We must learn at some point in our Christian experience that we have to apply ourselves to certain spiritual fundamentals. if we are going to be mature. if we are going to be effective. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
Maybe you can relate to this scenario. You get up in the morning determined to obey God, or at least to do better than yesterday. But no matter how hard you try, you face the same old frustrations, temptations, defeats. What's missing? What do you need in order to grow spiritually?
Find out today as John MacArthur shows you a practical path to spiritual maturity.
Well, Christmas is behind us, and a New Year is just a few days away, and to help you gear up for the New Year, I can't think of a better series than the one we're beginning to day, called A Practical Path to Spiritual Maturity. That's exactly what all of us need as we look ahead. A plan that can help us grow spiritually in twenty twenty six. John had much to say about what that path to spiritual maturity looks like in a believer's life. Here's one example As simply stated, the the scripture says grow in grace.
Grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. That is a command. Or to look at it on a negative side, be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. Or to borrow from the language of the Apostle John, you don't want to be a spiritual child who merely knows the Father, or even a spiritual young man who's sound in doctrine. You want to be a spiritual father.
uh who knows him who is from the beginning, you have a deep knowledge of God. We all need to be growing. And spiritual growth, while it is the work of the Holy Spirit, calls on all the faculties of the believer. To make A plan. to practically Focus.
These things, you don't sort of fall out of bed into spiritual growth. You have intentional plans. You pursue the means that bring about spiritual growth.
So this series is coming right out of 1 Peter 5, chapter 5, verses 5 to 14. It's a common misconception, I think, that spiritual maturity is only for a select few, that pastors and old people and missionaries are supposed to be spiritually mature, while the rest of us can be content to be immature. That's certainly not what Scripture teaches. And I will just say this thing, hopefully, to motivate you. Spiritual maturity is the most precious thing you will ever experience as a believer because spiritual maturity means.
You are more like Christ. You are less. susceptible to sin. Therefore, you are more joyful, more at peace, more content, more settled. More trusting, more useful, more loving, all of those good things.
Spiritual maturity provides rewards for you as you pursue them, because all the graces that produce spiritual maturity make you more like Christ, and you live in the richness of those spiritual graces. What does it mean to be mature, to be teachable? To be submissive to your spiritual leaders, to trust in God's providence, what a joy that is, to learn self-control, to be able to defend yourself against temptation. We're going to take a look at all of these, and you're going to learn how to cultivate a genuine love for the Lord that will affect every aspect of your life. We can't think of a better time to get you on the path to spiritual growth than right now as we think about a brand new year.
So don't miss a step along the practical path. to spiritual maturity. That's right, friend. Along the way in this series, you will learn how to cultivate more humility, self-discipline, and love for your Heavenly Father. Important stuff.
So let's get to the first message. Here's John to show you a practical path to spiritual maturity. 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 5 through 14 compose the final section of this great epistle. And we'll take this section under one heading. Fundamental Attitudes for Spiritual Maturity.
Fundamental attitudes. for spiritual maturity. I think any Christian Who really His walking in the spirit would say to himself or herself, I want to be spiritually mature. I want to be spiritually effective. I want to be all that God wants me to be.
Well, that's fine to have that wish and to have that desire. But it only comes to pass when you build your life on certain fundamentals. We here at Grace Church appreciate great music. I think very often we may take for granted the fact that men can play trumpets and trombones, and ladies can play pianos and violins and all of those assorted things, and folks can sing and do it with such expertise. But the truth of the matter is it is the product of a very, very clear grasp of and a great skill in the repetition of certain fundamental things.
Fundamentals of music. And I remember as a little boy taking piano lessons. And they bored me to death. I have always been a very adventuresome person, and even as a kid, I couldn't sit still long enough to repeat scales over and over and over again. And yet that was essential.
I remember when I took up the trumpet and decided I wanted to play the trumpet because I had such a hard time with 88 keys, I figured I could play three of them much easier. You see it. And so I began to try to learn the trumpet, and I did. And I played through elementary school and through junior high and high school and on into college, and I played in trumpet trios and all of that. And I found, however, that it was the same kind of process.
It was a matter of learning certain fundamentals. And once you learned those fundamentals, then somebody could drop a sheet of music in front of you and you could apply those fundamentals. I spent a lot of my life in athletics. It's basically the same thing. In terms of athletics, any good coach will drill his athletes on certain basic fundamentals.
There are certain things in any applied athletic event. that are required foundational principles or elements. And good teams and good athletes have mastered fundamentals.
Well, that is true also in the spiritual dimension. I think that all of us would like to sort of go to sleep sometime and wake up mature. And go to sleep and wake up profound. Go to sleep and wake up skilled in ministry. Spiritually acute.
Wise. We'd like to wake up some morning and be able to apply all spiritual truth to all dimensions of our life. But it isn't the result of wishing. or wanting or hoping or thinking. Or imagining or even of positively confessing.
It's a result of the fundamentals. We must learn at some point in our Christian experience. That we have to apply ourselves to certain spiritual fundamentals. if we are going to be mature. If we are going to be effective, if we are going to be all that God would want us to be.
And so, with all of the profound things that Peter might have said to close this epistle. And It would be a... An exercise in imagination to concoct all of the things he might have said, all of the great mysteries of God he might have enlightened us about, all of the great divine secrets that he might have exposed for our understanding, all of the profound mysteries that are still hidden to us that he might have revealed. There would have been an infinite wealth of data in the mind of God which could have been given to us. To expand our horizons, to help us see deeper and farther and higher.
into the things of God. But what did Peter do? He went back to the fundamentals. Almost as if at the end he says, Now, by the way. Let's get back to the basics.
And so Peter chooses to reiterate the fundamental attitudes for spiritual maturity to this congregation to whom he writes that are scattered. by persecution. They are in great difficulty. They are suffering unjustly. In some cases, they are suffering without mercy at the hands of people who have misrepresented them.
They do not deserve the persecution that they are receiving. And so, all the more important that they get back in touch with the fundamentals. In times of prosperity, in times when everything goes well, it might be a little bit easier to conduct yourself in a spiritual way, but when all adversity has come against you like a flood, you better be good at the fundamentals because it's what you do with the fundamentals in the time of greatest stress. that makes the greatest effect.
Now What you have then, beginning in verse 5, is a series of imperatives, a series of commands, and they come in an almost staccato fashion. Almost rapid fire like a machine gun, one right after the other. Peter fires them out. And they remind us of the basic attitudes necessary for our maturity.
Now, I want you to keep in mind that they all are attitudes. They have not so much to do with how we act as how we think. Not so much to do with What our actions are as what our motives are. These are the matters Of spiritual attitudes. That are the building blocks for spiritual maturity.
Now remember, he has already exhorted the leaders in verses 1 to 4. And now he turns in verse 5 from the shepherds to the sheep. And he uses the word likewise. You see it there in verse five. Likewise, throughout this epistle, is Peter's word for a transition to a new group.
Back Earlier in chapter 2, He was talking about Various groups. In chapter 2. Of this epistle, he is concerned. that we act in a certain way. Toward those who are around us.
Toward those Who are in the world. In verse 13, he says, Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as one in authority. Or the governors? As sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. To the praise of those who do right.
All in authority, governors, kings, the implication here, people in authority, police, soldiers, whatever they are, you are to submit yourselves to them. Then he moves to a different group. In verse 18, He says, servants, you be submissive to your masters? With all respect, Then coming down into chapter 3, he picks up that word likewise. Likewise, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands.
So he starts out by saying: you're to be submissive to all the authority. Servants, you're to be submissive to your masters, and likewise, you wives, you be submissive to your husbands.
So, when we're over here in chapter 5 and we note the word likewise, we get the idea that he's moving from the group he'd just been talking about to a new group. He's been talking about leaders, now he's talking about people. He motivated the pastors to shepherd their flock.
Now he exhorts the sheep to proper spiritual. Attitudes. This applies to us, then, as sheep, to all of us, to all of you. And Peter will fire out command after command after command after command. You'll be familiar with them.
You'll see them in a new and a fresh way, I'm quite sure. And you'll find it's a wonderful review because we always have to go back to the basics, don't we? Always have to go back to the fundamentals. And that's exactly where Peter takes us. If you're going to be mature, you get there by starting out with these basic attitudes.
Attitude number one. Attitude number one. An attitude of Submission. An attitude of Submission. It's not as if he hasn't already talked about submission.
In fact, I just told you in chapter 2, he talked about the fact that we're to be submissive to all authority. We're to be submissive servants to those who employ us and are over us. We're to be submissive in marriage.
So, submission is not a new theme here. In fact, it's a relatively familiar one in the epistle. But now, in chapter 5, he says that we are to be. Subject To elders. He writes, You younger men likewise be subject.
to your elders.
Now he identifies young men here. Why does he do that? Why doesn't he just say everybody ought to submit to elders? Everybody.
Well I'm not sure I can tell you what was in his mind or the mind of the Holy Spirit, but I can make a stab at it. First of all, it was young men who tended to be aggressive. Young men who the Apostle Paul reminds Timothy tend to strive. toward prominence. Young men who are enamored with their own ideas and tend to be somewhat disparaging about the ideas of the older generation.
Young men who might be aspiring to the eldership, to the shepherd's role. And so he reminds the young men, who would probably be the most headstrong in any assembly of believers, that they are to be subject to the elders. It really wouldn't be an issue. For Old men? They would be the saintly, mature ones.
It wouldn't be an issue for women because women already were subject to their own husbands. He made that clear in chapter 3.
So, really, the only people within the congregation who would pose a sort of imminent threat to the submission aspect would be the younger men. But I think the spirit of what he says sweeps through the whole congregation. We can simply assume that the older men were the older men and therefore wouldn't be subjected to the older men. and that the women knew their role and knew their place. And so, all that remains really is the young man who would tend to be headstrong and maybe pursue roles of leadership which they were not suited for.
So he starts out by saying, Be subject to your elders. But the spirit of that pervades the whole of the church. All believers are to be subject to those who are over them in the Lord. Who are their shepherds? Who are the older, mature saints?
Be subject. The word again, hupataso. means to line up under. It's a military term, means to get in line under their leadership. And so he is saying, in effect, Everybody, particularly the headstrong young men, needs to get in line under the authority of the elders and the shepherds, the pastors.
And he may even include in the word elders here the senior saints. Those who are the models of spiritual maturity. It's a call for respect, beloved. It's a call for honor. It's a call to give deference to those in spiritual leadership.
I will tell you, and I tell you this with an aching heart because I've endured this through the years, in some cases personally, in many cases through friendships with other men in the ministry, nothing is more distressing than a congregation of people who do not hold respect for those who are in spiritual authority over them. Conversely, I confess to you, nothing is more discouraging to a congregation than irresponsible spiritual leadership. But where you have responsible, godly, and mature spiritual leadership, you are to give honor and deference and respect and submission to those. That is a fundamental attitude of spiritual maturity. That is a foundation.
And I have seen in my lifetime the ebb and flow and the come and go of many gifted people who were given by God great natural gifts and by the Spirit of God significant spiritual gifts who never achieved a measure of spiritual maturity and usefulness because they never learned to slay their own pride, ambition, and need to be preeminent. Who never learned to submit to someone else's leadership and authority. That is a spiritual principle that should pervade the life of those in the church. We are to be submissive to those who are. over us.
It couldn't be clear. Be subject to your elders.
Now, what is he talking about with this word elders? Does he mean just the old men?
Well, I would take it that back in verse 1, when he exhorts the elders to shepherd the flock of God, he's talking about the spiritual leaders, not just the older people. And I would assume that he here has the same thing in mind: that you are to be subject to your elders, and particularly is that. Noteworthy because he says, You young men, assuming that the young men would be the ones prone to seek the seats of leadership. They did not really deserve. And so I believe he's saying that we are to have an attitude of spiritual submission to those that God has placed over us as our shepherds.
Now, I don't want you to get the idea that That I have some personal agenda. I'm just teaching you the Bible, and that's where it is, and that's what it says. But I believe with all my heart that this can destroy churches and has and continues to destroy churches. If it is not. an attitude in the hearts of the people.
At the end of the letter to the Corinthians, the first letter, Paul writes. I urge you, brethren, chapter 16, verse 15. You know the household of Stephanus, that they were the firstfruits of Achaia and that they devoted themselves for ministry to the saints. I urge you that you also be in subjection to such men and to everyone who helps in the work and labors. The people of God must learn to submit themselves to those in spiritual leadership.
And it is not a question of perfection on our part. We're not perfect. It is a question of spirituality. that you are to submit. This is something that becomes a theme on the heart of the Apostle Paul.
Not only in a general sense does he say in Ephesians 5:21, be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. In other words, generally, we ought to be submissive to each other, but he gets very specific about those in leadership. Look at 1 Thessalonians 2. Chapter 5. In 1 Thessalonians 5:12, he says this, and he's writing to this very noble church in Thessalonica.
very godly people. Though they were brand new Christians and had only known the Lord for a number of months. And though they had not had the benefit of spiritual leadership being there, Paul staying just a brief time. And though they were in the midst of paganism, Which was at its worst, yet they were such a wonderful congregation. But he reminds them as men emerge in the role of spiritual leadership, and of course Paul and Silas and Timothy were leaders they already knew, and as more men moved into the role of leadership, this is what he says.
But we request of you, brethren. That you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord, and give you instruction. And that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. This is such Significant Advice.
And then he says, assuming some people are going to get out of line, verse 14: you better admonish the unruly. You better admonish the unruly, the ones who will not submit. Need to be admonished or exhorted or warned.
So Paul says to the Thessalonians, You need to appreciate the people who diligently labor among you, who do spiritual ministry in your midst. who have charge over you. And who give you instruction, those are elders. They teach you, they lead you. You are to esteem them very highly.
You are to love them, not because they're so lovable, but because of the work they have been called to do. That is a very essential spiritual Attitude. And I promise you. If you do not, Have an attitude. Of submission toward those over you in the Lord, you give evidence of a lack of the foundation for spiritual maturity.
And your life will be hindered. in its growth. In Titus, look at chapter 3 for a moment. A little broader context and yet The principle is the same. Paul says to Titus, as you go ministering in the church.
Remind them to be subject to rulers. Two authorities. To be obedient. to be ready for every good deed. Be subject.
He doesn't even qualify who these rulers and authorities are. It's very general. Whether they are in the society or in the church. And then he says this, and here's the practicality of it. Verse 2, to malign no one.
That is not to speak against anyone in authority. to be uncontentious. to be gentle. To be showing every consideration for all men. This is to characterize believers.
Our lives are submissive. to those in spiritual leadership. Look at Hebrews 13 and this Maybe the most Direct and decisive text. Hebrews 13 verse 7. Says Remember those who led you?
Who spoke the word of God to you? Remember them. And considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.
So the first thing he says is the people who led you. and taught you Who lived out the spiritual life. You imitate them. You imitate them. But then notice verse 17.
He goes farther than just imitating them. He says in verse 17, obey your leaders. and submit to them. Do what they say. and submit to them.
For they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. They're responsible to God. Your responsibility to God is to submit. Their responsibility to God is to make sure their leadership is what it ought to be. And if you will submit This is so important, the middle of verse 17.
Then you will let them do their work with joy and not with grief. Because if they have to do it with grief, This is unprofitable for you. Nobody wants a grieving shepherd. Nobody wants a heartbroken leader. And yet, church after church after church after church after church experiences that very reality.
Because you have a people who won't submit. You have a grieving leader. whose ministry becomes unprofitable. One writer says In submission, We engage the experience of those in our fellowship. who are qualified to direct our efforts in growth.
And who then add the weight of their wise authority on the side of our willing spirit to help us do the things we would like to do and refrain from the things we don't want to do? They oversee the godly order. in our souls. End quote. I like that.
We engage their experience. We engage their wisdom. We engage their authority. to oversee us. in a godly order.
Spiritual maturity always calls for An attitude of submission. And if you don't have that, Not only do you make the ministry difficult, The servant of the Lord sorrowful and grieving. But you will. fail to have a cornerstone. in your own spiritual life.
You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today's lesson is from John's series called A Practical Path to Spiritual Maturity.
Now, John covered a lot of ground as he looked at the role submission plays in your pursuit of godliness. To help you really take hold of and apply what John covered in today's lesson, I would encourage you to get a practical path to spiritual maturity on three MP3 downloads. The transcripts are also available, both the MP3s and the transcripts, are free of charge at gty.org. Get in touch today. Our web address again, gty.org.
This is a great study to share with new believers or anyone who needs a refresher on the fundamentals of Christian living. Again, a practical path to spiritual maturity. Is available free of charge along with every message from John's more than 50 years of pulpit ministry at gty.org. And friend, just a reminder that this is an important time financially for our ministry. About a quarter of our annual budget is met by gifts we receive in the last few weeks of the year.
So as we prepare for a new year of ministry opportunities, thanks for doing what you can to help us start 2026 on a sound financial footing. To make a tax-deductible donation, go to our website gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week with us. Join us again tomorrow when John MacArthur considers what just might be the most important factor in your spiritual growth. See what it is, and how to put it into practice as we continue John's study called A Practical Path to Spiritual Maturity. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you.
