Sunday message · Real Mature series
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Message Summary
In the second message of the Real Mature series, guest speaker Dr. Russ Berg takes up Christian maturity through Matthew 15:1–20. Jesus, he says, turns our ideas of maturity upside down. Dr. Berg pictures each of us as an iceberg. Raised hands in worship and busy activity sit above the waterline, but no one can see what lies beneath, where our gifts, hurts, hang-ups and habits live. A mature church lets what is below the surface come up and be received with grace.
He illustrates with apologies: a quick apology stays above the waterline, while real confession goes deeper, owning the hurt and asking forgiveness. David made that journey in Psalm 51 after a year of denial over his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. Among his core truths: all of us need to grow up spiritually, together, as each part of the body does its work (Ephesians 4). Maturity is a deep, continual work of God, and believers can get stuck in what he calls spiritual failure to thrive. And the clearest evidence of spiritual maturity is emotional maturity.
The series draws on Peter Scazzero’s book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Many of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 describe emotional health, from forbearance, putting up with what will not change, to kindness, lending one’s strength to someone else. Emotional and spiritual health matter because they are how we grow like Jesus, who increased in wisdom, stature and favor with God and people (Luke 2:52). The real measure is not activity but whether we are more loving, patient, gentle and self-controlled than a year ago. Health is also how we live authentically and guard against hypocrisy.
Matthew 15 shows what is at stake. Religious leaders from Jerusalem ask why Jesus’ disciples ignore the tradition of ceremonial handwashing, one of more than 600 rules added to the law. Jesus exposes their loophole of declaring resources devoted to God to avoid caring for their parents, nullifying God’s word for the sake of tradition. Then he tells the crowd that what goes into the mouth does not defile a person; what comes out of the heart does, such as evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft and slander. As the Titanic discovered, the real danger lies in the part of the iceberg no one sees.
Jesus is not lowering the bar for maturity but raising it, as when he teaches that lust is adultery in the heart, so that what we do flows from gratitude rather than guilt and from transformation rather than conformity. Maturity requires looking below the waterline, because otherwise we may change our behavior without changing our hearts, and letting Christ transform what is there, sometimes with courage to use our gifts, sometimes with correction. The Spirit brings conviction but never condemnation (Romans 8).
Emotionally healthy believers, Dr. Berg says, integrate faith and everyday life, balance doing with being, notice how the inner life spills into the outer, and embrace a lifelong journey as pilgrims rather than tourists, following Jesus one step at a time. He closes in prayer.
GUEST SPEAKER: Dr. Russ Berg (www.russberg.org)