Stability, Maturity, and Charity (Part 1 of 2)

If I put on a football uniform and trotted out with all the other players, I might for a minute fool you.

But put me in the game, you'll quickly learn I'm not part of the team. Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out how being a Christian is about more than simply looking good on the outside. Alistair Begg continues in our study in 1 Corinthians. I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 16, and to the thirteenth verse. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men of courage, be strong, do everything in love.

And before we look at these verses, we pause in prayer. Make the book live to me, O Lord. Show me thyself within thy word. Show me myself, and show me my Savior. And make the book live to me.

For Jesus' sake. Amen. We are now in the final run-in to the conclusion of our studies in 1 Corinthians. And here in the sixteenth chapter, as Paul begins to draw things to a close, he makes a number of personal statements—certain greetings, the reference to various individuals. And in the midst of it all, here in verses 13 and 14, he inserts this interesting and important series of imperative statements.

They come in rapid-fire succession, just a short burst as Paul, as it were, squeezes them into other material and other greetings that he is bringing. And they come as a very effective and helpful reminder to us that effective Christian living, when we observe it in the lives of other people, is most often seen amongst those who, by God's grace, are doing the basics well most of the time. As with most other areas of life, when you take away the extreme highs and the dreadful lows, our lives are lived within a fairly limited framework, and it is imperative, if we're to be useful either in business or in what area of employment or in sport, athletics, or whatever it might be, that we learn what it is to be able to do the basics well most of the time. And here, in this little section of these two verses, Paul gives basic instruction for Christian living. From time to time, we meet people who are consumed with the question, What am I supposed to do? They seem always to be asking for guidance and unable somehow or another to make very much progress at all. And in relationship to Christian living, there are some people who find it very easy to simplify Christian life and give a person just a phrase. For example, you may have grave difficulties in your business, you may be concerned about your marriage, you may have concerns about your children, whatever it might be, and you go to somebody and they'll say, Just pray about it.

You say, Well, anything else? No, just pray about it. And of course, that is wonderful advice. It's good advice.

Jesus was the one who said, Man ought always to pray and not to faint. And yet, to simply say, Just pray about it, is not necessarily the answer to the question that is before us. Indeed, that kind of approach is akin to the individual who, when asking advice concerning how to hit a golf ball effectively, is responded to by somebody who says, Just grip it and rip it. So it's very simple. In fact, it is oversimplified, because the individual then grips it with the grip of an orangutan and proceeds to try and rip it in the way previously mentioned.

And all they may be doing is actually ripping the tendons in their shoulders, because the ball may go nowhere at all, or if it chooses to go somewhere, no one in the world knows where it's planning on going. But the advice, of course, was succinct. It was simple.

Rip it and grip it. I can simplify it, says somebody, to a phrase. Yes, thank you, but not necessarily particularly helpful. On the other side, of course, there are the individuals who suffer from the opposite extreme. They couldn't simplify anything. They have to complicate everything. Everything is phenomenally complicated. And in the world of golf, you'll find that there are the complicated individuals who like to instruct in that way too. The most famous event in relation to this in my own life was when, as a younger man, my father arranged for me to meet with an elderly gentleman whom my father said was a, quote, crack golfer. And he felt that this man would be a great help to me in learning to play the game of golf.

And so we met at a prescribed time on the Cathcan Braze in overlooking Glasgow, and the man was an exceptionally nice man, very kindly. And, you know, he started off and said, you know, your father set me up, and just take a couple of swings. Well, I just swung, and then he said, now, wait a minute.

Wait! Stop right there! And so I stopped right there, and he proceeded to tell me things about the stance, that my stance was, you know, too wide, too narrow, too open, too closed.

Who knows what it was, but he started to prescribe on that. So I said, got it. They said, now, take another swing. I took another swing. He said, stop it right there. Now he said, let me see your grip.

And then he started on the grip. Well, I tried to hit a golf ball, remembering the two things, moved down the fairway a little, and then he started on what he referred to as the coming from the top. And he told me I was to ring the bell—which I didn't understand a thing, but you had to pull down like this and make the ring the bell. A couple of holes later, he told me to slam the barn door. So now I'm ringing a bell, slamming a barn door, keeping my stance right, opening my grip, doing everything. I was a complete wreck within five holes. He gave me so much information, if I had put it, you know, on file paper, I needed a small donkey to carry it around with me. And eventually I told him, I said, you know, you're a very nice man. Why don't we go for coffee?

Because this is over. This is pathetic. Now, in the same way in Christian living, as I go through my days, I meet both extremes. The just-pray-about-it individual and the people who are going around with books and manuals and tapes and charts and diagrams, and they cannot put one foot in front of the other because of all of this material that they're moving around that you need a donkey to carry. And of course, if we would just go to our Bibles and allow the balance of Scripture to be our instructor, then we would be saved from the extreme of oversimplification and overcomplication. We would be allowed to understand what Paul gives to us here in these five succinct, essential, practical principles for effective Christian living. And I want simply to go through them with you this morning.

They're in front of you in your Bible, and we'll take each one in its course and make our way through verses 13 and 14. Number one, what am I supposed to do, says someone, in living my Christian life? Well, this is not all that we're supposed to do, but here are five things to be working on. Number one, be on your guard. Be on your guard. Stay awake, stay alert, avoid carelessness, avoid dreaminess, avoid indifference.

Keep your eyes open, and learn to see what you're seeing. Most of us have seen photographs of the most famous military guards in the world, arguably, those for whom thousands will be standing this week in London to watch the changing of the guards. And if you have seen it in person, you will have pressed your nose up and through those gigantic wrought-iron gates and looked there at the guards, well trained, who stand guarding Buckingham Palace. They look straight in front of themselves, they are immaculate, they are unflinching, their gaze is straightforward, and they clearly understand what it is they're to be doing. They are guards, and they are guarding. And anybody looking from the vantage point of the street in on that would say, they've got it under control. At least they thought they had, until a few years ago the queen awakened in the night to find a gentleman sitting on the end of her bed.

And it wasn't Prince Philip. And some character had taken himself into the palace, throughout the palace, found the queen's bedroom, and was sitting on the end of her bed, wanting to engage her in conversation in the middle of the night, pointing to the fact that while from the outside it appeared as though they had the guarding issue down pat, it was simply a cover for the patent ineffectiveness of their security system. Now, stay with me here. How about your guard in your life and your family? Some of us have got it looking really good on the outside. Guard is there, standing straight, looking forward. Apparently, by our conversation and by the way we pass ourselves off, we're on guard.

But if people were to see inside of our minds, if people were to drive in our cars, if people were to come on our business trips, if people were to see our children, they could be forgiven for assuming that while we have the externals right, our security system is patently ineffective. Be on your guard, he says. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew chapter 26, concerning the issue of temptation. Watch and pray, he says to his disciples, Matthew 26 verse 41, so that you will not fall into temptation. Watch and pray.

Stay awake, stay alert, or you will be caught off guard. Peter says the same thing. He was there when Jesus said that. In 1 Peter chapter 5, speaking of the activities of the evil one, he says in verse 8, be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Now, it is just naivety to say that we have no reason for guardedness, that we have no reason to stay alert.

It is imperative. Your whole future this week, in terms of effective Christian living and mine, starts and ends with the issue of guardedness. Do you realize that in one unguarded moment you could be like Peter, the total denier? I never knew Jesus. No, I don't go to church.

No, I know. One unguarded moment. In one unguarded moment, you or I could sell our marriage down the river. In one unguarded moment, we could do something in business that would ruin our reputation for all of the rest of our career. In one unguarded moment, we could watch as our children usher themselves into great chaos.

Therefore, it is not superficial, arm's-length instruction. It is imperative—guardedness. And here's the thing. I am at my most vulnerable when I am unaware of how vulnerable I really am. The people who scare me most are the people who say, It'll never happen to me. That's what I told my mother about my friend's motorbike when I borrowed it for a month, when she said, You'll fall off that thing. And I said, It'll never happen to me. And I fell off it in front of all of my friends.

And I had a dreadful job explaining to my mother, and of course she said, Why do you think? I warned you. 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 12 deals with the issue of presumption in relationship to guardedness. If you think you're standing, says Paul, if you think you're not in need of this guardedness, you're actually in more need of it than anybody else.

1 Corinthians 10 verse 12 says, So if you think you're standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. Be on your guard. The elders are to be on their guard as well. First, in Acts chapter 20 verse 31, as Paul gives instruction to the Ephesian elders, and he tells them, he says, After I leave there will be wolves that appear from among your very selves.

They will draw men after them, they will distort the truth. Therefore my advice to the leaders of the church at Ephesus is that you would be on your guard. Secondly, that we would be standing firm.

Be on your guard, stand firm. And he qualifies it—he modifies it—with the phrase, In the faith. Stand firm in the faith.

The nature and necessity of Christian stability. Incidentally, that little phrase, in the faith, not only modifies stand firm, but I think it is the key to all the other statements. Be on your guard in terms of the faith and living out the faith. Stand firm. Be courageous, read the faith. Be strong, read faith. You see, the issue was that men and women in the time to which Paul was writing to the Corinthians were facing all kinds of false teachers. They were seeking to distort the truth, they were seeking to dilute the truth, and Paul knew that they must have a solid grasp of the Bible, a solid grasp of the faith, if they're going to be able to take their stand upon it.

Stand firm in the faith. Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego were three young men with a world at their feet. Sure, they were away from home. Sure, they were in a foreign land. Sure, they were in a context that wasn't ideal.

But Daniel, their friend, had put them in a solid position, and life was going along really nice for them. That was until Nebuchadnezzar came up with the bright idea of building a ninety-foot monument, real high, nine-foot wide, overlaying it with gold and compelling everyone in his kingdom to bow down and worship the idol. Nobody really knew what the idol was. Nobody knew for what it stood.

Indeed, in late twentieth-century terms, it was a perfect kind of icon insofar as it stood forever whatever you wanted it to stand for. They weren't asked to give up their Judaism. They weren't asked to renege on their faith. They were simply asked to bow down before the big ninety-foot statue.

Now, what could be the problem there? You can still believe all you want to believe. Just bow down at my statue. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, We won't bend. And Nebuchadnezzar said, But you'll burn. And Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego said, We'll see about that. And Nebuchadnezzar got annoyed, and he heated the furnace seven times hotter than it normally was, and they could get it somewhere between seven hundred and a thousand degrees centigrade.

They got it cooking—cooking so much that the chaps who opened the door to throw them in—they got totally and instantaneously fried. And Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, for the sake of bowing down before a ninety-foot, nameless, unidentifiable object, walked into the furnace. And Nebuchadnezzar had put them in, saying, And which God will be able to save you then? And they walked into the furnace, because it says in the Bible, You shall not make for yourselves any graven image of any graven thing, and you shall not bow down and worship them. And they said, God said it, that settles it.

If we have to burn, we'll burn. They were men of absolute firmness. And when they looked in from outside, said Nebuchadnezzar to his aides, I see a fourth man walking with them in the furnace, who looks to be as like unto a son of man. I believe that was a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.

Three men who stood firm and found the presence of Jesus. Let's make no mistake. The time is coming and has now come. When we are being asked to bow down to all kinds of idols and worship at all kinds of shrines, no one's actually concerned that we would have convictions about Christ or about the Bible.

We're allowed to hold to that. Just bow down. And only those who are firm in the faith will know enough to stand against the fall. You see, what do you say when somebody says, The issues of Christian doctrine are divisive. If we would only focus more on Christian love, then we could all unite with one another, and we could put aside all of these extraneous differences, and we would all be fine on the basis of love. Now, if you find yourself responding to that by saying, That sounds like a perfectly good idea to me, and there's no cautionary flag goes up in your mind, then I want you to know that we've still got a lot more work to do with you in teaching you how to stand firm in the faith.

Because the answer to that assertion is this. My dear friend, the basis of our unity is Christian doctrine. We do not set it aside in order to unite.

We unite on the basis of the truth it conveys. And we do so, as we will see, in a spirit of love. When Paul was concerned for Timothy, his young lieutenant in the faith, concerned that he would be able to grasp and hold to these things, he says to him in 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 12, Fight the good fight of the faith. Fight the good fight of the faith. Back in 1 Corinthians 15, in the first verse, he says, Brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you have received and on which you have taken your stand. And Jude, in his one chapter, verse 3, Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. There is a great need for us not only to be those who are on guard but to be those who are standing firm. Now, thirdly, he says, you should be men of courage. This is a call not now to stability but to maturity—to Christian maturity. His readers, he had previously addressed in chapter 3 as those who were just babies. He says, I wish that I could address you as spiritual, but I can't. I can only address you as infants in Christ. I wish I could give you a proper meal.

I can't. I can only give you bottled milk. The reason I have to give you bottled milk is because you're still immature. Every parent wants their children to grow up. It'd be a sad and sorry thing to see a seventeen-year-old boy sitting in here sucking on a bottle of milk. You say, goodness, there's something sadly wrong with that chap, and there would be concern all around on the basis of it. You don't expect a boy to be walking around doing that.

No, no. Those were for the infant days. We want to see him grow to maturity. We want to see him able to take the good food and to discriminate between that and the bad food and to get a proper diet and to grow healthy and to grow strong and to grow to be mature, to be a man.

And that is the picture here. It is a call to Christian manliness. It's clear that the way to persevere in godly living is by doing the basics well. You're listening to Truth for Life, and that's Alistair Begg with the message titled, Stability, Maturity, and Charity. We'll hear the conclusion of this message tomorrow. Now, do you sometimes struggle trying to understand Jesus' teaching and doing the basics well?

If that's the case, you're in good company. Jesus' disciples struggled with uncertainty about so many things as they shared their final meal together with their master. Author and theologian Dr. Sinclair Ferguson has written a book titled, Lessons from the Upper Room, where he helps us connect the dots between everything that Jesus told his disciples on the night before he died and what is written in the rest of Scripture. You can request your copy of the book, Lessons from the Upper Room, when you go to our website, truthforlife.org. Alistair's message today was focused on our call to live according to God's instruction, and that can be a challenge in a world where our beliefs run counter to the culture. Alistair has written a book titled, Brave by Faith, that draws from the life of Daniel to help us deal with what Alistair calls our new lack of status.

Daniel's experience living in an unbelieving society made him a part of the minority, but God enabled him to remain faithful. You'll be encouraged to do the same as you listen to the Brave by Faith audiobook, which we are making available today as a free download. Visit truthforlife.org slash bravebyfaith to download your copy of Alistair's audiobook. And when you request the free audiobook, you'll see there's also a corresponding study guide to go along with Brave by Faith.

That's available to download for free as well. Again, you'll find the audiobook and the study guide at truthforlife.org slash bravebyfaith. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to be with us tomorrow as we'll find out how love is the curry powder of the Christian experience. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.