God is after a group of men and women who will grow from spiritual infancy to become a spiritual parent. Dr. Tony Evans says our lives should become conduits of God's blessings. That's the whole principle of discipleship, where you're benefiting the life of others as God is benefiting you. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. God loves to prosper His people and all the more when they want to pass His love on to those around them. In today's message from Dr. Evans archives, he discusses how each of us can move to a deeper level of spiritual maturity, regardless of where we're at today.
Let's listen as he begins. Most, if not all, of us have utilized a microwave. You utilize a microwave because you want a quick meal heated fast. But one of the things you've noticed about microwaving is you need to eat it pretty fast, because even though it was heated quickly, it cools quickly.
It just doesn't last. Many Christians want their Christian lives microwaved. They want to come to church and get a nice hit that sets them on fire, only to discover that by the time they hit the car, they've been cooled off.
By the time they get home, they don't even recall what they heard. They have had a microwave experience without a lasting change. God does not grow us to maturity through a microwave experience.
You don't get a quick hit, and now everything is resolved, solved, and changed. There is a process to spiritual development and spiritual maturity. The book of 1 John is a book about spiritual intimacy. John the Apostle is assuming the people he's writing to are already saved, converted.
They're already believers. But he's concerned that they would grow in their spiritual experience with God to maturity. And he outlines in these verses, 12, 13, and 14 of chapter 2, the stages of spiritual development. And just like in our physical lives, there are stages of physical and life development from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, he gives the three phases of your process to spiritual maturity.
These phases can't be skipped and they can't be microwaved, but they can consistently be progressed until you reach the level of maturity that he's getting ready to define. He says, I am writing to you, verse 12, little children. In verse 13, he says, I have written to you, children.
You don't see it in English, but in Greek, there are two different words for children. In verse 12, the word for children is the word for generally anyone who's been born. So when we say we're children of God, we're not referring to our age.
We're referring to our relationship, no matter what your age is. So when he says in verse 12, I'm writing to you, children, he is saying, I'm writing to all who make up the family of God. In verse 13, he changes the word and the word there for children is the word infant.
It is the word infant. It refers to a newborn child as opposed to children in general. So verse 12, stay with me, all children, all believers, all saints. And in verse 13, new believers, infant believers, baby Christians, those who have either just gotten saved, just gotten converted, just gotten regenerated, just gotten born again, or those who have gotten born again, been born again for a period of time, but they still stuck in a crib.
So they haven't progressed from their infancy. They're still infants even though they've been saved for a period of time. And there's no greater reason to praise God than you are now born again. You are forgiven because what comes because you are forgiven is the gift of eternal life. Once forgiveness is received, eternal life is given, which means heaven is a guarantee. You are eternally secured for your eternal destiny. And he says, I write to you children because you are born again.
He says that to all here. So the first issue is to make sure if you're sitting here today you are saved, that you have come to Christ, accepted him apart from any good works. It's not Christ plus baptism. It's not Christ plus good works. It's not Christ plus going to church. It's not Christ plus giving money. It's Christ plus nothing equals eternal life.
So you have to understand that. And I write to you children because you are all saved. So I'm going to assume as we continue that we all fit in verse 12 part of the family of God that has accepted Jesus Christ as our personal substitute for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.
But then in verse 13 he says, I have written to you little children. So he said now talking about baby Christians. He says you are now, you now have life because you've been born again. But you have life as a baby.
When a person is a baby, they are totally dependent upon what other folk do for them. He now comes to his second group. You can decide if you're a baby or not because when the sermon is over I'm gonna ask you.
Okay. He says at the middle of verse 13, I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one. Then in verse 14, I have written to you, change of tenses, young men because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. So he moves from being a baby Christian to being a teenage Christian. Teenage years are a time of conflict.
And you know why there's conflict in the teenage years? Because now they are exposed to things outside of the home. See, now they go to public school. Now they're on social media.
Now they're watching television. Now they got their friends who don't think like they think, who raise differently than them. In the teenage years, they want to come home and tell you how to parent in the teenage years because they're in conflict. Any parent here battling with your teenager?
All right. Well, he says spiritually when you are an adolescent, when you are what he calls young men, he says you're in battle with the wicked one. In other words, Satan targets spiritual teenagers because they're no longer under parental protection.
He targets spiritual teenagers because they're more exposed to the ungodly world in which we live that's trying to draw them away from God. As long as you're in the crib, he's not too worried about you because mom and daddy are all over you and covering you and patting you on the back and rocking you in the rocking chair. Mom and daddy doing all that because you're in the crib. But now that you're starting to move around and you're starting to get exposed, he wants to pick you off. And the reason he wants to pick you off is because he can't change your salvation, but he doesn't want you to go on to maturity.
He can't change the fact that you were born, but he wants to keep you in the crib so you can't be affected because babies can't do much. So since he can't steal your salvation, if he can keep you in the cradle and keep you as an infant and keep you on similac and keep you on the bottle, he knows you won't make much impact for the kingdom of God. So he targets you, he says, when you are a young man, that is when you are a teenage Christian that is living in conflict. And when those teenage Christians go to college and they really don't even have to come home, they really go left on you then because they're in a whole system. If it's a secular university, it's a whole system that doesn't share your values.
And that's why so many wonder from the faith. In fact, there are probably people here who when you went to college, you were raised in church, but Satan got a hold of you in college and you wondered from the faith. You went left on God because Satan targeted you because you were no longer in protective custody.
So he got you to stop going to church. He starts to pick up the lifestyles and the values of the system of which you are a part. He says, I'm writing to you young men. I'm writing to you teenagers. I'm writing to you adolescents because you have overcome the evil one. You're in the second stage of spiritual development when you are being attacked by the devil and you win.
You have overcome the evil one. We'll have more about becoming an overcomer when we continue with today's lesson in just a moment. First though, this message is the final installment in our three-part sermon series called Pressing on to Maturity. This collection is an insightful, concise look at the need for believers to keep moving forward in their spiritual growth, to actively take steps to nurture the divine seed that God has placed inside them. If you'd like to get a copy of all three messages to review on your own or share with a friend, they're available on CD or digital download to anyone who will come alongside the alternative and make a donation. And as an added bonus on this final day of the Maturity series, we'll include a book that goes hand in hand with today's message. It's called Kingdom Living the Essentials of Spiritual Growth. You'll get the book and the audio collection along with our thanks when you request them and make a donation online at tonyevans.org or let one of our resource team members help you by calling 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night.
That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, right now, let's return to today's message. Now, you can't be an overcomer unless there's something to overcome. You gotta have something to overcome to be an overcomer. So don't feel bad that you got something overcome.
Even Jesus had something He had overcome. He was tempted of the devil, okay? So the fact that hell is coming at you is good news and bad news. Bad news is hell is coming at you.
Good news is hell is coming at you. It's bad news and good news because God is providing something to overcome. And the reason why God allows us to have something to overcome is because when we learn to overcome it, then we see how real God is and how greater is He that's in you than He that's in the world. So the fact that you have something to overcome is not— it's a problem because it's a teenage battle, but God wants you to experience Him at another level than you would as an infant by overcoming the evil one. But how does the teenage Christian or the one seeking to grow from infancy to spiritual adolescence overcome?
Well, notice what he says. He says you have overcome the evil one, and he says in verse 14, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. So let me tell you when you are reached successful spiritual adolescence, teenagehood, young adulthood, when you have consistently learned how to use the Word of God to deal with the devil. Here's what will happen as you become an abider. Things that used to control you will become less and less controlling. Addictions will become less and less powerful. Perspectives will become less and less deviant. Things will begin to shrink that used to grow because the Word is working. God is becoming more real. So don't let Satan lie to you and tell you this thing can't be fixed, whatever it is that can be fixed, if you're hanging out in the Word, because Satan is allergic to divine truth. And he'll sneeze up on a brother in a moment when you keep hitting him with divine truth.
He's allergic to it, but he's not gonna let you know he's allergic to it because he wants to keep you as an infant. So the first thing is spiritual babyhood. God does not want the maternity ward to become a rest home. He does not want you and me and us to stay in a crib.
Then you become a teenager. And yes, as a teenager, as a young adult, you're gonna have battles in the physical world, and certainly Satan will use that in the spiritual world so that you're fighting. You're fighting against this problem, this temptation, this sin, this circumstance, these pools and pools.
So you're in a battle, but that battle is the opportunity for God to reveal to you how real He is as you become an overcomer. The third category, the beginning of verse 13, I'm writing to you fathers because you know Him who is from the beginning. Verse 14, I have written change of tenses to you fathers because you know Him who has been from the beginning. He now introduces the third category. He calls them fathers.
These are the mature Christians who have used time to develop from the beginning. So there is a temporality. There is a time sequence to get to fatherhood. What is fatherhood consist of?
Two things. You know Him who is from the beginning. You not only know dada is dada. You and dada have been hanging out for a minute.
Y'all been rolling together. So when the adolescence problems come to the fathers, fathers not all shook up by them because fathers have been walking with God and had enough victories to know what God is like. They didn't walk with God long enough to know it's gonna be okay in spite of what we're going through. They are the ones who can be calm in the midst of crisis because they've had from the beginning. They have kept growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and growing in their experience with God that they can they can handle it when it comes without it being an overwhelming conflict because they have been moving with God over time from the beginning of their conversion. They've kept going and kept going with God and now they've graduated to a consistent level of maturity. And you know you mature because you consistently bring God's perspective into your circumstances.
And you allow that perspective to rule. The other perspective, you are operating under what he calls later on in chapter 2, the anointing. You're operating under this flow from heaven down to earth. And, you know, a lot of our grandparents understood what it meant to flow that way. In the worst of situations, they would tell you, God's got it. God, he gonna make a way out of no way. There was this ease in the midst of evil.
Why? Because they understood from the beginning that they had been moving with God and in the worst of times they could be calm and be at ease when everything else was chaotic around them. We got a more educated generation today. We have a more intellectual generation today.
We might have a more economically stable generation today, but we have a generation that don't have a clue about what it means to see God move in a consistent way over time because they've not walked with him from the beginning. Let me tell you something else about this level of maturity. If you're a father, you got a baby. If you're a father, you got a kid. Fathers breed children. So the question on the floor is, how many spiritual children do you have?
What's your level of impact in the lives of others? See, if there's nobody following you, nobody trying to be like you, you're not investing in anybody else spiritually but you, you're not a daddy yet. You're not a mama yet because you don't have no children. If you don't have no children, then you haven't reached the level of maturity.
Maturity involves parenting. Just as you parent your children in the physical world, God wants us to be parents. Everybody in here should be growing to the place where you not only are moving spiritually but you're moving somebody else along spiritually too because you want to be a daddy.
You want to be a mama. You want to have people who you are impacting as God as impacting you. And one of the problems today is we got everybody wanting to be blessed and nobody wanting to be a blessing. We got everybody wanting God to do something for them but not wanting God to do anything through them so that they're impacting the lives of others. And that's where you get people coming to worship selfish rather than worship service because they're not concerned about anybody but themselves. And when God sees that, you have stunted your growth because the whole point is to become a spiritual parent so that we're replicating Christ not only in and through our lives but for the benefit of others.
One of the fastest ways for you to grow is to be investing in the life of somebody else because that's having to force you to learn the Word that you're sharing with them, which means you have to learn what you're giving, which means you are growing because you're giving it. So this whole process allows for replication and spiritual development. So what God is after, He's after a group of men and women who will grow from spiritual infancy through spiritual adolescence to become a spiritual parent. Or as He says in Hebrews, He says, by this time you ought to be teachers, chapter 5 verse 11 and 12 says, but you have need again for somebody to teach you the elementary principles of the oral of God because you're 30 year old babies.
You're 30 year old infants. Get up out that crib and start growing in your faith. And He says, when you do, God will become more real to you. You know why God is just an idea for many people?
Because they haven't grown. Once you grow, He will not be an idea. It says you will know Him from the beginning, meaning you will enter into the experience of God and not just the knowledge about God. Okay, so it's time for the test. Now, one of the commandments of God is tell the truth.
And I'll add to it, shame the devil. All right, so based on the criteria that we just went, how many will truthfully say, okay, I accept the fact that I'm still a spiritual infant? Raise your hand.
Okay, we got a lot of liars in here because they didn't raise their hands. All right, all right. Okay, let's go to the next group. How many of you say, okay, I'm in conflict, but I have not yet learned to use the word to address the devil victoriously, so I'm a struggling teenager.
I'm a struggling adolescent. Okay, okay, more people telling the truth. Okay, okay. How many daddies and mamas in here that you can say, I consistently approach life that way, I have an experience with God, and I have other people following me as I follow the Lord? Raise your hand.
Oh, that's a good number of people. If we get everybody moving, everybody growing, everybody pursuing the next stage of spiritual maturity, we will see God blow our minds, do some things we couldn't dream of, because He responds to those who are maturing in the faith. May God grow us, all of us, up to the next level of our spiritual experience with Him.
And by the way, if you're already a parent and you already have some babies, have some more kids, because we got a lot of family members who need to be parenting. Some encouragement to help disciple others on your spiritual journey of faith in Christ. Now if you'd like to review the full-length version of today's message, including plenty of material we didn't have time to present on the air, it comes as a part of the Alternatives Current Teaching series I mentioned earlier, Pressing on to Maturity. All three messages in this collection are our gift to you when you make a contribution to help us keep this outreach going.
And as a special bonus, today's the final day we'll be bundling these messages along with a copy of the powerful book that goes hand-in-hand with them. It's called Kingdom Living, the Essentials of Spiritual Growth. Just drop by TonyEvans.org where you can get all the details and make your donation online. Again that's TonyEvans.org or you can call our 24-hour Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help with your request. Again the number 1-800-800-3222. Cultural trends and events can cause a disruption in our lives that we may not be entirely comfortable with. Well tomorrow we'll take a look at the life of the prophet Elijah as we discovered that there's plenty we can be learning in times like these. Be sure to join us.
