Growing from Children to Sons

Four factors that influence the growth of children to mature children.

Lance Lambert

Readings: Acts 20:32, Romans 8:14-17, Ephesians 4:15-16, Hebrews 3:6-12, 5:11, 12:5-13, 1 Peter 2:3, 2 Peter 3:18.

We are all children of God if we have been saved by the grace of God, we are all born of the Spirit of God and we are all sons, but to be a real sons, we have to grow up. When someone speaks of my child, normally you think of that one as young, as small, as a child, my child. But when you say my son, your son could be seventy years old and you could be ninety; you are speaking of someone who has grown up. Of course you can speak of a little baby as your son, "my son was born a few weeks ago" you might say. And you are perfectly right. But when the scripture uses these two words, it uses them with very real significance. Teckna, the word for children in Greek is really to do with your relationship to the Lord; you are born of Him, you are born into His family, you are born of His work on the cross. When it speaks of sons, uious, it is almost always speaking of you growing up to take your place in the household of faith.

Now the biggest problem that we have amongst Christians today is that we have millions and millions of babies and very few who have grown up to take their place as sons. Whenever you have the word son or sons, normally in view is the inheritance which is ours, growing up to possess our inheritance, growing up to take our place in the church of God, the house of God, growing up to become responsible, growing up in a way that means we can contribute something to the fulfillment of God's purpose.

Isn't 1 Peter 1:3-5 wonderful; you have been born again into an inheritance, an incorruptible inheritance; that is, an inheritance that doesn't deteriorate or fade away, it is something tremendous that you have been given. Now most of us are quite clear that we have been born again, but I wonder how many are really born of God, and not just converted in the head. When a person is born of God, two or three things immediately happen. First of all their eyes are opened and they begin to see, then they begin to breathe. Then they get hungry and want to eat food, no matter that it is not solid. When someone is born again the first thing that happens is that they become aware of the Lord Jesus. With the eye of the faith they begin to see him. There is all the difference between this and being converted in the head; second generation Christians where nothing has ever happened in the heart, only in the head. When you are born again you begin to see the Lord, but not with these physical eyes, but rather with the eye of the heart; there is illumination. As you walk with him that illumination begins to grow, you begin to breathe by the Spirit. That's the only way you can grow; by the Spirit of God, you breathe. Then you begin to want to feed. When people don't want to go to bible studies and aren't interested in reading the Word, I wonder if they are only converted in the head. When you are born again, you have hunger, you want to feed, you want to digest. Another thing is that when you are truly born again, you want fellowship; you need your mother and father, you need to be nursed. You need people around you, that's why babies cry, it is to let everyone know that you are there.

Now when people do not desire fellowship, or the Word of God, and no desire to get to know the Lord better, something is wrong. No wonder people remain dwarfed and stunted. But when you are born again, something wonderful has happened. We have been born again through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, that is His life. We have been justified by His death, our sins cancelled, blotted out like a thick cloud. We stand before God clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. But by His resurrection, we are born again. We have actually been born anew. Now most people know they are born again, but do you know you are born again into an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled and that faded not away? And do you know that you can be guarded by the power of God through faith so that that inheritance will be possessed by you, as it says in Acts 20:32: And now I commend you to God so that the Word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. Let us also note in Hebrews 2:10: For it became him that is Jesus, for whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. It could have said "bringing many children to glory" but no, its not bringing many saved people to glory, it is bringing many sons to glory; those who are born of the Spirit and who have grown up in the Lord.

I would like to look at four matters that are absolute necessities if we are going to grow up into sons, in the house of God. The first is growth unto maturity. It is an absolute necessity that we should grow. When we are saved, we are not adults immediately. It is just like in the natural world; we are babies. Our eyes have only just opened. Our ears only just hear. We breathe, and we are able to make a colossal amount of noise in order to get attention. We are babes. We need to be fed, but we can't be fed on steak. We are too small, we cannot digest it. We have to have food suitable to our bodies, we haven't even got teeth to chew with. That's a marvelous stage to be in, when it is the proper time. But when you are twenty years or forty years old in the Lord and in that stage, it is a tragedy. You have lungs with which to make a lot of noise, and all the time you want attention, you are like a whirlpool and suck everyone in. Your problems are the biggest in the church, they need to be met, everyone is there for you, whoever preaches is there for you, the brothers are there for you, the sisters are there for you, everyone is there for you. This is babyhood.

There is nothing wrong with babyhood when it is the right time. But when you are ten years old in the Lord, you should be beginning to grow up and starting to think about your younger brothers and sisters. By twenty years, you should be even more responsible. Where are these sons?

The tragedy in the church today is that we have all babies and children but no sons. Yes there are sons, but still unable to take responsibility, they can't shoulder duties. They can't lay down their lives. You can't expect a baby to lay down their life. What an extraordinary thing it would be. It's only right for a little baby to be cuddled and nursed and loved and listened to. It's only when you start to grow up that you have to think of others. Then comes the challenge. You have to lay down your life. But when people in the church are thirty or forty years old in the Lord and we have to give them toys and rock them back and forth, it's a tragedy. They should now be taking on responsibility in the household of faith. Instead, an enormous amount of time has to spent upon us because we have not grown. There is a place for the nursery, for being carried, but we are never meant to stay there. The greatest problem we have in the house of God today is that we have thousands and thousands of dwarfed stunted children. They have never grown up, they never come to maturity and can therefore never take responsibility in the things of God. I say, this is a tragedy.

We have something tremendous to consider here: am I growing? Can you put your finger on where you stopped growing? Because if you can, you'll know that there was some issue that you could not settle, and on that issue you stopped growing. If you can settle that issue, then you will start to grow again. (1 Peter 2:1-2) What does it mean to grow unto salvation? It simply means, not that you haven't got a salvation, but that you may possess your salvation, . It's like the children of Israel on the wrong side of the river Jordan, singing about it, praying about it, studying it but never going over to possess. You have to go over and possess the land and wherever you put your feet down, that is yours; when you claim it, it becomes yours. So it is with your so great salvation; it's all yours but you have to possess it. But you cannot possess it if you have no muscle. If you are so weak, you need spiritual milk so that you grow! As you grow, you can stand, and then you can walk, and then you can run, and then you can possess your salvation.

Or again, 2 Peter 3:18: But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Not knowledge about him, but of him. That is growing in your knowing of him, get to know him, grow in grace, you cannot grow any other way. The only way you can grow is by the grace of God but as you take step after step by faith, so you grow in your knowing of the Lord Jesus. Or again, Hebrews 5:11-14, a babe cannot have much experience, the only experience a babe has is of being born. But sons are those who have learnt to discern between good and evil in a right way by the Spirit of God. So you can come to full growth, not to perfection but to full growth. (1 Cor 2:6, Philippians 3:15) That is, you can come to maturity, that's the goal, that's what it means to be a son in the house of God.

There is another aspect of this growth unto maturity that should be underlined and that is that there is a corporate dimension. Sometimes people think that they can grow alone without other believers. It is impossible. If you read Ephesians 4:15, isn't that an interesting phrase, grow up into all things, there is no aspect of our lives in which we can't grow up into Christ as head. But whenever you have the head in the Word, you have the body. And if you read the next verse, that's exactly what it goes on to say. As you grow up, you need your brothers and sisters. Now how do we find those brothers and sisters? Not by trying to be one with them, but we find it by growing up into the head.

When we are growing up into the head in all things, we discover the body. We don't discover the body by trying to find brothers and sisters but by growing up into Christ as head. "He is my head, do you have another head?" "No, I have the same head." That means we find each other by growing up into the head and then we maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 2:21, in whom ye also are builded together. Here you have something very wonderful. There is a corporate dimension to this, each one of us has to grow personally. You cannot grow by proxy.

Some people think that they can grow spiritually by belonging to such and such a company or congregation, but you'll only grow spiritually if you take in from the Lord what the Lord is saying and obey it. Then you will grow. But you won't grow by sitting in the middle of the midst of other people who deeply know the Lord. That's a mistake, you take on what they are saying and teaching and it looks as if you are at the same level as they, until the storm comes. The storm sweeps everything away because it was never inside, you can't hide in the corner, each one of us has to grow individually, into Him as our head and then we have a fellowship of saints, strong in the Lord. Each one, with their own experience of the Lord and each one directly related to the Lord as head and therefore they discover one and other.

Here is the next discipline, training and discipline. It is an absolute necessity. None will ever become a son in the house of God, in the household of faith, who does not accept training and is not subject to discipline. It is a vitally important part of growing up to be a son. We have all observed and suffered children who have had no discipline or training. We have seen the tragedies as they grow up into teens and into their twenties. All life has to be pruned and has to be trained and disciplined. The Lord looks at you, and you've made mistakes in your life, you've sinned, and it's very apparent in your growth and the Lord comes and says I'm going to have to cut this right down. We think it's the end when the Lord cuts us down like that, but actually its just the beginning. It is amazing how quickly the tree grows once its been so severely dealt with. When vines become older, they just don't produce the same amount of fruit, and you have to prune them. And if you prune them correctly, they bear more and more and more fruit. That is exactly what the Lord said in John chapter 15.

We don't like pruning, we want a shortcut if we can to fruitfulness. We want a shortcut to usefulness. If we could only have some enormous experience that would blow us into fruitfulness and usefulness without us having to suffer at all, overnight and the thing be done. Everything has to be instant. It's getting that way all over the world now. So now we have instant salvation, instant holiness, instant usefulness and instant power and instant everything else in the church. I have absolutely no doubt that there is an experience of the cross, which is a definite experience of laying down your life but then it can lead to tremendous usefulness and fruitfulness. But sometimes there is a long path up to the point where you have that experience, and most certainly afterwards. It's the same with the baptism of the Spirit. We always say, "I need an experience of the Holy Spirit", but they always want an experience that will immediately make them wonderful people and useful people. I thank God for all experiences of the Holy Spirit, and would never, never despise such experiences, but my dear child of God, the greatest experience of the Holy Spirit will never make you an instant servant of God. Paul had a tremendous experience of the Holy Spirit but he had to go for three years into the desert. What happened in those three years we really don't know, all we know is the fruit of it. We see it in the revelation he had, the understanding he had, and the ministry he had which is witnessed to this day.

Pruning. O, we don't like that, when we see the Lord coming with pruning clippers. We prefer to be babies. That he might come to cuddle us and rock us, and give us our rattles, our dummies and our toys. But when he comes with clippers we don't like it. Yet this training and pruning is absolutely essential if you are going to be a son. If you are called to special service, there has to be a special training. If you are someone marked out by God for a special ministry, and a special work, you will have a special training. The greater your ministry will be the greater the training and pruning will be. In Hebrews 12:6-11 we read of chastening, chastisement, chastening. No chastening seems good but grevious at the time. I always remember dear brother Sparks saying, "I think we need to rewrite this he said because the Greek is literally child training." Now when you think of it like that, it takes all the sting out of it. We think of chastisement as someone coming with a birch broom to beat us, or with a whip or belt to give us what for. Child training. "No child training seems to be joyous but grevious." Absolutely right! No child finds that at all joyful. We don't like it when God takes us into training. We all want to get to the end of the training and get the prize but none of us like the training. We don't like the discipline. But the Lord says every son, not every child whom he receives, he scourges. That seems so foreign to us today in 2003. But apparently this kind of training is absolutely necessary if a son is to become responsible in the things of God. What is wrong with us believers? I think we have been infected by a virus that is in the world, and that virus is pleasure seeking. We don't want anything tough or that hurts any more.

We want everything that is instant, everything that is a shortcut and is easy, and its got into the house of God. So we don't want anything that has discipline in it. Training and discipline. Someone may ask, how is this discipline applied? In relationships very often. In your home, at your work and in the church. Isn't it interesting how much of the New Testament is taken up with husbands and wives and parents and children and employers and employees, as well as the church. It's all to do with discipline. Obey your parents in the Lord as an example. Its very difficult sometimes to have the right relationships with parents, children, husbands, wives, employers, employees and in the church - what a field day the powers of darkness sometimes have in the church! Training comes through relationships. Having to be bound together, to go through things together. Having to maintain the unity of the Spirit is no easy matter. Another way that the Lord trains and disciplines us is through circumstances. Sometimes we lose our job, sometimes we find ourselves in unbelievable circumstances, some of our own making and some not. But those circumstances become the means of discipline, training ad pruning.

Another way the Lord uses, and I pray it is not for many of us, is by what I call inexplicable problems. Why does the Lord entrust some people with the most terrible problems? An accident that leaves you disabled for life, a barrenness that means you cannot have children. Why? Why does the Lord do it? I sometimes think it is because there is a very special calling and the training is therefore all the more severe because the calling is so great.

Education is the third absolute necessity. Can you think of someone being trained for service with no education? You must have it. This is the Holy Spirit's work. Jesus said, when he comes, he will teach you all things. Are you a stranger to the work of the Holy Spirit? It is a tremendous thing to know the ministry of the Holy Spirit, always unveiling the Lord Jesus to us. Always directing our gaze towards the Lord Jesus. Always taking the things of the Lord Jesus and making them real in us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the teacher. He, if you like, is the one who instructs us and leads us into situations, problems and difficulties and there teaches us the deep things of God. It is the Holy Spirit's ministry. Don't ever think you can know the Lord Jesus without the Holy Spirit. If you think you can, then you will end up with a head filled with ideas but you will not know the Lord Jesus directly. For it is the work of the Holy Spirit to lead you at all times to see Him and to receive from Him. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. No seminary has ever produced a preacher or bible teacher, only the Holy Spirit can do that. My dear friend, you need the Lord, and you need to learn of Him. And the Holy Spirit is only too ready to start your education. Don't be surprised by the way he does it, he does the most extraordinary things in order to teach us. But remember Ephesians 4:21-22, that's the kind of education that makes a son who has a contribution to make in the house of God.

Jesus said I am the Alpha and the Omega. If you put that into English it's the A and the Z. Why does He say that? Because He is the alphabet, and if you are going to have an education, you have to learn the alphabet. He is the ABC of God, He is the language of God. Your education is to learn the alphabet, and when you've done that you can start to read. Then you can understand how Jesus is called the Word. Because that is the mind and heart of God expressed and revealed. It's all in Jesus. Education is not just learning doctrines or theology. Those may be important in their own sphere, but doctrine as doctrine and theology as theology is not learning Christ. Learning Christ is really learning what life is all about and why there is life, where it began, what its purpose was, how it changed, what has happened to the whole world, where is it heading, and what will the end be. It's part of education, it's all centered in the Lord Jesus. It says in Colossians that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the Lord Jesus. Knowledge is to do with facts, wisdom is how to apply them. It's very simple. Our education, if we are going to grow up to be sons in the household of faith has to do with those treasures of wisdom and knowledge in the Lord Jesus. It is into experiences that he brings us so that in those experiences, what is in the book becomes real in us, becomes flesh and blood.

The fourth absolute necessity is Character. The only thing you will take into eternity is character. Everything else will be left; money, clothes, degrees, titles, properties, cars, you'll leave it all. The only thing that will go into eternity is what God has produced in you by His Spirit. Character. The Lord is in this business of character building and will go to extraordinary lengths to produce character. Do you want to be a son? The Lord is not interested in sons who are civil servants, beaurocrats who know everything in the books. He is interested in sons who have character. In other words, they have been changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful Word that is in 2 Corinthians 3:18. It is an unveiled face. We are changed into his likeness. The Lord will take all kinds of action to change us into the likeness of the Lord Jesus but it is absolutely necessary if you and I are going to be sons in the household of faith. May the Lord make these words real to us. The Lord Jesus is the Son, the Son over God's house and He is bringing many sons to glory. Are you one of them? If you are, then what has been said will live in your heart for years to come. If you are young in the Lord, and have very little experience, this day, committ yourself to the Lord. The Lord never pushes anyone into this training or education. If don't want it, you don't have to have it. You can remain a babe in the kingdom of God. But if you are ready to say, "Lord I'm here. I'm afraid, nevertheless, I committ myself to you will bring me into all that you mean by sonship." Believe me, the Lord will start with you immediately.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2003