificial in your giving? I could do my fun hobby or I could spell my wife who's been stuck with the kids all week and is now mumbling under her breath, baby talk, should I sacrifice what I like to do in order to help her and give her some free time? Or here's a person I know who's under the pile and needs some help, could I sacrifice some of me to go help him? Number three, a childish man has not learned self-control in the critical areas of life. Proverbs 25, 25. A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. What would that be like? What would be a defenseless city? That would be a defenseless city. In those days, you built a high wall around the city and you closed the gates at night and people couldn't get out and bad people couldn't get in. But what if your city has no walls anymore, the walls are broken down? Then any old invader, any old group of robbers can come in and take what they want. A man without self-control is at the mercy of whatever temptation comes along. A childish man lets himself go, says whatever he wants, lets his feelings go and his desires go and lets them do their own thing. But a maturing man of God learns to control his appetites and desires, his anger and his wrath. He masters them. At the end of the day, they aren't his master. Proverbs 16, 32 puts it well. Whoever is slow to anger is better than a mighty man. And he who rules his spirit is better than he who conquers a city. It's harder to master yourself than it is to master something else. Men who don't learn self-control, well, you're facing a life of problems, addictions, losing friends, losing jobs. Perhaps you'll have jail time. When men do learn self-control, the society doesn't need to pass as many laws because men find that once they obey the law of God written on their hearts, the laws of society aren't that tough. But if you're not going to submit to Christ and the law written on the heart by the Spirit, then you're going to find that civilization needs to pass laws to keep you in check. As our nation declines and men refuse to rule their temperaments and their appetites, they will be ruled by more and more men that made laws and more and more authoritarian rulers. One of the things that Americans don't seem to understand is democracy grew up in the soil of colonial America because so many people were Christians or held to Christian ethics. They earned self-determination because self-control was exhibited by so many people. You have the right to determine your own future if you can control yourself. Democracy does not do well in the soils of nations where Christianity is not the dominant religion and therefore there's no fruit of the spirit with its emphasis on self-control. Men who do not learn to control their tempers and their tongues as young men find themselves getting into fights and getting shot outside bars at 2.30 in the morning because they never learn self-control. Good things do not happen at bars at 2.30 in the morning. It's amazing. How could that happen? Well, let's see. It's 2.30 in the morning. What were you doing at a bar at 2.30 in the morning? Probably not witnessing. Number four, childish men like to talk rather than to listen, and they like to talk about themselves. Because childish men live in their own little world where they are supremely important, they tend to talk only about themselves and what they think. A man who co-authored with me for a quarter of a century, he compared notes with me and he said, you know, there are so many people we've had over to our house after church for dinner and we'll ask them some questions and they will talk for two or three hours and go home and they will never ask us one single question. They didn't want us to know anything about us. They cared only to express their own views. Proverbs 10.14 says, The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of the fool brings ruin near. The fool talks and talks and talks and talks and holds nothing back. I once knew a policeman who made advancements, became a detective, became a lieutenant, because where he lived he said, I would just go talk to children. and they will tell you everything that's going on in the neighborhood, everybody who's doing everything. Children, I just sit down with a couple of kids and let them talk. So what's going on in the neighborhood? And they would tell me everything and I would go make a rest. The immature man never learns to ask questions and listen, but as James 3 says, he needs to be taught that a part of a mature tongue is a self-control tongue. Two of the indicators of the decline of our nation is the proliferation of two things, call-in radio shows and personal blogs on the Internet. And you go, why are you so unbound on those things? Do I really want to spend my time listening to the blovations of ignorant but outspoken people? Have they studied this subject? Do they have done any research? Do they know what they're talking about? Are they just getting on the radio to blow hot air? I don't have the time to listen to people blow hot air. People like to give their opinion even though there's no reason to suppose their opinion is better than anybody else's opinion. Do I really want to read the daily rants of some 18 to 23-year-olds old where I could spend time in the books of giants of the past and learn far more? I know a man who set up his own blog at 22 because the world needed to hear what he had to say. His best friend called him Martin Luther. He wasn't Martin Luther, and his lovations were not something the world needed to hear. But he was a very prideful man and thought the world needed to hear it. The point is that the desire to express ourselves, express ourselves, express ourselves without listening, without heeding other people, is a big deal in our culture. A maturing man learns to ask questions and listen to others. Number five, the childish man prefers short-term pleasure to long-term fulfillment. It's an observable fact in human history that civilizations comprised of people who live for short-term pleasures fail because the things that truly matter end up being long-term institutions. You can go up to a child, hi, would you like to have a quarter today or would you like to have a Roth IRA with $10,000 in it 50 years from now? I'll take the quarter today. And you go, well, that's an exaggeration. Not much of an exaggeration. I've been in countries in the world where, you know, if things grow without you having to plan them, you can just wait till they grow and just sit around and goof off. And there are nations that haven't made much progress because many times people put aside long-term building of institutions for short-term fulfillment, short-term gratification. For example, marriage is a long-term proposition that gets better over time with hard work. Child rearing is not a short-term thing. It's a 20-year-plus project that only ends when you die. My firstborn is 41, about to be 41. He's still my son. If the phone rings at 2 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to think something happened to one of my children, and I will be concerned for them. I'm still their father. I still pray for them. I don't shepherd them anymore as I did before. I shepherd them by prayer. But they're still my children. Building a career or a home takes time learning the skills, and it takes years and years to build a home, to build a marriage. Our nation is slowly being destroyed by generation after generation, not a particular generation. I'm not blaming it on any one generation. My generation is one of the very worst who threw everything overboard. But generation after generation who live for immediate fulfillment and if they can't get it, they'll go on to the next exciting thing. For example, technology, which is a great blessing in some ways, is a great curse in other ways because it's made our attention span so short. Some of you have already tuned out this sermon because it wasn't over in three minutes. TV shows have scenes that last no longer than three minutes. Why? Because the people sitting on the sofa will use the clicker and move on to something else. I watched a study on television, on public television of all places, studies being done at MIT and Stanford on students who were techno-multitasking. You have your headphones on and you're looking at something and you're doing something else and you have all these things going on and they're accomplishing so much that mere mortals sitting around with pen and paper aren't accomplishing. But actually, the studies showed they were comprehending less and doing less than people who weren't multitasking technology. To put it bluntly, the students who multitasked were becoming less productive and dumber. For example, when Apple and Microsoft had almost convinced us of the paperless office and computers in every size and shape to do all of our work, studies have shown that taking notes by longhand, kids, that's called cursive. That's something in the olden days like the Declaration of Independence and things like that. It's a way of writing that was kind of loopy like this. Anyway, that taking notes by cursive makes for greater learning and retention and increased brain function than typing the same thing on a computer. Huh. But that's so unfun to write with a number two lead pencil on a piece of paper when you can... And besides, over here you're talking with someone, and over here you're watching this, and it just goes to our lack of maturity. Sin has left the human race impatient and prone to take the easy way out. God taught Adam that in doing his job, managing planet Earth, and naming the animals, there was no other creature comparable to him. He needed a helpmate. Adam was following his calling, building a career, if you will, before God brought him Eve, and Adam's need of her to Adam's conscious mind. Adam didn't know he needed Eve until he had the job assignment of naming all the animals. It's like if you ever watched The Muppets from Space, you know, one of the deeper movies of the last 10 years. But anyway, in The Muppets from Space, there's a character called Gonzo who can't get into Noah's Ark. He's having this bad nightmare. The rains come, the animals are going two by two, but there's only one of Gonzo and he can't get in the Ark because there's only one of them. It's only, you have to go two by two. So the door slams shut and the rains come down and he wakes up from this terrible nightmare. Well, Adam notices, here's all these animals, and look at all of them, and I'm naming them, and by naming them you're ascribing them function and etc. And suddenly it dawns on him, there's nothing comparable to me. There is nothing comparable to me. It's at that point that God let him become lonely, and recognizing that he needed someone to complement him and make him whole, that God created Eve. So to put it bluntly, young men, if you want to find a girl and get her to marry you, then find a career, be doing something, be going somewhere, and then say, would you like to follow me as I follow Christ? But if you say, come on with me, where are you going? I don't know, but we're going to have a good time. Well, you know, I've got better things to do than live in poverty or live in the back of our car. And single guys, you know, if they have a peanut butter and jelly and a loaf of bread and a car, they're fine. But most wives don't like to live that way, and certainly kids don't. Proverbs 24, 27 says, prepare your work outside, get your farm ready, get your company ready, get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that, come build your house. A summer squash takes about eight weeks to grow, and you have a summer squash. An oak tree takes at least 40 years. We live among the people who prefer to raise summer squashes than raising oak trees. Number six. Childish men do not stay on task but wander away to do fun things. It's a mark of immaturity, of being childish, that we don't stay on task. Children, would you pick up the Legos, please? And after some wrestling and attitude adjustment, they're picking up Legos. But, oh yes, this legal, I've been looking for that, and that goes well with this one over here, and pretty soon they're not picking them up, they're playing with them. Or they're going on to something else, and it's very childish to leave task and go on to something else. But it's not a mark of maturity. We get bored too easily. We wander off to find something fun or at least something more interesting. And much of the work in the world is not fun. It's not exciting. It's not gripping. It's not interesting. It can be repetitious, boring, just plain hard work that you have to maintain over time. Talk to people in the Midwest who detassel corn in the summer. All the corn that grows in America, the vast majority of it, you have to detassel. So there's big machines with people standing on the side or sitting, and you go by wearing leather gloves and you're pulling the tassels off all the corn. It's almost as glamorous as picking tobacco worms off tobacco plants. Or hoeing a row. Or wiping snotty noses and smelly bottoms. Not stimulating. I'm not realizing my full potential doing this, whoever's thought you would. You're learning to work hard, you're learning to be faithful, you're learning to do something that isn't desirable, but is necessary and is good. They're not intellectually challenging, they're not fun, they're not gripping, but they're tremendously important. Successful marriages are built by people who learn to die to themselves and love the other person the way God loves them with a covenant love that doesn't change and doesn't stop because things are hard. Proverbs 21, 26 says, all of the day long the sluggard craves and craves, but the righteous gives and doesn't hold back. The childish man does not want to put self to death and to work hard for his family. Denying himself is just not in his vocabulary. And finally, number seven, the childish man refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. In Genesis 3-2, when God confronts Adam and Eve over their sin with the devil, Adam shoots back, the woman you gave me caused me to sin. It's your fault, actually, because if you hadn't have given her to me, this wouldn't have happened. He's blaming God, he shifts responsibility from Eve, and from himself, really, to God, it's your fault. Americans have become very good at shifting blame to anybody else but themselves. We can find somebody to blame for everything and anything. I robbed banks because my mother beat me with a toothbrush. Really? Whoa. The mature man takes responsibility for his own actions or lack of action. Children pout, sulk, been there, when they're found guilty of doing something wrong. It's sad to see in children, but it's sadder to see in grown adults who still pout and sulk when they're found wrong and have to be accountable. This was a shocker. I know I heard a man come up to me who'd been married 18 years and he goes, I've never heard that in my life. And I didn't blur it out. So where have you been going to church your whole Christian life? Man, everything that happens in your family is your responsibility, even though it's not all your fault. Everything that happens in your family is your responsibility, even though it's not all your fault. They may have willfully done that thing, but who's the engineer in this train wreck? If you look at the military, the corporate world, whose fault is it, should it be, when things go wrong in a company? Well, who's managing this company? Who's directing it? Who's working with the personnel? Who set up the procedures? Then if something's wrong, we need to fix it. And the people responsible need to take responsibility and say, OK, this is wrong. I need to work on this. This needs to change. We need to change this. You can't fire your wife. You can't fire your kids and say, it's your fault. You screwed up. Before you take up your role as a husband or father, examine yourself. Go see if you're taking responsibility for what's wrong in your life. For what you already know is wrong, the last time someone talked to you about something in your life, did you take responsibility? In 1 John 1.9, when John talks about dealing with our lives, he says, if we confess our sins, there's a possibility we won't. He doesn't say when you confess your sins. He says if we confess our sins. And there are some Christians who don't do very well in their Christian life because they're never a sinner. I didn't do anything wrong. And there's always outstanding circumstances. And this happened. And this person did this. And this happened. And it's not my fault. Well, I've seen that happen. And what happens is God cannot cleanse you from mistakes. And God doesn't cleanse from weaknesses. He doesn't cleanse from procedural errors. He doesn't cleanse from peccadillos. He cleanses from sin. And if you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge sin in your life, then expect to feel vaguely guilty all the time. Expect never to feel close to the Lord because your sins are constantly condemning you and the devil's using those unconfessed sins. But the mark of an immature person is, it's not my fault, I'm not responsible. that if we do confess our sins, He is faithful, He will always do it, and just, just means righteous. It's legally just for God to forgive you because Christ paid for that sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Again, God doesn't cleanse and forgive weaknesses. Well, it's just a weak spot in my life. I don't tell the truth as much as I should. What, you're a liar? No, no, I'm not a liar. Yes, you are. If you lie, you're a liar. I've known people who went ballistic when they said, you have this biblical problem. I don't have that problem. I've done it a few times, but it's not all the time. If you lie, you're a liar. If you commit adultery, you're an adulteress or an adulterer. Don't use that word, I'm not that person. Well, what are you going to confess then when it comes time to confessing your sin? The young man or older man who takes personal responsibility for his sins will prosper, but not so the childish man who rationalizes, pouts, sulks, blame shifts, and otherwise refuses to take responsibility. So what's the solution to all this? The cure is same for an immature man, by the way, as for an immature woman, if I was doing this for women. the cure would be pretty much the same. First of all, you need to sit down and talk with the people. You need to look at your life, ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom. Look at your life, how am I doing? How am I doing? And then brace yourself like a man and ask your wife, how am I doing? Well, she won't... Well, just stuff it and ask your wife what she thinks you need to work on. And then if you have children living at home, gird up yourself and ask your children, do you see things in my life that really shouldn't be there that I'm really not dealing with? Oh man, why are you ruining my Sunday? This will be so hard. This is going to be a good day. It's pretty, it's warm, and now this whole day is going to be nuclear. Well, it only needs to be nuclear if you don't confess your sins and you haven't been confessing your sins for a long time. Maybe for some of us it needs to be nuclear. And after you have examined your life, written down what you believe to be our true sins, and then write out 1 John 1, 9 next to them. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then, as we should be doing every day, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. Tomorrow's a new day, a new day of responsibilities, a new day of doing the right thing, a new day of dying to self and helping others, a new day of fulfilling my responsibilities. A godly man learns to deny himself and pick up his cross daily and doesn't wait for applause. TV is not reality. I know it's a shock, but TV is not reality. And in TV, people do good things and there's usually some kind of big fanfare. Frequently in life, you do good things and nobody seems to even notice. They always seem to notice when I screw up, but not when I do the good things. Well, it's a mark of maturity that you're not doing what you're doing for applause, you're doing what you're doing because it's the right thing to do. One of the hardest parables of our Lord one which I think will be written on my tombstone, is in Luke 17, and Jesus is instructing the disciples about forgiveness. And Peter says, Lord, how many times should we forgive others? Seven times? You know, it's the Hebrew number for perfection, and that's probably a lot of times. And Jesus goes, no, actually, 70 times seven, which is probably a figure of speech at that time for an infinite number, indefinite number. And then Peter cries out, oh Lord, that's so hard, increase our faith. And then Jesus says, no, the problem is not your faith, the problem is your lack of obedience. What do you mean? He says, think of a man who's hired by a master, and he's hired to work in the field and to work in the home. So the guy goes out and works in the field all day, comes home, changes clothes, cleans up, fixes dinner, serves the master, he says, You don't think the Master thanked him, do you? He was just doing his duty. Even after you have done everything, you should only say, I am, on my best days, an unprofitable servant. That's my life verse. On my best days, I've been an unprofitable servant. I've not done all that I should have done. I've left undone those things that I should have done and I've done things I ought not to have done. Don't think the Master thanked him. Instead, you should say, we are only doing our duty. We are at best unprofitable servants. Lord, help me to be a faithful man, not an immature boy, not a childish man, but a faithful man. And may it be written on your tombstone by your family after you, he was a faithful man. May the sons in this church grow up seeing their father be a faithful man saying, I want to be a faithful man like my dad. And may the girls say, I want to marry a faithful man like my dad. Let's pray. Father, this has been hard this morning. No one expected to get a sharp stick poked in their eye. But sometimes we can live in la-la land and not really deal with our lives, not really deal with remaining sin, not really looking at ways in which we ought to be growing and putting sin to death and putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you would show each of us individually what areas we need to work on. I pray for the wives and children, that they might be honest but gracious. And if they are very clear at seeing the sins of their husband or father, may you give them equal clarity in seeing their own deficiencies. Father, may this be a godly church of godly men leading godly women and godly kids to the glory of Christ. For it's in his name we pray. Amen.