Bible Text: Philippians 2:1-8 | Pastor: Eric Danielson | Series: Vision for East Lincoln | This is the fifth sermon in the Vision for East Lincoln series. When you become a Christian it’s important to spend a lot of time focusing on your own spiritual growth and development, but there comes a time when the focus needs to change. This sermon looks at the key difference between the spiritual “child” and spiritual “young adult” stages of spiritual growth.

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Spiritual “Young Adult” Stage
Philippians 2:1-8

This morning we’re going to talk some more about our spiritual growth. As we become more and more like Christ the Bible points out different stages of growth we go through and this morning we are going to talk about the spiritual “young adult” stage. As I think about the primary difference between this stage and the spiritual “child” stage we talked about last week, I think about the difference between the front and rear facing cameras on a mobile phone.

I’ve been shopping for a smart phone and ended up choosing between the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. Both of these boasted that they had the best smart phone cameras in the world, which intrigued me because I wanted to start using my phone as my primary camera. I read different reviews and both models have similar rear-facing cameras, which are the cameras you use to take pictures of other people, but the thing that sets the Pixel 3 apart is that it has a better front-facing camera. One review said that “the Pixel 3’s real killer feature” is that it can take wide-angle selfies because it has an additional front-facing camera. When I read that, two things stuck out to me: one was how I could care less about taking wide-angle selfies, and the other was how I was amazed that such a feature could lure so many people into paying hundreds of dollars more just to get that upgrade. But that’s the world we live in.

One of the most popular modes of communication today is a mobile app called Snapchat. Some of you know exactly what it is, but for those who don’t, Snapchat is a way of communicating and expressing yourself instantly by taking a picture with your phone – most often of yourself, with your front-facing camera – and sending it to your friends with a short message. Every conversation on Snapchat is started by taking such a picture. So people who use Snapchat are regularly taking selfies, which means having the best front-facing camera for taking high-quality selfies is a big deal to them.

I watched a video of Francis Chan and he referred to something he called “selfie-mode.” And the idea is that someone who’s in “selfie-mode” is always focused on themselves – like someone who’s always taking pictures of themselves with their front-facing camera. This is a common characteristic of someone who’s in the spiritual “child” stage. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s part of growing up in Christ. God wants us to become more like Christ in every way and to grow more and more in personal holiness, so we have to spend a long time focusing on our own growth and development.

But there comes a time when this needs to change. We need to start using the front-facing camera less and start using the rear-facing one more. There comes a time when the focus needs to shift from just being on your own spiritual growth to considering the needs of others. And that’s the key difference that I see between the spiritual “young adult” stage and the spiritual “child” stage. That’s what I want us to look at today so that you can see where you’re at and how God wants you to grow.

The passage I want us to go to is in Philippians chapter 2. Philippians is a letter written by Paul to a group of Christians who were primarily at the spiritual “young adult” stage. They were part of a church that was about 10 years old. It was planted by Paul and he revisited at least two more times before writing this letter. So these were not new Christians anymore. These were not spiritual “infants,” or “children.” They were in the spiritual “young adult” stage and you can tell by what Paul writes in this letter. It’s a lot different than the letter of Ephesians we looked at last week. In that letter there was a lot of instruction about more detailed Christian beliefs and practices that the people were to apply to their personal lives. In this letter the focus is much more what’s happening outside themselves and how they should treat other people.

So he starts in chapter 1 by writing a lot about his current circumstances– circumstances that would seem devastating and overwhelming to Christians who were at the spiritual “infant’’ or “child” stages because Paul was suffering in prison and awaiting a trial that could result in him being put to death. When you’re a newer believer that’s focusing on your own personal growth and development it’s hard to understand why God lets you go through trials and suffering. You don’t see it as a good thing. But when you’ve grown more in the faith you are able to see the bigger picture – that it’s not just about you. It’s about God’s mission on earth – it’s about his glory and reaching other people with the gospel. These Christians were ready to hear that. Their focus was shifting from just themselves to other people and the bigger mission they were part of. So, in chapter 1, Paul showed them how God was at work in the midst of his suffering and would even use their future suffering to accomplish his good purposes.

That brings us to chapter 2, which is the passage I want us to really focus on this morning.

Read Philippians 2:1-8
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is a powerful passage of Scripture that I think really captures the essence and expectations of those who are at the spiritual “young adult” stage. At this stage they have been Christians for a while and have experienced many wonderful spiritual blessings in Christ that Paul mentions in the first verse – there’s encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, participation in the Spirit, affection and sympathy.

Paul says that “if you’ve experienced these things that’s great, but there’s more. The next step I want you to take that will complete my joy is that you would be united together as a church family – having the same mind, the same love, being in agreement in purpose and mission.” So he calls them to turn the focus from themselves to one another – start using the rear-facing camera. Start paying attention to the needs of others. He says in verses 3-4: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

I think these are some key verses for moving beyond the spiritual “child” stage: It’s not just about you anymore. Yes, your spiritual growth is still important, but there’s a bigger picture. God’s mission doesn’t revolve around only you. It includes the rest of the people in the church and community as well – in fact it encompasses the whole world. So there comes a time when the focus needs to shift outside of yourself to other people. That’s when you enter the spiritual “young adult” stage.

If you’ve been around children recently, you can see this in normal human growth and development as well. Children are naturally very self-centered. Their world revolves around them. Their parents exist for them. Their school exists for them. Their friends exist for them. It’s all about “me” and they assume everyone wants to know everything about them, which is probably why selfies and social media have become so popular. But it’s not a good thing if that characteristic continues way into adulthood. We call that “narcissism” and sadly, our culture seems to encourage it. But it’s really quite annoying and destructive to society. At some point people need to come to the realization that the world doesn’t revolve around them and they need to start caring about other people.

We need to make that same shift when it comes to our spiritual lives. There’s a time to be like a child and focus primarily on your own spiritual growth and development, but there’s a time when that needs to change and you need to become a spiritual “young adult” and start caring about other people.

And the best way to make that change is to keep focusing on our goal – keep looking to Jesus and seeking to become like him in every way. Jesus was not a person who focused only on himself, and that’s what Paul points out in verses 5-8: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus didn’t just revel in the glories of heaven and the perfect relationship he enjoyed with the Father and Holy Spirit. He looked beyond himself to see our desperate need. He emptied himself and took on the role of a servant – he willingly allowed himself to be born in the likeness of man to live among us and serve us. And then he lowered himself even more as a servant to die on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins.

That’s who we are seeking to become like and once you get to the spiritual “young adult” stage, you seek to become like him in this way – turning our eyes and attention off of only our own interests and spiritual growth and placing them on the interests of others – serving people in the church and outside of the church for the glory of Christ.

So if I would put together a list of common characteristics for people at this stage, I would say these things:
• Spiritually & emotionally grounded and zealous for Christ.
• Broad understanding of sound biblical teaching with transformation in many areas of life.
• Sees beyond themselves to consider the needs of others.
• Eager to do their part to strengthen the church.
• Cares about reaching the spiritually “unborn.”
• Uncertain of their role in ministry and unskilled in how to minister to others.
• May struggle with spiritual pride and self-reliance.
• May be impatient with and critical of others.

For those of you who see yourself in this stage, there are several possible steps you can take.
1. First of all we encourage you to get involved in serving in an ongoing ministry that fits your interests. Look into joining one of the Ministry Teams or Committees of the church. You could also look into becoming a Recharge shepherd or adult Small Group leader.
2. It’s also important for you to identify and use your spiritual gifts in ministry so that you experience the joy of doing ministry in the way that God has wired you. We will have several resources to help you come to understand and grow in your gifts.
3. Another step is to grow in your understanding of how God wants to use you to encourage and build up other people in the church. In coming weeks you will see a resource called “The 2:7 Series” by Navigators that is designed to help in this.
4. We encourage you to get connected with and consider going through this with a life coach – someone you look up to who is further along in their spiritual maturity.
5. You may also need to re-establish some friendships with unbelievers. It can be common after you’ve been a Christian for a while for all your friends to be Christians and you don’t have any personal influence in the lives of unbelievers. So you may need to be intentional about making some non-Christian friends.

Where are you at in your spiritual growth? So far we have looked at 4 stages: spiritually “unborn,” spiritual “infants,” “children,” and “young adults.” Do you see yourself in one of these stages? Wherever you’re at, God wants you to grow. He wants you to take the next step. If you need help trying to figure out where you’re at, I’d be happy to help you and once we complete this series and the literature is available and all these things become more familiar, others will be able to help you as well. Next week we have MNTC Choir and my plan is that the following week I will preach about the last of these stages and have all the resources available for you to look at. Then, 3 weeks from now, in the final Sunday of this series, I’m going to explain how we see this all working together here at East Lincoln. It will kind of be the nuts and bolts of why we do what we do.

We are all in this same journey together. We’re at different places, but we’re all headed in the same direction – following Christ and seeking to become like him in every way.