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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] [choir singing] Amen. We are continuing our sermon series based on 1st Corinthians.

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The subject of the message today, ready for solid food. 1st Corinthians, the The third chapter, the first three verses, we have the words of our text. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

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I have fed you with milk and not with meat. hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able for ye are yet carnal for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men ready for solid food. Do you want to be a baby all your life? This is a question that may well have been

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addressed to the Corinthian congregation by Paul in the first century. For he calls them bathes in Christ. A baby needs nurture because a baby is immature, a baby desperately needs attention, a baby is fed on milk and spends most of his or her time eating and sleeping. When Paul refers to the Corinthian Christians as babes in Christ,

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he's making an indictment against the church. They were lifted up in pride, boasting of their superior human wisdom, and the Apostle takes the wind out of their sails so to speak. He takes a pen and punctures their balloon of boastfulness by saying to them, "You are babes in Christ. You're still in the cradle when it comes to your Christian faith, you're in the

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nursery. When I first came to minister to you I fed you milk because I knew you were babies. Babies are fed milk that that's all they're prepared to digest. They cannot eat strong meat. They need milk. Many many years ago there were parents who would nurse their infants not only during the period of infancy

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but long after those years. Sometimes a breast-fed child would be big enough that even in church or some other public place just to reach in and get the breast and get the milk. Brother Keeling tells a story of a boy who was going down the street and he was just bawling, crying, and he was asked what's wrong with you boy? He said well my mother is trying to wean me and I'm just

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not going to stand for it. Babes in Christ. As they grew older sometimes they would take the food and chew it and then give it to the child so the child could digest it. Today we have baby food which can be purchased especially prepared for infants. What does Paul mean when he says to the people you are babes in Christ?

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After all, the people are adults in age, they're over 21, and possibly many of them are middle-aged and senior citizens. Nevertheless, the Apostle speaks of them as babes in Christ. A baby is self-centered. A baby is primarily concerned about having the world to revolve around him. When the baby cries, the baby wants immediate attention. He wants response to his particular need. So a

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babe needs a great deal of attention and care because this is necessary if the babe is to grow toward maturity. What Paul is suggesting is that adults in age may well be babes in Christ, that we may be adults in the flesh, babes in the spirit. He's pointing to the immaturity of church members. Wisdom, the wisdom of God is for the mature, the mature church

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member is experiencing growth. The persons to whom Paul refers were babes when he was there ministering among them and now he's been away for some time and they still have not grown. They are just where they were then. They have not grown. I was talking with a man some time ago and he was talking about pigs and he

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said that a runt is a pig that just eats and eats and eats and eats and still doesn't grow. Eats as much as all the other pigs but just remains the same size. So it may well be that there are some Christians who are runts who are exposed to all of the things that ought to contribute to growth but fail to

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really grow. It seems that this is the kind of situation that Paul is addressing here in his letter to the Corinthians when he speaks of them as Babes in Christ. They have not reached the point yet where they can eat meat. Meat is for the mature, milk is for the lightweights, meat is for the heavyweights.

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The weightier matters of the Spirit have not been shared with the Corinthians because they have remained babes in Christ. I ask again the question, do you want to be a baby all your life? It's sad that many people want to remain babies. They want to be as a babe and thus remain weak and helpless. The baby always wants something done for him. The baby in

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the church is one who is constantly thinking in terms of what others ought to do for him rather than what he can do for others. You want to be a baby all your life. A baby specializes in crying. You know there are persons who are just crybabies constantly complaining. They've got to be fed milk whether breastfed or bottle-fed. They must receive milk

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because they are babies they are not ready for meat for you see meat is father mature and they are babes in Christ. You are babes in Christ the Apostle says to the Corinthian congregation. In other words you are acting childish. You know it's a good thing to be childlike. Childlikeness is a

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desirable trait. To be childlike is to be humble, it's to be open to the truth, it's to be obedient, to be childlike. That's a good trait, it's desirable. but childishness is undesirable. It is to be spoiled, it's to be silly, and Paul is saying to the Corinthians, "You really are being childish in the way you are acting

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there in Corinth. You're babes in Christ. Sure, you've been baptized. Sure, you attend the services. You've been in the church a long time, but you are babes in Christ. You have jealousy which is a sign of immaturity. You are caught up with rivalries, that's another sign of immaturity. So you have not been fed meat because meat is rather mature.

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Ability to eat meat is evidence that one is no longer in the stage of infancy. It is not intended that the Corinthians who have experienced this new birth would remain in the nursery. It is not intended that we become satisfied in the kindergarten of faith we are to grow we are to reach the point where we can eat

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meat. Once when Jesus returned from a trip when his disciples had gone into the city to get food they came back and they said it to him master aren't you hungry and he said unto them I have meat that you know not of. That it is my meat to do the will of the Father and meat is father mature not for babes it's father

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mature. Jesus on another occasion said to a group of disciples, a large large group that was following him, "You cannot be my disciple unless you eat my body and drink my blood." And they said this is a hard thing, who can stand it, who can bear this?" And it is said that many of them went back and walked no more with him. They were not mature, they

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were babes. They had followed him, they wanted the loaves and the fishes, they wanted those things, just as a babe wants food, but they were not prepared for the suffering, they were not prepared to endure the temptations and trials you see that's father mature. Meat is father mature, solid food, solid food.

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An individual is immature when controlled by worldly values and one is mature when one is controlled by spiritual values. And we do well today to ask ourselves the question, "How mature are we?" And again to somehow hear the words of Paul who says to the Corinthians, "You are babes in Christ." In order to have

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that maturity that comes through eating solid food, the solid food of the Spirit, one has to get rid of jealousy and strife. And suppose, just suppose we would search ourselves and ask the question, "How mature am I? Am I jealous of somebody else, something somebody else has that I somehow wish they didn't have because I

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don't have it? Or am I glad that they've got it even though I don't have it? How mature am I? Am I somehow eating the solid food that Christ provides at his table? Or am I a babe still being fed milk? How mature am I? I'm going to ask myself the question again and for you to ask yourself the question, "Am I somehow caught up with group loyalties that

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I'm going to be over here with this group no matter what they may do or say?" I was in a meeting some time ago and a man was saying, "You know, I'm going to be with so-and-so." He hadn't even heard the issue, he was just going to be with so-and-so because so-and-so was his friend. He wasn't concerned about what's right and

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what's wrong, but just saying, "Well, you know, so-and-so and I, we're buddies, and so whatever position he takes write me down for it too. How mature am I? Do you want to be a baby all your life? Solid food is to grow, not to be caught up with jealousy and strife, not to be caught up with with group loyalties in the church,

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And not to be somehow boasting as were the Corinthians of an elevated Christian experience. Some of them have had some experiences and they were just boasting, "You know, I know the Lord, I know I'm better than so and so because I met the Lord and I have had certain experiences that this person hasn't had, so I know I'm a better Christian than so and

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so." And all so and so is ignorant, so and so can't even use good language. They haven't been to school like I have, so they can't have the quality of religion that I have.

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That's the way they were in Corinth. And Paul said, "You know, you're acting childish. You're just acting like babies. In fact, you were like that when I was there and sort of worked with you years ago, but

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here you are still in the same position, babes in Christ. Do you want to be a baby all of your life?" need to grow to the point of accepting solid food, he says. And solid food means to be free of jealousy and strife, free of group loyalties, free from boasting of

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elevated Christian experience, free from factionalism. Factionalism. You see he says, in other words, all these little cliques, these little groups you've got in the church, these are the work of man. And if you do not want to be a baby all of your life, then you must develop to the point where you can eat solid food. You must

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have, in order to eat solid food, you've got to have a strong digestive system that will enable you to consume it. Yes, liquids are for the weak digestive system. Liquids. You want to be strong, you got to have solid food, some strong meats, you got to have a strong system. Maturity, maturity is in the

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consideration we have for others and you've got to be strong to be able to consider others in all conditions and circumstance to be able to accept people no matter what they do you've got to be mature to accept that. You've got to be mature even to accept all the members of your family, your blood relatives because

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they'll do many things that you won't like and you've got to be mature to accept them. And those outside your family, you've got to be mature to accept them. They make mistakes, they stumble, they blunder, they fail, they let you down. You've got to be mature to keep loving them. Got to be mature. If you would have

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that solid food, it means that you're going to be able to put up with some things that you may not like. Forbearance. It means that we're going to have patience, long-suffering. That's a sign of maturity. Maturity. Endurance, patient endurance. Maturity, yes. Strong, solid food involves sincerity. And when you're

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really sincere without wax, true blue, it means that you're going to go through no matter what. You can be a person for all seasons, summer and winter, whatever the season may be. You can endure all kinds of weather. Well you know a lot of times we say, "If you've got it, flaunt it." Well that's the way the Corinthians were. They say, "Yeah, we got it, so we're gonna flaunt it."

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That's a sign of immaturity. It's a sign of being a baby in Christ. It's a sort of look down our noses at others because we've got something they don't have. We've got a better building. We've got a bigger budget. We've got this and that. So if you've got it, flaunt it. well that's a sign of immaturity. In other words, Paul is saying if you have it,

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you don't flaunt it. There is a spirit of humility. That's the sign of maturity. It's somewhat difficult to have a whole lot of anything and be

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humble about it. It's such a great temptation to stick your chest out when you've got a lot of anything and somebody else doesn't have it. But the sign of maturity is to be humble and this is the sign. Paul says that what you really need

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there is some solid food. Stop being a baby. If you don't want to be a baby all of your life you've got to begin to walk not after men, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. To walk after the Spirit. In other words to walk with God and when we walk with God we can walk anywhere. You can walk over the hills, you

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You can walk through the valleys. You can even walk through the rivers when you walk with God. For when we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on the way.

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When we do his good will, he abides with us still, with all who will trust and obey. It's the way of the cross. And we come now to extend the invitation to those who would grow in Christ, who would accept him as Lord of your life, and who would somehow endeavor to reach that point of eating

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solid food, not being a baby all of your life, but to enter into that romance with God where one grows even as Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. We invite you to come now. This is the opportunity to come, to unite with this church, to unite with the people of God here as we sing.

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The cross upon which Jesus died is a shelter in which we can hide And its grace, so free, is sufficient for me. And deep is its fountains, as wide as the sea. There's room at the cross for you.

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There's room at the cross for you. Though millions shall come, there's still room for one. Yes, there's room at the cross for you. The hand of my Savior is strong, and the love of my Savior is long.

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Through sunshine and rain, through loss or in the game, the blood flows from Calvary to cleanse every stain. There's room at the cross for you. There's room at the cross for you.

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Though millions have come, there's still room for one. Yes, there's room at the cross for you. There's room at the cross for you. [Music]

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♪ And the cross for you ♪ ♪ Though millions have come ♪ ♪ There's still room for one ♪ ♪ Yes, there's room ♪

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♪ At the cross for you ♪ ♪ The wind and the bamboo ♪ ♪ There's still room for one ♪ ♪ Yes, there's room ♪

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♪ For the cross ♪ ♪ For you ♪ - Let us pray. Eternal God, our Father, we thank you for that solid food which is available to all

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thy children through the gift of your Holy Spirit. Grant that we may partake of it, that we may grow and not be babes in Christ, but growing toward maturity, be the kind of people you want us to be. Now unto him who's able to keep you from falling

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and present you faultless before his glorious presence, unto the only wise God our Father be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and forevermore, amen. (organ music)

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[Music] [ Silence ]