I remember sitting in Moody Church in downtown Chicago one Sunday morning listening to the amazing Dr. Erwin Lutzer and his sermon on Christian Maturity. He illustrated his point saying, “I know that each and every member of our church is a mature believer. I know this because no one has yet challenged my pronouncing the word as “maTurity and not “maCHurity”.

Well, I thought it was funny. Still do. What isn’t funny is when a follower of Christ stops growing in faith. They exercise enough faith to believe and to trust in Jesus for their salvation, but when pressure arises they fold or avoid the conflict altogether. It’s like they wrap themselves in Saran Wrap, they may look fresh, healthy and protected but over time their faith decays and their life with God spoils. They begin to question the very basic teachings of Christianity all over again. In time, it’s almost as if they never believed. The writer of the book of Hebrews put it this way:

For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. You have gone back to needing milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil. – Hebrews 5.12-14

How does one keep from becoming a Saran Wrapped Christian? Great question. I’ll give you three answers.

1. Follow Jesus, not your favorite pastor or Christian.

If you remember a few weeks ago near the start of our series on First Corinthians one of the main concerns Paul had was the congregants picking their favorite speakers. One followed Paul, another Apollos… you remember. It is easy to stop developing our relationship with God, and to not challenge ourselves to grow in faith, while being fed and entertained by a great pastor. But whether it’s Dr. Lutzer or Joel Osteen, as good or as entertaining as they may be, they are not Jesus. Stop following men and start following the Messiah.

2. Don’t avoid the tough questions.

It’s easy to avoid those passages of the Bible that we don’t understand or don’t fit our idea of who God should be. Why did God order the mass extermination of the nations during the conquest of the promised land? Why was blood sacrifice necessary? Will God really send people to the Lake of Fire? If our faith isn’t challenged, we never learn about who God is and over time we find ourselves worshiping a mental image of the God we want instead of the God who lives.

3. Live like you mean it.

This is a little touchy, but how much do you tithe? Do you tithe? How often do you talk to your friends about salvation? Do they even know you made a choice to follow Jesus? Don’t be afraid to go out on a financial or relational limb, after all Jesus hung on a real limb and died to pay for your sins. Yes that’s right, I’m not above using a good guilt trip once in a while. Of course the whole point of the gospel isn’t the death of Jesus, but the resurrection. Without the resurrection there would be no forgiveness of sins. And that should give you the courage you need; you’re right with God, so its okay if a little conflict arises in your other relationships.