MOVING ON TO MATURITY

MOVING ON TO MATURITY

                Our pastor preached a powerful sermon last night on rebuilding the altars. Our Christian maturity is found in the kind of altar we build for worship. He based his sermon on the story of Elijah as he confronted Israel with its sins and at the word of the Lord; he set up a do or die contest between the gods and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel on Mt. Carmel.

                America stands today in the same position as Israel stood in when the prophet Elijah came in before Ahab and Jezebel. Israel, living in the land that God had given them, was now worshipping other gods. Ahab was weak and he had allowed Jezebel to take over the show, bringing Baal worship into the land. Elijah confronted King Ahab and told him by divine revelation that Ahab was worse than any of the kings that had come before him. It was time for a showdown.

                But this is not some far off story from the dusty pages of an old book. We, as Christians today, live in a wonderful land that God has likewise given us. Based upon the principles of God’s Word (for freedom is a biblical concept) we have lived in a land of unprecedented freedom and prosperity and yet we are being overtaken by pagan idolatry and malevolent hatred and violence even as the church continues to shrink. Even witchcraft is growing faster than the church.

                One of the first principles of moving into maturity is to build an altar of uncut stones. So much of Christianity today is made up of stones cut and shaped by man. We want worship to be our way. We want life to go our way. The closer you get to the religious hierarchy… to the highly educated… the refined… to the scribes and Pharisees and the religious power brokers… the fewer uncut stones you find  as man worships in the pride of his status and his refinery and perfect programming.

                So much of Christianity is made up of highly cut and humanly shaped stones and yet our nations is drifting away from the Lord simply because man made Christianity has become irrelevant to the new generations that are coming up. Jesus chose to carry His ministry to the uncut stones of Israel… to the poor and the lame… to the publicans and sinners so despised by the religious leaders of the day.

                I can just picture a religious leader advising Jesus, saying, “Look man, if you want to make it as a successful prophet, you need to make the right contacts, the right networking to establish the right support systems. To begin with you need to attend the University… get your PHD… establish a rapport with the elite class. You will never impress kings and powerful men as long as You are hanging out with the riff raff. You need a Cabinet made up wise and cultured men of renown … not fishermen and tax collectors.

                But then we are not really talking about Elijah’s day or Jesus’ day. We are talking about us here and now… living in a nation that is turning drastically from God and hating the name of Jesus with a seething passion. Persecution is on its way and many times not because we are so righteous but because we are so insipid… building our altars of cut stones of man’s liking rather than Gods.

                A mature people are made up of those who pray mature prayers. They have stopped asking God for what they want and they have begun to ask God what He wants.  Instead we try to create a religious environment with a fine opulent building that fits our status, with air conditioned comfort and stately accoutrements. Then we have to have music to fit the tastes of the highly educated and the refined… that reflects our status… cut stones to offer to our Lord, but which in no way represent the ministry and the ways of the lowly Jesus who chose to be born in a manger and to minister among the poor and the uneducated.

                As mature Christians we need to begin to approach the Lord before an altar of uncut stones… to stop treating our Almighty God like a Santa Claus who has come to grant our wish list. We need to humble ourselves before God and to ask Him what He desires of us. We think that we are pleasing God with our traditions when in fact we are often polishing our own reflection in the mirror.

                Do we really hear what Jesus was saying as we build our great religious facades to Him? Listen to His words:

                “The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God I thank thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” Luke 18:11-13

                Firstly in this story we notice Jesus’ statement that the Pharisee was praying to himself. In his pride he had an audience of one… himself… with his status intact and his religious pride unruffled in the presence of Almighty God. Most prophets that actually had an encounter with God fell to the ground like dead men, crying out, “Woe is me for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people with unclean lips.” Isaiah 6:5

                Sometimes we forget who we are talking to… the Creator of heaven and earth. He has protocols for worship. We must enter His gates with thanksgiving in our hearts and His courts with praise. Then we offer ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice made worthy only by the blood of the Lamb. We must then ask Him to wash us with the pure water of the Word, even as Elijah saturated the sacrifice with water. We must pray the Word and not just our careless manmade thoughts.

                Thus having been humbled and cleansed … having laid our own will, our own agenda upon the altar of sacrifice we must move into the presence of the Lord in the Holy Place where only the Holy Spirit and the Word and prayer shed light upon an otherwise dark place and we cry out before the veil…”Lord make me a temple of Your Holy Spirit. Allow me to be led by your Spirit and not by my flesh. Teach me your ways Lord and give me understanding of your Word and how to apply it to the situations I face today.

                Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. As the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul longs after You. Let the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you today. Your kingdom come… Your will be done in my life today even as your will is done in heaven.

                Maturity comes when we count everything that we think is good in our lives as rubbish and we cry out to be overtaken by Him. We have no righteousness to offer Him. Our Law keeping has done nothing to gain status with Him, for we have no righteousness that can recommend us to Him. “Nothing in my hand I bring… Only to thy cross I cling.” The only righteousness we have is Him, dwelling in us. We are holy only because He is holy. We are separated from the world only because He has called us out… and here we stand with no agenda… no cut stones… but only an altar made by the Lord upon which to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

                Maturity is perhaps not what we think. It is not about me becoming perfect. It is about me learning to perfectly trust in Him. When we have given up on ever doing one right thing apart from Him… then our prayers will become mature prayers. We stop offering our cut stones to God and we begin to worship Him upon an altar of uncut stones. We stop looking for a place to worship God that reflects our status in life and we go to humble places where humble people cry out to God. We no longer offer our righteousness to Him, but we cry out for His righteousness.

                Maturity is in knowing that without Him we can do absolutely nothing of eternal consequence. We can’t even offer Him our obedience, because even as we keep the rules we fall short of the glory of God… and Christ in us is our only hope of glory.(Colossians 1:27) Obedience is learning to live by His Spirit and not by our own flesh. We are not here to perfect our flesh, but to live fully by His Holy Spirit who dwells in us and by His Word that guides us.

                So this week we will be exploring maturity as it is described in the book of Hebrews with the hope that we will come into a new place with God. “Strong meat belongs to them that are full of age, even to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Hebrews 5:14