Shifts

It is football season, in case any of you need to be reminded.  Some teams have started well and are (for now) staying the course.  Some teams have struggled "our of the gate" and need to make adjustments if they are to have a successful season.  Jeff Greenway, in a book subtitled A Bold Witness of Wesleyan Faith at the Dawn of the Global Methodist Church, identifies some necessary adjustments that must be made if we are to live into a thriving and Biblical future.  Over the next 9 weeks, I will be focusing my messages on the shifts identified in this forward-looking book about the future of our church.

This Sunday we will look at the first "shift" ... the shift from infancy to maturity.  The Bible has a lot to say about this.  Hebrews 12:12 says, "In fact, by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths about God's Word.  You need milk, not solid food."  When my children were first born, they needed milk and formula, not solid food.  This is natural for humans and other mammals.  What is not natural is for adolescents and adults to continue to need milk, when they should be progressing to solid food.  If an adult can't tolerate solid food, we would all know something is wrong.  But what about the food of God's Word?  Do we still seek and rely on milk when we should be seeking and craving the meat of God's Word?  Sure, it is harder to digest!  Sure it requires the effort of chewing!  But for those growing in God's Word, God's plan and God's kingdom, this is the expected behavior.

Ephesians 4:14 amplifies this point by telling us the benefits of growing into spiritual maturity.  "Then you will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming." Paul's points?

1. Infancy is something to grow out of ... not live in.  It should pass quickly for those who are hungry and thirsty for God's "bread of life."

2. Infants are confused and drawn in by the glitter, movement, sound, and passion of the waves.  Eloquent speakers ... music that has a good beat (but no substance) ... online prophets (you can add volumes to this) can all become clanging cymbals and loud voices.  But if they do not have love for Christ and His teaching, they are just noise to be avoided.

3. Infants are easily duped by clever schemes and street-side prophets.  Paul reminds us that there is an evil and intention behind those who teach a gospel that is not from Jesus.  These teachings are masked and veiled in enough truth to draw you in ... but they are "craftiness and deceitful scheming."  We have an enemy that works through willing people.  Some of them are clever and bought-into the work Satan is doing in the world.

There is a current stream of nonsense happening in my Facebook feed that is disturbing.  A woman has published a prophetic look at current events that point to what she says is "The Rapture."  While Rapture-Theology didn't appear till the 1800's (sorry for that true but disturbing fact) I will reserve that discussion for another time.  But the woman's post claimed (now past-tense) that the Rapture should have happened yesterday.  If it did, it seems no one was "taken up." And let's remember, "No one knows the day or the hour (except the Father) [Matthew 24]."  Yet people, claiming to be mature Christians, bought into this clearly non-Scriptural (and now untrue) prediction.

Don't accept living in spiritual infancy.  Don't believe everything you hear and see on the internet.  Do fill your heart, soul and mind with God's Word, so that you will be strong when the wind, waves and schemes come your way.  Live in Christ today, and you will have peace and sufficiency.  AMEN