SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, do me a favor if you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, meet me in Hebrews chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series called Grow Up.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say Grow Up.
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, called Grow Up.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we're going to be looking at today.
SPEAKER_00: Our title is The Truth About Spiritual Maturity.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at the truth about spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: And as you are going to Hebrews chapter 5, I need to tell you about an experience I've had over the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So we're planning for camp.
SPEAKER_00: We're planning for Beach Camp very specifically.
SPEAKER_00: And we're thinking about what are some of the things that we're going to do?
SPEAKER_00: What are the late night activities that we're going to do?
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the games we're going to do?
SPEAKER_00: And we're throwing around ideas, and our team came up with the idea of let's let's watch a movie on the beach.
SPEAKER_00: Now I would love that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the question though.
SPEAKER_00: What do you watch on the beach?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: What do you watch?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody in last service said, Jobs.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: There's my resignation right there.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: No, we were thinking about what movie do we watch in, and one movie that Gabe, my associate, came up with was this movie here, The Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: The Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have seen uh The Princess Bride?
SPEAKER_00: Show of hands?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So when he said you have to watch The Princess Bride, guess what my response was?
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: Just like that.
SPEAKER_00: It was, what is that?
SPEAKER_00: In the next 15 to 20, 25 minutes, the meeting was halted so that he can remind me of how I didn't have a childhood and how I wasn't a kid because I didn't watch the Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: Bachelor offense, how many of you have not seen The Princess Bride?
SPEAKER_00: Come on, make me feel good.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen it either.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole meeting was now made unproductive.
SPEAKER_00: Stopped the whole meeting, halted the whole meeting so that we can talk about the Princess Bride, watch trailers of it, watch reviews of the Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole meeting was halted and interrupted, such an unproductive meeting, so that we can watch and see if we can watch the Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: News flash, we're not watching the Princess Bride on the bridge.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: We're not, and all the men said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We're not watching Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00: And so where we're at this morning is sort of like that.
SPEAKER_00: Where the author of Hebrews, which is unknown, wants to talk about the qualifications of Jesus Christ in the order after Melchizedek, but he stops the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: He interrupts the conversation to talk about why he can't talk about that because of their lack of spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: And so we pick up in chapter 5, verse 11 as we read.
SPEAKER_00: Won't you stand up with me, meet me in Hebrews chapter 5, starting at verse 11?
SPEAKER_00: If you're there, say word.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not there, say wait.
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 5, verse 11 says, about this, we have much to say.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to explain since we have become, since you have become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need milk, not solid food.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child.
SPEAKER_00: But solid food, solid food, is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish the good, distinguish good from evil.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: And this we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: God, we ask that you would speak to us this morning as we seek to be maturing and multiplying disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God, open up our hearts and our ears to hear and to receive and to live out, God, what you have for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seen it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're taking notes, and I hope that you are, I want you to write this down.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're headed today, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is the truth about spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: This is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't intentionally grow, you will unintentionally drift.
SPEAKER_00: If you aren't intentional about your growth in Christ, about living out your faith, you will unintentionally drift.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be focused on how we can grow in our relationship with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to see three movements within our passage this morning, Hebrews 5, that if we are serious about growing in our relationship with the Lord, can really help us not drift in our personal walk.
SPEAKER_00: Three realities, spiritual realities that will cause us to live the genuine life God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: First thing, write this down.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you're taking notes.
SPEAKER_00: We need to see the diagnosis of dullness.
SPEAKER_00: See the diagnosis of dullness.
SPEAKER_00: First, go back in your Bibles to verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me there.
SPEAKER_00: It says, about this, we have much to say.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot to say about Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot to say about Jesus and establishing his credentials and requirements in the order after Melchizedek, but it's hard to explain.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 connects us to the previous and ongoing conversation that the author wants to talk to us about how Jesus is the great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, but he stops because he's interrupted, because if he were to talk about this, they wouldn't understand anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the question we have to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 5 through verse 7 talks about this very truth.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the question.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 7, why would the author in verse 5 say it's hard to explain that Jesus is the great high priest, but then in chapter 7 begin to explain it in full?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like my six-year-old son years ago, his name is Trey.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked me a couple years ago, Daddy, how is my name Eric Jones, too, if your name is Eric Jones?
SPEAKER_00: And why do people call me Trey if my name is Eric Jones?
SPEAKER_00: Now the answer is simple, but explaining that to him is like explaining the Trinity, right?
SPEAKER_00: He just wouldn't understand it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's too young.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we see here.
SPEAKER_00: Is that if he were to explain it, they wouldn't understand it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're seeing here.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why they wouldn't understand it is because they were dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a pen, I'd underline that in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Dole of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when Hebrews says dull of hearing, the idea here, the translation is that they were sluggish.
SPEAKER_00: It translates, no push.
SPEAKER_00: No one is pushing you towards growth.
SPEAKER_00: Slow of understanding.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word we see in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 12, where Hebrew says, so that you might, so that you may not be sluggish, slow of understanding, but imitators.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to be slow of understanding.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to imitate, be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: The criticism here is that they were too lazy to understand.
SPEAKER_00: They were too lazy.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the desire.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't push themselves, they didn't fully desire to know who God was.
SPEAKER_00: They had become indifferent and apathetic.
SPEAKER_00: I'd write those two words down.
SPEAKER_00: They became indifferent and apathetic to the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: What's important to notice here is that you don't become dull of hearing in one day.
SPEAKER_00: You don't become dull of hearing in one week or one month, but you become dull of hearing over the course of time.
SPEAKER_00: Allowing it to be an unintentional drift.
SPEAKER_00: So over the course of time, a spiritual regression begins to happen.
SPEAKER_00: When my boys were growing up, when they were littler, there was a word I hated to hear from my wife about our kids.
SPEAKER_00: And it was they are going through a regression.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you who don't know or have forgotten what a baby regression is or haven't had the joy of knowing what a baby regression is, it's the uh reality, because it is a reality, that a kid has demonstrated the ability to sleep through the night.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They have developed to be able to sleep through the night.
SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, I think it's like the four-month mark, the eight-month mark, the 16, and an 18-month mark, where they have demonstrated previously the ability to sleep through the night.
SPEAKER_00: But then their body communicates to them that they don't want to demonstrate such ability to sleep through the night.
SPEAKER_00: It is a pain when there is a regression.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we're seeing here is that the author is saying that you have regressed in your spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_00: You have had a spiritual act of regression.
SPEAKER_00: They're going backwards in their faith, they're going backwards in their spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual laziness never happens loudly, but it happens subtly.
SPEAKER_00: It never happens when you're planning for it.
SPEAKER_00: No one plans to regress in their spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_00: No one plans to not grow in their walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: No one plans to do those things, but it happens when we are not intentionally growing in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It happens on a Tuesday when you say, I'm too busy to read scripture with my family.
SPEAKER_00: It happens on a Friday when you're saying, Man, we just gotta get this done.
SPEAKER_00: We just gotta get to the next day.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual regression happens unintentionally when we are not being intentional in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to see three ways to diagnose whether we are becoming spiritually lazy, dull, or stagnant.
SPEAKER_00: Write these down, these are go quick.
SPEAKER_00: First, we need to check your hunger for spiritual truth.
SPEAKER_00: Check your hunger, check your heart, check your life to see if you genuinely desire the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you actually want to grow in your walk with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Do you actually desire to know the truth of God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really desire it?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you simply just saying it?
SPEAKER_00: Are you simply just placating this Christian walk?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really want to walk with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Is your heart posture ready and eager to receive God's word, as David says, with gladness?
SPEAKER_00: If your spiritual appetite is satisfied with only the basics, then maybe your heart is more closer to being spiritually dull and stagnant than you thought.
SPEAKER_00: Do you desire to live for Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew's gospel says, blessed or happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: For they shall be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: God's people love God's word.
SPEAKER_00: When we are in God's word, when we desire to the things of God, when we desire to live for God, God's people are satisfied by God.
SPEAKER_00: They are happy.
SPEAKER_00: Do you desire to know and to live for the God that you say you love?
SPEAKER_00: Second, we need to assess your response to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Each time you read and hear God's word without changing, you condition yourself to be spiritually dull.
SPEAKER_00: You're always hearing, always writing, never doing.
SPEAKER_00: You are conditioning yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You hear sermons, you read scripture, and each time you find yourself without life change in your life.
SPEAKER_00: If we come from God's word, and we leave from reading God's word and being in God's word, and there's never a change.
SPEAKER_00: I say it like this: if there's no change, there's something strange.
SPEAKER_00: If God's word doesn't change your life, if there is nothing different to your response to God's word, if you never respond, then the issue isn't the gospel, the issue isn't the messenger, the issue's you.
SPEAKER_00: James says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: But someone would say, You have faith, and I have works.
SPEAKER_00: Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
SPEAKER_00: You believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe in the shutter.
SPEAKER_00: Even the demons believe who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Even the demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: They have that intellectual ascent.
SPEAKER_00: They understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?
SPEAKER_00: Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
SPEAKER_00: You see that faith was active along with his works.
SPEAKER_00: And faith was completed by his works.
SPEAKER_00: James echoes the same thing Hebrews does.
SPEAKER_00: That spiritual, spiritual immaturity can be marked by spiritual inactivity.
SPEAKER_00: For those of us who are stunted, have regressed.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, one of the signs is a spiritual inactivity.
SPEAKER_00: Always hearing and never acting as a sign of an immature and dull Christian third.
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: We need to examine your willingness to be challenged.
SPEAKER_00: Examine, assess your heart if you're willing to be challenged by God's word.
SPEAKER_00: On the most fundamental and foundational level of the Christian walk is this question.
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to be changed by the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing for your life to be altered because of God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to make a move in your life because of the scriptures that God has given us?
SPEAKER_00: Being dull of hearing is a sequence of choices that resist the change the scriptures call us to.
SPEAKER_00: It's a resistance to it, an unwillingness to it, a laziness of it.
SPEAKER_00: That when we hear and we don't do, we read and we don't do.
SPEAKER_00: The danger isn't opposition to truth, but it's apathy and spiritual laziness over time.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, I mean, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle, the challenge is not that you don't believe it to be true.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle is not that you are against it.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle, the challenge, the danger is an apathetic and lazy attitude towards the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: That you don't want really want to.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't moved past the desire to spiritual activity.
SPEAKER_00: The second truth Hebrews shows us is that we must stop the disappointment of dependency.
SPEAKER_00: Stop the disappointment of dependency.
SPEAKER_00: Right here in my head, I have my coach who used to say, stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to stop the disappointment of dependency.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews is telling us that we need to grow up and get off milk.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say, grow up.
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
SPEAKER_00: We need to grow up, church, and get off the spiritual milk.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me, Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Here's where we read.
SPEAKER_00: By this time, you ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need milk, not solid food.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
SPEAKER_00: But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Three assumptions that we see here.
SPEAKER_00: Three assumptions made here about the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: First, the text says that we ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: You should underline that word.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: The assumption is that a faithful disciple is a progressing and growing disciple.
SPEAKER_00: You should be able to do this by now.
SPEAKER_00: How can he say that?
SPEAKER_00: It's because we should not look the same.
SPEAKER_00: We should not be walking the same spiritual life today as we were when we first started our life to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There should be a general progression of growth within our life.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be struggling to the same degree, the same things that we struggled with.
SPEAKER_00: We should be growing as a spiritual mature Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Second, notice the author says that you ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Underline that, teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Teachers by now.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the idea is not that you should become a professor or even a pastor or even someone that sits in a classroom and teaches, but the idea here, the same word that's used here, is the idea of a disciple who makes disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We see the same word used in Luke's gospel and Luke chapter 6, verse 40.
SPEAKER_00: It says, A disciple is not above his teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Those are our words.
SPEAKER_00: But everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is that the expectation is for every single believer to be a disciple who makes a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're called to.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew's gospel, right before Jesus goes to heaven, he sends us with his last words.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, go therefore and make disciples and teach them.
SPEAKER_00: Teach them to obey the commands that I've given them.
SPEAKER_00: I like Mark Devers' definition of discipling.
SPEAKER_00: It says this it is intentionally helping someone else follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'd write that down.
SPEAKER_00: Intentionally helping someone else follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is the call for believers that you are intentionally helping someone else follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's an effort that you make, you make room in your schedule.
SPEAKER_00: You make room in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the crew, this is the critique of Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: That they should be able to understand the basics of the Christian faith and be able to teach it, to disciple someone else in the commands that Christ has given us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Can you can you right now disciple someone else?
SPEAKER_00: Can you right now take someone else along with you and teach them the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: Teach them the commands that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to walk shoulder to shoulder with maybe a younger man or a younger woman?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a new believer.
SPEAKER_00: You're able to talk with them, teach them, walk with them to be a disciple who makes a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Discipling someone means teaching, correcting, modeling, loving, humbling ourselves, counseling, and influencing parents and grandparents.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot allow the world to disciple our children.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot allow coaches to disciple our kids.
SPEAKER_00: We can't allow when a teenager grows up and goes to college, we can't allow colleges to disciple our children.
SPEAKER_00: That is the command and has been ordained by God for parents that we would disciple our kids, that we would be the primary spiritual influencers for our children.
SPEAKER_00: We can't get upset when our kids come home and they don't sound like us.
SPEAKER_00: They don't do the things that we do when we aren't the primary influencers, the primary spiritual influencers in a child's life.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to disciple, and parents, we have the ordained call of God on our life to disciple our own children.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite times of the week have become Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
SPEAKER_00: Because on Tuesdays, we have a group of guys that come over to our house and we eat, we talk about the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: I bought some pictures here with us.
SPEAKER_00: They probably hate this.
SPEAKER_00: But they come over, we eat food, we talk about the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: I'm teaching them to make steak.
SPEAKER_00: I love steak, by the way, I love it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're teaching them.
SPEAKER_00: We're walking alongside with them.
SPEAKER_00: We have another one here.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite parts is that my son gets to see that.
SPEAKER_00: My son gets to hear teenage guys talk about the scriptures, talk about their woes, talk about their struggles, and he gets to see his side of a young man that loves the Lord so that he knows that the expectation is for him as well.
SPEAKER_00: Because every believer, every disciple needs to be a disciple who makes disciple.
SPEAKER_00: I'm modeling not only for my son, but for these guys.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the connection that I have with their parents too.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we've seen some of them get even more connected to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's because of God's work and the life of his people.
SPEAKER_00: All because we're inviting, we're saying, let me disciple you.
SPEAKER_00: This is a call for all believers.
SPEAKER_00: Now, can we be honest here?
SPEAKER_00: Or rather, can I be honest here?
SPEAKER_00: The life transformation that you are likely seeking is not found in another Bible study, it's not found in another class, it's not found in another conversation, but it's found in being shoulder to shoulder across the table, discipling someone else, and intentionally helping them follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you really want to grow, if you're really seeking to grow in your walk with the Lord, then I would say you need to get in the game.
SPEAKER_00: You need to disciple someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Put feet to your words.
SPEAKER_00: Third, notice the end of verse 12, which says, You need milk, not solid food.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Since he's a child.
SPEAKER_00: The assumption here is that God's people ought to grow deeper in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: That you ought to move past just the basic and elementary doctrines, is what Hebrew says of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The word picture here is of a mother who has her infant child in a high chair, and she has a spoonful of that Gerber baby food with the mashed potatoes and green beans and chicken all stirred up.
SPEAKER_00: It's gross.
SPEAKER_00: And she has it in the spoon and she's saying, she's saying, open wine, right?
SPEAKER_00: Here comes the airplane.
SPEAKER_00: Right, that's the reality here.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's speaking to is that you have become spiritually dull to where you need milk.
SPEAKER_00: That's the critique.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually speaking, we should be off spiritual milk.
SPEAKER_00: When I came here on staff, the elders had invited us to a meeting, and it was upstairs, and it was like the last part of our interview.
SPEAKER_00: And they made one of my favorite meals: steak, asparagus, and mashed potatoes.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: Garlic, mashed potatoes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't know at that time if it was going to be my first meal or it was going to be my last meal.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you sit at the table with those guys, it looks pretty scary.
SPEAKER_00: But I will say, man, those guys are some of the most kind, godly men that you can meet.
SPEAKER_00: But spiritually speaking, this is how it should look like.
SPEAKER_00: We should be able to eat spiritual steak.
SPEAKER_00: We should be able to digest the deeper things of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A follower of Christ who is perpetually stuck in the basics of faith and can't move from reading to living as a Christian who is stunted in their spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Mature disciples are those who move from reading the scriptures to actually living and sharing the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: That's what a spiritual mature Christian does.
SPEAKER_00: They move from simply reading God's word and hearing God's word to actually living God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You're living it out.
SPEAKER_00: You're putting feet to your words, you're pushing yourself away from the table, and you're walking out your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You're exercising your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You are demonstrating your faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it means to be moved, to move from simply reading to actually living and sharing the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: The last thing that Hebrew shows us is that we need to study the description of development.
SPEAKER_00: Study the description of development.
SPEAKER_00: Look back in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 6, starting at verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we read.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washing, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, and this we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: What we're looking at is a call for spiritual progression.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 really translates Let us leave the ABCs of the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you learn your ABCs?
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you didn't think that you were done with school.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you probably did.
SPEAKER_00: You probably thought you were done after you learn the ABCs, but you don't learn the ABCs, and then that's it.
SPEAKER_00: You learn your ABCs so that you can read.
SPEAKER_00: And even reading is not the main goal, it's learning.
SPEAKER_00: You moved past the basics so that you can get to the deeper things.
SPEAKER_00: This is the point that you don't keep learning and relearning the basics, but that you move on towards spiritual maturity and growth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what the author mentions here in the following verses are six foundational and fundamental teachings that this Jewish Christian audience would have been aware of.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to just look at the first two.
SPEAKER_00: The first two we see is repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: The first two that he mentions are repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is a changing of mind, is it once changing of mind, and also that leads to a changing and a turning away from sin.
SPEAKER_00: So repentance isn't, man, I'm sorry I got caught.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like our children.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, right?
SPEAKER_00: You make them say sorry, why are you sorry?
SPEAKER_00: Because whatever you tell them.
SPEAKER_00: No, repentance is a genuine act of turning from sin that is a work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just simply feeling bad, but specifically, specifically in our text, in verse 3, we see that we need to repent from dead works.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a pen, I'd underline that.
SPEAKER_00: Repenting from dead works.
SPEAKER_00: One of them that he mentions is the ceremonial washings that are mentioned in our verse here, which was when they would wash their hands to cleanse themselves before doing a spiritual act.
SPEAKER_00: And really, what the author is pointing to is that you no longer have to do this.
SPEAKER_00: You no longer have to these do these ceremonial washings because you have been washed in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You have been covered in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has paid for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: He has paid it all.
SPEAKER_00: John teaches us that we are to be born of the water and of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And really, I think this is a good reminder for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because a dead work is anything that we do to try to earn our way to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Is anything we do to try to earn our way to salvation?
SPEAKER_00: In church family, we cannot bribe God.
SPEAKER_00: We can't bribe God with our church attendance.
SPEAKER_00: We can't bribe God with our giving.
SPEAKER_00: We can't bribe God with our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: There is only one way that we can see heaven and see Jesus, and that is in believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: It is in Christ and Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has made us righteous in him.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus, we are made right.
SPEAKER_00: In him, in him alone.
SPEAKER_00: And the point in mentioning these foundational teachings is that the Christian faith is founded, can only be saved through Christ and Christ alone and not empty rituals.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we move from just reading to living?
SPEAKER_00: Three things from the text I want us to call us to.
SPEAKER_00: Three remedies.
SPEAKER_00: First, and these will go fast, write these down.
SPEAKER_00: We must abandon dead works.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse one.
SPEAKER_00: We read that we must leave the elementary doctrines of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We must leave, this word translates as abandon, forget, release.
SPEAKER_00: We need to abandon the dead works.
SPEAKER_00: That's our word, they left.
SPEAKER_00: They abandoned, they forgot their nets and followed him.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 9, verse 6, we see the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus said to him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead.
SPEAKER_00: Forget, abandon.
SPEAKER_00: So, in the same way that Jesus called his first disciples to leave their nets, in the same way that Jesus called this man to leave the dead, it's the same way that Jesus calls you and me to abandon any work that would lend itself, that we would bribe God with our actions.
SPEAKER_00: We can't bribe God.
SPEAKER_00: He must abandon and forget dead works.
SPEAKER_00: Anything that would try to earn our way to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: We live and we act and we are because of our love and affection for God and His Word.
SPEAKER_00: We gather with God's people because we enjoy and we love the commands of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: God's people love God's word.
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love God's word?
SPEAKER_00: We must abandon dead works.
SPEAKER_00: Second, don't settle for half-hearted commitment.
SPEAKER_00: Do not settle, do not be content with a half-hearted commitment.
SPEAKER_00: We must have a desire to deepen our walk with Christ, moving past knowledge and pressing onwards to maturity through practice, through demonstration.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, we aren't dismissing the basic truths.
SPEAKER_00: But we're growing deeper in basic truths.
SPEAKER_00: We're growing deeper in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes when people say, Man, I just don't feel like I'm being fed here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I'm I'm growing in my walk with Christ, my first response is, Well, where are you plugged in at?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you serving?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you being discipled by?
SPEAKER_00: We are called to not settle for a half-hearted commitment.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago in Texas, I used to uh referee football and basketball games, and in order to do that, from Little League all the way to varsity, in order to do that, you have to go through a training.
SPEAKER_00: And this is real-time on-the-spot training.
SPEAKER_00: And so when the inexperienced ref was trying to call the game, trying to call the scrimmage, you'd have the experienced ref shadowing him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you'll be running down the court and you trying to call the game, and this guy, he's behind you saying, Hey, you missed this, hey, you missed this, hey, call that, hey, come over here.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this one particular guy who was inexperienced.
SPEAKER_00: We were both there at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: We're both new.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the guy who was shadowing him, he would be saying those same things.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you missed this, hey, you need to be here, and every single time that the experienced guy said something, the inexperienced guy said, Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, yeah, I know, I know.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know somebody like that?
SPEAKER_00: Where anytime you try to correct them, they know it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They know it.
SPEAKER_00: So I guess this guy had had enough.
SPEAKER_00: He stopped the scrimmage, looked at the guy, and said, then do something with the knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to do something with the knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Do something with our knowledge of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of our passage.
SPEAKER_00: That we are to act on the knowledge that we have and go on towards maturity and a visible, living out our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Third, write this down.
SPEAKER_00: We need to simply trust Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Abandon your dead works.
SPEAKER_00: Don't settle.
SPEAKER_00: And trust Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the better eye priest.
SPEAKER_00: He's the better sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at chapter 6, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: We read, and this we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: This we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: A blind reading would suggest that this means, does God, does God permit this?
SPEAKER_00: Does God want me to do this?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: God does permit it.
SPEAKER_00: The translation here really is God will carry you on towards spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the Christian life, the Christian life, we have a responsibility to live out our faith as God carries us through.
SPEAKER_00: The point here is that God carries us to spiritual maturity as we walk in obedience to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: You don't accidentally become spiritually mature, you repeatedly choose it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not by accident that you'll become mature.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna wake up one day and say, man, my work with the Lord is strong.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't accidentally happen, but it happens when you repeatedly choose it.
SPEAKER_00: Day in, day out, every decision, every conversation, you make a choice to submit your life to Christ, to submit your actions to Christ, to walk in obedience to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is a daily habit of choosing to.
SPEAKER_00: Walk faithfully with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual maturity comes when we choose to walk in daily obedience.
SPEAKER_00: We rap out, I want to invite the man to come and join me.
SPEAKER_00: The whole point, the whole point of Hebrews is that Jesus is better.
SPEAKER_00: How'd you write that down?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is better.
SPEAKER_00: And this passage talks about specifically diagnosing if we are spiritually immature.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is better.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is better than the decisions that we make that are according to our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He's better than anything that we can think or imagine.
SPEAKER_00: He's better than our own opinions.
SPEAKER_00: He's better than our sport.
SPEAKER_00: He's better than our jobs.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is better.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at this text, the interruption here is to address the spiritual immaturity of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Church family, I desire to be a part of a local body who's discontent with just sitting in classes all day.
SPEAKER_00: Who's discontent with half-hearted commitment?
SPEAKER_00: Who wants to walk faithfully with their Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Who wants to be on mission for Christ, who would inconvenience their life for the cause of Christ, who's willing to lay aside anything so that they can pursue Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I long for that day and thank the Lord that we are becoming that church.
SPEAKER_00: We are becoming that maturing and multiplying disciple of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the question.
SPEAKER_00: As we talk about not becoming spiritual, spiritually lethargic, spiritually lazy, spiritually stunted.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the question you have to ask yourself.
SPEAKER_00: What's next?
SPEAKER_00: Heads bowed, eyes closed.
SPEAKER_00: See a lot of I see a few ways that we can respond, but it all starts with this question.
SPEAKER_00: What's your next step?
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna keep on doing the same thing you've always done?
SPEAKER_00: Expecting that you'll grow in your walk with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Are you actually gonna allow God's word to convict your heart, to change you, to move you, to inconvenience you?
SPEAKER_00: What's your next step?
SPEAKER_00: And as you're sitting here, what's your heart posture?
SPEAKER_00: Is your heart posture?
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that was good.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good preacher, it's a good word.
SPEAKER_00: But is your response, God, would you change me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you change my heart?
SPEAKER_00: Man, if I'm sitting in your seat, I'm saying, God, are you talking to me?
SPEAKER_00: God, show me where I need to change.
SPEAKER_00: God, show me where I'm lacking.
SPEAKER_00: God, show me where I need to do differently.
SPEAKER_00: May I not be the same?
SPEAKER_00: May I be a growing and maturing and a multiplying and a progressing Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be stunning.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go cold.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be an effective witness for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What's your heart posture?
SPEAKER_00: This morning, if you've never trusted Christ, the most mature thing that you can do is to submit your life to the Lord Jesus Christ by believing that God sent his son, Jesus, to die on a cross for the forgiveness of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: And if you would believe that message, you'd have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: For new believers in the room, what's your next step?
SPEAKER_00: I would say you need to pray and ask the Lord, God, would you give me a desire for your word?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give me a desire to grow deeper?
SPEAKER_00: God, would you send me?
SPEAKER_00: This is your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you send me someone that can disciple me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you send me somebody that I can grow in Christ's likeness with?
SPEAKER_00: Would you send me that?
SPEAKER_00: If you're a mature disciple, maybe you've been walking with Jesus for a little bit now, your next step is you need to be looking out who can I disciple?
SPEAKER_00: Who can I walk alongside to teach them the command that Christ has given me?
SPEAKER_00: That Christ has given us.
SPEAKER_00: How can I help someone else faithfully walk with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this week you need to invite someone to your house.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this week, parent, you need to open up the scriptures with your children.
SPEAKER_00: Grab a coloring sheet when you leave today, and as you're talking through the scriptures, have them color and you're asking them questions.
SPEAKER_00: The best way to know the scriptures is to teach the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: What's your next step?
SPEAKER_00: Parents, you are the primary disciple makers of your home.
SPEAKER_00: And God has called us to that.
SPEAKER_00: Here in just a moment, we're gonna pray.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna sing.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever and however God has led you to respond, you need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to pray with someone up here.
SPEAKER_00: What's your response?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: God, in this moment we pause to reflect on our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Show us what we need to do.
SPEAKER_00: God, we want to be faithful and an effective witness.
SPEAKER_00: But you mold us and shape us.
SPEAKER_00: May we live out our faith visibly and not be spiritually lazy or lethargic.
SPEAKER_00: God, would we be a faithful and devoted disciple?
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said.