Study Notes

I.      1 Corinthians 13:11-When you become a man not only does the way you talk change, but your understanding changes

A.    Colossians 3:2-Understood in 1 Corinthians 13 is the same Greek word as affection in Colossians 3

1.      Understood-Interest oneself in, set affection on, regard; To direct one’s mind a thing, to seek, strive for; The faculty of the mind for perceiving and judging; To have understanding, be wise

2.      Paul says, “My interests, what I set my affection on, what I gave my mind to, what I sought after and pursued was that of a child.”

B.     Maturity is reflected in what is important to you or what you value; Your interests, priorities, what you set your affection on, think about and pursue tells us everything about where you are spiritually

1.      What are you interested in? What are your priorities? What have you set your affection on? What’s important to you? What are thinking about and pursuing? These things reveal your level of spiritual maturity

2.      When you’re a child, your interests, what you value, think about, seek after and pursue is that of a child; When you grow up spiritually that changes, your priorities change; What’s important to a child is completely different than that of an adult

II.     A child doesn’t see what is important and what is not important – A child lacks perspective

A.    One of the main characteristics of a fool is that he doesn’t know what’s important/valuable and what is not; To him what is trivial is meaningful

1.      (1) Proverbs 1:7-Fools despise wisdom and instruction vs. Proverbs 8:11-God said wisdom is more precious than rubies; Proverbs 4:13-Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is your life (2) Proverbs 1:22-Fools hate knowledge vs. Proverbs 8:10-Receive knowledge rather than choice gold (3) Proverbs 18:2-A fool has no delight in understanding vs. Proverbs 16:16-How much better is it to get understanding than silver. 

2.      Proverbs 22:15-Foolishenss is bound up in the heart of child so one of the main things you see in children is a lack of perspective of what’s truly important and valuable and what is not

3.      In a spiritual child there’s a huge gap between what they see as important and what really is important

B.     Hebrews 5:12-14-One of the marks of a mature believers is that their perspective is trained to what is good (useful, precious) and what is evil (worthless)

1.      As you grow up you gain perspective of what truly is important and what is not

a.    Philippians 1:10-ERV-That you will see the difference between what is important and what is not and choose what it is important; CEB-I pray this so that you will be able to decide what really matters; AMP-So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value; NABRE-To discern what is of value

2.      1Cor13:11-When he was a child he had the perspective of a child, but with maturity something happened to his perspective; you gain perspective

C.    Your perspective determines your pursuits - What you see as important you will puruse

1.      Children don’t see what’s truly important and therefore give most of their time and energy to unimportant things

2.      Example: Grace’s life and thoughts are consumed with toys, playing, and having fun and she has set her affection on those things

III.   A main mark of immaturity is that what is important to God isn’t important to you and what isn’t important to God is important to you

A.    When you become a man you begin to value what God values; A huge sign of spiritual maturity is that what is important to God is important to you and what is not important to God isn’t important to you and that’s a sign that you’re growing up ; As we grow up spiritually our value system begins to align more and more with God’s; What’s important to Him becomes more and more important to us and what was important to us means less and less

1.      As you grow up spiritually your interests change, your priorities change, what you value changes

a.    Philippians 3:7-11-MSG-All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life.  Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung.  I’ve dumped all that in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.  PHIL-At one time all these things were important to me.  But because of Christ, I decided that they are worth nothing.  I lost all these things and now I know they are worthless trash.  All I want know is Christ. 

2.      As you grow up spiritually what you set your affection on, what you think about and what you pursue changes

a.    Colossians 3-MSG-Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.  Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is.  See things from His perspective; AMP-Set your mind and keep focused habitually on heavenly things, not on earthly things; EXB-Aim at, aspire, seek after, focus on things above. Think only about [Set your minds on; Fix your thoughts on]

B.     When something is important and valuable you treat in a manner that reflects that – Immaturity will treat precious things like they are common

1.      Malachi 1-Children treat precious things like they’re common because they have no perspective of what’s valuable (EX: Grace threw the cell phone)

2.      Matthew 22:1-5-This is a precious thing and they made light of what was important to the Lord

3.      1 Samuel 2:30-This is irreverent, this is disrespectful, they are treating precious things like they are common

C.    When something is important and valuable to you, it has priority over other things – Immaturity doesn’t have time for the things that matter most

1.      Luke 14:16-24-Children choose the things that mean little rather than things that mean much

2.      When you have all the time in the world for a bunch of meaningless stuff, but no time for the stuff that matters you’re a child (EX: Grace has no time to eat, to go to the bathroom, the take naps, to sleep)

D.    A child lives in such a manner that his priorities are out of whack – Luke 14:33-You’re not mature spiritually until Jesus is first

1.      Luke 9:59-62-Jesus is firm on him being first

2.      Matthew 10, Luke 14:26-This idea that family is first is that of a child (God I had to put you on the back burner because of my kids – NOT okay)

IV.   A child will set his affection on things of little value that don’t matter much; Things that don’t mean much, mean much to a child

A.    Colossians 3:2-A child will set his affection on earthly things; A spiritual child will allow his thoughts to be consumed by this earthly life

1.      Col3:2-PHIL-Give your heart to heavenly things, not the passing things of the Earth; WYC-Savor ye those things that be above, not those on the earth

B.     There are a lot of things happening on the planet that are useless, that mean nothing, that won’t last beyond this life, that have no eternal value, no kingdom significance (Things that perish, that will decay, waste way, come to ruin and be rendered useless)

1.      Colossians 3:2-AMP-Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value]

2.      John 6:27-Jesus corrected them because they allowed their lives to become consumed and occupied with something that wasn’t going to last, something that was useless; The people got up in the morning and couldn’t find Jesus so they looked for him and when they realized he wasn’t there they got in small rowing boats and travelled 7-10 miles to Capernaum to find him; They are consumed with finding him so that they can eat, their lives are occupied with getting their next meal

a.    Meat that endures-There’s other things that will can pursue that will last well beyond this lifetime and a man sets his affection on those things

C.    When you’re a child you give much of your time, thought, energy and focus to these things that mean nothing; A child’s life is consumed by a bunch of stuff that means nothing

1.      All there time is consumed with things down here (Colossians 3:2 TLB-Don’t spend your time worrying about things down here) --- What about what God has called you to do? What about being in church and getting trained to complete your assignment? What has the Lord been saying to you in your time with Him? What books are reading? What scriptures are you meditating? What teachings are you listening to? They’ll say, “We don’t have time for that.”

a.    A man values above all else revelation of the Word of God-2 Peter 1:4, Proverbs 4:7, Romans 10:15; A man values the development of his inner man-1 Peter 3:4, 1 Timothy 4:8; A man values the development of his faith-1 Peter 1:7, 1 John 5:4, Mark 9:23; A man values the assignment of God on his life and fulfilling the plan of God for his life-John 4:24; A man values his relationship with God, hearing the voice of God, being led by the Spirit of God-Philippians 3:10, John 16:13, Romans 8:14

2.      Philippians 3:19-AMP-Focus on their mind on earthly and temporal things; CEB-Their thoughts focus on earthly things; TLB-All they think about is life here on earth; NABRE-Minds are occupied with earthly things; WYC-They savor earthly things

3.      Being earthly-minded is living like this Earth and life on Earth is all there is and being absorbed and consumed by it

a.    Most have peoples thoughts and time are consumed by things going on down here and many never consider what did God send me to do, am I  doing it, what do I need to do so I can be prepared and equipped and trained to do it; Some believers think only about going to work, making money, enjoying their family and living their life becomes their whole life and they give no thought to kingdom things; Like a 3-year old who has sets affection on toys and fun and only thinks about playing

D.    For a spiritual child this world, this earth, life on this earth is all they see; So when they look out their perspective doesn’t go beyond this life; This life is all they see and life on Earth is their whole world (Philippians 3:19-PHIL-This world is the limit of their horizon)

1.      We are to be driven by eternity; This life is not all there is and you can tell that’s not real to us by how we react when somebody goes to Heaven

V.    When you’re a child you get upset over stuff that shouldn’t really make you upset (it’s because you lack perspective)

A.    How easily we get upset how often we are upset, what we get upset about says a lot about our maturity; People get so upset because they are so childish

1.      Ephesians 4:14-A child can get upset about anything at anytime and can do it quickly (Tossed-Agitated mentally Carried-In doubt and hesitation)

2.      EX: A child loses it over losing their balloon and they’ll wail and cry and heave over it and to the child this is a major problem and it’s like life and death and to them it is not funny, they are mortified.  They’re upset because they don’t understand how of little value that balloon was and they don’t realize that balloon is not worth getting that upset over. 

B.     When you’re easily upset and troubled it’s saying something about you-John 14:1

1.      1 Kings 21:4-Ahab came to his house heavy (sullen, sad, implacable-cannot be pacified or made peaceable) and displeased (vexed, sad, fret, enraged, angry, sad looking) b/c Naboth wouldn’t sell him the land and he fell across the bed, put his face in the pillow, wouldn’t eat

2.      1 Samuel 1-Hannah was sorrowful, grieved, frustrated, she wept and wouldn’t eat, she was fretting and troubled, she was in bitterness of soul, discontented, heavy, angry, chaffed, miserable, full of anxiety – What does this say about her? How mature she is? How strong her faith is?

C.    At the same time when you don’t get upset about stuff it shows maturity and perspective