(Audio/Video/Text)
Title: The Implications of Maturity and Unity
Intro:
Mary telling Obi, don’t stoop to Ridley’s level with Doritos. Mary wasn’t telling Obi to “be better”. She was reminding him that he WAS better.
Observation One: The Nature of Children
They are often tossed “to and fro” (Ask for Examples)
It’s true that children often change their minds and are fickle creatures, and we was adults are rarely surprised or angry about that.
(Madison Arganti in Outer Banks saying she wanted pancakes, then changing her mind and declaring she just liked saying the word “Pancakes”…Madison is a senior in High School now, if she did that today, Kim would throttle her…)
Why is it my cousin Kim took what four year old Madison did in stride, but would not do that with 18 year old Madison?
Maturity demands stronger accountability and expectation.
Practical Implications: How might this concept affect how we hold a newborn believer accountable vs. how we might hold a seasoned believer accountable?
(Also, explain how PB wants to be held accountable…)
Observation Two: The Nature of Children
They are often “carried with every wind of doctrine”
Now, in a moment we will talk about this through the lens of the church, but lets not forget that Paul offers this as a universal argument to a young, largely Greek church that historically has been unchurched, so let’s zoom out for a moment and see how accurate and practical this advice is in a secular sense first.
First, let’s look at the definition of “doctrine”
Doctrine (from Latin: doctrina, meaning “teaching, instruction”) is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system.
So, practically speaking, in what ways are children prone to be “carried with every wind of doctrine”?
1. Children often struggle to find a balance between what they KNOW is their parent’s doctrine, and what they WANT to do.
2. Children often struggle to find a balance between their parent’s doctrine, and their friend’s doctrine.
3. Others?
Practical Implications: Why is it so essential that we correctly define what, exactly our Church’s doctrine is, both for young and old believers? (And that we parents echo that in our homes?)
(This is why HBC employs a classical model of questions/answers/debate and dialog)
Observation Three: The Nature of Children
They are prone to deception.
What are the main reasons for this?
1. They lack the wisdom to recognize deception. (Which is why a church that correctly defines its doctrine and encourages discussion and dialog is so crucial.)
2. They lack the experience to recognize deception. (Which is why we must encourage a constant dialog with young believers with “how the world thinks” and “what the Scriptures say”)
3. Other Reasons?
Practical Implications: What else could Heritage be doing to better prepare our young believers? What else could we be doing in our homes to better prepare our children?
(Anyone else think our kids already have a tougher time than we do?)
Conclusion/Point:
Ironically, to get to the point of the message, we need to go back, not just to the beginning of today’s verse, but even further into what we’ve been looking at for weeks in Ephesians 4.
If we take a moment to recall that Paul has been outlining what Christ accomplished and established in his death, and those appointments of prophets/apostles/teachers/pastors were given to train the church at large, so that we could could grow in two ways:
1. We grow in unity (putting aside non-essential differences for the sake of the Gospel) (Show slide about elephants/Donkeys/Lamb)
2. We grow in maturity (and are not prone to the mistakes that “children” of the faith are prone to.)
Just as Mary looked at OBI and said, “you ARE better than that” So this verse reminds us “WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE CHILDREN”
Pray/QA