Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. (1 Corinthians 3:1-2).

At some point, each of us have to take on the responsibility of growing in the faith. The primary responsibility for our spiritual maturity and growth is on us. At some point, we have to decide to grow up in our faith.

Infants are cute. And, infants are exhausting. Just ask any new parent of infants. They require 24/7 care. Feed me. Change me. Hold me. Entertain me. Me. Me. Me. It’s a good thing infants are cute. Grown adults couldn’t ever get away with such behavior!

What’s true for infants in families is true for infant Christians in the church. Being a baby has nothing to do with how long you’ve been going to church, but with how much you are taking responsibility for growing and maturing. If you are growing and maturing, you are on solid foods.

But what does that mean? It means that you are not being fed milk. You are taking solid food of God’s word and reading and studying it with others who are interested in growing. It means that you don’t just show up to church asking to be fed. You mature by growing in the knowledge of God’s word AND by serving God and his church. It means you take on the responsibility to help new baby Christians grow.

I thank God that many at the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace are growing and maturing. Friends, as we near the end of the year and start thinking about the new year, make it your goal to grow up and mature in your faith.

Here are the three basic foundations that we expect growing disciples to practice:

1. Worship – non-negotiable. We worship because God is God who is worthy of worship
2. Small Groups – We study God’s word together with others
3. Serve – We do our part in serving God and his church

Just because you are doing these things doesn’t necessarily mean that you are growing. But, if you are not doing these things, I can guarantee you are not growing.

Engage. Commit. Grow.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told (Luke 2:20).

The verse of the day comes from the reading for Christmas Eve worship. It’s the birth narrative of Jesus where the angels show up to the shepherds who were tending their sheep. The shepherds leave their sheep to go to Bethlehem to see what was foretold to them by the angels.

Besides Mary and Joseph, they were the first human beings to see Jesus!

It’s a tender scene. No Christmas scene is complete without the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flock that night.

But what happened to these shepherds after they went back to their sheep? How come we don’t ever hear from them again? Shouldn’t they have been the first disciples of Jesus? Shouldn’t they have played a bigger role in the story and the ministry of Jesus?

We will never know for sure. The Bible doesn’t tell us. The gospel writers are silent about the lives of the shepherds after they saw baby Jesus.

So, what happened to the shepherds?

While the Bible is silent, we can put together a fairly good guess as to why we don’t hear about the shepherds again.

The life expectancy of the common man during the days of Jesus was mid-thirties. Very few people lived to see 60.

The most likely scenario is that the shepherds who saw Jesus on Christmas day died before Jesus’ public ministry began thirty years later.

Mary and Joseph would return to Nazareth, where Jesus grew up and lived for thirty years. That was quite a distance from Bethlehem. There was absolutely no reason why anyone from Bethlehem should go to Nazareth. Nazareth was a tiny town with a couple of hundred people living there.

Even though we don’t hear about the shepherds ever again in the gospels, the story of Jesus would not be complete without them.

The same is true for you. Generations from now will not remember much about what happened to us after we met Jesus, but that doesn’t mean you and I don’t contribute to God’s work here and now.

Keep trusting Jesus and stay faithful to the calling of Christ Jesus for your life.

Merry Christmas!

“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him (Psalm 91:14-15).

Prepositions…one tiny little word…One tiny preposition can make an universe of difference.

Sometimes I feel like God just doesn’t get me.

Let me explain. Look at the verse of the day. God says, because I love him God will rescue me and protect me. I’m all about that. I like that. I like that a lot. And then he explains what that rescue and protection looks like. At this point, I am totally thinking, since God’s got my back, I’m good. I’m all good.

And then, God says, “He will call on me, and I will answer him.”

So far so good.

“I will be with him in trouble.”

WHAT?!?! Run that by me again…

Shouldn’t that say, “I will rescue him out of trouble”?

That’s what I want. That’s what I expect. But that’s not what we get. God doesn’t promise that. God promises to be with us in trouble. God promises not to leave us alone in difficulties.

See that? God doesn’t get me. I don’t want trouble. I want ease. I want no trouble.

But that’s not what we get. Because sometimes our growth and maturity depends on us going through troubled times. Our faith grows and matures when we experience that God’s presence is all we need to make it through the trials and difficulties of life. We don’t learn that lesson in ease. We don’t learn that lesson in peace. We need trouble for that lesson.

So God leaves us in trouble. But he does not leave us alone, left to our own devise and strength. God promises to be with us, to be our strength and hope.

God stays with us in troubled and hard times because God is more interested in our growth and maturity than he is in our desire for an easy life.

So, I get that God doesn’t get me. But I am okay with that. I trust God and his wisdom more than I trust myself. I don’t always need to understand in order to trust that God is good, God is kind, and God loves me.

Trust doesn’t require understanding. Trust just requires knowing that God is good. So, trust God.