Let's open our Bibles again to
Matthew chapter 5. I titled the message this morning,
Grow Up and Eat Your Meat. Now I am not very good at coming
up with clever titles and I'm not trying to be clever exactly
with the, well at all, with the title of the message this morning
and I hope by the end of the message that all of us will have
a strong desire to grow up and be meat eaters. Let's begin here
looking at Hebrews 5 verse 10. Called of God and high priest
after the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have many things to
say and hard to be uttered, seeing your dull of hearing. Now the
writer had many things to say about this mysterious man Melchizedek
and they're difficult for him to say. He says it has a whole
lot to say about Melchizedek in chapter five, but he finds
them difficult to say just yet because somehow he knew this,
that the Hebrews had become dull in hearing. They become sluggish. They become dull in hearing the
gospel. They weren't earnestly seeking
to hear of Christ and learn of Christ in the message. They're
just going through the motions. Or it could be they'd grown tired
of hearing of only Christ and they thought, yeah, yeah, I've
heard that before. Move on to something else. Give me something
else that'll capture my attention, something new and something different.
That's being dull of hearing. And what an awful state to fall
into, this spiritual stupor, this being dull of hearing where
you hear the words, but you don't perceive the message of them. It's kind of like when you wake
up from anesthesia, the nurse there is trying to wake you up
and say you're awake. You hear the words, you hear things going
on around you, the different people talking to each other
and things, but you can't concentrate on it. You can't perceive what
they're saying. You're dull of hearing. Being dull of hearing
like that stunts our spiritual growth. It causes us, being dull
of hearing, causes us to quit growing in grace and the knowledge
of Christ because we're not eating right. You know, to spiritually
eat, the believer eats through the ear. And if we're dull of
hearing, we're not eating right. We're not getting all the nutrients
that we should. Being sluggish and dull of hearing
causes us to not be useful in God's church. You know, we ought
not just be content to just come in every Sunday and Wednesday,
you know, kind of rush in and rush out, just think I get what
I can get and rush and leave. Our desire, the believer's desire
ought to be, I need to be useful to God's church. Useful to people. If we're dull of hearing, we're
not growing in grace, we're not useful to God's people. That's
what he tells them has happened to them in verse 12. For when
for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that
one go back and teach you again. that which be the very first
principles of the oracles of God. And you become such as have
need of milk and not strong meat. Now he said that you've been
around long enough, now you ought to be able to teach others. But
because your dull of hearing has stunted your spiritual growth,
it's made you so you haven't learned as much of Christ as
you should have. You haven't learned enough. You
ought to be able to teach somebody, but you haven't learned enough
to be able to teach anybody anything. So somebody's going to go back
with you and teach you the very first principles of the gospel,
the very first principles of the oracles of God. And those
first principles are the ABCs. You know, the ABCs make up this
whole book, don't they? But you haven't learned letters
yet, or you haven't learned words and sentences. You just know
the ABCs. Somebody's going to go back and
reteach you the ABCs. You've forgotten A goes first
and Z goes last. You've forgotten, you've got
to go back with the very basic building blocks again, start
building this thing up again. You're acting like children who
need a coloring paper. You know, Sabrina gives a coloring
paper to her class. I don't. I don't. Well, my class
has much more return, older than her class. You ought to have
grown enough where your attention span is long enough that we can
look in the Word for about 35 minutes. not need a coloring
paper, not had amuse ourselves with building blocks. And until
you get to that, until your attention, you grow your attention, Spain,
where you can learn something, you're not useful to anybody.
Look, he says here in verse, verse 13, for everyone that uses
milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he's a babe,
but strong meat belong to them that are full age. Even those
who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil. If you're dull of hearing, you
can't discern. You can't tell the difference
between good and evil, good doctrine and evil doctrine. This spiritual
sluggishness, this being dull of hearing has made us remain
children and not grow up and become an adult. It keeps us
as children who are only able to drink milk and we can't eat
meat. We haven't matured enough. so we can, we haven't got our
teeth yet, so we can't chew meat. If we try to eat meat, we'll
choke on it. We're still children, our digestive
systems haven't matured enough to where you can eat meat yet.
Now, so all you can handle is milk. Now, you know, we're going
to talk about babes in Christ and, you know, we love babies
around here, don't we? Babies and children, young people,
both physically and spiritually. You know, we love to take care
of them. We love to give them just what they need and to watch
them grow. Sorry for you adults, but this
is just a fact. My favorite week of the year, Bible school. We
love children. I love to spend that time just
one-on-one with the children, watch them learn and grow. It's
so important. We love babies and children,
those little ones. And we don't mind at all making
allowances for their weaknesses, do we? Not at all. No. And truth
be told, especially physically speaking now, this truth be told,
there is part of us that wants them to say children forever.
Really is. Really is. Sometimes I think I'd give all
the money we had if I could just go back and have our babies be
five and three. Just for a day. Oh, just for
a day. Wouldn't that be something? This is also true. Wouldn't it
be a shame if they always stayed five years old? Wouldn't that
be a shame if they didn't mature and grow up, get stronger, be
able to move on to bigger and better things? I often hear mothers
say how they've enjoyed. They just love that time where
they breastfed their babies. It was such a sweet time. They
just got that baby face to face. Such a sweet time. Well, I've
also heard mothers say how happy they are that baby gets old enough
I can get a little cereal in it, you know, and sleep through
the night. I can start giving them a little baby food, little,
you know, things like Cheerios or something, you know, to stay
with them longer. See, it's a blessing when our
children grow and mature. We don't want them on milk and
pureed food always. That would be a shame. And we
don't mind making allowances for them while they're children.
You know, when you cut up their food and little, you know, when
they can handle meat, you cut it up in little bite-sized pieces,
you know. We don't mind doing that a bit. But now, you ought
not be doing that when they're 89 years old. They start growing
up. We don't mind tying a child's shoelaces. Don't mind that a
bit. But wouldn't it be a shame if they never learned to tie
their own shoelaces? Now, we want them to mature, don't we?
We love it. when our children learned to
sing their ABCs. I remember the girls learned
to sing their ABCs. I got home and I couldn't wait to sing me
their ABCs. They learned their ABCs. Oh, how wonderful. But
wouldn't it be a shame if that's all they ever learned? And they
didn't learn to take those letters and put them together and write
and read and communicate? Well, the same thing's true spiritually.
Oh, we love seeing a baby in Christ. God revealed Himself
to one of His own, giving them life and faith And we love to
see those babes in Christ. But we want them to mature. We
want them to grow, don't we? Now, there are babes in Christ.
There are young men, young women in Christ. And there's old men
and old women in Christ. And we want them to grow and
not always stay a baby. We don't always want to have
to keep going over with them the very first principles, the
ABCs, and spoon feeding them the milk of the gospel. Now,
the milk of the gospel. What is the milk of the gospel?
Well, those are the things that every believer knows and loves
and believes. I'm going to give you some examples.
Let's take a few drinks of milk this morning. The milk of the
gospel is God's electing love. This whole thing of salvation
began in the mind and purpose of God Almighty when He chose
a people to save. The milk of the gospel is this.
I didn't choose God. God chose me. And the only reason
I choose him now is he chose me first. God is sovereign in
salvation. Now that's a building block of
the gospel. If you don't know that God's
sovereign in all things, you don't know God. Because that's
the very basic character of who he is. He's sovereign in all
things. Here's a drink of milk. Men died in Adam. Men spiritually
died because of what Adam, our representative, did. He was our
representative. We did what he did. That's why
we're sinners today. That's why we're born dead in
trespasses and sins, because we died in Adam, our representative.
But then the Lord Jesus Christ came. He came as the representative
of his people. And he obeyed the law for those
people. And he made his people righteous because he's their
representative. And since he's their representative, they did
everything he did. So they're righteous. Just as
surely as Adam made me unrighteous by his disobedience, Christ has
made me righteous in his obedience. Now that's the milk of the gospel. Every believer loves that, knows
that, believes that when they hear it. All right, here's another
drink of the milk of the gospel. Christ didn't die for every son
of Adam. To give everybody a chance to be saved. If Christ died to
give men a chance to be saved, nobody would be saved. Salvation
is not left up to chance. It's left up to the will of Almighty
God. Christ came and he died for those
who lacked. All those that the Father gave
them, he died for them and put their sin away and those people
shall be saved. The only way a sinner can be
saved is if Christ died for them on purpose. He can't leave it
up to their choice, up to their will. That's the milk of the
gospel. Every believer says, oh, give
me a glass of that. I'll drink that. I love that.
But here's some milk. Man by nature is dead in sins.
Because we fell in Adam, we died, and our nature is dead. Our nature
will not and it cannot, it does not have the ability to come
to Christ unless God the Holy Spirit comes where we are and
gives us life, grants us repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
in the new birth. Now that's the milk of the gospel.
Every saved person loves that gospel, loves that milk. If you
don't love the Holy Spirit coming, giving you life in the new birth,
you've not been born again. So here's a drink of milk. Everybody,
everybody who believes Christ will persevere to the end. They
will awake in glory because God's going to keep them by the power
of his grace. God will never quit loving his people. and He
will never, ever, ever, ever let them go. Never. Now, between
here and there, He's gonna do a lot of things that my God won't
understand. I just won't understand. But I can tell you what He'll
never do. He'll never leave His people. He'll never tell His
people, I don't love you anymore. Never. Because that goes against
the very character of God. Now, that's the milk. That's
the assurance of salvation every saved person loves. Every babe
in Christ enjoys drinking that milk, and they can digest it
easily. That's just the basic truths
of the gospel. That's what Peter called the
sincere milk of the word. He said, you drink it that you
may grow thereby. You drink that, digest it, so
you may grow into a mature believer. All right, that's milk. But the writer here also talks
about meat. And he said meat is for the mature believer, those
who are of full age. Now meat, it's harder to chew,
isn't it? It's harder to digest. But we
also need that meat. If we're going to grow to full
strength and full age, we need that meat. And meat is for older
believers, for the babes to choke on it. They don't have all their
teeth yet. Their digestive system can't
handle it, they choke on it. So meat is for the older, more
mature believer. Now, when we talk about meat
being for the believer, let's make this older believer, let's
make this very, very, very clear. No believer, I don't care how
mature they get, I don't care how much they grow, no believer
ever moves on from the milk of the word. Ever. I got up this
morning, first thing I did, pour me a cup of coffee. You know,
second thing I did, pour me a glass of milk. I like milk for breakfast. You never move past milk, do
you? Well, that's older people. When you older believers, more
mature believers, when you eat your meat, you drink milk with
it, don't you? I gotta have some milk with it. We always need
milk for our spiritual health, just like our physical bodies
need it. Our spiritual bodies do too.
All right, here's the question. What's the difference between
milk and meat? Have you ever wondered what's
the difference between the milk of the gospel and the meat of
the gospel? Now, I clearly, if I'm going
to preach on this, I did some reading on this this week and
found a lot of things, interesting things people wrote. Some of
them said that meat is looking into the deep mysteries of the
gospel, the deep mysteries of God. And the example they used
is the Trinity. Now, I have to tell you, I don't
think that's right. I mean, I just don't. No human being is ever
going to fully understand the Trinity. And really, what use
is that to you? If you could, we just believe
it. So Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three, but one. So we just believe
it. Others I read said me is God's
eternal law, his election of a people. But that can't be right. That's me. I mean, that's the
building blocks of the gospel. God hasn't saved you if you don't
know He chose you first. I mean, that's the meat, that's
the, or the milk, the very first oracles, principles of the oracles
of God. Some said meat is being able
to look into the deep mysteries of God's providence and how He's
ruling and arranging everything in this life. I don't think so. I don't think so. God said, I
don't answer you. I'm not gonna tell you why I'm
doing what I'm doing. We couldn't understand if He told us anyway.
You know, we can only look into and understand the things that
are revealed, revealed in God's Word. We can't understand mysteries
that God's kept hidden from man, regardless of how mature we get.
And you know what? We ought not want to look into
those things. Because what is for man? It's the things God's
revealed to us. And we got enough to handle,
just handling what God's revealed to us. So it's not looking at
things that don't belong to us, what God's doing in providence.
I tell you what I'm fully convinced the meat of the gospel is. Meat. It's taking the milk of the gospel
and putting it in practice in our everyday life. That's the
meat of the gospel. Because the baby choke on that.
That's for the mature believer. Meat is believing the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace and then adorning that grace,
the doctrines of grace, in our lives. That's what the meat is.
And we get a pretty good indication of what that is, that meat is,
from the definition of people who use meat. The writer to the
Hebrew says it's people who are of full age. And the Greek word
there means mature. It's the same word that's normally
translated perfect in scripture. How many times have you heard
some preacher tell you get to that word perfect, it means mature.
This word full age is that word, mature, perfect. And we get a
good understanding of what meat is by looking at other places
where this same Greek word is used, translated perfect. We
look at that, we'll get a good understanding of what this meat
is. We'll just take them as they're presented in scripture. Look
first at Matthew chapter five. The meat of the gospel is taking
the milk of the gospel and putting it into practice in our everyday
lives. Matthew five, verse 43. You have heard that it hath been
said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say
unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you and pray for them, which despitefully
use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your
father, which is in heaven. For he maketh his son to rise
on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and
on the unjust. For if you love them, which love
you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the
same? If you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect. Be therefore mature, even as
your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. Now we read that
and we think, wait a minute. I'm to love my enemies? I love Janet. I'm to love my
enemies? I'm to pray for people who hate
me, cuss me, misuse me. The babe in Christ is going to
choke on that. Want me to tell you what else? Mature believers
usually do too, don't we? Love my enemies. Pray for people
that despitefully use me, persecute me. Here's what our Lord is teaching
us here. The meat of the gospel is to
believe Christ and then be Christ-like. It's to trust Christ for all
of your salvation and then to imitate him in your daily life.
See, this is speaking to those who've been born again. Be like
your father. You've been born again, you're
his children. Now grow up and mature and be like him. Now,
only our Lord Jesus Christ ever loved his neighbors himself.
Only our Lord Jesus Christ ever loved his enemy. He's the only
one who ever did. But now believers are children
of God. We still have that old nature of the flesh, that nature
who only loves herself. I mean, we don't even really
love those that love us. It's just we love ourselves. So we
love them because they love the person we're in love with, me.
But we also have the nature of our heavenly father, don't we?
A believer does. Now, strive to use that nature. Strive to
make that nature show, to show in your love for one another,
to show in compassion and pity on all men. even your enemies,
even those who hate the gospel, even those who hate you and persecute
you. Because now listen, the only
reason they hate you, you who believe, the only reason they
persecute you who believe, is they've only got the nature of
Adam. Can you identify with them? Can you remember a time that's
only nature you had? Can you identify with them and you still
have that nature? Then pray for them, pray for
them. Could be, God be merciful to
them. That wasn't in me. That's the
meat of the gospel. Strong meat. That's strong meat.
Pray for your enemies, amen. All right, preacher. That's tough.
That's tough. I might choke on that. What's
my motivation for this? That's exactly the way the Lord
treated us before we believed. We were born the enemies of Christ. enmity against him. But he didn't let us have our
way. He set his love upon us in that while we were yet sinners
and saved us by his grace, sent his son to die for us. Now that's
the only motivation a believer needs to pray for our enemies
and strive to love them. But we can only do that if we
grow in grace, if we can mature and see that's what Christ our
Savior has done. All right, now look at Matthew
chapter nine, or 19, excuse me, Matthew chapter 19. Here's another bite of meat for
us. Matthew 19 verse 16. And behold, one came and said
to him, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have
eternal life? And he said unto him, why callest
thou me good? There's none good but one, that's
God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments.
And he said unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no
murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother.
And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And the young man
saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up.
What lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou
wilt be perfect, you will be mature, go and sow all that thou
hast and give it to the poor. And thou shalt have treasure
in heaven, and come, follow me. But when the young man heard
that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Now this is the meat of the gospel. You give up everything about
your flesh. You give up everything that your
flesh has provided you. You give it up. Anything you
think you've done may God happy with you. you throw it away.
You count it as but dung. You cast it on the dung heap
where it belongs and you trust Christ completely. You live trusting
Christ for everything, being totally dependent upon him. Back in our text, verse 13 called
the gospel the word of righteousness, the word of righteousness. Well,
that's the gospel. It's the word of righteousness.
The first thing that word of righteousness does is strip us
of our righteousness. It strips us of the things that
we've done that we think have made us righteous. And the word
of righteousness makes us depend on the only righteousness there
is. It's the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now give
up everything you've ever done. I mean, everything. Forget it
all. Trust Christ only. Whatever you've
done is not going to make you more accepted, not going to make
you more holy, not going to make you better than any of your brothers
or sisters. Now a babe's gonna choke on that. A babe's just
gonna choke on that. But the mature believer learns
more about that every day. Learns more about living in dependence
on Christ every day. Learning, I can't earn a single
blessing from God ever. I'm totally dependent on Christ,
on God's grace, and on his mercy, and my works can't add to my
standing with God one whit. Now, the believer does good works.
Absolutely we do good works. but they don't add anything to
my righteousness. That's the meat of the gospel.
All right, now 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 1. And I, brethren, when I came to you,
came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto
you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And
I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words.
It wasn't persuasible words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power, that, here's why I preach that way,
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in
the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, among them that are mature, yet not
the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world
that come to nought, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world
unto our glory. Now part of being dull of hearing
is not being able to tell the subtle difference between what
a false prophet is saying. What he preaches, there's just
a subtle difference between good and evil. Just a subtle difference
between law and grace. Part of this meat of the gospel
has something to do with this man Melchizedek, doesn't it?
Now what is that? Well, it's not Melchizedek only. Part of the meat of the gospel
is being able to look into the Old Testament and see the difference
between law and grace. Between ceremonies and Christ.
to see that all those things point you to Christ, point you
to depend upon Christ. And if you're depending on that
law and you keeping that law, that's evil. That's the meat
of the gospel. It's the big dull of hearing
stops us from being able to tell that subtle difference between
law and grace. Someone who's dull of hearing
could become very easily persuaded by man's logic, by big old fancy
religious words. But the mature believer recognizes
the difference between man's philosophy and man's logic and
the Word of God. The mature believer is just not
going to listen to preaching that depends on psychology. It
depends on emotion to get a response from people. The mature believer
will only use the pure Word of God. the sincere milk of the
word. That's the only, that's the only
kind of preaching that we'll, that we'll preach. It's the only
kind of preaching that we'll listen to. And that brings me
to Ephesians chapter four. This is tied very closely to
that Ephesians chapter four verse 11. And he gave some, apostles, some
prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting, the maturing of the saints, for the work of
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we
all come in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the son
of God unto a perfect man, a mature man, under the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Now, the only way a child of
God is going to grow and mature is through a steady diet of good
preaching, preaching the word of God. There's no substitute
for it, no substitute for the preaching of the word of God.
Now, this is the meat of the gospel. The mature believer has
had time to learn some things. They can discern the difference
between good and evil, and they're not going to be deceived by every
wind of doctrine. Everything that sounds like good
religious talk is not going to sway them to go this way, that
way, this way, that way. No, they're going one way. They're
going towards Christ. They're pressing toward the prize,
the mark, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And those winds of doctrine
are going to come up. I mean, there are many different
winds. I mean, my soul, just in my lifetime, from what I can
remember, the many different winds of doctrine that blows
across this world. But the mature believer is not
going to let those things take his attention off Christ. He's
fixed on Christ. But here's the other thing. The
mature believer, now he's been around. a while. He learned something. He's fixed on Christ. He's not
going to be swayed by the wind of doctrine. But here's a mark
of a mature believer. None of these things are so without
this one. The mature believer, he's skillful
in meat, is the most teachable person in the congregation. That's
exactly right. The mature believer who's skillful
in meat has a teachable attitude. I can remember times in the auditorium
and preaching, and right there where Jan sits, Cecil Roach.
And I thought, Frank, what are you doing? I mean, my soul, there's
Cecil Roach. I mean, he's forgotten more than
I know. What are you doing? And Cecil got, I can't remember
what, he got sick and he called me, wanted me to teach his class
while he was recovering. He came back, and he just sat
in his class. I said, don't you want to take
over now? I mean, I feel pretty foolish
here. He said, no, no, I'm not ready yet. You just keep teaching.
And you know what? Cecil had the most teachable
attitude. He had to if he'd get a blessing
from what I was saying. See that? The mature believer
has a teachable attitude. He's skillful with me. He loves
the meal. He loves the meal. Alright, Philippians
chapter 3. This ties very closely with what
we just read in Ephesians 4. Philippians 3 verse 13. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended.
I haven't arrived, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which
are before, I press toward the mark. for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore, as many as
be perfect, be mature, be thus minded. And if in anything ye
be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." Now
the apostle Paul, he knew more gospel than all of us know combined. Yet he still said, I haven't
arrived. I'm not perfect yet. I've not
reached the full age of maturity yet, as mature as I could be. And I never will be, as long
as I'm in this flesh. Now, this is the milk of the
gospel. We who believe look to Christ
for salvation. We've come to Christ for salvation.
And the meat of the gospel is this. That's the milk. We come
to him. We look to him. The meat of the
gospel is we're just as dependent upon Christ today. as I was when
I very first believed. Salvation is not, well, I looked
to Christ once 20 years ago. I believed on Christ once 20
years ago. I remember I was 12 years old
and I believed. That's not salvation. Salvation
is looking to Christ, looking to Him. Salvation is coming to
Christ and coming to Him constantly. It's to keep looking to Him and
keep depending upon Him. And the best example I could
think of is this. You might liken walking on water to the meat
of the gospel. There's old Peter walking on the water, and he'd
have kept walking on the water if he'd have kept looking to
Christ. The moment he quit looking to Christ, he sank. And right back where he started,
Lord save me. And the Lord didn't let him drown. He immediately
reached down his hand. See, he was always dependent,
and he's always reaching down his hand. hanging on to us and
will not let us go. Completely dependent on him.
That's the meat of the gospel. All right, Colossians chapter
three. Colossians three, verse 12. Put on therefore as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercy. kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all
these things, put on charity, put on love, which is the bond
of perfectness. It's the bond of perfectness.
Now, this is so important. Love, love, showing love for
one another, love for all men. This is the bond. This is the
cement that holds God's people together. Now, a baby in Christ
is a whole lot like a natural baby. He wants his way. He wants
his way. And he'll cry. He'll disturb
the whole house whenever he wants something. And he will not shut
up crying until he gets what he wants. Well, that's a baby
in Christ. It's just a baby crying in his
crib, just wanting something. He's going to keep crying until
he gets it. Well, the baby in Christ can do the same way. He's
going to demand his way. He's going to just cry and disrupt
everything. Now here's meat for the mature
believer. The meat of the gospel. And that
baby cries, you put up with him. Put up with him. The meat of
the gospel. You wait till that baby matures
a little bit. This is the meat of the gospel. This is for the
mature believer. You humble yourself. You put
the needs of that baby ahead of your own. Here's the meat
of the gospel. You esteem others better than
yourself. Even that babe in Christ. You esteem his faith better than
yours. You esteem him better than yourself. Put his needs
ahead of yours. Here's the meat of the gospel.
Humble yourself. Somebody's aggravating the life
out of you. Just humble yourself. Cheerfully. The meat of the gospel
is you be kind when somebody else is unkind. The meat of the
gospel is, forgive others when they mistreat you. The meat of the gospel is to
be Christ-like. You say, wait a minute, preacher.
How many times do I got to forgive them when they mistreat me? How
long do I got to put up with their immaturity, their crying,
their spilling the milk? How long do I got to do that? How do you got to forgive him?
How did Christ forgive you? Huh? How long you got to put
up with him? How long Christ put up with you? You forgive him freely. Freely. Without even being asked, you
forgive him. Now, a babe's going to choke on that. A babe in Christ
is going to choke on that. But the mature believer is going
to strive for it. Because we learned a little bit
about how much Christ has forgiven me. Maybe I've learned a little
bit how freely he's forgiven me. Maybe I learned a little
bit how he loved me when I was unlovable. Maybe I've learned
just a little bit how long God put up with me. Maybe I can put
up with somebody else. Maybe I can't. Truth be told,
they probably got to be putting up with me more than I got to
be putting up with them. A mature believer knows this.
No matter how the situation is unfolding, it's better for the
church that I sacrifice some needs I have so we can all get
together and worship and think about the Savior and not about
Frank. That's a mature believer. All
right, James chapter 1. Here's a bite of meat. We might
want to chew on this one a while. Verse 2, James 1. My brethren, count it all joy
when you fall into divers temptations, knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect
work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Now the life of a believer, It's
not a life of ease. Happy, happy, happy all the time.
You're going to be happy. The life of a believer is joy
in Christ. Not just happy all the time.
It's joy in Christ, even in the midst of a hard trials that he
promised he would send us. Now, a babe in Christ is going
to choke on that. I want to be happy, they say. I do too. I don't want to be unhappy. I
don't want to hurt. I don't want to suffer. Well,
me, me is for the believer who matured and has learned this
by experience, that the best lessons God ever teaches are
in the furnace of his trial. That's exactly right. We learn
things, suffering trial that we cannot learn anywhere else. The only way we ever learn patience
is waiting in that time of trouble, in that time of suffering, waiting.
until the Lord comes to comfort us. It's the only way we learn
patience. The only way we learn patience is waiting till the
Lord comes and delivers us in His time. And no one did the
best. We don't learn that lesson once
and for all, do we? How many times did David say, wait on
the Lord? Wait, I say, on the Lord. You only can learn patience
in suffering of trial. Our faith will only be increased
when it's stressed in trial. And we learn to lean more heavily
on Christ the Savior. And the only way we're going
to learn to lean more heavily on Him is in a time of suffering
and trial when He takes away everything else we think supporting
us. Then we're going to learn to lean more wholly on Him. The
babe in Christ is going to choke on that. But the mature believer
who can handle meat will tell you this. I can honestly say
this. I'm thankful for the trials that God sent me. Honestly, I
can tell you that. And I'll just be brutally honest
with you in this. I don't want to go through them again, but
I can tell you the ones God sent me have been for my good. And
it is my heart's desire to trust him in the next one. Now, how
on earth am I going to do that? Verse 5, James 1. I don't know
how to do that. Well, if any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth
not, and it shall be given to him. All right, one more scripture,
James chapter three. Here's a bite of meat. Let's
be good sinners. Verse two, James three. For in
many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word,
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole
body. And here's some meat of the gospel for the mature believer.
I don't have to say everything I think. Everything runs through
my mind, I don't have to say it. Now, there are things that
must be said, hard things, corrective things, instructive things, true
things that must be said. But now here's the meat of the
gospel. Same in wisdom, same in genuine love and kindness
and understanding for others. Don't have, say what needs to
be said, but don't have a critical, judgmental, sharp tongue. Everybody
knows somebody got a sharp tongue. Don't be that guy. Don't have
a sharp tongue. That's the meat of the gospel.
Let's season our speech, the milk of the gospel that was saved
by grace. Is that the milk of the gospel? Here's the meat for
you. Season all your speech with the
grace you claim to believe. taught more about God's grace
than other people's failures and shortcomings. Look here at
verse 6. James tells us, the tongue is
a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members
that it defiled the whole body and seteth on fire the course
of nature and it set on the fire of hell. That tongue can just
burn everything down around it and charred ground is hard to
overcome. Hard to overcome. When you burn
your bridges behind you, it's hard to go back, isn't it? Well,
I'll tell you the best way to avoid all that. Let me tell you.
Don't start the fire in the first place. Keep your mouth shut. If you can't say it, seasoned
with grace, keep your mouth shut and let somebody else say it
again. Now, that's me, isn't it, for the mature believer to
chew on. I say this to all of us. Let's
grow up. and eat our meat. Let's grow
up. You mature believers, you eat your meat. You chew on it
well and eat it and digest it by adorning the doctrines of
grace that you've stood for years saying you believe. Do it with
a wise and a loving attitude. Now keep drinking your milk,
but eat your meat. Adorn the gospel that you believe
in. And you babes in Christ, you
young men, young women in Christ, you keep drinking your milk.
Keep drinking your milk. You keep drinking the sincere
milk of God's Word. That's the only way you're going
to grow. And it's fine that all you inhale is milk. If you choke
on the meat, that's fine. It's fine. But don't be content
to stay where you're at. Seek to grow. Seek to grow. And
the only way you're going to grow is by a steady diet of the
milk of the Word of God. Strive so that you're able to
grow. and adorn the doctrines of grace that you claim to believe.
And you're going to do that by hearing the word preached every
chance you get. Now, I know right now to the
baby in Christ, I know all you can handle is milk. And even
the more mature believers, sometimes I can handle a little bit of
ground beef, but I can't handle a big old thick steak. I need
to grow, mature a little bit until I handle that strong meat.
That's fine. That's fine. But wouldn't it
be a shame Wouldn't it be a shame to stay immature where you're
at when you could have grown and you didn't because you neglected
the means God gave you to grow? The preaching of the word of
God. So let's grow up. Let's eat our meat. I pray God
will enable us to be meat eaters and adorn the glorious gospel
of Christ that he's given us to believe. Let's bow together
in prayer. Our father, how we thank you
for your word. And Father, I pray you'd bless your word to the
hearts of your people. Father, cause us to grow and
mature. Cause us not to be as children, easily tossed about
by every wave and every wind of doctrine, but cause us to
mature, to set us firmly on Christ our Savior. And cause us by our
attitude to show that we really do live, trusting Christ, believing
Him, looking for Him, and waiting for Him. It's in His precious
name, for His glory and the good of your people, we pray.