There Is No Spiritual Maturity Without Love | 1 Corinthians 13

What does a spiritually mature Christian actually look like? The Bros have spent weeks unpacking the signs of spiritual immaturity — and now they’re flipping the script. In this episode, David, Phil, and Jon dig into one of the most quoted yet most misunderstood passages in Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1–8. Real, biblical love is patient, sacrificial, not self-seeking — and it’s one of the most powerful weapons in a believer’s arsenal. If you’ve ever said “I just don’t love them anymore,” or wondered why God doesn’t just force people to do the right thing, this episode is going to hit different. Grab your brew, open your Bible, and let’s go.

📖 Key Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1–8

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Transcript

Spiritual Maturity Sets The Goal

Phillip Rich 0:00

We've been talking about spiritual maturity and about the process of growing up spiritually and what that looks like, what the Bible says about it, and how we can actually apply the scriptures to our daily life to become more mature believers. We also have been covering spiritual immaturity, which uh you know has a lot of different signs to look for that you want to avoid. And this episode, we're gonna dig into what a mature Christian really looks like, some of the major hallmarks of spiritual maturity. So be ready. It's gonna be a good one today. Here we go. My name is Philip, and of course, with me is the illustrious David McIntyre on the far end there. And then we have John, the producer, our resident Gen Zier, as we call him many times, um, on the wheels of steel. And what we do on this podcast, for those who may not know, we simply dig into God's word. We study the Bible, we go verse by verse sometimes. We we love tackling different topics uh and putting a biblical lens on certain topics because we believe that the Bible really does have an answer for everything you deal with in life. I mean, it's just, you know, you just got to know where to look. That's the biggest thing. And um, in the previous episodes we've done over the past few weeks, we've been talking about the subject of spiritual maturity and not only what it means to or what it looks like to be spiritually mature, but also the opposite end of it, what it means to be spiritually mature, uh spiritually immature, rather. And we've been talking about uh the the process of growing up spiritually and how God's word helps in that process of spiritual growth. Now, one thing I want to point out right off the bat before we jump deep into the water is just because you've been saved for a long time, maybe it can be 20, 30 years, that does not necessarily mean that you're spiritually mature. Or just because you've made, let's say you're physically mature, maybe you're 50, 60, 70 years old, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're spiritually mature. There's a whole different measuring stick that we would use for spiritual maturity. And we know that the Bible tells us that one of the biggest things, um, it's in Ephesians 4, I believe, where he talks about not being tossed around with every wind of doctrine, but learning how to grow up and become mature in Christ, uh, being people who are stable, solid believers who can then be a blessing to other people. Um, that's the goal is to become more and more uh of a follower of Jesus, becoming more and more conformed to the image of God's Son. That's the ultimate goal of our walk with the Lord. And to get there, there will be a process, and that process is that of growing and maturing in the things of God. It's not always an easy process either, guys. It's sometimes it can be quite revealing, quite um challenging. But if you don't give up, if you let God do his work, then at the end of it all, or even just during the process, you come out as a better person. And as the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3, I think it is, you go from glory to glory uh by the help of the Spirit of God. And so um the the work has to start with you know God's grace, there's no other other way around it. We we can't do anything in and of ourselves, so we, you know, in the process of growing spiritually, there is this constant dependence on God, on his word that'll help you through it. But, you know, at the end of the day, though, we got to remember Philippians 2 13. It is God who works in you to will and do of his good pleasure. Uh, we we there's so many scriptures that talk about this. I don't want to jump too too much to the deep end before we get going on uh uh the basics here.

What’s In The Cup

Phillip Rich 4:13

But uh before we jump further in, we always have to ask our famous question here on Bible Bros and Brew, and that is what is in the cup? Let's hit it. All right, what is in the cup? The big question, David. What's in your cup, sir?

David McIntyre 4:39

Tonight I come to the table with a coffee offering, that is both abnormal and well-timed, if you would. Tonight, I am drinking a blueberry coffee. Oh my god! A lovely coffee from a coffee called Couples Coffee, a veteran-owned company, and it's called Something Blue. Let me try to help that out a little bit. But this is um, if you're a blueberry fan, this is very nice because it's like you get a cup of coffee with blueberries dabbled on top. Come on now, and it is really nice, it kind of hits you on the front end, and then it blueberries you on the back end.

Phillip Rich 5:44

No, I've never heard blueberry used as a verb, but now I have, so that's pretty cool.

David McIntyre 5:48

Yeah, so it's a very nice coffee. Um, I just found this company, so it is my intention to uh not only learn some more about them, but find out a little bit more by tasting some of their other brews. And uh, you should see me share more couples coffee in the future. But couples coffee, something blue, highly recommend.

Phillip Rich 6:13

Nicely done, nicely done. Okay, John, how about yourself, sir? What's in your cup tonight?

Jon Dzyuba 6:19

Well, before I say anything, uh, I want to make sure my lawyer is present, Jesus Christ. Uh, he did say that you should come to church, come to Christ as you are. So I hear so here I am coming to you guys as I am.

David McIntyre 6:34

Um as you are, come to us, you you might get anything.

Jon Dzyuba 6:40

Well, then in that case, I don't know. I might hesitate a little bit. I relapsed. I I went backwards. I did something that I hope you can forgive me for. Uh uh. Um but man, it was so worth it, dude. So tonight I'm drinking a Starbucks coffee.

David McIntyre 7:00

How dare you evil Empire? How dare you!

Jon Dzyuba 7:05

I I dare I did because this thing is so good. I don't know if you can read that. It's a brown sugar cinnamon limited edition brew. This is hold on.

David McIntyre 7:17

This is partially blasphemous, John. I don't know, man. Yeah, and by the way, when we somebody remind me, I've got a story to tell you about Starbucks coffee. Oh boy, and and dark roast coffee in general, that I just learned from somebody. Um, and you guys can determine whether you believe it's true or not. Oh boy, and that's all I will say, John.

Jon Dzyuba 7:47

I think I know what you're talking about. Uh-oh. And that's all I'll say.

Phillip Rich 7:55

Is it something to the effect of they put gasoline anywhere in their coffee because it does taste like that? Not gasoline.

Jon Dzyuba 8:04

Although that does taste like gasoline sometimes. I had an unpleasant experience recently.

David McIntyre 8:09

You can light it on fire, that's for sure.

Jon Dzyuba 8:11

You sure can. You can remove your nail polish and you can fuel a car, I am sure. Oh wow, okay. But anyway, the coffee is good, it's brown sugar cinnamon, and that's what got my attention when I first saw it. And I'm not gonna lie to you. If you didn't know, if it if you didn't know that it was a Starbucks like Starbucks branded coffee, I think that everybody would be happy right now. It would be a great coffee to drink. Let's try it. Okay, it would have tasted the same exact way. You just gotta take that logo off, and all of a sudden it's good coffee. I don't know, maybe that's just me.

Phillip Rich 8:48

There's that, there's that. I I'm not gonna totally hate on it, you know, because they always say don't knock it till you try it.

David McIntyre 8:55

So I um and I do repent for the level of snobbery that I bought.

Jon Dzyuba 9:01

Well, they is not us, and we're gonna keep knocking it.

David McIntyre 9:08

But I will tell you that never mind. Okay, I will not tell you what I was about to tell you about bougie people in Starbucks.

Phillip Rich 9:17

Okay. Okay.

Jon Dzyuba 9:20

If they only knew Mr. Uncle Phil, what's in your cup? Well, you know, guys, um, it's all about decaf.

Phillip Rich 9:31

Take a wild guess.

David McIntyre 9:34

I think you know that I'll take peregrine for 1000.

Phillip Rich 9:40

Well, it's not just any old peregrine. Praise God. It is the peregrine decaf Guatemala. Uh so fantastic, man. Notes of sticky toffee pudding, sweet, sweet cream, and milk chocolate. And dude, you talk about a flavor that for decaf, it is just like it's heaven on earth, shall we say? So I highly recommend uh, as I always do, I highly recommend Peregrine. It's uh their decaf does not disappoint, man. So um, yes.

David McIntyre 10:16

Uh I will tell I will tell you, I really do like their new bags. I like it.

Phillip Rich 10:22

Yeah, yeah, they're cool. They do a great job over there, man. And as always, we give a shout out to Peregrine, our peeps in Colorado. So, and uh, but yeah, so that is what's in the cup, and um now we're gonna talk about or continue in the vein of what's in the word. And we

Why Time Saved Isn’t Maturity

Phillip Rich 10:41

have again are have been tackling this topic of spiritual maturity. What does it mean to be spiritually mature? What does it mean to uh when the Bible talks about grow up in him? Like that sounds uh vaguely non-vague, you know, it's not like something you think you understand, but maybe you don't quite understand it as much as you should, you know, and so we want to talk about um these things because I can tell you this the spiritually mature Christian, it's a lot harder to knock that person off their mission. It's a lot harder to cause a spiritually mature Christian to fall away. You know, in a sense, they're the the Christian that's been tried and tested and shown to be uh a solid person, a stable person, somebody who knows how to take a lick and keep on ticking, as they used to say back in the day. Um, spiritual maturity can only be a help to you, is what it boils down to. Because the last thing you want to do is live life where you're being tossed around by your emotions all the time, tossed around by circumstances all the time. Um, the least little thing can knock you off course. And there's actually a scripture in Proverbs that says, if you faint or if you uh collapse or fall apart in the day of adversity, your strength is small, it says. And we want to be people who have, you know, uh that are strong in the Lord and the power of his might, as Ephesians 6 talks about. So um, and and I apologize for the choppiness on my video here. But in in light of what we've been talking about for the past few weeks, though, spiritual maturity, um it there's really one major characteristic and that we want to tackle tonight in terms of what it looks like to be a mature Christian.

Love As The Key Driver

Phillip Rich 12:26

And if you want to get the other ones we've covered, you got to go back and listen to those episodes. But for tonight, we're going to be talking about the the main factor or the key issue behind spiritual maturity, the key driver of spiritual maturity, and that is love. And I know love sounds like a broad-ranging topic that could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So I think, David, if you don't mind jumping in here, like what are we also not referring to when we're talking about love in the context of biblical thinking, if you don't mind.

David McIntyre 13:01

Yeah, even before I say that, can I just say one other thing, uh, connected with your prologue? Um I just want you to remember that spiritual maturity is not about how long you've been a Christian.

Phillip Rich 13:17

Right.

David McIntyre 13:18

That's spiritual maturity is how long the nature and character of God has been formed within you consistently.

Phillip Rich 13:29

Yeah.

David McIntyre 13:30

Consistently. So that you know, um, don't think, you know, I've been born again for for 20 years. And that makes me a mature Christian. Uh, nothing could be further from the truth. But if we look at the fruit and how you live your life, that will tell us more about your maturity than the length of time that you have connected with it. Yeah.

unknown 13:56

Absolutely.

David McIntyre 13:57

When I think about a mature Christian, I think about my father. Um man talk about talk about uh a man after God's own heart. But what I've watched him do is consistently allow the word to transform and change and shape how he sees and feels and responds and connects with and commits to things and people. And uh so if he tell when he tells you, I've been a mature Christian for 50 years, that's real. Yeah, and every bit of those 50 years has been used to walk with God closely, not from a distance. It doesn't mean that we walk perfectly with God, and that's the other thing about being spiritually mature. Spiritual maturity does not necessarily always mean that I've done everything perfectly, it means that I have at times failed and gotten back up and continued walking. I didn't fall, realize I'd fallen, and then just stopped following God because I got caught up in my emotions and my feelings. Because one of the things an immature Christian does is allow their emotions to control their life.

Phillip Rich 15:16

That's good, David.

David McIntyre 15:17

So, but when we talk about this concept of love, and it's like a big piece of the puzzle, you know, the mature Christian walks in love, but what we're not talking about is we're not talking about this world that the this love that the world uses.

Worldly Love Versus Biblical Love

David McIntyre 15:36

The world throws around love. Um well, I can't say that, that would be ugly. The world throws around love like candy in a candy store. You have some love and you love, and I love you, and you love me, and everybody la la la la la la la la la la la la. And we just drop it and ease me. And love is dropped shed all over the place. But I think John said it best. He says, the world says love, and it means don't judge me. When the world looks at love, their intention is not to follow after the heart of God, but for you to allow them to do whatever they want to do, and as long as I don't judge you and you don't judge me, everything is love. That's love. Love is you accept me for who I am, whatever that may be, whatever I say I am, and you just take me in and you don't ask any questions, yeah. But you'll find here in just a moment that is so contrary to the word that we can't even correlate those things.

Phillip Rich 17:02

Yeah, that's good. That's good, David. And it's true, it's like, you know, I think people equate love with some type of a feeling, and they think that that's all love is it's just I I feel nice towards somebody, or I have a fondness for somebody, or that type of thing. Or it could be the other side of like what David said, you know, uh, love is you know, you accept everything I do no matter what it is, even if it's harmful to me, you know, that type of thing. Um and we've gotten to this place where any type of challenge to someone's preferences and opinions and ideas is viewed as hate. And a lot of times that's not accurate. You know, you can challenge somebody on how they think about something without operating in any kind of hatred whatsoever. Uh, but sadly, people view it as hate if you even bring any level of contradiction against what they think or feel, then all of a sudden you're so full of hate, you know. It's like, nah, man, you know, I'm hopefully I'm I'm here to to you know provide maybe a different perspective. Imagine that, you know.

David McIntyre 18:14

We can't we can't imagine that. I'll tell you one other thing, Phil, a great example of this.

Respect Without Celebrating Everything

David McIntyre 18:19

And I hate to throw this out there, but um, I found this so interesting as a Christian watching these um protests and riots. And um in one in one sense, you hear people say, um haters, we hate you. And then they'll be holding a sign that says only love here. And it's like what is what what meaneth this? And it's it's it's it it's in a world, and I'm talking about I I'm not gonna talk about the whole world, I'm gonna talk about the US for a moment. Only in the US right now do I see this weird dichotomy of I love you, I hate you, that all spews out of the mouth of the same person. Yeah. And usually the person that they have this hate against and that they're demanding that you love others, or I'm gonna kill you, are talking to people who haven't demonstrated a lack of love at all, just a difference of opinion with you. And again, a different opinion is not a lack of love. I um oddly enough, one of our uh uh organization, Chick-fil-A, just came out because they were getting beat up because they weren't operating in love towards a certain group of people. This just happened last week, and I was shocked because it was Chick-fil-A who has been bowing the knee to everything lately. Wow. And um they came out and said, just because we don't celebrate this day doesn't mean we don't respect and care for the people that are connected to it. We don't celebrate this day, and we will never celebrate this day, but it doesn't mean we don't respect customers and people who participate in that. And I'm like, oh first of all, I was shocked that Chick-fil-A took a stand. Um sorry to be ugly. Sorry to be ugly about it, but the reality is is that that in our world today we've become so so just anchored in these crappy positions that we can't we call evil the then the Bible tells us we call evil good and we call good evil. Yeah, respecting a man, respecting a woman, and allowing them the ability to live their life, even though I don't agree with their lifestyle, is evil. But me loving on them and telling them, oh, you're valid, oh this is right, oh, this is okay, is good, and in God's eye, it doesn't work that way, he doesn't see it that way, and we have to line up our vision with God's vision, and then we have to be willing to take the stand, regardless of what other people qualify as love or not love, right?

Jon Dzyuba 21:30

Absolutely. But wouldn't you I was I just wanted to ask, like, wouldn't you say that that would define being immature versus mature to take that stand? Because everybody knows anybody can know that well, this is good, this is bad, but uh would is that like a parameter of much immaturity that would you say for Christianity to take that stand?

David McIntyre 21:55

I I I don't know, Philip, what do you think? I I personally think. That yeah, when you can't appreciate and respect how somebody else chooses to live their life, regardless of how you feel, and you have to go after them and you have to attack them for that, that is not a mature Christian.

Phillip Rich 22:19

No, it's not. Because that in my mind, that means you seek to control. Correct. And love

Free Will And The Logic Of Hell

Phillip Rich 22:27

never seeks to control. Never seeks to control.

David McIntyre 22:30

And it doesn't have to exactly.

Phillip Rich 22:33

And that's part of the reason why people, you know, they get baffled about God. And well, why did God allow X, Y, and Z? Why did God allow? Well, because God doesn't control people, right? He gives us free will, and we are free, what they call free moral agents. This is why the world is so screwed up, because God doesn't control people. I hope we understand this. You know what I mean? Because people say that all the time. Well, if if God is real, then how come the world's so screwed up? How come there's so much violence and murder and uh rape and all this? Because God doesn't control people. You know, He loves He loves you enough to give you your free will, whether you choose for or against Him. That's that's real love. It's it's that old song by Sting, man. Some of y'all might remember that song. If you love someone, set them free. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. Um it's along those lines, like true love, real love is giving somebody the ability to fully be whatever they choose to be, even if it's not what you would want for them, right? So um that's a huge thing that I think that uh honestly it kind of unlocks a lot of a lot of things as far as how um how the world actually works and how God set the system up. Yeah, he's going to he's he's never going to override your will. He's never gonna do that. No, he is he's decided not to do that.

David McIntyre 24:00

No, and and Philip, can I throw in there that is, and I that's what the video was that I sent you guys. That is the argument for hell. The world says God's just going to send people to hell, and the answer is no, people choose that, yeah. Right, it's God's house. He wants everybody to come, he engages and gives opportunities and presents himself and reveals himself because he wants you, he wants you to come and be a part of his family, but you choose. I don't want to have anything to do with that. So when God allows you to go to hell, you can't be angry with God that he allowed you to choose for yourself. Because if God made you do it, is it really love? Right. God's not going to make you do it, he gives you the free will to choose, and you get to choose whichever way you go. Even when you know the Lord and walk with him, he gives you free will to obey him day in and day out, and the decisions and choices that you make determine where you go. God's not just beating anybody on the head saying you have to do this. Now, God will get to a point and say, Well, until you kind of go this way, this is where you're gonna be. And then you have to make a choice. But I think that's part of the excuse me. I'm getting over a little stuff, so I'm sorry for coughing so much, everybody. But that's that's where that's where maturity comes into play. Maturity recognizes that I have choices to make, I have decisions that I have to make. And nobody I cannot abdicate those choices to anyone. I have to make those choices, and then the outcomes I'm also responsible for, but I'm also grateful that I have a God who gives me grace. Yes, gives me lots of grace so that when I miss it, when I go off the reservation, when I go the wrong way, purposefully or unpurposefully, that he's there for me and he'll help to lead me back, and that's that's where the maturity comes in.

Phillip Rich 26:29

That's good, that's good, David.

Jon Dzyuba 26:32

Can

Apathy And Love That Protects

Jon Dzyuba 26:33

I add a one quick thought? You might agree, you might disagree, but I would argue that you might have heard this before, but the opposite of love often people would say is hate. Um I've also heard that the opposite of love is apathy. Um to to not care, not to not to go out of your way to bash someone over the head about whatever, but to just not even care. Um to me, by definition, I feel like that is closer to the opposite of love. To to look at somebody, you know, struggling with whatever, knowing that they're gonna perish in hell, um, and just to be like, well, that sucks. Um I think that that that would kind of not to say that that's the definition of an immature Christian, but I do think that that is a significant issue that a lot of Christians come across where they just there's there's no connection between Christ and the gospel and then like sharing that wanting to act like to care enough for somebody to give them that.

Phillip Rich 27:42

Yeah, that's good. That's good because you know, at the end of the day, like love um it seeks to protect as well. And a lot of times, you know, if if you ever had uh dealt with a family member, let's say, or a friend or whatever who has had an addiction of some kind, you know how horrible that stuff can be. And if you see somebody going down that kind of a road, all of us know where it leads. You know, that's what statistics are all about. You know, we we know if you get on drugs, you're you know, multiples more likely to end up in a bad place in life versus if you stay away from them. And so something like that, if I go to somebody and I confront them or I say, Hey, you know, you're going down a path that might not be the best path. Um, somebody might say, Oh, how could you judge them? How could you be so mean to say something like that? You know what? If that's if I saw them standing on the train tracks and a train's coming and I don't do something to push them out of the way, or you know, something like that, then is that love? You know what I mean? Um, we got to think about that side of it too. Love seeks to protect people from from obvious harms, you know. So there's that side of it too.

Defining Love In 1 Corinthians 13

Phillip Rich 29:00

But um, I did want to to jump over to First Corinthians 13 for us to look at the scripture because interestingly enough, maybe those who don't know, uh, maybe maybe you know, I that's not what I'm meant to say. Those who don't know, maybe you've never seen before what but the the fact that the Bible has an entire chapter devoted to the definition of love, which I think is pretty cool. And uh that would be First Corinthians 13. Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 12, in kind of the lead up to this chapter, he was talking about spiritual gifts and about you know prophesying and praying in tongues and all these different things like that. He said, But you know what, there's one gift that pretty much excels and out, you know, it it exceeds all of the other ones. He said, I have a more excellent way for you to live your life. And then he jumps into this thing about love here. And uh in verse one, he says, If I speak the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. So he's like, I could sit here and and you know have all kinds of cool sounding, you know, prayer languages or whatever the case is, but if I don't have love, um I'm trying to see if I can find it here. Yeah, all I have is this. Yeah, yeah.

David McIntyre 30:27

Um if I have prophetic powers, verse two.

Phillip Rich 30:31

And I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. He's like, I could be the biggest, boldest, baddest Christian on the planet, but if I don't have a basic uh understanding of how to treat people, you know, I don't have love, then I'm nothing. If I give all the away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. And a lot of people, you know, it it's one thing to do some type of extravagant act to to show how much faith you have, or this, you know, I could, I could, you know, I could jump in front of a uh a bullet for a family member, but I think the more difficult thing in life is to actually stay alive and live consistently as a person who loves every single day. That's a lot harder than just one big heroic act, if that makes sense. Yeah. And then verse four, here's where it gets really like down to the brass tacks as far as what love is and what constitutes love and how love behaves and responds. And it says here verse four love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way. That's a that's a that's a big one. Uh, it is not irritable or resentful. That's hard. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. So love and truth are very much intertwined. Um, in verse 7, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. In verse 8, love never ends. Now in the King James it says, love never fails, which I like a lot. Um, yeah, and there's I don't I won't get into the rest of it for now because I I'd I'd rather just kind of focus on those verses four through eight there. Um, just showing us what the Bible means when it talks about love. We could talk a whole lot about what love means, just as you know, there's there's there's as many definitions of love as there are people on the earth. But if you want to find out what the Bible actually says about love, we've got verses four through eight, the absolute concrete definition of it here in the scripture. Um, David or John, any any thoughts about that?

Marriage, Vows, And Emotional Drift

Jon Dzyuba 33:02

I do this is kind of not necessarily a pet peeve, but I do think that it is interesting when couples split up or divorce or whatever the case may be. And then when you ask them why, they say, I just don't love them anymore. And it like it it doesn't bother me, it's just such an interesting answer because I feel like to me, when I hear that, I feel like that's the solution. You're you're pointing the solution to your issue in your reasoning to leave this person. You just have to change your definition, it seems like when you understand this is what love is. I'm pointing, I'm pointing at my screen. You don't you don't know what I'm pointing at, but I'm pointing at the verses here. Uh, when you understand what that is what love is, um, you're right, you don't love your spouse anymore because you're not being patient, you're not being kind, you're not not being envious or boastful. And I feel like that's where a lot of relationships fail. And I I mentioned marriage and relationships, but I feel like that applies to any relation that you have with any person, you know, it's very you a lot of people drift away and separate because they don't know, maybe they don't know how to love somebody, but it's just whenever that's the reason that they don't love this person anymore. I'm like, really? Well, it's because you're not actively maybe you at some point you decide you just don't want to actively love somebody, and that's kind of the connection I was trying to make earlier about apathy. I think that's the root of of a lack of love is when you just don't care anymore, and just it's it just becomes so easy to do all of these things to to rejoice at wrongdoing instead of rejoicing in truth, um stuff like that. But I just that kind of stuck out to me as you were reading it. It is so weird.

David McIntyre 34:50

You know, John, down that same vein, you know, it says that love is not self-seeking, right? And nine times out of ten, you know, one of the things we teach in counseling sessions is that when a spouse says, I don't love you anymore, it usually means there's somebody else involved. And they've they've transferred that love to somebody else who is who is receiving that love um in a way that they didn't deserve to get it. It's it's um it's just an It's ugly. Yeah, it's ugly. You have you have abandoned your vow and you have decided to break your vow and then begin to create something with someone else, and then you're going to want God to bless it. Oh boy, and and you couldn't be more wrong. God is uh not going to bless that kind of foolishness, you know. If you have a problem with your wife or whatever, the Bible lays out some very clear things. It's it's part of the problem that we have in our society today, and another sign of immaturity, and it's an unwillingness to or or a lack of fortitude, it's a lack of the stamina necessary to walk out this Christian life, and that even when times are hard, you know, my wife and I have been married for 30 some odd years. Do you not think it hadn't gotten tough? Right, right, and that's there weren't times we were at we weren't at each other. There was a time when I was like, maybe you need to go back home to your dad. There were times when it was ugly, and we were considering, even though we made a commitment early on in our marriage, that we wouldn't use the D word, which was divorce, we wouldn't use that word, but we would from time to time tinder around other words to that say, you know, you might need to you might need to get up out of here. And uh all of it takes gumption, it takes spiritual maturity, it takes a willingness to be able to hear from the Lord and say no, yeah, or to have the Lord convict you and say, You know you were wrong, how you said that to her. Yeah, you know you were wrong in what you did, and now you're trying to defend your wrong and pretend you're right, you have to fix this. Yeah, to go out and allow some woman to and entertain some other person outside of your spouse. The Lord warns us about that. He's literally right there saying, Don't go this path, don't do this. But we get so caught up in the entertainment of it all and feeling good because they made me feel a certain way, and we all let our emotions win over what maturity says, because you might tickle my emotions with oh, somebody thinks I'm cute, and she's at home, and that's where I need to go. You don't make it in life, you don't make it in marriage, you don't make it in your job without having maturity and the fortitude to turn away a lot of foolishness and listen to God and do the right thing, and and that's the thing about all of this is that none of it is easy, and that's where we get to this scripture because because it's love is sacrificial, yeah, yeah, and maturity is sacrificial, they go together.

Phillip Rich 38:53

That's

Selfishness Versus Sacrificial Living

Phillip Rich 38:54

right, and that's the thing, like you you mentioned, David, love is not self-seeking. Um, if you really think about it, love is pretty much the opposite of selfishness. It's if you cannot be selfish and also be walking in love. Like whatever act you do that is a selfish act, in that act, you're not doing anything that has anything to do with love. You're doing what has to do with satisfying self, gratifying self, putting self first. And anybody who puts self first, they that's not walking in love, period.

David McIntyre 39:32

Philip, not only self, but the flesh. And I know they're kind of one and the same, but it's all about you.

Phillip Rich 39:39

That's right. That's right. It the flesh, we and it's here's the thing, guys. We love doing a whole bunch of psychological gymnastics to try to justify why we can always come out on top with something and why everything we do should be would would end up benefiting ourselves. You know, it we love making excuses for it and doing other things like that. Whatever it takes to where we always end up with the benefit, where we never have to sacrifice anything, we never have to be the one to take the hit on anything. It's always what I can get out of a situation instead of what I can give. That is that's the very opposite of love. Love does not do that, and so we're, you know, this is the one of the biggest challenges because when you read that passage in 1 Corinthians 13, that's what it's all about. You can't find one single selfish thing about verses four through eight. It doesn't exist, it's always about it's love endures long and is patient and kind. You know, love doesn't envy. Envy is one of the most selfish things in the world because envy is basically saying that person doesn't have a right to enjoy the blessings God's giving them because they're doing it at my expense. You know what I mean? That's that's envy. Um and then, you know, it says love is not self-seeking, love does not, it's not irritable, it's not easily provoked. All these things, and I think actually, uh, if you look up that word um easily provoked, or that phrase easily provoked, it means I think the literal translation is like a hot-headed person, just hot-headed. Love is not hot-headed, you know, love has patience. And how we know this is a godly group of characteristics is because it's not easy for the flesh to do. Bottom line, none of this stuff is easy for the flesh to do, which means you have to depend on the Lord, on his grace, depend on the Holy Spirit to help you with these things, and that's what's gonna um help you grow in the spiritual maturity that we're talking about here. Uh, the the more you get away from selfishness, the more spiritually mature you become. End of story, but um, well, we went a little longer than we expected here. Amen.

David McIntyre 42:10

I'd just like to say amen to all of that. Praise God.

Phillip Rich 42:16

But um, I think yeah, go ahead, John.

Jon Dzyuba 42:19

Sorry, there's a great example of selflessness in the Bible. His name was Jesus. There you get examples on what that looks like. You just read through the gospels and he'll tell you. You know, you kneel down and wash people's feet, you serve them. You there's there's no greater example than God living among us who lived in selflessness. That's right. Come on now. Um the OG of love. That's right.

David McIntyre 42:54

Well, if I may throw a uh and hopefully do so without a bunch of coughing. Um let me just kind of throw out a list down at you of some of the the um examples of what a what a mature Christian is.

Traits Of A Mature Christian

David McIntyre 43:14

And it's it goes back to some of the things we talked about and a couple of other things. Number one, they're rooted and grounded in God's word. Yeah, you don't become mature apart from the word of God. Number two, they display and deploy uh the fruit of the spirit. Yeah, you can always see the fruit of the spirit in the mature believers' lives, but not only can you see that fruit of the spirit, you can tell that they're led by the spirit and not by their flesh.

Phillip Rich 43:45

Yeah.

David McIntyre 43:49

They look for opportunities to pursue holiness and obedience to God. That's important to them. Uh, to be obedient and to keep his commandments. Remember. Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So to do the opposite would be to say that I don't love Jesus. Hum and they're teachable. They're humble and they're teachable. And like I said earlier, they love others sacrificially. In other words, I'm willing to put you first over my needs because God'll take care of me. I'm gonna do my best to take care of you. They endure trials with faith. And here's another big one. They make disciples of others.

Phillip Rich 44:39

That's good.

David McIntyre 44:40

Mature Christians recognize that this walk is not just for them, only at some point it's important for them to make disciples of men. And so they invest in that.

Phillip Rich 44:53

That's good stuff. That's good stuff, David. That's good. Um I think that's a good place for us to put a book bookmark, or at least, you know, I guess we can basically conclude this uh this

Questions, Reviews, And Next Series

Phillip Rich 45:06

series on spiritual maturity. Uh we want to thank you for joining us for this episode. And um sorry for coughing on everybody, yeah, and and and sorry for my stuttering video on everybody as well.

David McIntyre 45:18

So just get a little alcohol wipe and just wipe it off.

Phillip Rich 45:21

You you'll be all right.

Jon Dzyuba 45:24

And I'm sorry for for them.

Phillip Rich 45:26

So yeah, John. Thank you, John. We need we need somebody to be our official apologist. So um, but um, but yeah, definitely if you have any kind of questions or suggestions for the podcast, anything you'd like to see us cover, or just in general, just you know, hey, what about this scripture of uh a boy am I opening that up for who knows what? Um, but there's an email address called gotbrew at bible bros.net. Actually, I think it's um instead of.com there. Whoa, excuse me. No worries. Uh got brew at Bible Bros.net. Again, got brew at Bible Bros.net. Send us a message, a little shout out, whatever the case is. We'd love to hear from people. And if you're listening to this podcast on any type of uh platform like Spotify, Apple, all that kind of stuff, um, leave a comment. And if they have some type of function for you to leave a review, do that and hopefully give us five stars, um, or whatever the maximum amount of stars would be for that platform. So uh, but if we want to just say thank you again for for joining us this evening, or I guess whatever time of day, listen to it. Um, we will be kicking off another series. We're gonna be we've been doing some brainstorming as far as where we're gonna go next and talk about some different things. So uh stay tuned. But in the meantime, we do have a library of videos we've already done on our YouTube channel. There's hundreds, literally hundreds of videos on our channel for you to dig into on all kinds of topics, man. We've talked about righteousness, we've talked about the fruit of the spirit, we've talked about the parable of the sower. I mean, it's good, we got a lot of stuff out there, man. So um definitely avail yourself to the teachings and the things we put out there from past episodes. In the meantime, we want to say thank you for joining us once again. We will see you again live next week on Wednesday. Until then, keep the brews popping and the Bible hopping. I don't know, whatever might be cool.

Jon Dzyuba 47:25

Uh the floors are mopping.

Phillip Rich 47:28

And the floors are mopping. Um, yeah, I'll come up with something better. I won't embarrass myself next time. All right. Peace.