A Word about the Stages of Christian Growth

 

Today, I want to explore how to reach our potential in Christ as I share a word about the stages of Christian growth as I comment on 2 Peter 3:10-18 This passage reads,

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.  And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

People generally grow in stages and mature. If you've ever taken a human growth and development class, you'll know that there are different periods in our growth as humans. There's the prenatal period in the womb and then the neonatal period about the time of birth and then infancy childhood, pre-adolescence, adolescents, young, middle, and senior adulthood. In each stage, there are indicators of how growth is coming about in the life of a person in the physical, mental, moral, and emotional realms. And if no evidence of growth is apparent, particularly with children, concern and action soon follow.

Likewise, the truth of the matter is there are similar stages or similar periods of growth in the life of a Christian. Too often, however, we allow ourselves to cease growing and become stunted. We should not let this happen. Let's look at the stages of Christian growth beginning with what happens when we fail to grow. 

The Learner Stage

Usually, we fail to grow because we've not exited the learner stage, and the learner stage is the beginning of our growth in Christ. We see that in 2 Peter3:17-18. This is where it all begins in learning about how to be a Christian and learning what it means to be a Christian. It cannot be skipped. This stage, this period of our lives has to happen. 

Babies are not born knowing how to walk. They have to learn to walk. Babies are not born knowing how to speak. They must learn to speak. Babies are not born knowing how to read or how to count. They must learn these things. Babies are not born knowing how to control their emotions. Everyone must learn these things. If we skip learning these things, the result will not be good. 

Spiritually, we see the case of Apollos. Apollos was found in the book of Acts as a leader in Christian churches, but he started out as a powerful orator, a powerful speaker, an influencer in his day, but he was not a Christian. He did not understand salvation in Christ, and he was speaking very eloquently and convincing a lot of people of things that weren't correct. Priscilla and Aquila had to take him aside and teach him what it meant to be a Christian and then once he was turned loose after that, he was able to use that ability for God's glory and for God's honor. 

So, what should we learn? Well, first, we should learn salvation that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that Jesus provides us that salvation through his acts on the cross. We also need to learn the Scriptures. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says,  "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

Once we understand the Scriptures and know what the Scriptures say and we start applying them to our lives, then we can learn the fruit of the Spirit and live that out. Galatians 5: 22-24 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and we don't learn those things naturally. We must learn them in Christ and what it also says is that we need to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, and we don't know that naturally. We must learn that through growth in Christ. 

We also need to learn spiritual maturity. Ephesians 4: 11-14 tells us,

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,  to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

We must learn spiritual maturity. We also need to learn how God has gifted us. 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 and other places in the scriptures tell us that God gives us gifts for ministry, but we must learn what those gifts are. 

All these developments take time and take work. It does not come easy. It's against our fleshly nature to learn these things and usually it helps to have a mentor who guides us and helps us. I had a mentor in our church, a man by the name of Ed, who helped me a great deal and I owe a great deal of debt for him, but I also had a mentor in my workplace by the name of Rich, who was a Christian man. He showed me what it was like to live out his Christian faith and live an honorable godly life in a secular environment. Both of these men were very powerful in my lives and showed me how many things I needed to learn but it often takes many years of step-by-step change. 

Think also about Paul. Paul was already a scribe of the Law. He knew the Old Testament scriptures, which by the way, was the Bible of the New Testament church, yet according to the scriptures God took him apart for three years to teach him more fully by the Holy Spirit what those scriptures meant now in the New Testament era. So, we need to all become learners. 

We also must become workers, also. We need to enter into the worker stage. 

The Worker Stage

2nd Timothy 2.15 says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." Working in the kingdom of God for the glory of God is a stage that we should all progress to. 

We all know more about God than we use. Hebrews 5.11-14 says this, 

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

You see God expects us to not just absorb knowledge and absorb new attitudes but also to live them out and to work them out for his kingdom's glory. He expects us to use the gifts we've been given. 1st Timothy 3.14-15 says, “I hope to come to you soon but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God which is the Church of the Living God, a pillar and buttress of truth." Paul told Timothy the way to do that is to stir up the gift that is in us as we serve him in the kingdom of God and out in the world. Muscles that are not used wither in atrophy and skills that are not used wither in atrophy and spiritual gifts that are not used are still there but they're not powerful. They're not exercised and made strong. 

We are all workers together with God. When our children grow up, we expect them to be productive citizens if they're able to do it. If they mature, if there's not a developmental issue with them, we expect them to be productive. We expect them to work, and God expects us to work too. So, what should this work be? Acts 1:8 says that we are going to be witnesses for Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria into the uttermost parts of the world. Matthew 28:18-20 says that we are to make disciples of all peoples. John 10:10 tells us that Jesus came that we might have abundant life, and we need to help people find that abundant life in Christ. So how do we do these things? 

First of course we need to learn. We need to learn but secondly, we need to answer God's call. Romans 12 says that we need to become a living sacrifice. We need to put ourselves on the altar for God. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us we need to use our spiritual gifts. We need to yield ourselves to God and allow him to work through us as workers together with him for his righteousness and for his kingdom's glory. 

The Leader Stage

The next stage and the final stage and one that not everyone enters into in a public way is the leader stage. 1st Timothy 3 beginning in verse 1 says, 

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.  And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

This is the latest stage of development, and it incorporates the other two, the learner stage and the worker stage. To become a leader, you must first be a follower. Missionaries who enter into a new culture have to do so as a learner. Pastors who come into a new church have to learn the church and the culture around that church before they can be true leaders. And of course, also if you've learned but not put into effect what you have learned then how can you be a leader and lead others to do that? So, you have to be a learner and a worker to become a leader. 

Leadership requires the highest standards to which we all must adhere. We must have good reputations, mature characters and an orderly lifestyle and family life. Many would be disqualified from leadership by their lifestyle. Maybe they've gone into debt or maybe they have a sin that inhibits their witness from being a good one. And this has the greatest potential and responsibility as well because a leader's influence is a tremendous force for good or evil. We can contrast the clergy abuse scandal with the moral authority of someone like Billy Graham. 

Leadership is not to be taken on lightly and it is not to be exercised lightly. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or teacher or leader of a large or even small ministry. However, we are all called to lead by example as witnesses for Christ. So, we all need to mature to the point where we can lead someone to Christ by our example as being a witness. 

Acts 1:8 says that we will be witnesses for Christ and that is both prophetic and prescriptive. We will be witnesses for Christ whether we want to be or not. And the question is what kind of witnesses will we be? If we have not learned Christ, and if we have not been workers for Christ and with Christ, it's hard for us to be a leader, and it is hard for us to be a leader by example in our witnessing if we haven't learned these other things also and brought them into our lives. 

Conclusion

These are what I consider the three stages of Christian growth. The learner stage, the worker stage, and the leader stage. No parent wants their child to remain in the cradle. All parents want their children to grow and to mature and to become fully fledged adults who are able to control their lives well and to be able to be productive in society and neither does God want us to remain in our cradle. He wants us to grow also. 

Our God wants us to grow and develop into mature adult believers. And if we do, we certainly will find the abundant life that Jesus promised us in John 10:10. In that verse, Jesus said, “The thief comes to kill, steal, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly.” We can reach our potential in Christ and find that abundant life as we grow in the stages of Christian growth in Christ. I hope that you will do that. I hope that you will not stay in the cradle but that you will grow. I hope that you will not drink milk but eat meat. I hope that you will not lead people astray but, like Apollos after he met Priscilla and Aquila, that you will lead people to the throne of Christ. 

Thanks so much for visiting with me today. I'll be back soon with another word from the Bible we can share together. 

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt