Signs of Spiritual Immaturity Pt 1

If you have your Bibles.

We're not an if church, we are a as church, right? Since you have your Bibles. Turn with me to Hebrews 5, and when you find your place, you're welcome and invited to stand as we honor the Word of God. Hebrews 5, we're going to read verse 11 through 14. And this week and next week, we're going to be looking at 10 signs of spiritual immaturity, 10 signs of spiritual immaturity.

And we want to look at five of those this week and five next week. Hebrews chapter five, verse 11, the Bible says, Of whom we have many things to say. And in verse one through 10, he just got done talking about the priesthood of Jesus Christ, comparing him to Melchizedek. And he says in verse 11, Of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing, for when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles or the sayings, the utterances of God and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. Even those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Father, your word is such a joy and honor to be able to stand and read. And Lord, our hearts desire is to be molded by the potter.

We want you to have your way with us, do in our life what we can accomplish on our own. We need to be sanctified. We need to be set apart lights in this world for the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel. Lord, we are so thankful that we can serve you in this world, that our life is not wasted, that our days are filled with purpose and meaning. And God, I pray that you would help us to live according to the will of God, which is found in the word of God.

Give us maturity. Lord, help us to grow up as believers to be all that you've called us to be. And that is the fullness of the stature of Christ. And we ask it in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen.

You may be seated this evening. Well, in life, as both people and Christians, it's important to know the things that you're supposed to do that are right and biblical. But it's also important to know the things that you're not supposed to do and things to avoid. The Bible speaks not only of signs of maturity that believers should partake in. And I had done a series a few years ago on 30 signs of spiritual maturity. But the Bible also warns against immaturity, things that will evidence a person is a babe in Christ, if you would, that is needing to grow up.

So I want to take a couple of weeks and look at 10 signs of spiritual immaturity that we can navigate in the Bible. You know, one of the great blessings of life is not only marriage, but the product of marriage, which is children. Psalm 127, verse three, the Bible says, Lo, children are a heritage or an inheritance or a gift of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. Children are a blessing. I am so thankful for kids.

I'm so thankful for the children God has given to me. But you don't want to be a parent forever with children in your home. I mean, I have four children. I love my children.

I'm glad they're in my home. But in 20 years from now, I don't want them to still be in my home, because they should have advanced to the point where they're having their own families, right? I mean, if you have all four of your children and they're in their 40s living at home, it's like, you know, circumstances can create that, but you would want them to have a job, have a family, have something that they're moving on to with their own. And so even though you love your kids, you want to see them grow, to be healthy, to be able to manage life and their family on their own. You then look forward to your children having children, right? And who here has found that grandchildren are such a great blessing as well? And one day in my whenever future, I'll be able to experience that, and I look forward to that. But we love being parents, and parents one day love being grandparents.

But that truth is not only in the physical realm you need to understand, but also in the spiritual realm. There's no greater joy than having a child in the Lord leading someone unto the knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ, seeing them spiritually born or born again. It is a joy raising them, seeing them grow to develop and help them through the ups and downs.

But you don't want to raise them forever. You want to see them to go on and have spiritual children of their own, to see them leading other people to Christ and discipling other people in the Lord. You want to be a spiritual grandparent if you would. And so over the past 14 and a half years, we've seen many people through this church, and next month we'll be celebrating our 15-year anniversary, excited about that. But we've seen many people baptized. We've seen many people come to Christ and get baptized, growing in the Lord, people who went from being lost to being saved, and now faithfully serving the Lord. Many of you have experienced that joy in your life. 3 John, verse 4, John writes, I have no greater joy, no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

And as parents, that's the truth, isn't it? I was talking to one of the dear ladies just Sunday, and her grandson had recently fully committed his life to Christ and got baptized. He got baptized in another church in a city that he lives in, but he wore a Lighthouse Baptist Church t-shirt. I said, there you go. He said, I'm representing Lighthouse. I said, there you go. So, but his grandmother said, my cheeks are hurting because I've been smiling so much from the joy that God has, just the blessings of the Lord.

And it is. It's just the greatest joy in your life. The greatest joy in life is not see your kids make a bunch of money.

It's not seeing them do physical things. The greatest joy is to see them love Christ, to spiritually grow, and that's so rewarding. Now, this next month, as we celebrate 15 years, what a joy to see the growth God is doing and will continue to do. But anything that is healthy is a living organism should be growing and developing. Numerically, it should have some kind of growth, should have some kind of spiritual growth. There should always be some growth going on. If you're not growing, you're going in the wrong direction, right? And so we must all be in the maturing process.

We need to personally be growing. We need to be personally challenging ourselves in the Word of God. I was just talking to one of the precious older ladies in the service, so you won't know which one it was.

So I need to leave that vague. When I said the word older, I realized I'm in a trap right now as I speak in front of this congregation that I love, and I just trust loves me. And so, but they were saying how they love to memorize verses at night before they go to bed, and they wake up, and that verse is on their mind, and I said, that's so wonderful.

But what that does is encourages me that as an older saint in the Lord, that they're still at night memorizing verses before bed. You know, you just never stop. You never stop pulling in the Word of God into your heart.

And we must all be, because here's the thing. When you are growing, guess what that affects with the people around you? When you're rubbing shoulders with somebody close to you that is reading and praying faithfully and memorizing Scripture and doing hear journals and faithful to the house of God and sharing the Gospel, it's hard not to be impacted by that. You are influenced by that. So growing Christians help grow other Christians. In the same sense, when you're not growing, when you're spiritually declining or being stagnant, it affects other people. It's like parts of our body that are not operating as effective as we want them to operate.

When you wake up and your leg isn't working like it should or your back is not wanting to work functionally like it was designed to because you didn't take care of it, it affects what you can accomplish. And so as Christians, when we are not being what God's called us to be, it affects other people. You and I don't live in an isolated bubble. We, they, sociologists have said that the most introverted person will affect about 10,000 people in their lifetime, the most introverted. Now there's some introverted people I could speak to right now, but I'm telling, usually they're found somewhere in the last couple of rows. But you know what, sometime I'm going to preach from the back.

We're going to go mobile, you know, and see how that works. But you're going to affect a lot of people. There's going to be a lot of people that you're going to influence. And if I'm going to influence a lot of people, I need to be influenced right.

And the question you need to ask yourself is what is influencing you and how are you doing as far as your growing process? Today I want to look at some marks of immaturity, things that evidence Christians need to grow up. Physically, we all come into the world the same way. We come in as infants, cute little adorable infants.

Spiritually, we all come into the world the same way also. We become spiritual infants in Christ. Matthew 18, 3, Jesus told us, except you are converted and become as little children, you can't enter the kingdom.

You come like a babe in Christ with your faith in the Lord. So we all start as children, but there is also a time to grow up. That's why 1 Peter 2 says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby, there should be a growth as a Christian. 1 Corinthians 14, 20, Paul told the church at Corinth, be not children in understanding, but in malice be ye children. Be simple, don't know all the sinful things of the world, but in understanding be men. It could also be translated as be mature. So there needs to be a maturing process, grow up in the Lord, mature. And between again today and next week, I want to look at 10 signs of spiritual immaturity, areas that you and I can examine and say, is that something that I need to grow in?

That's a warning sign for me that I need to advance past. Again, you will go to a doctor who will do a test on your body to find out if there are areas that need to be improved, right? And they're like, yeah, how's your exercise been, sir? How's your, you know, they just said they're going to build a $44 million medical center across the street from us.

I don't know if you knew about that, but right across the street there. A good thing we, God gave us this property before a lot of these other things went on, right? What a blessing. But you will get your body checked out to make sure, and he'll let you know things you're doing that look good and things that are not looking good and things you need to do to change that. And so this is really one of those spiritual body scans. And the first thing is in verse 11 of chapter 5 that we need to be aware of, and it's a warning of being dull of hearing, dull of hearing. He says, of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered.

It's hard for me, he's saying, to share these things with you because you are dull of hearing. When you have a baby, you try to get its attention, what's the baby do? And I remember our first child, I'm like, hey Lacy, look at me, Lacy, look at me, sweetie.

And what do they do? They look everywhere but at you. It's like, where are you going? My second child was the most wonderfully content, sweet, precious. She would let you hold her.

She would just, she would look at you and smile. My firstborn, you couldn't hold her for more than two seconds. She's on the go. Anybody have a child like that, you're like, I'm going to hold you until you cry and stay here, you know? They just had to be on the go and it's like, man, you know? But they always want to look around. They just get, they can't pay attention to what you're saying. Their attention span is just not there. Babies are dull of hearing and that they don't pay good attention to what you tell them. And that's why we have to tell them a lot of times, pay attention, pay attention. We say those kind of things.

But as a baby, they just drift off. Hebrews 5.11 says you're dull of hearing. It's a Greek word, nathroy, and it's the only other place that it's used in the New Testament is in chapter 6, verse 12, where it's translated as slothful or lazy and sluggish hearing. So it's translated as dull hearing or sluggish, lazy or slothful hearing. The author was teaching on Christ's high priestly office in chapter 5 and he had to put it down and talk about some other things and then pick it back up in chapter 7 because they were so slow of hearing.

They just couldn't pay attention to grasp it all. Jesus said in Matthew 11.15, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Matthew 13.9, Matthew 13.43, he kept repeating that. Revelation 2.7, you see to the...each of the seven churches in Revelation, he says, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He kept saying, in other words, pay attention. Listen up.

Don't miss this. Jesus would say, amen, amen, or verily, verily, truly, truly, like, listen to what I'm saying here. One thing that will hinder the normal Christian growth is a lazy hearing of the Word of God. You know, in John 16, verse 12, Jesus said something very fascinating. He told the disciples, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. There's things I want to tell you, but you just can't handle it. You know, that's true of some new Christians and even some Christians that are older. They choke on some things. They just are not ready to hear them.

It's hard for them to bear certain things. And so, you know, God didn't give us the Bible all at one time. He gave it to us over 1,500 years. So be patient with me as I'm taking time going through the Gospel of Matthew, all right? Boy, I threw that in there, didn't I?

I don't know if it equates or not. But there was a progressive revelation. There was a progressive...you see monotheism very strong in the Old Testament, and you see in the New Testament, the Old Testament, the Trinity was veiled. In the New Testament, it was revealed. You can see the Trinity in the Old Testament at times, like in Job 34, verse 4, the breath of the Almighty, have given me life. You read, like, Genesis chapter 1, where verse, I think, 1, in the beginning, Elohim, Elohim is the plural name for God. And so some say, well, that's a plurality of majesty. Well, it's really a plurality of persons because he says, let us make man in our image, right?

So you don't see just a single there anyway. But there's a progressive layer of revelation as you go through the Scriptures, and there are times where Christians can be hindered from receiving the Word of God because they haven't spent any time in the Word of God to even begin the process of taking it in. What I tell people sometimes is at Lighthouse, we want to do adult church here. We train people to hear and understand and learn the Word of God. We're not doing 15-minute sermonettes and trying to entertain. We want to go down into the Word so we can go up in praise.

And it takes focus, doesn't it? I mean, you know, I preach 50-plus minutes every sermon, and you keep coming back. And what's crazy is I showed you some statistics recently. We have a great number of all ages.

Our church looks like the city, which is a good thing. We don't demographically go after a certain group of people. But there is a large influx of young families coming into Lighthouse over the last year. And it's shown because of—and I showed you some of those things in the last couple months where because of the COVID deal, it caused a lot of elderly people to become nervous and they became isolated. I don't know if you realize this, but when people become isolated, they stay in isolation. They get in a bubble, and they don't want to come out of it. And if you're watching me and you're in a bubble, you need to get out of your bubble. Preacher's poking your bubble right now, okay? Out of the bubble. Come here.

And it's, well, I get my comfort zone. Yeah, Jesus isn't going to give you a bubble in heaven. You're going to be around people, and you need to. How do you minister to the body if you're not around the people, right? But there needs to be a growth process.

There needs to be a people that have trained their ears to pay attention to where they don't have—I was talking to a pastor who's asked me to come and do a revival for him. And I said, how long do you want me to preach? And he's okay for it to go long as whatever, but it usually gets done under 30 minutes. And so I said, well, it's probably going to be a little longer than that. He said, you go as long as you want. That's fine. But you don't want to say as long as you want.

There needs to be a cap because you'll get me in trouble if you say something like that. But I think it's also to say, when you study the Bible, you train yourself to study the Bible. Does that make sense? If you can't sit down and pay attention for more than five minutes without looking at your phone, there's a problem. You probably need to fast. This has become a sin idol.

Well I just got to check this real quick. No, let's turn that off and let's turn this on. We become dull of hearing. That is a sign of immaturity. Now I understand kids today struggle with ADD, ADHD, and some of that stuff that people try to—but I can tell you, one of the big causations of that is an overload of media. And kids that—just think about it, if a kid sits down in front of entertainment that is flashing before them eight to ten hours a day, and then you go sit them in a class with—my daughter has five classes in a day, each one hour and a half, an hour and a half, with a whiteboard behind you, and they're lecturing for an hour and a half.

How do you go from eight to ten hours to being able to sit there and stay focused? You see what I'm saying? People are being set up to fail. So you have to train yourself and wean yourself off of some of these things, and I'm speaking to all of us, because we all have failed at that, right? And then our—I even put it on mute, sometimes my watch will beep at me, I'm like, you unsanctified watch, I'm in the middle of prayer! Aren't you dull of hearing?

You know, don't you know? Depart from me, simple watch. So don't shortcut yourself in having stamina spiritually and a focused attention.

So some things that—three things I would say that cause dull, sluggish hearing is one is a lack of desire. You know, people learn what they want to learn. If you desire the Word, you're going to learn the Word. The Bible says in Psalm 119, 97, oh how I love thy law, it's my meditation all the day.

The love preceded the meditation. If you love NASCAR, you're going to learn about cars and drivers. If you love golf, you're going to learn how to hit the ball.

If you love technology, you're going to learn about gadgets. If you love politics, you're going to be miserable. But lack of desire. Secondly is a lack of focus. It causes people to be dull of hearing. In our fast-paced world, it's so easy, Sunday night, Braden gave a good message on Luke 10 verse 38 through 42, but where we can become Marthas instead of Marys.

Anybody ever have that problem in life? And listen, it wasn't that Martha was doing something sinful. Martha was doing something very good.

But the good can take the place of the best. She was serving Jesus, but it wasn't what was needful. Sitting before Jesus was needful. So it's not that you're doing things sinful that can bring you away from the things of God.

It can be very good things. So what we need to learn to do is say, you know what, I need to make time for Christ and not find time. That is a difference of what's known as priority. Finding time is not a priority. Making time is a priority. You don't find time to go to work.

You all with me? They'll find a way to fire you. You make time. You make time. And it's a priority. So the third thing is a lack of care. Is a lack of care. So a lack of desire, a lack of focus, and then a lack of care. Apathy toward God. Just being casual. You know, just a casual attitude. You know why we stand to read?

Because they did that in the Old Testament, Nehemiah chapter 8, where they would stand and read the word of God. And giving it reverence, giving it weightiness. So do you lack a focus, desire, or care?

That's a reflection of being sluggish here. Then we need to mature in that. Secondly, dependent on their teachers, this is another sign of spiritual immaturity.

Hebrews 5-12 says, for when the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. You know, one sign of an infant is they can't feed themselves. I learned early on, I'm not good at feeding, I wasn't good at feeding my kids. My wife was like a ninja with that little spoon. You ever see these moms? I'm like, I put it in, it comes out, by the end of it, it's on me, it's in my hair, it's in their hair.

I don't even know if they ate any of it. I'm trying to stuff it in there, they slop it out, and she just whoop, whoop, whoop, and that child takes it down, it's like next scoop. I'm like, how did you even do that? I was talking to a young dad earlier this week, and got into changing diapers, and I'm on my 15th baby wipe over here trying to clean this child up, and they're like one wipe. It's like, how do you figure that? It's just like ninja.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? These women are just, there's a skill set that men just don't have. Now, I'm not saying that so I could get out of all the diapers through the years, but they can't feed themselves, they need to be fed. But after so many weeks and months, the joy of feeding them turns into a desire for them to start feeding themselves. It's like, boy, it's going to be nice when I can sit down to a meal and eat together, you know, and the child is able to eat as well, and as they grow, they begin to eat first soft foods, you know, and then they eat pieces of food, then finally they eat meatier food, and one side of an infant is that they would not survive if they did not have a caretaker, a mother, a parent that was caring for them.

They are totally dependent upon them for survival. But once the child begins to grow, it can begin to feed themself, and can live without the feeding hand of a parent. This is a spiritual reality for Christians. A Christian should be able to grow enough that they would not starve to death if the pastor died or moved away. Now, I'm not planning on moving anywhere, I plan on staying here until I die unless the Lord would have whatever He'd have me to do, but you must learn to feed yourself, whether Pastor Josh, Pastor Braden, Pastor Alex, none of the pastors at Lighthouse should be your sole dependent source of food and nourishment.

You have to feed yourself, and most of you already do this. You're waking up in the morning, you're reading your word, you're studying, you're growing, I'm preaching to the choir, I understand that, but you have to do that. The writer here of Hebrews says for when the time you ought to be teachers, he's saying by now you should have advanced, not only to the point where you're feeding yourself, but you're able to do what?

You're able to feed other people. He said you ought to be teachers. Every Christian should be a teacher.

Parents, you are teachers to your children. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.15, from a child you've known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation. Somebody taught Timothy, it was his mom and his grandmother, his dad was not a believer. So for them to teach him the holy scriptures, they had to what? Know the holy scriptures. Believers are to teach other believers. Colossians 3.16 says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, notice, teaching and admonishing who? One another. If I'm sitting at home only watching services online, can I do the one another ministry?

You can't do it. The koinonia, the fellowship of the saints, you can't do that without being in the body. You have to be there to minister one to another. And that's organic.

That's organic. Why don't you talk to a Christian after service sometime and you're sharing your heart with them and they're sharing truths from God's word that are edifying and encouraging and helpful to you and what they got filled up with, what God showed them, what God grew them in, they're now able to pass on to you and it just becomes to organically enhance the body and you're able to help build one another up. And also, believers are to feed unbelievers the truth of God's word. We are to declare the word of God to them even though they're not saved. They need to hear the truth as 1 Peter 3.15 says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to everyone that asks a reason of the hope that's in you with weakness and fear.

You need to be ready to give an answer. The word answer there is for the word of, is the Greek word apologia where we get the word apologetics from which means a defense, you're giving a defense of the faith to anyone who asks you why you believe that. One great evidence of a growing believer is that they have the ability to defend the truth, to give an answer. A sign of an immaturity is when you stand speechless because you've not exercised your heart and mind in the word of God, you've not studied the scriptures to be able to give an answer.

All Christians are learners and all need to grow, but there should be learning and growing. And I can tell you this much, your Christian faith will be thrilling for you when you share the gospel. When you tell other people of Christ, because you're going to be like, man, I need to go home and study this. And you ever had that situation where it really was a challenging situation in your life, maybe an evangelistic situation with a friend, and maybe they had a strong belief against what you were saying? And what did you do? You went and you studied more than you ever have.

And what drove you to that? Evangelism. And some people are like, you know, my passion and my faith has just kind of waned a little bit because you need to get off the bench and get in the game. We need to share Christ. And when you're sharing Christ, I can tell you, you will feel the joy and excitement and challenge and all of that's intertwined. Hebrews 5-12 says, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles or the utterances or the sayings of God. So instead of passing on truth, he said, you're just still soaking it in. You're still bottle feeding.

You're still just nourishing yourself. You know, in Israel, there's two main bodies of water that are well known, the Sea of Galilee and then the Dead Sea. The Jordan River flows into both of them. What's interesting is the Jordan River flows all the way down through Israel into the Sea of Galilee, and then it flows out of the Sea of Galilee all the way south down through Jericho into the Dead Sea, and the Dead Sea doesn't flow anywhere. The Dead Sea only receives and it never gives. And everything is dead. And that's what you and I have to be careful of is that we don't become soakers and not sewers.

We have to invest. And you'll feel it. You'll feel it like, you know, you're filling yourself up and it's like, I need to share this with somebody. I need to tell somebody.

I need to relay this information to somebody. I can tell you, if you're a strong Christian growing, you will have some unsettledness in your life at times. And sometimes you don't know why you're unsettled. Sometimes you're like, and you're like, is there something off in my life? Is this, you know, am I doing something wrong? No, it's a lot of times you're doing something very right. And God is stirring you to move you to do something greater.

And He's, the only way to get you there is to make you so uncomfortable that it advances you. I've had people come into my office weeping, saying, Pastor, I need to meet, and we sit down and they're talking. They're crying.

They're like, I don't know what's going on, but I just feel so pressed in my heart and I don't know what God's doing and can you help me? And I'm like, I love it. I love you feel miserable right now.

Yes. I have felt so miserable in my life, sometimes inwardly pressed spiritually. And I don't, but what happens is it was something in the very near future God was preparing my heart to say yes to.

And it was like, oh, now I know. I got so miserable in Bible college, I began to fast and just, just, oh God, what do you want me to do? I can't, you know, I just soaking in and I'm like, I need to teach something. I need to just share, and we'd go out in the streets at times, share Christ. But then my brother called and said, hey, I'm going to be starting a church in Chillicothe. And we, yes, I'll be there, yes, yes. Like just the stirring of your soul in a level that, and these kinds of things have happened throughout my life. And it's usually some new ministry he wants to launch, something else he's wanting to turn your focus to, but that'll happen to you.

So if you, if you know that, and you come to my office, just know I'm going to say yes! As you wipe your tears away and you're feeling weight. Because God is leading when you're following, and He's going to lead you to where He wants you to be. We don't live in fear, we live by faith, and we walk according to what God wants, and just, just know that reality can happen. Now one of the signs of depending upon their teachers is an immature believer, what they, what they do according to what verse 13 says of Hebrews chapter 5 here, it says they are unskillful, unskillful in the word, it says for everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, he is a babe. The word unskillful means they are without experience, they're inexperienced. This speaks of the immature believers lack of experiences keeping them from the deeper truths of Christ. It is important at this point for me to say there is a difference between biblical wisdom and biblical knowledge. Biblical knowledge is having the information, biblical wisdom is using it. The Bible doesn't see you even knowing it until you've practiced it. To the Jew, it was application that evidenced that you actually knew it. It's not just reciting it, well you know how to replace those blakes, oh I know how to replace them, well then show me.

Take the jack out, jack that up, take the hubcap off, take all, you know, let me see if you know how to do this. You say you know, you have the information, but do you have the application, does that make sense? And by applying your knowledge, you're actually doing what wisdom is, and you have understanding. So a lot of, all of us know what it's like thinking you know, because all of us were teenagers once, right? Well we thought we knew, right? Oh I know, I know, I know mom, dad, oh I know, I know, you ever been told that by your teenager? You're like hey honey, why don't you, oh I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. And they tell you I know like 50,000, and you're like oh what do you know?

Tell me what you know. And then when they find out they didn't know, they're like oh can you help me with this? And sometimes that comes when we're 20 years old or 22, we finally start learning that we don't know as much as we thought. And so, but the reason for that is because when we're young, we just don't have the life experience, right?

I mean there are some teenagers that are very sharp and have a lot of wisdom, I'm not saying there aren't some, but they lack life experience. So as Christians, you have to be in service of the Lord, you have to serve other people, you have to be involved in ministry at some level. And so the immaturity of these believers in Hebrews was due to their lack of using the word of God. Look at what verse 14 goes on to say, notice what he says here in verse 14. He says, but strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, the word there is the idea of who are fully mature, even those who by, what's the next three words?

Reason of what? Of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So they use it just as a baby grows in strength to exercise their hand and arm muscles to be able to hold a spoon to feed themself. So a Christian needs to learn to use their spiritual muscles to be able to share the gospel. Does that make sense? So all of hearing dependent on their teachers, just relying on their teachers, if you have a lost loved one, you need to be ready to share the gospel with them. Dr. Josh will come to the house, hospital, I will go there and talk with them, Braden will, Alex, I mean, staff guys will, but I can tell you, they could come into a situation where they need you to tell them the gospel within the next five minutes because they're needing to know it.

We need to be ready, right? So don't be just dependent upon your teachers. Thirdly, deceived, one sign of an immature Christian is they're deceived easily by false teaching. Mature Christians can be led astray, and the problem is sometimes they think they're mature, but they're actually immature. One sign of a child is they're gullible, like they can believe things that are not true.

Santa Claus, sorry to bust any bubbles tonight, right? You can get a child to believe something much easier than an older person. Now the same thing is true for a young believer, the blessing is that they have a faith to believe God, but the weakness of it is they have a faith that's vulnerable to false teachers. And I can tell you today through the internet and YouTube, there are all kinds of false teachings, and I don't know, it blows my mind sometimes, I'm like, how does that guy have a half million views on that foolish teacher, that was just insane.

Like who watches that? Like the deception blows my mind. People can be deceived easily. Paul said in Ephesians 4 verse 14 that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Paul tells us that one sign of an immature Christian is that they get tossed around different false doctrines. Immature believers inevitably drift from teaching to teaching, from one video to another video, not discerning true from false teachers.

I had a couple who left the church maybe five years ago when there was some different blood moons going on, and there was a guy who went down a rabbit trail of he knew exactly when Jesus, the day that Jesus was coming back. And he deceived a young lady in our church to start believing some of this stuff, and I shouldn't have said this, but I did, I said, did you teach her that while you were smoking weed or when you were not, because he said, well, actually, I was just getting off it at the time. I was like, okay, because I knew he smoked weed, that's why he said it. So in other words, is God giving you these divine insights while you're getting high or before you're getting high, right? You see the level of insanity here?

So you were smoking weed, and then God gave you some insights, and now she's going to believe you because you line up some stars and some astrological nonsense that you've put together and got this individual out of church, got them out of church, and just became a mess. And it's clear, and it's like, how could you sit at Lighthouse and listen to right teaching for all that time, and this guy starts telling you some wacky stuff, and you just fly away with that? It makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes.

I wanted to grab that guy out, but I didn't, but it's so sad, it absolutely breaks my heart when I see that stuff, and you just have to be weary of that. That's why we get into the Word of God. That's why when you come to Lighthouse, light shows and concerts aren't going to get people deep into the Word.

You understand? If deception was heavy early on in the church, how heavy do you think deception is now? If deception was so heavy that the first seven churches were about to be closed in Revelation because of false teaching, 2,000 years later, do we think it's going to be less?

And how much we need to know the truth, and what we need to build the Word of God on. I mean, I was just talking to somebody this last week who said they saw a volcano erupting, and they ran some numbers on it, and their spouse is telling them, this lines up with some different things in the Bible, and there's all this stuff. And now basing some truth on a volcano that erupted, some numbers that are based upon it. I'm like, what is this even talking about? But I can tell you, that's where you get that from a YouTube video somewhere.

Y'all with me? Somebody somewhere came up with some kind of whatever, and people don't read the Bible like, oh, there might be a volcano sometime. And maybe if I run through these numbers through a computer program, maybe that's the insanity of deception. So just to understand this, God is not a God, an author of confusion. And the Bible says, try the spirits whether they are of God or not.

First John 4, 1, believe, beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Galatians 1, 6, and 7, Paul says, I marvel that you're so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another gospel. Listen, he says, it's not another gospel, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Galatians 3, 1, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? I mean, he just on and on, Jude wrote, and he says, I wanted to write of our common salvation, but it was necessary to warn you. And he just, he's like, I can't even talk about an uplifting letter here to you guys in the book of Jude.

He says, because I need to warn you about all the false teachers. Jesus said, in the last days, many Christ will rise up saying, I am Christ and will deceive many. I mean, he just goes on and on and on and on.

Do you think if it's deceptive that it would be deceptive? I mean, that sounds simple, but people like, well, they talk about Jesus. Yeah, so does Satan.

Satan has no problem talking about Jesus. And so just, just be aware of that. If you ever have questions, reach out to your pastors here, you know, well, you guys are busy. No, we're not busy. We are busy, but we're like not too busy to like answer questions.

Like you are, you are valued and our time will be spent answering those. Number four is, or ask your, ask your, there's deacons in the church, teachers in the church, ask other fellow believers, a lot of wise people in the church that you can talk to. But if you ever hear something, you're like, yeah, I never heard that before, there might be a reason why. Fourthly, distracting. One sign of immaturity is not only their dull of hearing, dependent on their teachers, deceived easily, but they can be, immature believers can be distracting.

From the beginning of the church, we have had a nursery and toddler class. Why? You hear that right there? Do you hear that?

It's nice. If we had all the toddlers and infants in here, it would be noisy. And sometimes kids have to come in here for different reasons, you know, to sit with their parents for different causes, I understand that, but, but it's, it's, I, I think there is a biblical precedent to have a system like that. Listen to Nehemiah chapter eight, verse two. Nehemiah says, and Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with what? Upon the first day of the seventh month, and he read therein before the street that was for the Watergate from morning till midday before the men and the women and those that could understand, in the ears of all the people were attentive.

And here you have in Nehemiah, he says, bring all the people together, the ones who have the ability to understand it. So the ones who didn't have the ability to understand it would be what? Children. So there was some kind of system that they would have had at that time that the kids would have been.

If they were old enough, they could come and listen, but there was some kind of system there. You know, I'm not upset if a child's in the service, obviously, that can happen and that's okay. But, but if you have children that are just all over the service screaming and it's hard for people to understand what's the message is going on, and I can tell you it's hard for the parent to ever listen.

Right? It's very distracting. And parents who want to always be with their kids in the service, I can tell you that parent will limit their ability to receive the Word of God and the best thing for them is to receive the Word of God so they can give it to their children and their children are in a safe place. And I always think the nursery and toddlers and the kids' class are one of the best things for kids because they learn to socialize, be away from mom and dad for a little bit, you know, and that's a good cord to break for a time. And then when they go off to school, it's not the first time they have parent separation. They don't have panic attack because they're like, hey, I'm used to being away from mom. Every time I brought my kids to school when they were young and first time they went off school, they were fine.

When they went to preschool, when they had kindergarten, they were able to endure that because they were used to running off and socializing with other kids and it was a natural process. And I think the church is the safest place for that. Deuteronomy 31, 12 does talk about, though, where he says, bring the little ones, bring the children. So there are times, I think, when kids can be brought and there's times where I think it's good for kids to have a place where they can go so that the parents can learn without any distractions.

So there's a balance there. But the point being is this, just like children are distracting, one thing that's true of immature believers is they become very distracting. Immature believers draw attention to themself. They draw attention to themself.

They disrupt things. Just read the New Testament. What's the most disruptive church in the New Testament? The church at Corinth, right? I mean, I preached four years on 1st and 2nd Corinthians. So how many chapters were there?

The longest, you know, you had, what, 16 in 1st Corinthians and then was there 12, 13? Thank you. Thank you, Alex. I needed that.

He always knows. I need that on the computer. So there's 13. So you have 29 chapters written to one church and then you just start going down the line. I mean, you know, Galatians, you have six chapters, Ephesians, six chapters, Philippians, four chapters. So it's like, guess the most disruptive church, 29 chapters. Takes a lot of attention.

See what I'm saying? And immature Christians create a lot of, they draw a lot of attention. So instead of Paul being able to go out and evangelize, start some churches, and there's even a point where he had to leave one place where the evangelism was heavy, things were going great, and he talks about it in 2nd Corinthians, I believe, chapter 3.

He left that area because he was so burdened by the problems that were going on at Corinth. And it distracts people from, and I can tell you that that's happened here early on in the church, and I'm so thankful for the maturity that this church has moved to, and we're not a perfect church because you have me as your pastor, but we are much further along than where we started 14 years ago, but there were people getting offended over little things, and you'd have multiple people saved in the service, and somebody's upset because somebody didn't shake their hand after the service, and I'm thinking, grow up. There's three souls entered the kingdom, and you're worried about somebody sitting in your seat or some insanity.

It was so hard for me. I mean, I was like, pull my hair out, put it back in, and like, oh, I just, I got to preach tonight, and I want to preach, just get frustrated by certain things that were just, they would draw attention, and so thank you when you understand the gospel, when you love people being saved, and you're not just focused about your own self needs. Because I can tell you, do kids focus on the needs of their parents, or do they focus on their own needs? They draw attention to themself, and so, listen, there's times when you're hurting, and you need people to pour into you.

That's not what I'm talking about, but what I am talking about is where life is only about me, and we have to be careful of that. That happens sometimes, but it is a sign of immaturity if it lasts. Number five, and this will be the last one we'll give tonight, is disruptive. One thing you know about a baby or a toddler is they can make a lot of noise when they're upset. Everything's cute about a child, except one thing, the sound of their cry. It is not cute. Oh, you think it's cute.

You have forgotten, yes. That child, in the middle of the night, when it cries out, bloody murder, and my wife would have the Bose sound system in our room, you know, baby monitor right there by the child. She did that for the first one. The second and third and after that, they were fine. We're like, yeah, they'll be good. They're in the other room.

But that first one, you're like, every little noise, it sounded like Godzilla was over there, you know, moving around in the crib, shaking the room. It's like, ah, you know. But mature believers can have problems with someone, and they don't air the dirty laundry. There's some people, they could be very offended by something somebody did, but they're not going around spreading it. One thing you know about an immature believer is if somebody hurt their feelings, everybody knows about it. They socialize it, they social media it, I mean, it's blasted everywhere.

They air it all out there. James 3 talks about this. James 3 verse 5 says, even so, the tongue's a little member, it boasts great things.

Behold how great a matter a little fire kindles. If you ever want a verse to memorize, memorize that. A tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among the members, it defileth the whole body, it set on fire the course of nature, and it set on fire of Gehenna, like the lowest of hell. For every kind of beast and birds and serpents and things to see could be tamed, he said, but the tongue can no man tame, it's filled with deadly poison. And he just goes on through James 3, one of the great chapters on the tongue. Fire has a great capacity to destroy. It says in verse 6, the tongue is a fire.

The Bible says in Proverbs 16, 27, an ungodly man digs up evil. Proverbs 26, 20, where no wood is, the fire goes out, so where there is no tail-bearer or gossip, the strife ceases. And one of the things you know about a mature believer is, I always look at it like a balloon. You ever have somebody get around you and they start blowing a balloon up and you're like, you know, can you do that somewhere else, you know, you're going to pop that thing, and it can cause some stress? What an immature person does is they come along and they keep blowing more air into it. So here's the situation, this air stress balloon, and they come along and they just, they inflate it even more. You know what mature believers do? They let air out of it.

They bring it down. Hey, let's just calm down for just a moment, let's just look at this, calm, and they bring the temperature down. Immature people always bring it, you know what I'm talking about, mole hills get turned into mountains, it's always just, they always have something going on, spazzing out, situations stressed out.

Don't be that person. There are some people that I've known for about 14 years since I've been in Xenia in this church, and they have been like just a walk of grace whenever you're around them. They're just so pleasant, always. It's not that they haven't had challenges, they just, they just, they're just mature. They're just mature. And you find that in a couple too, don't you? They're not always at each other's throat. Maturity should be able to produce some peaceability inside of a home. So immature believers can disrupt the spirit and life of a church with their hurt feelings, they can be divisive and disruptive, they cry out and make a lot of noise. These are signs of immaturity. These are five.

We'll look at five more next week. But one of the great blessings in life is to have children, and also to have children in the Lord. Because anybody can have a child in some sense, but not anybody can have the patience to raise that child to be a godly young person. And I can tell you, you could lead somebody to Christ, but can you have the patience to raise them up in the Lord? Because I can tell you, they'll stress you out sometimes. If you have children, you know those children can stress you out sometimes.

But you know what? When you love them, when you care for them, you'll be patient to pray for them, to listen to them, to help them to grow, and then you'll have the reward of seeing them years down the road saying, praise God, I remember when you were here, but now look at where you've come to. I've seen that all through the life of this church, and I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful that people were patient with me when I was a young guy, and prideful and foolish and would say foolish things, and had older, wiser people speaking into my life, being patient with me. And so let's be patient one to another, amen, and help each other grow up in the Lord, because the goal is the glory of Christ. We want them to reflect Christ. So let's all stand this evening.