This sermon was preached by Pastor
Albert N. Martin on Sunday morning, January
7, 1990, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.
This is the second sermon in a series entitled Meditations
on the Passing of Time, and the title of this sermon is Time
and Spiritual Maturity. As I am sure that most, if not
every one of you, is very conscious Last Lord's Day, December 31st,
was the final day of the calendar year 1989. And today, January
7th, is the first Lord's Day of this new calendar year 1990. And these facts are forceful reminders
to us that each one of us is a creature of time. The Bible again and again reflects
on this fact that we are creatures of time and summons us soberly
to consider the great issues which this fact presses upon
us. For example, in the fourth chapter
of the Epistle of James, James says to his readers in verse
14, For what is your life? He wants them to consciously
reflect on the brevity of life. He says, what is your life? And
then he answers his own rhetorical question in this way. It is a
vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. What he's saying, kids, it's
like that white, billowy, smoke-like stuff that came out of the car
in front of you on the way to church this morning. vapor coming
out the exhaust pipe. You saw it and then you didn't
see it. It was there and then it was
gone. James says that's your life.
A vapor that appears for a little time. Oh yes, it does appear
here on earth. You have a birthday, but we have
a death day. It appears for a little time
and then vanishes away. In the light of these realities
and the biblical emphasis touching them, I chose to speak to you
last Lord's Day and again today on the theme, some sober observations
on the passing of time. And in our study last week, we
had occasion to note that while many things happen automatically
with the passing of time, there are some things which do not
happen automatically with the passing of time. And we illustrated
the former by noting that the process of development from infancy
to adulthood and from adulthood to the grave, these various processes
all happen automatically. But the things that are essential
to live now as we ought, to die in peace, And to go to the day
of judgment in triumph, not one of those things happens automatically
with the passing of time. In fact, given the reality of
the extent and nature of human sinfulness, and the reality of
a vicious, real devil, the things that really count to make life
what it ought to be now, to make it safe for us to die and go
to judgment, not a one of those things happens automatically. In fact, unless they become the
focal point of conscious concern and diligent and deliberate application
of mind and heart, they will never occur in our brief lifespan
that is like that puff of vapor coming out of the exhaust pipe
that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Now last Lord's Day we had time
to touch only on the first of those three concerns that are
on my heart. in seeking to set before you
some sober observations with the passing of time. We considered
last week that the passing of time does not, it does not automatically
move us closer to repentance towards God than faith toward
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we addressed that observation
with four very simple but crucial questions. How important is the
issue of coming to repentance and faith within our own little
divinely appointed bracket of time? We saw from the scriptures
it's a matter of life and death. We either repent or we perish. We believe or we are damned. Then we asked a second question.
What have we been doing with respect to this issue? And I
sought to demonstrate that if anyone is under the sound of
the gospel and yet has not repented and believed, there is going
on in his mind this constant process of saying, well, yes,
sometime in some other more favorable circumstances, I will attend
to the issues of repentance and faith. And so while there has
been no settled, resolute determination to dismiss these things as unworthy
of consideration, or else you would not be here, there is the
mañana mentality. Tomorrow, the next day. down
the road a bit. I have no intention of seeing
my vapor disappear, seeing the day of my death come, having
my name etched on a tombstone as one who died impenitent and
unbelieving and sinks into hell. I have no such intention of coming
to that end. I just want to delay the issues
connected with coming to repentance and faith. Then we address the
third question. How important is it? What have
you been doing with this issue? What is God's interpretation
of what has really been going on? And we saw from the scriptures,
rather than being closer to repentance and faith, God says that every
time you hear the gospel, and you hear the marvelous news of
God's salvation in Christ and the gracious overtures inviting
you to Christ and graciously commanding you to repent and
believe and yet you do not comply with those overtures and embrace
those commands that you are hardening your heart, you are treasuring
up wrath, you are resisting the Spirit, and you are tempting
God. And I proved every one of those from the Scriptures. And
then we concluded by considering the fourth question, what ought
you to do about this matter? And the answer of scripture is
clear. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call upon him while he is near. The answer of scripture is today
is the day of salvation. And I trust that even this week,
some of you laid to heart that word, and you sit here this morning
no longer indifferent, no longer impenitent and unbelieving, but
as one who has embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior
and Lord, having turned from your sin and unto God through
Him. Now I wish to take up these two
remaining very simple but vital concerns under this heading of
sober observations on the passing of time. As certainly as the
passing of time does not automatically bring us closer to repentance
and faith, we may assert with equal conviction that the passing
of time does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. The passing of time does not
automatically make us more mature in Christ. Obviously now I am
speaking to those who by the grace of God have come to initial
repentance and faith. You have passed out of darkness
into light. You have been born of the Spirit. You have entered the kingdom
of God. You have been united to Christ. And in the language of Scripture,
in Christ, you have become a new creation. You have put off the
old man and have put on the new. But now my concern is that you
soberly reflect with me upon this reality. that the passing
of time does not automatically make us, though we are in Christ,
it does not automatically make us more mature in Christ. Now as with the first observation,
let's take this statement and try it open with several questions. Once again we ask the question,
how important is this issue of becoming mature in Christ? If
I am a child of God, saved by the grace of God, how important
to me should this issue of coming to greater maturity with the
passing of each day, how important should that be to me? Well, once
again we are driven by the Scriptures to see. that this matter of those
who are in Christ becoming mature in Christ is not a secondary
issue in the Word of God. For example, we are commanded
in 2 Peter 3 and verse 18 to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is a divine mandate
for us to be continually growing in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. For me to pass one day as a believer
and not to grow in grace is to be guilty of sin. Now, does that shock you? Well, it
shouldn't. If it is the will of God for
me to continually grow in grace, then to pass through one day
of non-growth is to be guilty of sin. I am disobeying the revealed
will of God. Furthermore, the Bible makes
it plain that I am marked out to be like Christ, Romans 8,
29. Whom He did foreknow, He did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is God's eternal purpose in
Christ that I should be made more and more into the moral
likeness of His Son as a child of God. And in keeping with that
purpose, we read in 1 Peter 2.21, such words as these, he has left
us an example that we should follow his steps. Or 1 John 2.6, he that saith
he abideth in him ought, word of duty, ought himself so to
walk even as he walked. How important is it that we become
more mature in Christ? We are commanded to grow in grace. We are marked out to be like
Christ, and we are told to follow His steps to be like Him. Furthermore, Scripture says we
are placed in the Church in order to grow up into Christ. In Ephesians chapter 4, in that
marvelous chapter dealing with the church and its identity as
the body of Christ, Paul says that the ascended Christ has
given a diversity of gifts to his church. To what end? Well,
we are told very clearly in verse 14 and following that we may
be no longer children tossed to and fro and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, but speaking the truth in love,
may grow up in all things into Christ. We may say without in
any way being truncated that the ultimate overarching concern
of God in placing us into the fellowship of His church is that
we might, by the dynamics of grace within the church, grow
up into Christ, become mature in Christ. Therefore, if we are
not growing in grace, we are frustrating the very purpose
for which God has placed us. in His church. And furthermore,
God has given us time to increase the stock of Christlike virtues. 2 Peter 1, 3 and following, the
Word of God here clearly teaches us that God has given us time
and one of the major purposes for which He has given us time
is to increase the stock of Christlike graces. seeing His divine power
has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory
and virtue, whereby He has granted unto us precious and exceeding
great promises, that through these you might become partakers
of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that
is in the world by lust, yea, and for this very cause adding
on your part all diligence in your faith supply virtue, and
in your virtue knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control,
and in your self-control, patience, etc. You see, he is saying God
gives us time that we might increase the stock of Christ-like virtues,
and he's given all that is necessary for those virtues to be increased. Well, we could go on giving other
lines of evidence, but surely these four are enough to convince
your judgment, if you're a Christian, that the issue of becoming mature
in Christ is not a secondary issue. It is a matter of deep
concern to God and ought to be to us. Well, question number
two, if it is the will of God that we become mature in Christ,
How does one attain to that maturity in Christ? Well, in one sense,
that could be a series of 30, 40 messages. But to distill the
teaching of the Bible into its bare essential categories, the
answer of Scripture is, we become mature in Christ by a diligent,
prayerful use of all the means of grace, public and private. Those means of grace are the
meat and the potatoes, the air and the water of the development
of spiritual life. And as there is no one who will
come to his proper physical maturity without nourishing food and good
air to breathe and a modicum of health-giving exercise, so
likewise The person who does not avail himself of all the
means of grace, public and private, he will not come to his maturity
in Jesus Christ. That's why God describes the
blessed man in terms of the one who meditates upon the law of
God day and night. Or in the language of Peter,
as newborn babes crave the sincere milk of the Word, that you may
grow thereby. In the language of Hebrews 10,
forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner
of some is. We must be prayerfully diligent
in the use of all the public and private means of grace, but
then we become mature in Christ by keeping a good conscience
before Almighty God. Acts 24, 16, herein do I exercise
myself to have always a conscience void of offense to God and man. That means we are not knowingly,
deliberately clinging to sin committed, but which we refuse
to confess. wrongs done that we will not
make right. It doesn't matter how much we
use the means of grace if we allow the poison of a defiled
conscience to work through our system. It would be like a man
having a healthy diet prescribed by someone with his PhD in nutrition. and having eaten the food for
the day prescribed by the PhD in nutrition than to sit down
and have a half an ounce of arsenic? Or to drink a half a glass of
polluted water? Or to eat rancid food as his
dessert? You see, the taking in of the
other will negate all the potential for good of the former And a
man, a woman, a boy or girl can be using all the public and private
means of grace, but a defiled conscience will neutralize all
of their influence. For he that covers his sin shall
not prosper. He that covers his sin shall
not prosper. He that covers his sin shall
not prosper under the best of the means of grace. If I regard
iniquity in my heart, Psalm 66, 18, the Lord will not hear. You ask and receive not because
you ask amiss. You see, it is not enough that
we are using the means of grace, but they must be exercised in
the context of a good conscience to God and man. And thirdly,
we must not only be diligent in the use of the means of grace,
be diligent in the keeping of a good conscience, but be diligent
to abide in Christ. John 15. to derive all of our
strength from Him, all the virtue to overcome sin, to perform our
duty. He said our relationship to Him
is not a mechanical or an intellectual relationship alone, though it
does encompass and bring within its orbit all of the powers of
the intellect. He says it's an organic living
relationship, as that which exists between the branch and the vine. A common life flows through them. And he says, severed from me,
apart from me, you can do nothing. Abide in me and I in you, and
that is to be in the way of fruitfulness, to use the term I'm using, in
the way of Christian maturity. That's the language of Colossians
2, 6 and following. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and what? Build it up in Him. Maturity is described in terms
of union with Christ. Now entering the calendar year
1989, if you're a child of God, unless the turn of the year found
you in a horribly backslidden state, you had every intention
of becoming more mature in Christ throughout the past year, did
you not? You had every intention that if God spared you and human
history extended throughout 1989, that December 31st would find
you more like Christ than January 1, 1989? It was your full intention
that you would have a greater knowledge of the Lord Jesus at
the end of the year than at the beginning? That Christ-like graces
would be richer and fuller and more evident at the end of the
year than at the first? That in the context of the fellowship
of the church, you would grow substantially and really before
God and evidently before your brethren? You had every intention
of taking the exceeding great and precious promises, believing
that in them is the divine deposit of His will, that you should
cultivate all of those Christ-like graces that Peter writes about,
that you would add to virtue more knowledge and to knowledge
these other graces. It was every intention of your
heart. But alas! You came to the end
of 1989, and you sit here this morning on the threshold of 1990,
and what is your real state? Well, my concern is that we recognize
that the passing of time does not automatically make us more
mature in Christ, nor will the passing of time with mere good
intentions make us more mature in Christ. And I want you to
look at a passage that clearly teaches this truth, that it does
not merely rest on a general observation of the general teaching
of the Word, which it indeed does. But if you turn to Hebrews
5, you will find the teaching, even the word time, used in the
text. The writer to the Hebrews says,
that he has many things that he would like to say concerning
Melchizedek, that strange Old Testament creature who was a
type of Christ. And he said, in essence, I have
a whole rich cupboard of truth that I would love to open up
and out of that cupboard to take these delicious things and set
them upon the table for you to feed upon to the end that you
might become more mature in Christ. But he had a problem. Verse 11,
Hebrews 5.11, of whom we have many things to say, and hard
of interpretation. Why? Seeing you are become dull
of hearing, for, now look at the next phrase, when by reason
of the time. And for you Greek students, you've
got the preposition dia with the accusative form of the word
time. For when on account of the time,
when in the light of the days and hours and weeks that have
passed, in which you've been surrounded by the means of grace
in the fellowship of the church, when sufficient time in the context
of adequate means has passed, that you ought to be. Now you see the strength of the
words. When by reason of time it is
your solemn obligation to be at a certain level of maturity,
one that would enable you to be an instructor of others, your
life so embodying the truth as to give credibility to your words,
your mind so well furnished with the truth as to give substance
to your words for when the time has passed that you ought to
be, you have need again that someone teach you the rudiments
of the first principles of the oracles of God and are become
such as have need of milk and not of solid food. Now take these
two little phrases, for the time you ought to be, you are. The time you ought to be, and
he says given the time, given the privileges, you ought to
be here. But you are here. Why? because the passing of time
does not automatically result in maturity in Christ. I rest
my case on that text. If being surrounded with the
means of grace and adequate time exposure to those means automatically
produced maturity, he never could have written a passage like this.
But he did write it. And here was a problem of arrested
growth. Here was a problem of people
who had not reached the level of maturity in Christ that it
was realistically proper to expect. The writer was not expecting
people to take a leap from infancy to full-blown spiritual manhood
and womanhood in three months. No. He is allowing adequate time
for the acquisition of a truth here, and a truth there, and
a perspective here, and a deeper understanding there. But he said,
on account of the time that has passed, if those means were being
blessed of the Spirit, you would be at this level of maturity. But in reality, you are. And what he tells them they are
is, that they are still babes not in the proper sense that
Peter speaks of it as newborn babes but they are babes as the
result of arrested growth one of the most tragic realities
in the physical world to see a five-year-old infant still
in arms there's something grotesque and grievous and heartbreaking
and sickening How must the Heavenly Father feel when He looks at
the host of His five-year-olds that are still babes in arms,
when they ought to be walking on their own, when they ought
to be learning to read, when they ought to be able to take
younger brother and sister and teach them the alphabet, and
they still have to be diapered and bottle-fed, and at times
rush to the emergency room to see if they even have any vital
signs. What must God feel when he has
surrounded his children with all of the means for their maturation,
and yet the time they ought to be, they are. Question number three, how does
a thing like this happen? Question one, how important is
the issue? We've seen how important is the
issue of maturity in Christ. We ask the question, how does
one become mature in Christ? And we've sought to answer that,
but to show that it doesn't automatically happen. Now, how then does this
process of arrested growth set in? You didn't start the last year.
You didn't start this year. You didn't start 88 or 87 or
86 with the intention that this would be true of you when the
time you ought to be, you are. What happened? Well, something
like this happens. Maybe it was the first Lord's
Day of 1989. Maybe the second. Maybe the fourth. Maybe the seventh.
But under the preaching of the Word, in your private reading
of the Word, in family devotions, in your interaction with a brother
or sister, in just an ordinary conversation, in maybe a more
formal reproof or rebuke or exhortation. You see, I'm describing the public
and private means of grace. One of these divinely constructed
conduits into the soul of a believer by which God supplies him life
and health and spiritual vigor and all of the vitamins and minerals
essential to solid growth of spiritual bone and sinew and
muscle so that what we have is not the growth and the maturity
of the balloons that are blown up prior to Macy's parade. They
have all air and no substance. one stick of a knife and you
find out there's no substance. So we're not talking about just
the semblance of growth, but real spiritual growth made of
real spiritual bone and sinew and muscle and divinely created
tissue by all of those elements of which God constructs that
maturity in Christ. What happened? Well, along one
of those lines, God, by the Spirit, may be touched an issue of your
priorities. And in the preaching, in the
reading of the Word, at home, alone, in the family, interaction
with a brother, a testimony, God has all of these means. But
at one point, by one of those means, you know what God did?
God put His finger on the fact that you were not going to make
progress in grace until you began to take seriously Matthew 6.33.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added unto you. And you went
through a wrestling because you said, well, if I reorder my priorities
and I begin to structure my time so that my time alone with God
is not the exception but the rule in my life, that family
worship is not the exception once a week but the rule in my
family, When keeping a good conscience in respect to my TV is not the
exception, but the rule! Somewhere along the line in the
area of priorities, God put his finger on an issue. And what
did you do? You did not immediately say,
thank you, Lord, and do whatever you had to do to readjust your
priorities. But you said, Lord, when it's
more convenient, you tabled the issue. Then the issue wouldn't
go away. And every time you're prepared
for communion, and any time the preaching got close to the bone,
that issue loomed before you. So you had to do one of two things.
You either had to deal with it, or you had to find a way to try
to get rid of it. So you know what you began to
do? You began to rationalize and say, well, you know, I just
had an over-scrupulous conscience when that sermon was preached
two months ago. That wasn't God speaking to me. That was the
preacher praying God. That was the preacher going beyond
the scriptures. That really wasn't the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
That was overbearing, heavy-handed, applicatory preaching. And so
you tried to do a head job on yourself to say it wasn't God.
But lo and behold, you found that in your own devotions the
issue came up. And you said, well, it was just the wrong time
of the month. I was emotionally vulnerable. Well, things were
rough at work and I just, I really shouldn't have allowed... You
see what you're doing? See what you're doing? You're trying to
convince yourself that God really didn't pinch that nerve and point
to that sore spot. And from that point on, though
you've been using the means of grace, you've been surrounded
by the means of grace, you've not grown in grace. Why? You've
got a controversy with God. He that covers his sin shall
not prosper. Now if you can prosper in terms
of maturity in Christ, while covering that sin of a misarranged
priority, knowingly and deliberately, then God is a liar. Because He
says, He that covers his sin shall not prosper. and you've not prospered. The
graces of likeness to Christ are not richer and fuller in
your life. Christ himself is not really
more precious to you. Those who are closest to you
could not testify that they see more of Christ in you, hear more
of Christ upon your lips, and see it validated by your life. What happens An issue of priority
was set before you and you haven't dealt with it. Or maybe it was
a relationship that you knew was not right. An idolatrous
relationship to a son or daughter. An idolatrous relationship to
husband or wife. An idolatrous relationship with
a man or woman of the opposite sex. An idolatrous relationship
to some thing, some ambition. Some other thing became an idol. And any time the word idolatry
was used, any time the radical claims of Christ were expounded,
he that does not hate father, mother, brother, sister, yea,
and his whole life also, cannot be my disciple, that person,
that relationship, loomed, there it was, flashed on the screen
of your mind. And you've spent the whole year
Try to rationalize. No, there's nothing wrong with
that. But you see, the living proof
that you're rationalizing is you've not prospered. You've
not become mature in Christ. And you will not become mature
in Christ as long as that issue is undealt with. Your spiritual
senses become dull. It's a kind of defense mechanism.
You can only stand spiritual pain so long. before you start
putting on a flak jacket. You cannot stand getting shot
at so long. And you say, I can't take it
anymore. Rather than asking God to extricate the bullets by repentance
and faith, you come to church, some of you, clad with a spiritual
flak jacket. And some of us can shoot 30-06
Magnum load hollow-pointed bullets right at your heart. And all
they do is flatten on your flak jacket. And I tell you, that
scares the liver out of me. Because when you can sit with
a flak jacket under close, applicatory, loving, intimate, pastoral preaching,
and not grow in grace, you're in a dangerous place. You may
be on the beginnings of that slippery slide into apostasy. So what's happened? Instead of
growing in grace, your spiritual senses have dulled, your spiritual
appetite has shriveled, your enthusiasm for the Word and for
the ordinance of God has waned. You almost welcome the slightest
twinge of something that is a headache like a third cousin twice removed
on a Sunday morning so you can have an ostensible excuse to
not be present with God's people. and Sunday night and Wednesday.
What are all these things? They're the indication of a sick
spiritual constitution. The sense is dulled, the appetite
shriveled, the enthusiasm waned, the disciplines of true discipleship
have many of them been abandoned. And then the rationalization
is set in as a pattern of life, and then disaffection to God's
people and His servants, criticism of the slightest little defects
in your brethren and in your spiritual leaders. That's where
you are this morning. You say, Pastor, I didn't come
to you and describe myself. No, but God knows you and I've
just taken the description out of the Bible. And time has passed! A whole
year has passed and where are you? Are younger believers just
a month or a year or six months old in the Lord coming to you
saying, I see in you qualities of grace and maturity, of reflection
of Christ. Please tell me. I know you didn't
get that way automatically. Tell me. Teach me how to become
mature in Christ and on account of the time that you ought to
be teachers, you're still a babe, needs to have your diapers changed
and your perps wiped off your chin and off your elder's shoulders. You're still stinking up shirts,
spitting up on your elder's shoulder when you ought to be preparing
food and feeding others. The time you ought to be, you
are. Why? Because the passing of time
does not automatically result in spiritual maturity. Question four, what is the result
in your life today? We've described how this process
takes place. What's the result? Well, the
result is that unruly spirit that marked you a year ago marks
you just as much today. You've gained no substantial
progress in governing your spirit. The scripture says he that rules
not his own spirit is like a city and its walls broken down. The
fruit of the spirit is self-control. You have no more control over
an angry, hasty spirit today than you did a year ago. That's
the indication you've not grown in grace and in likeness to the
Lord Jesus. Your tongue is just as unbridled
today as it was the first Lord's Day of 1989. It is easy for you
to speak sharp, sarcastic, cutting words now as it was a year ago. In fact, you've got a year's
experience. You're a little better at it. Your credibility with those who
really know you is less today than it was a year ago. Because
they've seen you come to church. They've seen you go to prayer
meeting, perhaps. Your children, your wife, your
husband. They've seen all these means
of grace, as it were, coming down upon the externals of your
life. But they don't see the influence
of the rain distilling from the clouds of public worship and
preaching, making the soil of your heart to fructify and give
forth the fruit. of more gentleness, more tenderness,
more forgiveness, more willingness to overlook faults, they don't
see tangible evidence of growth. So how do you know that? Ask
them. If you have the courage to, ask
them. Your credibility with your kids
is no greater, it's less. They were patient. They figure,
well, maybe I really don't understand mommy or daddy in this area,
but they're getting older and their faculties are becoming
more critical and analytical and rightly so. And now they're
less likely to just overlook those inconsistencies. The unruly
spirit, still unruly. The ungoverned tongue, still
ungoverned. The vulnerability to gossip and
false reports. Why is it? In this assembly over
the years, I've seen a pattern, I could chart it. You always
have about a dozen people who are like gossip vacuum cleaners. Any gossip in the church just
seems to be sucked in their direction. It's amazing. Gossips generally
don't ply their trade with anybody and everybody. They hear the
whirr and feel the shhh of the vacuum cleaner ears. Yes, they
do. There is a peculiar faculty in
a gossip's heart that he hears and feels the shhhh. And you're
still a vacuum cleaner for gossip. Why? No growth in that area. Why? I ask you why? For the scripture says it's an
evil man who listens to an evil report. Not only Is it evil to
give a false report? It's evil to listen to it. Your
lack of credibility, all those pounds you said were going to
come off that were the fruit of your self-indulgence and lack
of self-control, they're still there. You've just had another
year to figure out excuses why they're still there. The scales don't lie. They're
still there. And I'll tell you something.
They didn't get on there, nor were they sustained by breathing
air. No air anywhere what puts on
pounds. Oh, it's the holiday season.
Now it's my birthday time. Now it's vacation time. Rationalize,
rationalize. Some of you on the other end of the spectrum, you've
been caught up in the thinness idolatry. And by degrees, you're
destroying your body. And you said, oh yes, I'm going
to put on some pounds. And there you are, still starving
yourself and destroying that temple of the Holy Ghost that
God has made. But you see, the fundamental
bottom line is you haven't dealt with the issue. Growth in grace
would mean, for some of you, the steady, regular, principled
shedding of pounds and the steady, principled keeping of the moss. For the fruit of the Spirit is
self-control. The drunkard and the glutton
shall come to poverty. The same thing is true with some
of you on the other end of the spectrum. your preoccupation
and excessive watching of the TV, your desires to make an impression,
to have things run up and ship with your peers. The list is
infinite, but I hope I've said enough so that you get the picture. What is the result of failure
to grow in grace in spite of the time and the means available? It is that those sins that marked
you on the threshold of 89 are still as dominant, if not more,
in your life on the threshold of 1990. And those graces that
were absent are still absent. Those that were just beginning
to emerge, some who are closest to you have waited and longed
to see that little nubby hard fruit grow and become full and
lush and a monument of God's grace, for herein is my Father
glorified, that you bear much fruit," said Jesus. Well, if
I'm describing you, and you are convinced, if no one else is,
that God sent this word for you, that you might face the fact
that the passing of time does not automatically make us more
mature in Christ, my final question under this heading is this, what
must you do? What must you do? You sit here
this morning and say, Pastor, I don't know what God intended
for anyone else, but one thing I know, surely God constrained
you. God laid upon your heart to speak
after this fashion. This has been God's Word to me. And I don't want to come to the
first Lord's Day in 1991 and wish that somehow the pew on
which I sat would have a hole burned in it and the concrete
that I might drop out of sight. I was fearful that those sitting
around me could see the blush on my cheek and the red up the
back of my neck. I don't want it anymore! What
can I do? If you preach the very same sermon
next, Lord's Day, First Lord's Day of 1991, I would be able
to say and have it validated not only in my conscience but
by my wife and my kids and those who know me best. Though I have
not grown all I wanted to grow, and though I have not grown all
I hope to grow, by the grace of God I have grown in grace. I have, by God's grace, seen
the cultivation of the virtues of Christ to a new degree. By God's grace, certain sins
that once seemed to have their iron boot upon my neck, by God's
grace and in the strength of Christ, I now have the boot of
His triumph on the neck of my sin. Is that what you want? You say, with all my heart, what
must I do? Well, let me give you some biblical
directive. And I can see this is all I'm going to get to this
morning, but dear people, I'm not concerned to just get through
my notes! There's too much at stake! Too
much at stake! What must you do? Listen to the
Lord Jesus. He writes to a church that not
only had they failed to grow in grace, they were regressing
in the most fundamental of all graces. that which is, to use
the imagery of a watch, that which is the mainspring of the
watch, the imagery of the car, that which is the engine of the
car that drives the wheels, the grace of love to his own person. I'm referring, of course, to
Revelation chapter 2. Jesus speaks to this church and
commends them for all the things that His grace has worked in
them, Many of them the fruit of real maturity in Christ. They
had discernment. They could tell truth from evil.
They didn't have a big ecclesiastical orgy in which they thought everyone
that holds a Bible and is sweet and nice is for real. They had
discernment. They had ecclesiastical trials
and they exposed evil men. And they were patient. They were
bearing much. They were perhaps even suffering
for Christ, and they were bearing up under it. But now, verse 4,
I have this against you. You did leave your first love.
Rather than maturing in their love to Christ, they had regressed. You've abandoned your first love,
the love you had at the first, in its single-eyed simplicity,
when having it were just been dug out of the quarry of lost,
condemned humanity. and brought under the cleansing
of my own blood and the quickening of my spirit. You had a heart
that beat with single-eyed devotion to my person. You loved me, and
that's why you did what you did. You loved me, and that's why
you did not do what you did not do. It was love to me, burning,
pure, unrivaled. It was the main spring and driving
motive of your life, but you've left that. Now what does he tell
them to do? Look at verse 5. He tells them
to do three things. Remember. Remember from whence
you are fallen. And repent. And do the first works. He tells
them three things. Remember. Repent and do. What's he telling them? Number
one is he's saying face reality. You see, the denial mechanism
of a Christian who doesn't grow in grace is his biggest enemy.
And that denial mechanism, in some of you, it's almost as though
I could hear the wheels whirring this morning. Oh, the denial
mechanism we set up. It's more clever than one of
those Rube Goldberg things. You've seen them, haven't you?
where you drop a penny at the one end of it, and it rolls down
and trips this, and then another thing, and out the other end,
finally after about 25 different little contraptions, something
happens on this end. That's the way the denial mechanism
is. Jesus knew that, and he said to these people, remember. Face
reality. Remember. And what were they
to remember? Remember from whence you are
fallen. Reality is you've left your first
love. I, the Lord Jesus, interpret
reality infallibly. You have left it. Now you remember
and keep remembering until in the deepest recesses of your
heart there is an echo of acknowledgment that my assessment is according
to truth. Face reality. Remember from whence
thou art fallen. That's the biggest problem with
some of you. is facing reality. But that's what you've got to
do. That means you've got to go home today and get down before
God and say, Oh God, help me to remember. Help me to remember
when I couldn't wait for the Lord's day. I couldn't wait for
prayer meeting. I couldn't wait to see my brethren.
And Lord, it's true. The pastor described me. I now
can't wait to find the semblance of an excuse to miss a meeting.
My friend, if that's reality, face it. There's hope for you.
When Jesus said, remember, He wasn't cutting them off, He was
drawing them back. He says, face reality. Remember! And then when
you're facing reality, then He says, repent. What's that? That's having a change of mind
and disposition and attitude and all that it brings with it
with respect to those things that have been causing arrested
growth. Repent. Turn from them. Turn from them in abhorrence.
Turn from them in dependence upon Christ to forgive and cleanse
and quicken and empower. And then he says what? Pray for
a baptism of the Holy Ghost? No. He says then do the first
works. And there's nothing in between.
He doesn't tell them to seek a deeper experience. He doesn't
tell them to seek something more. As part of the New Covenant community,
they have been endowed with all that they need to be what He
requires them to be. And then tell them. Pray for a fresh baptism of the
Spirit. He doesn't tell them, pray for
something you've never had before. Claim some experience you've
never known before. He says, remember, face reality. Repent. Faith, God on His throne
and Jesus on His cross. That's the only kind of repentance
the Bible knows anything about at the beginning and all along
the way in the Christian life. God on His throne and Jesus on
His cross. Remember, repent, and then do. Do what you must do to alter
the course that's held you locked in the condition that you're
in this morning. For some of you, it may mean
you've got to unplug the TV and put the thing away. Why come
every time excessive TV watching is mentioned and have a bloody
conscience? It's not necessary for your life. Millennia of normal,
healthy people lived and died and never spent a minute in front
of the TV. It's this mad, crazy generation
that feeds on that thing and increases its moral madness. If you've got to sit down with
your family today, don't do it tomorrow. Let the food get cold. Nobody's starving. Put the baby
down if you need to and say, kids, I'm tired of putting off
to another time. Some of the things pastors said
this morning describe me, and I want you kids to be honest
with Judgement Day honesty. Have you seen any growth in your
dad this year? Be honest with me. Don't lie
to me. My soul's at stake. Your soul's
at stake. And you know dad has confessed
that he has problem with being patient and with his temper,
but I want to know, have you seen any growth in me? Well,
honestly, Dad, we haven't. Let your kids be a mini-judgment
day. And I'm not asking you to do
something I have not personally done. And I've got a wife and
kids here who could rise up and call me a liar if it were not
so. Ask your wife, then, when the
kids go off to their room, say, Honey, don't be a Sapphire in
light of the Holy Ghost. I solemnly charge you to speak
to me with judgment-day honesty. Be a helper to my soul, dear.
Have you seen any growth in me? Are you living with a husband
that's more like Christ now than he was in the first day of 1989? If so, where? If not, where? Remember, get
in touch with reality. There are some of you, unless
you're the most clever hypocrites in the world, your growth is
so evident to us as your pastors. And it's biblical to commend
people. I have no greater joy, John says, than to know that
my children walk in the truth. In this very epistle that was
read to us this morning, the epistle to Philemon, you notice
how Paul could say, I have confidence you're going to do what I tell
you. That's not wrong. And there are some of you, we've
seen your growth before our very eyes. Growth. in openness, growth
in spiritual sensitivity and transparency, growth in consistency
in the public means of grace. But there are some of you, if
someone held a pistol to my head and said, give me a judgment
day honest answer, has so and so grown in grace this past year,
I'd have to say, only God knows. There are others I'd have to
say, well if so, it's the funniest kind of growth I've ever seen.
It's the growth of a man six feet two hundred pounds, who's
now 5'6 and 103 pounds. Oh, he's still a man. He's still
breathing. But he's only half the size he was a year ago. Remember, face reality. That's
what we're talking about. Then repent. Have dealings with
God on His throne and God upon His cross. and there seek cleansing
and forgiveness and then see that same crucified Christ upon
His throne as the dispenser of the Spirit and plead with Him
for grace and strength and power to do what you ought to do. Remember! Repent! Boo! Another set of biblical
injunctions would be to tie together Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24 Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way
in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Beg God to search
you to the depths. Then do what Lamentations 3.40
says, same words, same Hebrew words, let us search and try
our ways. Search me, O God, Let us search
and try our ways. Don't just cry to God and then
shift into neutral. Cry to God and then shift into
your Bible and into a careful judgment day honest appraisal
of where you're spending your time, your free time. Is there
more time being spent before the TV than in the Bible and
in good books? More time spent on the phone
in general chit-chat that goes into gossip than in edifying
conversation. Let us search and try our ways. And then coupled with that, Psalm
119, 57 and 50 through 59, I thought on my ways and I turned my feet
unto thy statutes. I made haste and delayed not
to keep thy command. Bring those three passages together.
Search me, O God. Then I search my ways. And then
where I see discrepancy between my ways and the Word of God,
I make haste and delay not in dependence upon Christ to bring
my feet into the way of God's precepts. Now that's no simple little formula.
But my friend, I don't know of any other way taught in the Bible. And that's going to take time.
And for some of you, it may be as though you were being stripped
naked and stood out in the middle of Bloomfield Avenue or Route
46. You have so conveniently huddled
beneath layer after layer of self-deception and clever deception
of your brethren, the thought of being absolutely honest is
frightening to you. But my friend, may I say it's
the most safe and comfortable place in all the world. Because
until you're naked, He can't clothe you. Until you're naked, He can't
clothe you. But clothed in His righteousness, clothed in that
fresh washing of His blood. What a place of rest and peace
and safety and confidence. The passing of time does not
automatically make us more mature in Christ. I've said what's on
my heart. The other thing, maybe wait for
another New Year sermon. But now where will you be at
the end of this year if the Lord spares you? May God grant that we shall take
His Word to heart and do what we must do. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank You
for the Scriptures, Your living, infallible Word. And while we
are grieved to read such words as we've read this morning, that
there were some under the very shadow of apostolic ministry
of whom it had to be said that the time they ought to be, they
were. And oh Lord, we thank you that
you've not veiled this reality. We thank you that you've infallibly
placed it in your own book and set it before us for our profit.
And we earnestly plead with you, Lord, what else can we do but
cry to you that there will be much heart dealings with you
this morning. Oh Lord, for those who could
testify that by your grace they have grown in maturity in the
past year, may that rate of growth be greatly increased in the year
to come. For we know that spiritual maturation
is not locked to time. that there are some among us
in a state of grace only a few years who are old men and women
in grace while sadly, Lord, others who've been years in grace who
are still in their diapers and in their cradles. Will you not
be gracious? Will you not, in mercy, deal
with each one of us out of your perfect knowledge of where we
really are? Seal, then, your word to our
hearts, we pray. And may your blessing rest upon
us as we leave this place, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.