Reading for our sermon today is from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians 1st Corinthians chapter 13 and we're just going to read one verse and But we're going to read it twice 1st Corinthians chapter 13 We're going to be looking at verse 11 Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to grow up and stop being spiritual babies and And that's not too strong a phrase, for as we'll see in a couple of minutes, he rebukes them several times for being spiritual babies. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 11 talks about that it's time to grow up, and Paul uses his own example. He says in verse 11, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. Let's read that again. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. In Paul's inspired letters as an apostle of Jesus Christ, childhood and manhood are picture words or metaphors for spiritual immaturity in the case of childhood and spiritual maturity in the case of manhood. If you'll turn back to Ephesians chapter 4 for a moment and look at another portion of God's Word, Ephesians chapter 4, Christ Apostle uses this metaphor of childhood and maturity and gives us something of what he's talking about. Ephesians chapter 4, we'll pick it up at Verse 11, talking about God giving gifted men to the churches to build up the churches, verse 11 says, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature, of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. Paul says it's not God's will to save you that you would be a child your whole life. God did not save people in order for them to stay children and in a sense dishonor him because there is no adult parent in this room who wants to see their children grow up to be fools and knaves and immature They want their children to grow up to be mature adults. They want their children to glorify the family name, so to speak, to be a credit to the family name by conducting themselves as mature adults. No one wants to see their children as a 30-year-old or a 40-year-old acting like little kids. And Paul says, it doesn't bring honor to Christ who saved you for you and me not to grow up. Well, the Corinthian church had a real problem with not growing up and acting immaturely. And so three times, or at least he rebukes them, he rebukes them actually many times. But if you'll turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and this will be most of the turning you'll have to do today, so your fingers won't get too chapped going back and forth. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We'll read the first seven verses. Paul gives them a strong rebuke in chapter three for preferring personalities in the church rather than the Lord Jesus Christ, and dividing up as human beings would. Human beings like to divide up. If you get two people together, they'll find all the ways in which they hold to different things. And he said the way in which you're dividing up, saying, I like this man, I like this man, I like this man, and not centering on Christ was very immature. Chapter 3 verse 1, but I brothers, so he's speaking to them as Christians, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ, or as babes. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it, and even now you are not yet ready, for you're still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one of you says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth. People were saying, I like this speaker. I like this teacher. Oh, I like Mr. So-and-so. I like Pastor So-and-so. I like Dr. So-and-so. And they were dividing up and making big deal out of the personalities and gifts of different Christian leaders, rather than saying God's the one who gave these men in the first place, and God's the one who you should be honoring. When you get to chapters 12 through 14, Paul has to re-instruct them on some critical issues of spiritual gifts, and has some strong rebukes along the way. I just read verse 11 of chapter 13, where Paul says, you know, I used to think like a kid, and I used to talk like a kid, and I used to reason like a kid, but you know, I did grow up, and when I grew up, I gave up all this little kid stuff. By inference, he says, you Corinthians are not. If you go to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 20, he has another rebuke for them about their childishness. 1 Corinthians 14, 20 says, brothers, and so all along he's addressing them as Christians, but Christians who have stopped growing, Christians who are acting very immaturely. Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. He says, be infants, or be childish, be immature in evil, but in your thinking, be mature. Act like spiritual grown-ups, not like spiritual babies. If you want some way to be immature, be immature about sin and about evil. But don't be immature about growing up as Christians. And the final time he rebukes them is in his second letter. And again, there's other rebukes, but it would take more time to go there, and I just wanted to give you some of the obvious ones. He rebukes them in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. If you turn there, 2 Corinthians 6, verse 13. where the Corinthians had taken offense at his first letter and they were pouting and they wouldn't speak to him and they wouldn't deal with it and they were pouting and sulking and they were withholding affection from him. Proverbs says, open rebuke is better than love that is withheld. In other words, manipulating people by withholding your love and freezing them out or refusing to give them the affection they are owed is sinfully wrong. It's better just to deal with things straight up and to deal with you straight up than to withhold affection and say, I'm not going to talk to you for three days and I'll manipulate you. So the Corinthians were using passive-aggressive techniques of withholding affection and dealing with Paul because he had sent this strong first letter to them. Even though he had protested many times how much he loved them, they were still pouting. And so by the time he gets to chapter 6 verse 11, he says, We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted, closed, in your own affections. In return, then he speaks parenthetically, I speak as to children. widen or open your hearts also. He says, I'm having to deal with you like I would a six-year-old who you rebuked for doing something and they're going around the house pouting and sulking now because you rebuked them for something that they should have done and they shouldn't cop an attitude, they should deal with it. And what have you Corinthians done? He says, you've copped an attitude rather than facing up to this in a mature fashion. So if Paul could address a church as a class of Christians With a problem, I want to take the analogy from this and say that I want to address the men today on Father's Day and speak to you Christian men as a group. And if you're a young man, you can take notes. It's not just to fathers, but it's to men as Christian men. I want to speak to you about eight ways in which men can remain childish and immature. And certainly I want to challenge you to grow up in these areas. And then I want to speak to you briefly at the end on the very simple way that Scripture gives, that God says, how to grow up into full Christian manhood. So, and by God's grace, I want to go through eight areas in which you may be physically, you may be chronologically an adult, but you may be childish and immature in your actions and behavior. And then the way that Scripture very simply says of dealing with it. So let's jump into these eight ways. The first way in which professing Christian men can remain childish is that a man, like a child, can remain childishly immature because he prefers playing to working. He prefers playing to working. Children notoriously love to play and to have fun. Most people remember when they got their first job because that was the first summer probably they couldn't play all summer. You know, school's out, so I have a whole summer to play. Well, I have some chores to do. but I can play the rest of the time. But when reality crashes in on you somewhere between 6th and 8th grade that you have to get a summer job and you have to work and work for hours and hours and hours without playing, it is a rude awakening for many of us. But what is it like when you're now a man, you're chronologically no longer a child, but you still have a childish attitude about work? You still prefer play than working and working hard. I want to take you through several passages in the Proverbs. You may follow along if you want to, but we're going to look at what Proverbs has to say about men who don't like to work. Proverbs chapter 6, verses 6 through 11. Proverbs repeatedly speaks to men who act childishly and will not really work at working hard. Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11. Go to the aunt, Oh, sluggard. What's a sluggard? Well, sluggard is an English word which takes its derivation from a little creature called a slug. A slug is a snail without a shell. It's something that can exist without a shell. Most of the time when you see a snail, a snail is but a type of a slug that likes to have a carapace or a shell about it. One of the things about snails and slugs is they move very slowly and they don't get anywhere particularly fast. And if you have them in your garden, they can do damage. But a sluggard is a name for a person who's slow and awkward and just doesn't get around to doing anything. So he says, look to the ant or go to the ant, oh sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer, figuratively speaking here, and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come in upon you like a robber, and want or lack like an armed man. And this person is slow, doesn't have energy, I just don't feel like getting out of bed today. I don't feel like working hard. And of course, my life is dominated by my feelings. And if I don't feel like getting out of bed, if I don't feel like working hard, I don't. And so this person now has all kinds of needs and problems because they're really a sluggard. They're a person who hasn't learned to work hard. The laziness and this desire for play, which is bound up in a child's heart, has never been driven from them, either by their parents' training or their own self-discipline. And so as a result, they're now an adult in want. In chapter 10, verse 4. Proverbs chapter 10, verse 4. It uses another word. In my English Standard Version, I'm reading out of the ESV, it says a slack hand. The English call a person a slacker. You know what slack means? It means that the rope isn't taut. There's a lot of give in it. There's a lot of give in this line, a slack line. It says in verse 4, a slack hand, a hand that really isn't engaged, that's really not tightly involved in working, causes poverty. But the hand of the diligent makes rich. If you're a keyboard artist like several people in this congregation, people might hear you play and they go, oh, that's wonderful. I wish I could play like that. And you say, well, just discipline yourself for about 10 years to practice, and you can. It's nothing magical. I didn't wake up one morning with the gift of piano playing and just playing. I had to work at it. But all of us have this idea that there must be a magic bullet. I shouldn't have to work hard. It ought to come naturally. And if it doesn't come naturally, i.e., this is hard, then I'm just not going to push myself to work at it. And the slack hand doesn't push himself, and that causes poverty. And the person who works hard is the person who can expect to do well in this life. In chapter 12, verse 24, it uses another figure of speech for the person who's never learned to work hard. It says, the hand of the diligent, diligent means to work hard, the hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor. Now there's two interesting figures of speech. Slothful comes from the animal called the sloth. You've seen pictures of a sloth in a book or maybe some National Geographic explorer with this animal with long curved nails and it goes through the treetops in South America at about half a mile an hour. If you did a slow motion, you wouldn't even hardly see it move because it's just a very slow animal, very docile animal. And so watching these animals move so slowly has become a figure of speech for someone who's just slow and doesn't have any energy to do anything. They're just slow. And it says, the slothful will be put to forced labor. What does that mean? Well, I don't even think it's talking about a slave labor camp. I'm talking about a person who's lazy and isn't a hard worker is going to get themselves in all kinds of financial bondage in their life. And then you're going to have to find yourself doing things to pay off your debts. And that's forced labor. You have so many bills that you can't afford to pay because you're really not a hard worker. And if you're slothful, expect to have a gun to your head, so to speak, in terms of how your finances will affect you in your life. Let's move on to chapter 15, verse 24. Sorry, 15, verse 19. I was just testing you. 15, verse 19. The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway. Here's two different ends. Here's this man's end. It's a level highway. He's got all kinds of options. The future looks bright. Here's this man. What does his future look like? Well, you can't tell because the road comes to a stop and there's just a hedge of thorns. I don't see any way out. I'm hemmed in. I don't have options. Well, sluggards don't have options because by their failure to learn to work hard and work industriously and keep on working, not just one day, but two days, and all five days or six days if necessary, they've not learned to work hard, and as a result, their future is hemmed in. Their future is confined. The upright is contrasted with the sluggard. That's a person who's the hard worker. He finds that his future is a level highway. Things are looking up. He has options. His future isn't closed or hemmed in. Chapter 20, verse 4. I'll have to give you a little bit of explanation here. It says the slugger does not plow in the autumn. You go, well, we don't plow in the autumn either. Well, you would if you lived in the southern hemisphere, because the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere. If you live south of the equator, you plant in the fall and you harvest in the spring. We plant in the spring in the northern hemisphere and harvest in the fall. So being a southern hemisphere nation, the slugger does not plow in the appointed season. he will seek at harvest and have nothing." So here a person who hasn't learned to work hard, for example, it says in the Book of Lamentations, it's good for a young man to bear the yoke while he is young, to have responsibilities, to work really hard. It's good for a man to learn that while he's young. You don't want to be finding that out when you're 55 or 60, that I need to work hard. It's really pretty much all over by that time. Because while you're a young man, you're going to be having a family, you're going to be having children, and you have to learn to work hard. And here it says, at the appointed time, this man hasn't learned to work hard. The appointed time to get ready for your future is not when your future comes, it's now. If you goof off, for example, as a young man, then your options are going to be closed when you're 19 or 20. And if you goof off when you're 19 or 20, your options are going to be limited when you're 30. In other words, you better work hard now and learn to work hard now because it's not going to get easier as you get older. in chapter 24, verses 30 through 34. I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns. The ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it, I pondered it. I looked and received instruction. This man's field, so to speak, was a visual aid for me. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man." In other words, as he said earlier, here's a man who hasn't really applied himself, and if you look at the man's life, what does it show? Well, it's an overgrown field. Here's a broken down wall. Here's all the wrong things growing. So if I was to look at your life, what's growing in your life? What do you have to show? Have you really been working hard? Have you stayed on top of things? Or have you been lazy? Have you failed to be a hard worker? And I'm not just talking about working at your occupation. I'm talking about all the different responsibilities. Books have come out in recent years as the American family has been shattered, and they've said what the Bible has said for thousands of years. The key to the health of a family is the father, the husband. The key to the health of the nation is the men of that nation. If you want to screw up and be irresponsible, you can go ahead and wreck your family. If a whole generation of men wants to screw up and be irresponsible, they can take their nations down the tubes. You're not going to have a strong nation, a strong family, a healthy nation or a healthy family based upon immature people. You know, if you think about it, if you ask someone in this room who's an employer, or if you talk to the person in your human resources department where you work, how many employees or potential employees are known for being hard workers? How many people have a reputation for being hard workers? For too many men, they play at their jobs and they work hard at their play. That's not the sign of a mature man. And it's sad to see men who are professing Christians act this way, spend so much of their time on themselves, their personal hobbies, their fun times, their recreation, and so little on their wives, their children, and the kingdom of God. If we added up the time, the money, the energy that you spend on self, on hobbies, on recreation, your toys, your interest, and your playtime, how much would it be? And I talk to husbands who moan and groan about the state of different things, but if you look at their life, they spend a lot of time on themselves, a lot of money on themselves, and they give the dregs and leftovers to their family. Years ago, a friend of mine and I were comparing situations where I had a staff of 12 working for me, and he had about the same number, and he was complaining that for staff meetings and responsibilities, people were chronically late. Most of the people were chronically late, and frequently, they weren't hard workers. But he said he had a tremendous revelation when he decided to plan a staff ski trip and they had to meet at a certain place at very early in the morning in order to make the ride up to the ski slopes in Colorado where he lived. So my friend has the ski trip lined up and everybody was there early. Everybody was there early. He was amazed that they were there early. He was amazed that there was no complaining about the early hour. They were all there ready to go skiing. And he later told them, he said, you really showed me a lot about yourselves that you're late for meetings, you complain that meetings are too early, but when you want to do something bad enough, like go on a ski trip, it can't be too early and I can't ask too much of you. He says, I think you have a problem with not being faithful workers. I think too many of men are like that today. Number two, Like children, men can be childishly immature and prefer getting to giving. They can prefer receiving, being on the receiving end of things, to being men who are great givers. The first word a child learns is not mine, but it's the first word that they use with real meaning. This is mine. Even though their parents have sacrificially given for them and worked to give things to them, the child very early on learns to use the word mine and mean it with a vengeance. A child is just selfish and wants everything for themselves. But it's possible to grow up and never have grown up beyond being a child. Everything is for you. For some, everything must be about me, and for me, and to me, and I can just be a big child. I can be a child in an adult's body, because I've really not progressed among a child's mentality that everything should exist for me, and you should do everything for me, and my happiness is the preeminent thing. In this church, in this family, in this community, in this nation, my happiness is preeminence, is preeminent. In chapter 21 of Proverbs, verses 25 and 26, it says, the sluggard has many and strong desires, but doesn't work to fulfill them. Then he becomes deeply frustrated that he doesn't have what he wants. So you take a person who's not a hard worker, and a person who's very selfish, and you have a person with a lot of frustrations. Where it contrasts the righteous man, who by comparison, gives generously, and does not hold back, and by inference, he himself is fulfilled. The selfish man doesn't give. The selfish man doesn't give to other people. It is something my wife comments on, and to me it is very sad. I know about 10 men, well, not 10, six or eight, outside this congregation, I am their best friend. They go, why? I go, because nobody exerts anything toward them. and I'm nobody great, but I just give them a little time, and I'm their best friend. That to me is pathetic, that is sad. Where are men who give themselves to other people? You know, selfish people don't have friends. they have acquaintances. Because really, the Bible says to become, to have friends, you must prove yourself to be a friend, you must be a friend. And people who are givers find that they have friends. But people who are waiting for others, by inference that's what it means to be selfish, I'll be a friend if someone will take the initiative, but I'm not gonna take the initiative, because I don't want to expend the energy, and I could be rebuffed, and I would have wasted that energy, and I might look foolish, so I'm not gonna exert energy toward other people. Sure, you can initiate toward other people, and you can be turned down. That's just part of the game. It's part of life. But if you sit around saying, I'm not going to exert any energy, and I'm not going to give of myself until they give first. Well, certain places could freeze over before some people may initiate toward you, and you need to grow up and not be like a selfish child and initiate toward other men. You know, you can be fabulously wealthy. would be very immature. If you read the profiles of some very great and famous men, as the world counts greatness, you'll discover that what it cost to get them to the top was they have no friends, a fractured family, and the growing sense that old age has gotten them to the top of the ladder, but the ladder's leaning against the wrong wall. They don't have anything to show for their life. They've never invested in anyone else. Being permanently selfish, they've looked at everything as an opportunity to give. You exist to fulfill my dreams, to fulfill my agenda. You exist to fulfill my goals. I only use you to get what I want. And then when these people get to the end of their life, users discover they don't have any friends. They don't have any family. They don't have any sense of contentment except a nagging conscience that they blew it. An immature man prefers getting to giving. Number three, a man can be childishly immature because he has not learned to discipline himself for self-control. He's not learned to discipline himself for self-control. This man does not say no to fleshly desires and gives them free reign instead. And whether you call yourself expressive, or whether you call yourself, well, I just do my thing, or I just like to let myself go, or I just give myself free reign, I don't care what you call it, that person is in a bad way. In Proverbs 25, 28, it says, the man who does not control himself is like a city without walls. Prior to the invention of gunpowder in the 12th century, I believe, the greatest thing a city could have for defenses was a big, thick wall. The invention of gunpowder proved that you could blast holes through those walls, and you had to find other ways of defending a city. But the Proverbs uses the figure of speech that if you are a city without walls, you have no defenses. You're ripe for the picking. Anything can come in and take advantage of you. And so for the man who doesn't have self-control, every circumstance can take advantage of him. Every idle word that a person says to you, every fleeting emotion that goes through your heart and mind, every temptation that comes your way can take you over. You are without defenses. You're ripe for the picking. In Proverbs 16, 32, it says, the man who does not control his anger may appear loud and strong and assertive, but he's really a very weak man. The man who does not rule his own passions is a weakling. I've known men who've ruined their lives not because they were intellectually stupid or physically weak or relationally a cripple, but who were unwilling and thus unable to rule themselves. If you can't learn to rule yourselves, then you are, at the end, a captive. Men who don't rule themselves are large children, and instead of putting them in daycare centers, we have strict laws, and we have police, and we have judges, because these men will not rule themselves. In a nation, if you had a lot of Christians, and Christians who had grown to any kind of maturity, you wouldn't need very many laws, because these people have learned self-control as the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. And you have to spend much of your time refusing self-control to stay as an immature man. And so there are laws that nations must pass. It's interesting that as our nation has become more ungodly and has rejected the Bible and biblical counsel and Jesus Christ, as our nation has gone down this way, the courts and eager legislators have had to pass more laws going up this way. And the passing in between the nation going downhill and then the laws More and more laws have to be passed to stop more and more people from doing more and more things that, if these people were converted and had self-control, you'd never need to go there. Most mature Christians don't worry about the laws of the state because the laws of God, which are written on their hearts and which they've learned to obey, are far more stringent than any laws of the state, and so you find yourself not worrying about these things. But if you don't learn to rule yourself, if you don't learn self-control, Prepare to get to know policemen, prepare to get to know the IRS, prepare to get to know judges, prepare to get to know hard times because you are preparing yourself for a life of being ruled by others because you will not rule yourself. Number four, like children, men can be childishly immature and prefer to talk, usually about themselves, and not listen. Now as I thought about this, small children like to talk, And they like to talk about whatever interests them. But they do reach an age, seven or eight, where they start being very inquisitive and curious. Dad, who's in that truck? Are you pushing your pedal harder than he's pushing his pedal? Never mind, son. Just sit in the back seat. And so children start asking questions about how does this work and how does that work. But there are some childish men who never got to the question-asking stage, they never got to the listening stage, and so if you spend time with them, they will talk, and they will talk, and they will talk about themselves, and little except themselves. He talks about his plans, his desires, his pleasures, whatever's in his mind. But the Bible says that part of maturity is you don't talk about yourself, and you learn to control about your tongue, and if you're a true friend, you take an interest in others. In Proverbs 10.14 it says that the wise man stores up knowledge, but the fool, the childish man, runs his mouth to the point of ruin. How few men ask good questions and work at listening to other people. I had a friend who joined a spa or a health club at 35, and he said it was shocking. It was like going back to high school in the locker room, only now these men were 35. They weren't 17 or 18. And they talked about the same stupid things and the same sinful things and had the same level of immaturity they had when they were 17 or 18. Only now all these unconverted men were in their mid-30s. And they were still legends in their own mind. They still held these great conquests. They were still fools. They hadn't grown up in 20 years. I can think of times when we've sometimes discussed it as elders. You can spend time with people, and you know what? At the end of spending time with that person, you know everything about them, and they know next to nothing about you. They didn't ask a question the entire time. All they did was talk about themselves and talk about themselves and talk about themselves. And that's fine. It's a good way, I suppose, to get to know people if you're trying to shepherd them. But it is sad when you've known people for a long time and they talk about themselves and they talk about themselves and they don't listen. They don't ask questions. How in the world do they learn? How in the world can they be sensitive to anybody else? In James 3 it says the mark of a truly mature man is how he tames his own tongue. Not how he tames wild animals and lions and tigers and things like that, but the mark of a mature man is can he train his own tongue. I think it's illustrative of our culture that we have the popular call-in radio shows where a bloated host, I don't mean bloated physically, I mean bloated in his ego, And prideful participants pontificate on all manners of subjects that they have never studied or researched, but they're sure the rest of the world needs to know their opinion on something. And I don't listen to call-in shows like that. I say, who cares? Who cares what this person thinks? Why should I care? Why should I stop what I'm doing and go, hmm, that's deep. Why? Because most of those people are just spouting hot air on the radio to a person who's paid to be controversial and spout hot air. Number five, like children, men can be childishly immature and they prefer a life without rules, without limits, without laws, without sanctions. A life to do as they please. Case made. Children test limits and go right up to the edge. A childish man wants a life without rules, without limits, without laws, without sanctions. They don't want to have their wills contradicted. When you tell a child no, how far can I go? And you say, you may go right to here, and they'll go right to the edge. And they'll try to push that because they don't like to have their wills brooked. How many of you have a life where you spend much of your time trying to avoid having anybody control you, telling you what to do? A childish man doesn't like to hear the word no. Childish men chafe at limits, at laws, at governments, at authority, at anybody who will make them fettered and accountable. Don't make me fill in report forms. Don't ask me to obey the speed limit. Don't expect me to live with your petty man-made rules. And yet, it's really a description of a heart that Romans chapter 8 says is that since the fall of mankind into sin, none of us naturally wants to obey God. We're all rebels at heart. None of us wants to submit to God's law. Indeed, we cannot. Those who are still fleshly cannot please God. It's a mark of being a rebel sinner that we're rebels. And because a man becomes a Christian doesn't mean he's faced up to the rebel heart. He still has. In childhood, our hearts display that something's radically wrong. Why is this child who you've loved and sacrificed for so rebellious? It's because they're acorn sinners on their way to becoming oak sinners. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Many professing Christian men excuse their rebellious ways and some actually glory in their rebel persona. They glory in what should be their shame. God's true children, God's true sons, hate the rebellion that they see in their heart. I know that I have a rebel heart. If you're a Christian, you should know that you have a rebel heart. And most of that rebellion has been put to death, but there are times when it flares up and you just don't want somebody telling you what to do. And that's the time when you need to learn to put sin to death rather than glorying in your rebellion. If I'm not killing sin in my life, it's gonna be killing me, John Owen used to say. Number six, children, Like children, men can be childishly immature, preferring the easy way of short-term pleasure to the more demanding achievement of long-term goals and fulfillment. In Sunday school, we had a classic example where you're going to be a missionary and you're there for the long haul. Today, a lot of mission programs have short-term missions where you can sign up for a summer or do short things. And that's not bad in itself, but I think it's also reflective of much of our culture that, well, I'm going to go and see if I can be a whiz-bang. I'm going to go for a summer and see if this really fits me. And if you're there to be a whiz-bang, you're not going to accomplish much. Pastors who bounce from church to church every three to five years, and missionaries who bounce from here and there, because, well, things aren't just happening where I am. Well, I'm sure if you would have gone to the backcountry, and 50 years ago, I'm sure Manaus was backcountry, and not much was happening in Manaus 50 years ago. But you just persevere and see what the Lord might do. You have to persevere at obedience. But if you're into short-term fulfillment, most of the best things in life don't happen quickly. You can't raise kids quickly. You can't have a good marriage quickly. You can't have a major responsibility that you've carried off well at your job done quickly. And yes, you can grow a summer squash in six weeks, but it takes an oak tree several decades to come to maturity. And yet, as part of a child, you say, OK now, Johnny, would you like to have a quarter today, or would you like to have $1,000 and a T-bill 10 years from now? I'll take the quarter today, even if they understood what $1,000 and a T-bill was or something like that. The point is, I can have it now, and I can go buy a suite now. I don't know what I can do with $1,000 10 years from now. But you say, well, that's a child. You expect a child to act childishly. But what do you do when you see an adult man who professes to be a man, but he asks, he responds in a childish way and taking short-term pleasures rather than giving himself for long-term goals and fulfillment? One of the most sobering and sad passages in the Old Testament is 2 Kings chapter 20. It's the story of the end of Hezekiah's life. Hezekiah was one of the good kings. He's one of those men whose names are known other than it just sounds like a biblical name, Hezekiah. But he was a man who was given 15 years of additional life as he prayed for God to be merciful on him when he knew that his time was up. But at the end of his life, he did a very sad thing. When the King of Babylon sent an envoy to King Hezekiah, King Hezekiah, full of pride and full of himself, went around and showed him everything. This is where we keep our money. This is where we keep all of our gold. This is where we keep our jewels. This is where everything that our nation has, which is wonderful and great, we keep it right here. These guys went around taking notes or putting it in their palm pilot. Wow, you guys have a lot of stuff. We'll be back. I think that was a fool. So, Isaiah the prophet is sent to him. Hear the word of the Lord, Hezekiah. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have stored up until this day shall be carried away to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord, and some of your own sons who shall be born to you shall be taken away, and they shall be made eunuchs to serve in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, the word of the Lord that you have spoken is good. And then the author of Kings adds, for he thought, why not, if there'll be peace and security in my days, it's not gonna happen while I'm alive, it's gonna happen to my kids, so it won't affect me, so I'm out of here, I don't care, this is good. That's an extreme example, but a person who is so concerned about self and short-term fulfillment, the fact that he's devastated his posterity, his own family, and his nation. Immature, childish men refuse long-term goals for immediate fulfillment. They take the easy way out. They find it very difficult to persevere and work hard over the long haul. Because earlier we said when self dominates a man, he doesn't care about really what it will cost others, or cost his family, or his church, or his country. He only cares about himself and his pleasures. And the immature, childish man has never learned to look at life from God's perspective for the long haul. He doesn't see the big picture, he only sees his own reflection, his own agenda, his own desires, his own everything. And if I've never practiced putting self to death, then self will rule and everything in the end is about me, and I will sacrifice my marriage and my kids and my church and my country if I can be happy or if I can be fulfilled. Number seven, like children, Men can be childishly immature and finding it tough to stay on task and stay the course. They're always quick to revert to their agenda and their fun. Childish men are very irritating to have as a husband or very irritating and frustrating to have as a father because they may begin things well, but their enthusiasm flags and they quit easily. They rarely finish. Wives with immature husbands and children with childish fathers learn that dad may say a lot, but he rarely delivers. You may even begin many things but complete only a few. Proverbs chapter 21-26 or 20-26, I have a typo here, but Proverbs 21-26 says, like vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes. If you're thinking you're having a glass of apple juice and it's vinegar, it'll set your teeth on edge. If you get smoke in your eyes, it blurs and burns your eyes. You spit out the vinegar and you turn away from the smoke. So was the sluggard to those who sent him, meaning on an errand or on a job. This person is irritating because they were sent to do something and they just don't do it. They just don't get there. They don't finish. The childish, immature man is so irritating to those who depend on him because he's not committed to working his hardest, even at the cost of denying self, to get the job done. How many times has he said that he was really going to deal with things this time, only to let us down? The immature, childish man is not fully committed to wholly self-denial. So, when things get tough, I quit because I'm not about to sacrifice myself to do this. What if it requires stamina? What if it requires stick-to-itiveness? Well, that would mean that self would have to die. I've talked to men before, well, you know, you're going to have to sacrifice, and you're not going to have to sacrifice from your wife or your children. You're going to have to sacrifice. It's going to have to be your hobbies, your free time, your time spent on self that you're going to have to sacrifice to do this. And I've had men not say to my face, no, but by their lifestyles, they say, no, I'm not prepared to sacrifice self. Let the family sacrifice. I want this job, and I don't care what it costs me. I don't care what it costs my kids. Let them sacrifice, but I will not deny myself. If I've never made holiness my number one item on my job description, if I'm still operating under the job description that all non-Christians do and they wake up every morning and the non-Christian says, what do I want to do today? What would I find to be fun or enjoyable to do today? Instead of what does the Lord God want me to do? What does Christ save me to do today? That I'll be a man who doesn't work hard and who doesn't finish well. And number eight, like children, men can be immature, childish, refusing to take responsibility for their actions or inactions, and give way to blame shifting, or self-pitying, martyrdom, or some other way of avoiding responsibility. In Genesis chapter three, God confronts Adam with the most horrific crime committed in the history of the world, because all the other crimes in the history of the world flow from Adam's sin. Eve sinned chronologically first, but Adam was held responsible, and so we're said to have sinned in the likeness of Adam. But when God confronts Adam, what is this that you have done? The woman that you gave me, she's the one who snuckered me into this. It's not really my fault. I listened to this woman. Well, We should listen to our wives to a certain degree, but at the end, you don't take your final counsel from your wife, you have to obey God. So why didn't, in a sense, God should have said back, why did you obey your wife and not me? But the very first thing he did was blame shift. And then Eve, not to be outdone, blame shifted and said, well, it's the serpent who conned me, and it's not really our fault. And blame shifting is something we can do, we can find someone else to scapegoat. Well, you know, it's the pastor's fault. It's the church's fault. It's my environment. You know, that's become a cultural thing. Well, you know, he would have been a good boy, but he grew up in a bad neighborhood. Or this person, they had a tough upbringing, and that's why they're now mass murderer. Well, lots of people had tough upbringings. They're not all mass murderers. My environment is never my excuse to blame shift to them, but it's become a cultural thing to do. And we as Christian men find it very easy to do, too. By the way, if any of you who aren't men in the congregation would like to take any of this guilt for yourself, you're welcome to it. Another thing we do if we can't shift blame, what do children do when they're caught? Well, I remember I used to pout and sulk and you just look really pitiful. But that looks acceptable when you're six or seven. It doesn't look acceptable when you're 56 or 57, it doesn't look acceptable when you're chronologically an adult to pout or sulk or adopt a martyr's persona where everybody should feel bad for you. Why don't you stand up and be a man? Why don't I stand up and be a man and do what I should? Take responsibility. Not everything's my fault in my home, but everything's my responsibility. And I shouldn't ask you to feel sorry for me. It's my job. The buck stops here. As Harry Truman said, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you don't like the responsibility that comes with it, then you shouldn't have the authority. Why did you want this if you don't want to act like a man with it? In Mark chapter 10, Jesus rebuked the rich young ruler for being an idolater of his money. He says, unless you deal with this idolatry in your heart, you can't be a Christian. And the disciples were very quick to pick up on this, and Peter goes, you know, we've given up everything to follow you. And you can just hear the violins playing at this point, and the background music. We've given up everything to follow you. And Jesus says, no man has given up anything, and he makes a long list of things. Houses, lands, farms, family, loved ones, you've not given up anything that God won't give you back a hundred times over in this life, and eternal life on top of that. Don't play the pity party thing as if you're this great sacrificial person and we all should feel sorry for you. You haven't given up anything that God hasn't given you back a hundred times over. So after all this responsibility of things we need to be facing up to, how do you grow into full Christian manhood? How do you put aside childish ways? Is there a silver bullet? Yes and no, it's not silver. But there is a bullet. It's the bullet of the first century, it's called a cross. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, moment by moment, and come follow me. Would you follow after Christ? Would you be a Christian man and not a Christian boy? and pick up your cross daily. A cross is an instrument of death. It was the equivalent of putting a bullet in your desires, putting a bullet in self, putting a bullet in me, in mine, in my way, in my agenda, in my free time, in my hobbies, in my fun, in my extra sleep, in me, myself, and I. If you want to grow up to be a man, then you and I have to die to self. We have to say, my happiness, my frivolity isn't the greatest good in all the world. It's obeying Jesus Christ, even at the cost of myself. The cross isn't something you look at. It's not a piece of jewelry. It's something you and I are to die with every day. Now, I pick up a cross when I become a Christian. I look to Jesus' cross to pay the penalty for all of my sins, given. But once I become a Christian by the work of Christ, I don't lay in a hammock and let Christ take all the heat for me. There's growing up, there's being conformed to Christ. Sometimes being conformed to Christ is in ways you and I don't visualize. Sometimes, for example, that you have to sacrificially give yourself and people aren't there. Way to go! Let's all hear it for them. Oh, wow, great job! Sometimes you just have to keep sacrificing and there's no clapping, there's no applause. You just have to do your duty. One of the hardest passages I know of the New Testament is in Luke 17 where Jesus told the disciples, or Jesus was asked by the disciples, Peter said, how many times should we forgive one another? Seven times, I'm pretty big hearted. And Jesus knows 70 times 70, which was a Hebrew idiom for an indefinite, infinite number of times. And Peter goes like some of our sinful hearts at this very moment. Oh, increase our faith. Oh, this is so hard. We can't do it. Give us more faith. If I had more faith, I would be a better man. And Jesus turns off the violin music and he says, no, You don't need more faith. You just need to obey. If you just had a little bit of faith, you could say to that tree, be thrown into the ocean. And then he tells a story about a man who worked for another man, and he had a job working his fields. And he worked all day and worked in his fields. And then he came in and changed clothes, cleaned up, then cooked the guy supper, and then fed him supper. He said, you don't think the master thanked him, do you? This guy was hired to do that. He was just doing his duty. I remember the first day I read that with any discernment, it was like I could feel all the cylinders going around as this Lord was just emptying the revolver into my head. And then, what does it say? Even you, after you have done everything you should do, should simply say, I am at best an unprofitable servant. I've only been doing my duty. Those are hard words, and if you know what they mean, that means that we don't deserve applause, we don't deserve a pat on the back, we don't deserve an attaboy for every little thing we do that was just our duty in the first place. Does your boss thank you for showing up on time? Does your boss thank you for taking the allotted lunch break? Should the boss thank you for doing what you're paid to do? No, that's your job. So if I'm asked to do certain things and I'm just doing it, I don't have to ask for more faith. I should just do my duty. Jesus says it's within your power. I've given you all things that pertain to life and godliness. I've given you the Holy Spirit. You've got my great and magnificent promises. Now don't say you need more faith. Get off your duff and do what you can do. Hard words. I think our Savior is worthy of a lot more than we frequently give, and it's time to grow up for some of us and time to be a man. Paul says, when I was a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, I talked like a kid. But when I became a man, I put all that stuff behind me. May God give us the grace to do that. Father, would you help us not to grow up to be boys of God, but be men of God? Would you help us to put giant self to death As Walt Chantry reminded us one time that every blow we strike at self, at giant self, we feel it. And he is astride our path. We are not going to make progress in the Christian life unless we take out our sword and we slay giant self. But in a strange way, we feel the pain that we inflict on self. Would you give us the grace to be men, not boys, in a time that requires us to be men, in a day when our marriages and our families Our churches and our nation are at the brink. Would you give us grace to be men, a generation of men, at a time where so many are willing to stay boys, stay boys their whole lives, boys all throughout their lives. They never grow up. Oh God, help us not to be boys. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.