Spiritual Maturity – Part 2
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 600 aired on February 26, 2017
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes, please stay with me. It’s going to be a time of motivation, some inspiration, some
education, and you know we do this without any type of manipulation because we don’t con
people here. We’re not trying to solicit support. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re
simply trying to give you some accurate information, information that will help you orient and
adjust to the plan of God. If I can verify it and identify it, then you can orient and adjust to the
plan of God. That’s up to you. My job here as host of The FLOT Line is to give you accurate
information, not some sort of human speculation, but accurate information. Thank you for
listening, so many of you across the country in so many places. I always love to hear from you,
letters or calls, not money, we’re not asking you to send any money. You can always write to us
at Rick Hughes Ministries, P.O. Box 100 in this city of Cropwell, Alabama 35054. Drop us a
note, let us know if the Lord is using the show in your life in any way. As we get ready to sign
our contracts for the new year, where we’re going to broadcast, we welcome hearing from folks
that are listening. The last few weeks we’ve been talking about the difference between spirituality
and carnality and we want to continue this today. The reason I’m doing this is because the
objective of having a FLOT line in your soul, the objective of having 10 unique problem-solving
devices is in fact so that you can grow to be a mature believer, so that you can grow from
spiritual self-esteem through spiritual autonomy to spiritual maturity. It is critical because that’s
when you begin to re-present Jesus Christ to your family, to your friends, to your nation. It is
always my objective to point you in the direction of a well-qualified pastor. I’m not a pastor, I’m
an evangelist and so you could say I’m sort of a recruiter. I’m looking for those of you who have
an increasing desire to want to grow spiritually. Those of you that are hungry for God’s Word and
want to get it on a consistent, daily basis because so many people don’t want this. So many
people are happy to go to church once or twice a week and that fills their need. I hope it doesn’t
fill your need because
you’re never going to reach spiritual maturity by going to church
once or twice a week.
There’s more to it than this. As we talk about this today, I want you to
listen very carefully to the things that I say if you’re interested.
Spiritual maturity is the divine
objective for every believer in time.
As long as you’re here, God’s plan for you is to become
spiritually mature. Just like a baby is born, one of my daughters just had a baby and hopefully the
child will grow and become a mature individual. You become a baby at the moment of your birth
in Christ, when you’re saved, and God wants you to grow to be an adult Christian, a mature
Christian. Spiritual maturity is the purpose for all the commands in the Bible, all of the Scripture
related to time in the Bible. They’re all there for the objective of you becoming spiritually mature
and reflecting or re-presenting Christ to those around you. It’s the Commander’s intent, the intent
of God Himself, and the only way that you could bring any maximum glorification to your Lord
Jesus Christ while you’re here on this earth, here in time right now is that you grow to be a
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spiritually mature believer. The reason is that’s the basis for your rewards.
It’s the basis for all
of the blessings you get in time and the basis for all the blessings you will get in eternity.
God has graced me out, He’s graced you out, He’s given us everything necessary for you and I to
advance to spiritual maturity in our life. He’s indwelt us with His Holy Spirit. He’s told us how to
be filled with the Holy Spirit by the rebound technique. He’s provided a complete canon of
Scripture, the Bible for us. He’s provided the local church so we can worship in privacy and grow
in privacy and He’s provided men who have the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. With all of these
assets, what God will not do is He will never infringe on your volition. He won’t make you a
robot. He gives you the choice. It’s all there if you want it but to be frank with you, most people
don’t want in-depth Bible study. Maybe a Bible study once a year is enough. Most people are so
busy raising their family, taking care of their jobs, they don’t have time to grow in grace and if
you don’t take time, if you don’t make time for God, why would you expect God to give you the
time of day? We are all responsible for our very own spiritual lives. Nobody else can do it for us.
The Father’s command intent is very plain. Let me just read a few verses for you about growing
up and becoming spiritually mature. Paul wrote this one in Ephesians 4:15.
“But speaking the
truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, the One who is head, even Christ Jesus.”
This verse is the Commander’s intent for the spiritual gift of communication in Ephesians 4:11,
“He has given some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.”
The very fact that God the
Father equips men with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher is an indication that He has a
desire for us to grow up spiritually.
Again, I will read from Paul, 2 Thessalonians 1:3,
“We are
bound to thank God always for you brethren, as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly
and as a result, your love is increased towards one another.”
That’s right, as your faith grows,
and faith comes by hearing the Word of God, the more you learn, the more faith you have, then
your love increases. Peter wrote about it in 1 Peter 2:2,
“As newborn babies desire the milk of the
Word, so you may grow by means of it.”
The NET Bible translates it,
“And yearn like newborn
infants for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up.”
The nourishment for my growth and
your growth must be, it has to be this, the untainted Word of God and we need it every day. Peter
again in 2 Peter 3:18,
“Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.”
These are the Commander’s intent. 1 Peter 5:22,
“To the pastor, feed the flock of God
which is among you.”
What’s the idea of feeding the flock? So that they can grow. Jeremiah
3:15,
“And I shall give you shepherds according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge
and understanding.”
Check this out.
The job of the pastor is to give you the knowledge of the
Word of God and the understanding of the Word of God. Listen to Nehemiah 8:8.
“So they
read in the book, in the Law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to
understand the reading.”
In other words, the prophets explained the very sense of what they
read to the people so there would be no misunderstanding. There is some sort of
misunderstanding today on the part of many believers, the ones who think, “I don’t really need a
pastor to help me learn the Bible.” I actually meet some people that say, “Well I can read it and
study it for myself and I don’t need a pastor.” That’s not true. One book that I recently read,
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emphasized how you could actually do this. This guy said that the average believer could read
the Bible and grow in grace if he tried the methods that were in this book. By the way you had to
buy his book, yeah that’s right, pay for it. His premise sounded correct, but it could be
misunderstood by amateur believers who fail to recognize the importance of you and me sitting
under qualified pastors. Remember we are sheep, the Bible says we are sheep. The Bible says the
pastor is our shepherd and you know, a sheep cannot find water or food on his own. If he
wanders off, he’s going to get lost and he won’t find his way back. The key thought the author of
this book brought forth is that too many Christians are under the Word of God but not in the
Word of God and that’s not true. Here’s the simple truth about the Word of God. It is inerrant.
This means there is no error in the Bible. I heard that, “What do you mean no errors? Look what
it says here. Look what it says there.” There are no errors in the Word of God. When you go to
the original languages, God doesn’t contradict Himself. You may find errors in the translations
but not in the original manuscripts or as close as we have of the original manuscripts. There are
no errors. We know secondly, that it was inspired by God the Holy Spirit, not human authors. 2
Timothy 3:16-17 tells you this. They were inspired by God the Holy Spirit and He didn’t affect
their style, but He inspired them on what to write. We know that in its original form the Bible is
completely trustworthy without error, I say it again. We know that the original manuscripts, the
original letters that Paul wrote or Peter wrote, those original manuscripts have been long lost,
lost many years ago, but we have some very early copies of those original writings passed down
that have been discovered and they are amazingly accurate. As a pastor-teacher learns the
languages such as Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, he studies the vocabulary and the structure of
the Scripture. He can act as your guide for you. You can consider a well-qualified pastor to be
your tour guide. He can show you around and explain what you’re about to see. Without him you
would be left on your own to try to figure it out and you’re not going to do it. Very few people
would study on their own to start with and that’s why face-to-face in the local church is so
important. That’s why a local church is mandated in the Bible. In Hebrews 10:25,
“Do not
forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some.”
Unfortunately, many
believers enjoy the gifts from God but they never get to know the Giver. That’s a shame. Listen
to Jeremiah 9:24.
“Let him who glories receive his glory from this, that he understands Me and
he knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the
earth, for it is in these things that I delight saith the Lord.”
Here it is, obviously God wants you
to know Him and to understand Him. There is a difference between knowing God and
understanding God. I have no doubt that many of you know God, but I do not know if you
understand the God you know. He says He
“Exercises lovingkindness, justice and
righteousness.”
Here is the first question I have for you. What is your point of contact with God?
The Bible says what the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God judges. We know He
loves you.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”
(John 3:16). Your point
of contact with God is His justice and on the cross, the justice of God provided for you. There,
on the cross, Jesus Christ the anointed Son of God took our sin. He paid for it and the
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righteousness of God will now accept us.
“He that knew no sin was made sin for us so that we
could be made the righteousness of God through Him”
(2 Corinthians 5:21). The only way that
you and I could ever have any relationship with God is through the finished work of Christ on
the cross who took our sin, gave us His righteousness. If we understand the distinctions between
God’s love, God’s justice, and God’s righteousness then we’re on the way to understanding what
God actually is. If we understand that He’s immanent and transcendent. If we understand that
He’s immutable, that He’s veracity, that He’s eternal life, that He’s omnipotent, omniscient, and
omnipresent, see how much there is to learn about God? You say, “Oh, I love God.” Yes, you
probably do know God. Do you understand Him. Is it necessary to understand Him? Yes. I mean
certainly God wants you to understand Him. He puts it right here.
“Let him who glories receive
his glory from this, that he understands Me and knows Me,”
that’s God’s Word. He wants you to
understand Him. He wants you to know what He approves of, what He doesn’t approve of, how
He can and may not bless you, what He can and cannot do. You have to remember the difference
between knowing God and understanding God.
We get to know God through Christ but we
get the understanding of Him through the Bible.
For example, when you first accepted Christ,
you often think your point of contact with God is His love but after you learn some doctrine, then
you realize the point of contact is indeed His justice. God’s justice guards His righteousness and
what the righteousness of God rejects, the justice of God will always judge. Yes, it was the love
of God that provided your redemption, no doubt about this, but it was the justice of God that
demanded Christ go to the cross and pay for this. There was no other way for you or me to get it,
no other way for God to give it to us than through Christ who was judged on the cross for us.
You know, if you are a mature believer, you don’t get all emotional about God. You don’t think
God loves you today more than He did yesterday because today you are good, yesterday were
bad. God doesn’t do this. You know, you get these ideas in your head that, “God is angry at me
today because I failed Him” or “God likes me today because I’ve been good.” It doesn’t work this
way. Sometimes in church services you hear a preacher say that, “God was here with us tonight.
We felt His presence.” Well the Holy Spirit indwells every person. God is omnipresent. He can
be in your town and in my town at the same time. Since you have a good worship service or
whatever you did, something about the songs, people cried, this doesn’t mean more of God
showed up. It means we got emotional and emotions, they’re a genuine bona fide appreciator.
There’s nothing wrong with your loving God for what He did for you but emotions are not
designed to carry you through life. They’re designed to appreciate. The spiritual life doesn’t
operate on emotions. No one can be mature spiritually without understanding the protocol
plan of God.
You must understand it and once you pick up and maintain some spiritual
momentum in your life, I mean by this you stay filled with the Holy Spirit every day and you
take in God’s Word on a daily basis under a qualified pastor, then you begin to have your
thinking renovated as in Romans 12:3.
“Stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond
what you should think but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a
standard of thinking from His Word.”
Then you can become spiritually independent. You begin
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to develop self-confidence from the Word of God and you don’t second-guess yourself. When
you start having this momentum in your life you can meet and face adversity with maximum
confidence, maximum perseverance, and you can live independent of human encouragement
from other people.
A wonderful thing about having some momentum spiritually is you have
maximum use of the 10 problem-solving devices.
You don’t get into self-pity and subjective
arrogance. You have maximum contentment in your life, maximum happiness in your life. That’s
why it’s important for you to become a spiritually mature believer and live your life as unto God
rather than unto man.
Colossians 3:23,
“And whatsoever you do, do it from the soul as unto the
Lord and not unto man.”
Spiritually mature believers do sin, yes, but they recover very quickly.
Paul said in Romans 7:15,
“I don’t understand myself at all because the things I don’t want to do,
I keep doing and the things I want to do, I don’t do.”
That’s because we have a sin nature that we
got from Adam. We’re always going to have it. None of us are going to be perfect. We’ll get rid
of it when we leave this side and go to the other side when we die. When we put on our
resurrection body, there is no sin nature. My prayer is that God will raise up men with the gift of
pastor-teacher, maybe somebody that’s listening to me today. Men that will dedicate themselves
to studying and teaching God’s Word before we lose our impact internationally, before we lose
the freedoms associated with America, the freedoms that allow us to evangelize the world
through missionary activity, and the freedom that allows us to build a sound, solid base of mature
believers here at home and to support their activities with the teaching of the Word of God. We
must have well-qualified pastors, not men that are cruise ship directors, not men that run around
and hold everybody’s hand and tell them that, “It will be all right. My sister died with it but
you’ll make it, hang in there.” That’s not what we need. It’s fine if a pastor wants to visit
somebody in the hospital but hopefully if you wind up in the hospital, you have enough of the
Word of God in your soul that you don’t need the pastor to hold your hand and pray for you. It’s
always amazing to me, people say “Pray for me.” They don’t have time for God the rest of their
life but when a crisis hits, that’s the first thing they say, “Pray for me. See, if you can get God to
jump out of the box and make me well.” Unfortunately, there is so much weird stuff in our nation
in the name of Christianity, weird books, I mean national bestsellers about “Dream your dreams”
and “Believe in yourself” and “God can empower you.” Weird stuff, it’s a multimillion dollar
industry, Christian entertainment. Books, videos, dramas, movies, all designed for one thing and
one thing only and if you think not, you are badly mistaken. They are designed to make a profit,
to make money. Listen to Jeremiah 23:21-22,
“I did not send these prophets, yet they ran. I have
not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My council and caused My
people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from their evil ways.”
Christian
entertainment hasn’t changed the course of American history. We are still going downhill faster
than a car with no breaks and you know it and I know it, just look at the trends of history. You
say, “But we’ve got a new president, things are going to change.” Well, we’ll see. You think he’s
the one that’s going to turn the country around? No, it’s you, it’s your spiritual life. Without you
having a significant impact spiritually, this downhill race will never slow down. You must be the
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one. God has to deliver us from glad-handing religious entertainers who pass themselves off as
some sort of pastor. These type of people that I’m talking about, you’ve got to forgive me for
getting on my high horse here, but these sort of people have changed the face of modern
Christianity from a Word-based faith to an eye candy, emotional type faith. Word-based faith, sit
down, open your Bible, get a notebook, listen and learn to now we go to be entertained by a
praise service. No one’s growing, no one’s learning anything, but they go away feeling so good.
Their emotions got fired up and at least until Monday morning or till they hit the traffic light or
get to the local restaurant and there’s a long line to wait. Where is the hunger for truth in
America? In American Christianity, where is the hunger for truth? Why do we sit there dazed and
glazed every Sunday morning while this big Hollywood production entertains us and the pastor
gives us some little 20 minute message that at the very best is shallow and at worst is not even
true. Why is it so hard to find one person who seeks truth and is willing to get it the old-
fashioned way? No one-shot decision is going to make you the person you want to be.
There’s
no such thing as a quick way to become a mature believer. It is a daily pattern of growth
under the filling of the Holy Spirit with the Word of God and a qualified pastor teaching it
to you.
Will you have problems? Sure, and you will recover from your problems if you confess
your sins, continue your spiritual life and you will have an impact on the future of this country.
When are you going to get serious about spiritual growth? When are you going to begin to be
consistent about your routine, your regimen of learning God’s Word, so you can advance to
spiritual maturity? When will you get serious about this?
Spiritual maturity is your objective.
That’s why you’ve been kept around after your salvation.
Spiritual maturity occurs from you
learning the protocol plan of God, making maximum use of the 10 problem-solving devices
and being independent of advice or counseling or human encouragement. It is being
mentally stable, being able to think in terms of the Word of God and apply the Word of
God to every situation in your life.
Mental stability for the believer is you putting God in front
of your experience. It’s you having maximum courage under evidence testing. It’s you having
objective reality in the face of whatever comes along. It’s you avoiding self-righteous arrogance
in some sort of moralism of Christian crusaders who think they’re impressing God because they
don’t do something. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to understand, and we’ve got a long way to go.
Please grow in grace. Find that pastor, get under him, study daily, and re-present Jesus Christ to
your generation before it’s too late. Until next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank
you for listening to The FLOT Line