Last Sunday morning’s sermon was rather challenging. Wyn Hughes continued on the same theme as the previous week on the need to be mature as believers. He preached from Ephesians 4:14Â 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. The church should not be affected by the spirit of the world. The Spirit of God governs the church, not the spirit of the age. Wyn Hughes went on to describe children as an illustration on how we should not be as Christians. So how do children behave?
- Children lack of self-control, they are controlled by their feelings. We should be controlled by our heads.
- Children over react: we should not be involved in playground policy and avoid being dogmatic.
- Children love novelty. Novelty isn’t bad in itself, be we should be wise and not too quick to adopt every new fad.
- Children like being entertained. We need to grow out of that, we need a stability.
So how to we get out of this childlike state? The answer is simple: by feeding on the word of God and making the most of the means of grace.
I found this challenging. My impression is that the world we live in encourages a childlike behaviour in adults, and this creeps in in our lives much too easily.