Growing to Maturity

Pastor Steve Ross from Indiana spoke in the morning service. We understand today that the work of Calvary often is aborted. People receive the forgiveness of their sins through the atoning blood of the cross. But after having been forgiven and born again they may not know how to come to maturity in Christ.

(7/23/2006) Pastor Steve spoke of several factors that prevent our growing to maturity. He expounded on growing from knowledge, to understanding, to wisdom. There is a great need among us for understanding and wisdom.

Steve's main text was Isaiah 28:9,10. This always has been one of my favorites:

Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast?

For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule a little here, a little there. (Isaiah 28:9,10)

The following three verses explain the meaning of the two verses above:

Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people, To whom he said, ""This is the resting place, let the weary rest"; and, "This is the place of repose"—but they would not listen. So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there—so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured. (Isaiah 28:11-13

The thesis of the Book of Hebrews is that we are to leave the elementary aspects of salvation and press forward to perfection, to the fullness, to the rest of God. The above verses from the Book of Isaiah tell us how we enter the rest of God.

It is by "sav lasav, sav lasav, kav lakav, kav lakav" (do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule). The translators of the New International Version suggest that these possibly are "meaningless sounds."

This is an Old Testament representation of speaking in tongues.

"With foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people."

Let me sum up for you what God is saying here.

After we have been weaned from the breast, spiritually speaking, God wants to teach us so we will have understanding and wisdom and grow to maturity.

But He does this by writing His Word on our mind and heart. This is Christ, the Word, being formed in us. This is the flesh of man becoming the Word of God.

How does such understanding come to us? By the foolishness of God. By speaking in tongues.

What does speaking in tongues do for us? It brings us into the rest of God (that we might "go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured").

Going, falling backward, being injured, being snared, and being captured is a picture of the manner in which God deals with our personality. It is the death of the old adamic nature and the entrance of the new, born-again nature into the rest of God. We have to go through numerous experiences, some of them painful, before we finally have been "captured."

Speaking in tongues teaches us how to yield to the Spirit of God. It requires much experience before we learn how to live in the Spirit of God. Meanwhile speaking in tongues shows us how to change over from praying according to our natural mind to praying in the Spirit of God.

There is no other way to come to maturity in Jesus Christ. It is by sav lasav, sav lasav, kav lakav, kav lakav, that is, by word upon word, by eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ each day. Here a little and there a little we change from that which is purely adamic to that which is the Lord from Heaven.

Pastor Steve is correct. The burden of the Lord for us at Mount Zion Fellowship is to grow to maturity. Christ will enable us to do this as we look to Him continually.