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We will continue in the subject of maturity through pressure and we’ve been telling you not to be afraid of trouble, don’t be afraid of pressure that we are learning how to trouble our trouble.
Amen. And um so today we’re, we’re gonna literally start talking about how to develop in spiritual maturity.
I think we spent a couple of weeks telling you that we need to mature spiritually.
But then comes the practical part, what are some things we need to do?
So we can develop in this, in this maturity and, and operate here.
And there are signs of spiritual maturity and developing and maturing through pressure is a vital thing in our lives.
And yet somehow not, not everything, not all people, not all Christians, but there’s a lot of maturity still we need to see in the church, there’s a lot of immaturity in the church.
You have people who are not even born again, that act more mature than some Christians.
And I think one of the reasons is that we just don’t really understand spiritual maturity and, and what it means.
So I let’s begin this morning, let’s let’s work on a practical definition.
So you’ll understand when I, when I say it’s time to mature and that sometimes God allows certain things to happen on our lives.
And out of those things comes greater maturity, growth, preparation most of the time in the New Testament.
When you see the word perfection, it’s talking about maturity. And so let’s let’s look at that.
Uh what does it mean to be ma mature? What it means to be complete?
To me, it’s complete. It means to be prepared.
It means to be ready.
A place of maturity, a place where I am complete. I am prepared. I am ready.
And when I look at those, I think about this word ripe, you know, is the fruit ripe?
Is it ready to be picked? Is it ready to be eaten?
And for us, as Christians, are we ripe?
Have we, have we come to a place where we’re ready to be picked?
Yeah, everybody wants God to use you, everybody. We all want God to use us.
But are you ripe to be used?
It means to uh brought to perfection and growth or to be at the best state and you ask yourself, have I been brought to that place of perfection or completion in in my growth as a Christian?
See, you’re, you’re not, you’re not growing just because you’ve been saved a number of years. Ok?
Like a lot of people that have been saved 20 years but spiritual, spiritual maturity, they, they’re like babes still.
So we have to understand what this maturity is, is about.
I I it means to come to the the best state and, and here’s my favorite of, of all these definitions.
It means to be fit, fit for use, fit for use, maturity.
Are you fit for God to use fully qualified by your improvement?
Mature fully qualified by your improvement.
So as Christians, we should be improving in our character, improving in our love, improving in our relationships, improving with our relationship where God is concerned, there’s no such thing as you got born again and then that’s it.
No, we get born again, then we start renewing our mind and then we start improving.
We start improving, you know, a grain, I thought this was interesting.
A grain ripens best in dry weather, grains ripen best in dry weather.
And sometimes a Christian matures when there’s some dry weather in your life.
When things aren’t going well, when you can’t figure out how come that happened?
Why God let that happen now, you know God’s with you, but sometimes you got your faith out there and at the end of it, it doesn’t turn out like you expected for it to turn out.
And that’s when you got to pause and cry and do whatever you’re gonna do.
And when you finish responding out of your humanity, then you’re gonna have to recall and say, but I still trust God.
Hallelujah. And there is some, there is some growth that takes place when you go through stuff, get your faith out there and it doesn’t happen the way you wanted it to happen.
What’s, what’s going on at that particular time? You’re, you’re maturing at that at that particular time.
And, and I wanna make sure I distinguish between the, the humanity part and the maturity part and God dealt with me about that even this morning, he says no, no, nothing wrong with you.
There. You just, you just, that’s, that’s what humans do.
But because you renewed your mind, you go back to love, right?
Somebody hurts you and you’re angry and you’re emotional and all that kind of stuff because that’s a part of your humanity.
That’s how you respond to it.
But after everything is over with, you bounce back and say I forgive and I love and I’ll do all the things that that’s maturity.
Now before you wouldn’t have bounced back before you would have like where my knife at?
I bet you won’t do it again.
That’s, that’s, that’s because there’s been no improvement and I think it’s a sad thing for, for, for, for us to be saved for a number of years and there’s no improvement.
You ever met somebody like that?
You hadn’t seen him in 20 years and then when you finally see him, there’s no improvement. That, that’s weird.
That feels weird. Right. It’s like you the exact same, you’re the exact same person you were 20 years ago.
Yeah. Can we hook up? No.
Are, are you following what I’m saying?
And so the, you know, as grain improves during dry weather, I believe we should improve in, in the middle of all those things not working like we thought them to work out.
Yeah, you’re disappointed. And if the truth be told. Sometimes you’re very disappointed in God.
You know God, why didn’t you do that? Why didn’t you do that?
And, and, and it becomes more disappointing when you think you’re doing everything you should have did watch this to make God do it.
And see, that’s, that’s what I’m saying.
We keep going back and forth from, from understanding the grace to going back to self reliance.
You know, I did this, I said this every morning I got up and I prayed an hour in tongues.
I said I was healed five times a day. I read all my confessions.
I did that and I still didn’t get what I expected. God. I’m upset.
I ain’t gonna have nothing to do with you.
But remember trials, uh the, the purpose of a trial is to, is to authenticate your faith.
The purpose of a trial is to, to, to, to check out the genuineness of your faith.
Because after you do all of the stuff you say you do and then you’re disappointed with an unexpected outcome.
Will you still depend on God?
Because stuff happens when people come out of a hard time and it didn’t work out the way they thought it worked and they still believe in God.
Keep your eye on Him because God getting ready to do something fantastic in their life.
I mean, I’m thinking about Joseph who was uh uh you know, he, he, he uh he, he absolutely just he did what he had to do wherever he was, he made improvement wherever he was.
He was the best at what you know, he, he, he was right. He allowed every situation.
I mean, you would think the brothers the way they did him and he’s in a pit and then he’s a slave in Ty house.
Then he’s in prison now in prison.
He interprets this guy’s dream and he tells the guy, don’t forget about me, don’t forget about me, dude.
All right, tell him about me and he forgot about it.
Two y two more years, two more years.
And then Pharaoh has a dream and he tells him about him and he comes out.
So I’m, I’m, I’m sure he thought the guy was gonna come back in a couple of days.
It was this test to see the genuineness of his faith.
You don’t see Joseph going around. I ain’t gonna have nothing to do with God no more.
I ain’t praying no more. I ain’t, I ain’t asking no more.
I ain’t got nothing to do with God because he didn’t give me what I wanted like I wanted.
You can’t pray the will of God and then get upset because they didn’t come like you want.
And when you want it, maturity means ready or fit to be picked for use, ready or fit to be chosen or to be picked for use.
And that’s why you should not be taking the same test over and over again.
It’s time to pass it. It’s time to pass that test of the thing that makes you angry all the time.
It’s time, it’s time to pass that test of the thing that makes you, you know, you get the cussing all the time.
You’ve been told everybody you save and then that same button and hit and then you, you, he get, he can get you to cuss every single time, hit that same button.
It is. But maturity means when that same thing comes around now, you’ve improved.
And that’s why we are not judge people so harshly because there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s improvement space.
That’s why Christians ought not to ever, you know, dog out other Christians because there’s improvement space and I’m gonna speak faith, world changes.
You’re improving every day, you’re maturing, you’re maturing. You don’t do what you used to do.
You don’t respond like you used to respond. You’re not cussing folks out. You’re not getting watch this.
You’re not even getting offended like you used to get offended stuff that used to cause you to lose sleep.
You sleep like a baby now because you’re improving, you’re becoming that fruit that’s ready to be picked you.
Yeah. So there is no exception in maturity.
No exception granted for you to walk out of love. Why?
Because God gave us his love, his supernatural love and it can stand up to anything it can stand up to any hurt, it can stand up to any pain.
There’s no excuse for walking out of love.
And if you’re walking out of love for any reason that is, I mean, seriously identifying the area of immaturity in your life, you got to learn how to love what’s not lovely.
I have never thought I would see the day where hate, right?
Hate fills the land that’s supposed to be the land of Christians where we send missionaries to other countries.
And now we need missionaries sent to us.
This improvement has got to be an improvement in our love walk because at the end of the day, no matter how many amazing revelations you get from God.
If it is not found in improving love, it’s a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol, you just make a lot of noise.
And that’s the thing that, that I feel like I am supposed to be doing as a leader is I am supposed to be teaching and growing you up in the love of Jesus Christ.
If I teach anything else to you and fail to teach that characteristic, the love of God, I have failed.
We’re called to love and we’re called to love.
Not just when it’s easy, but we’re called to love even in hard spaces in hard times and we improve in that we improve in that we improve in forgiving people.
For you not to forgive somebody is for you to be a self, righteous person.
Think you have a right to condemn somebody else.
When you yourself got your own issues, we can improve in that.
We can mature in that. And God’s waiting on that maturity. He’s waiting on that improvement.
He wants to pick you, but you’re not right yet.
So it requires you going through some other stuff to help you to ripen. Hm.
So when he pick you and uses you, you will provide the necessary nourishment to accomplish his will in somebody else’s life.
Oh, I’m preaching good this morning, my God.
So let’s look at some things that I think will, will, will will help you out.
When we talk about developing uh spiritual maturity, what we’re talking about uh is, is what are some signs, some things that we need to be demonstrating our lives uh where as far as developing uh spiritually, maturity is concerned.
But here’s the first one we’re gonna deal with and we probably won’t get past this today.
If you wanna develop in spiritual maturity.
Then the first thing we got to do is we got to strive after the standard of Christ.
We’ve got to strive after the standard or the ideal of Christ.
It’s not all these, these things we said in a piece of paper to say we do that makes us mature because we can preach better or you know.
No, no, no. We’re striving after the idea of Christ. We’re striving after the standard of Christ.
And what happens is we, as we begin to go after the standard of Christ to be like him, we find simultaneously we begin to mature into that.
What do I mean? Let’s look at first uh I almost talk most of the time from uh the new living translation.
But look at first Peter chapter two verses 21. 1st Peter chapter two and verse 21.
And, and I, and I really just wanna show you uh just several scriptures.
I just wanna read it to you how it’s kind of like that scripture said uh showed us this morning some scriptures when you read it, no comment is necessary.
It’s like what I’m gonna say after that.
What’s this verse 21 for God called you to do good even if it means suffering just as Christ suffered for you.
He is your example and you must follow his steps.
So Christ is my example, first and foremost for Christian people.
Christ is our example and I know you have heroes in life and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And, and, and you can look at some of their stuff, but Christ is your example and hopefully your heroes are also, you know, following Christ’s footsteps as well.
I I’m not talking about just humanity.
I’m talking about humans who have decided that I’m a Christian and I’m a follower of Christ.
Christ is your example. I don’t wanna be your example above Christ unless my example is, is, is, is, is in line with his example.
Oh, you follow what I’m saying, Christ is my time now you hear some of these things just like, oh wow.
Isn’t that sad that he actually has to say this, say this in the, in this day and time?
It is. But I think, I think Christians need to hear these things.
Sometimes the Bible says, you know, be careful that you don’t let certain things slip and we may have let them slip.
But but Christ, Christ should be your hero, Christ should be your example in this time.
And, and, and as Christian people, let’s zero back into that. Christ is my example.
Say that aloud, Christ is my example.
Do this is one of those scriptures, you read it, you’re like, how am I gonna come in on this Philippians chapter two verse three through eight.
Now listen to this. So here, here’s an example. Here’s what Christ is telling us to do.
This is this is this is, this is what it means to be, right?
This is when you’re ripe and ready to be picked. He says, don’t be selfish.
What else is he saying? Selfish people aren’t right to be picked.
You, you heard the scripture meet for the master’s use fit to be picked and used.
Don’t be selfish. So I’m reading this as a Christian. I’m don’t be selfish.
I wanna look at my life and ask myself often am I being selfish here often I’ve asked myself, am I being selfish here?
And I’m glad I asked myself because the Holy Spirit is not gonna lie to you. Yes, you are.
He says, don’t be selfish and then watch this.
Now he says, don’t try to impress others and do you then you as a Christian looking at that and say, am I am I, am I trying to impress others?
I can’t even get out the house on time because I’m concerned about. Am I dressed uh uh well enough?
Am I am I this and that, that? Am I trying to impress others?
Don’t, don’t do that because if you do that, you’re just setting yourself up for her.
Am I trying to impress others? You need to impress God first. Then he said, be humble.
So how, what does he mean by being humble here? Thinking of others as better than yourself?
When’s the last time? Can you recall a time in your life where you are, have been thinking of others better than yourselves?
These are the things we need to hear in church.
We’re so we’re so busy trying to be poetic and, and getting the 10 rating for our sermon.
I’m Christian. Had. Have you heard this before? They’re like, oh my God, I didn’t, I didn’t know that.
Had I not known had I had I known I’d have done better.
Don’t look out only for your own interests. Are you looking out only for your own interests.
Hm. Maybe you have a business and your business majors on taking advantage of people because you’re looking out only for your own interests.
Because if, if there’s not something on the other side, maybe it’s just all about your own interest.
He says, but do you take an interest in others as a Christian?
Ask yourself, do I take an interest of some of other people?
Next verse, you must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had?
Because when you have the attitude that Christ Jesus had, you’re gonna be improving, you’re gonna be maturing.
He says though he was God Jesus though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
He could have. He could have came down here and walk around and say, bro, you know, I’m God, don’t you, he could have, but he didn’t think it was, it was, it was something to, to cling to the importance in your life, the promotions in your life, the things that God does in your life, is it gonna be something that you think is important for you to cling to or will you keep yourself open to share the interest of somebody else?
He said instead, he gave his divine privileges. He gave up his divine privileges. Excuse me.
He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being even though he was who he was when he appeared in human form, he did all of that.
A lot of people don’t even understand what did he have to give up to get down here in the form of a man to be an example, man needed to see an example on a human level.
And Jesus showed up as an example.
On a human level, you can’t ignore Jesus and then talk about I matured.
I don’t think you’re ever going to walk in the type of maturity the Bible is talking about ignoring Jesus because he is the pattern and the standard and the example of spiritual maturity.
Me man makes sense.
And verse eight, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died.
A criminal’s death on a cross being. God died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Ain’t nothing I can say about that. Look at second Corinthians 3 18.
Second Corin Corin is 3 18.
I, you know, I, I am so OK with getting up and sharing scripture after scripture after scripture and I am fine preaching to a church who wants to listen and learn and I am so delivered from doing a cartwheel to see if I can get you to jump up and scream and say preach pastor.
I wanna make sure you’re learning something and improving and I wanna make sure that I can have an opportunity to see you get picked off the tree and be used, but sometimes you have to just settle down and just make it plain so people can see it.
Second Corinthians chapter three verse 18.
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord and the Lord who is the spirit makes us more and more like him.
Now, stop right there. So you know, when I started looking at this, I’m thinking man, this is really gonna be hard.
I mean, me maturing is gonna be hard. And so that’s my first mistake.
He’s not asking me to do the work of maturing myself.
He’s asking me to depend on him to do the work of maturing me.
I have a beautiful announcement to make that God has accepted the responsibility to live in you, walk in you and work in you.
It is not God who’s walking on your side and he’s not walking in your back. He walking in you.
Praise God and, and, and I want you to do this for a homework assignment.
I want you to go and look up all the scriptures where you see God saying I’ll do the work.
Why do Christians have to go through adversity?
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Maturity through pressure, Creflo dollar gives clarity on the why behind the pressure we face these pressures will be allowed to show up in your life to get you to the point where you are no longer depending on you that you now will depend on him.
There’s nothing that you’re going through.
You cannot outlast outlast trial, outlast the pressure trouble will come but you will outlast it.
I see this as an experience of hope and victory and development because it got rid of the impurities of depending on myself for only $45 for cds or $55 for dvds.
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