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Welcome to Day 2116 of\xa0 Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.\nThis is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom\nBecoming A Radical Disciple 3 \u2013 Maturity and Creation Care \u2013 Daily Wisdom\nPutnam Church Message \u2013 08/15/2021\nBecoming A Radical Disciple \u2013 Maturity and Creation Care\nMy purpose in this series is to consider eight character traits of Christian discipleship that are often neglected and deserve to be taken seriously.\xa0In the past two weeks, we have explored Nonconformity and Christlikeness.\xa0Today our focus will be on Maturity and Creation Care.\n\nMaturity\n\nWhat would be your answer if I were to ask you to summarize the Christian scene in the world today? While it is somewhat difficult to know with certainty, I would sum it up in just three words, namely \u201cgrowth without depth.\u201d\n\nThere is no doubt of the church\u2019s phenomenal growth in many parts of the world, including the western cultures. The statistics of church growth are tremendous.\xa0Unfortunately, the news media, even many Christian ministries, focus on the negative aspects.\n\n\u201cExplosion\u201d is not too dramatic a word to describe it. It is an exciting time to be alive as a citizen of God\u2019s kingdom. For example, the church in China and India has grown at least one hundredfold since the middle of the twentieth century. More Christian believers now worship God every Sunday in China than in all the churches of Western Europe. Many churches have been forced underground, but persecution has grown and strengthened God\u2019s kingdom throughout the ages.\n\nBible.com and Biblegateway.com have experienced tremendous growth as more people are connected online. Never before have there been so many Biblical resources available today, especially on the internet, where many are either free or very inexpensive.\xa0For many years, the top category for podcasts worldwide has been Religion and Spirituality, with Christianity being the majority.\xa0A 2021 American Bible Society survey showed that 71% of Americans read the Bible regularly. To make a long story short, the kingdom of God is expanding rapidly, and when Christ returns a second time, it will be to establish His kingdom in a worldwide Eden.\xa0With all the negative news out today, this is the Good News that we can rally behind.\n\nWhile this is good news, we have to keep in perspective this is not an indication that many of these people desire to become radical disciples, for it is numeric growth without depth. Therefore, the third character trait of a radical disciple is maturity.\xa0A lack of maturity is an issue in western culture and the church worldwide. Church leaders throughout the world indicate that this is an issue.\n\nThere are superficial disciples everywhere; as we see, there is a massive problem with a lack of godliness and integrity.\xa0The church universal lacks a solid biblical or theological foundation of its own.\xa0This rapid growth results in an increasing number of immature disciples because few mature, knowledgeable shepherds are available to train the sheep. This fact is one of our calls to radical discipleship.\n\nThe lack of radical discipleship is not new; the church\u2019s rapid growth fuels it. We can say this because the apostles whose letters we find in the New Testament rebuke their readers for their immaturity and urge them to grow up. Consider, for example, Paul\u2019s critique of the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, \u201cDear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn\u2019t talk to you as I would to spiritual people.\xa0I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.\xa0\xa0I had...