SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to Hebrews chapter 5?
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: We're finishing our vision series this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, our vision is that we would make flourishing disciples through the enjoyment of God together.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do that through a discipleship pathway of enjoy God, share life, and make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're going to focus on the third step of that pathway of making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start in verse 11, and I'm going to read through chapter 6, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: God's word says, About this we have much to say.
SPEAKER_00: And it is hard to explain 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 is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to 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 or of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And this we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray the Lord together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, this morning, Lord, we have gathered together because we want to hear from your word.
SPEAKER_00: We've gathered together, Lord, because we want to live our lives in submission and surrender to who you've called us to be and the life that you've set out in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we we recognize that the only way that this is possible, Lord, is if we walk down the discipleship pathway that Jesus has established when he says, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, I pray that we would be a discipl a disciple-making church filled with people, Lord, who are growing in godliness and growing in maturity, and that as we enjoy you, that we would bring other people to the enjoyment of God as well.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, move through your word this morning, word through your spirit this morning, move in the hearts of your people today.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in Neverland?
SPEAKER_00: You know, the place where you don't have to grow up and nobody ever has to adult.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in Neverland, there are no alarm clocks.
SPEAKER_00: There's no boss breathing down your neck.
SPEAKER_00: There are no deadlines that you have to meet, there are no tests on the other side that you're having to cram for.
SPEAKER_00: In Neverland, every day just feels like a fairy tale.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you're like me, I try to build a couple of weeks into my calendar every year where I get to live a Neverland kind of life on vacation that is completely free of alarm clocks.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, as good and enticing as that sounds, if we would really stop and think about it, it's really not a better life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a deeper life.
SPEAKER_00: It certainly isn't a richer life.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it, in Neverland, you'd never be able to get married and you'd never be able to have kids because we know how much stress all of that adds, right?
SPEAKER_00: But you'd also miss out on some richness, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00: Think about how much joy and how much opportunity for joy you would miss.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how that's refined you and matured you and strengthened you as a person.
SPEAKER_00: In Neverland, you you don't have to go to school.
SPEAKER_00: But then you miss out on the joy of discovery, on the feeling of accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00: When you've passed the test that you weren't sure about, when you turn in the paper that you labored and labored and labored over.
SPEAKER_00: In Neverland, it's all play and it's no work.
SPEAKER_00: But our word gives us purpose and significance.
SPEAKER_00: The feeling of having made an investment and then watching that investment pay off.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the ways that we find joy and satisfaction in our lives, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, childhood is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be received and enjoyed as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: But childhood is not meant to be a destination.
SPEAKER_00: That all of us are meant to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: And brothers and sisters, the same is true when it comes to our faith.
SPEAKER_00: One of the prayers that I have for the Orchard Church is that we would not be neverland for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: That we would not be a housing ground where young Christians never grow up to be mature Christians, where immature Christians don't grow in their skill of the word to enjoy the fullness of who Jesus has presented himself to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is the concern that the author of Hebrews has here in chapter 5 and chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Is he talking to a group of believers that seem to be living in Neverland.
SPEAKER_00: They seem to not be growing in their faith and maturing in their faith and strengthening in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's calling them forward to something better.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling them forward to something more joyful.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling them forward to something that is richer and more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: But as he does that, he kind of walks them through what the life stages of a believer are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: And as we think about the vision that we have for our church and the vision that we have for our families and the vision that we have for our own lives, I think it would be helpful for us to walk through those same life cycles, the same life cycle of a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first part of the life cycle of a believer is that Christians must grow up.
SPEAKER_00: Christians must grow up.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that is more peaceful than watching your children play?
SPEAKER_00: I think that's about as good as it gets, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Megan and I will go out on our back deck and we'll sit there with a cup of coffee and we'll just watch our youngest two go in the yard and play.
SPEAKER_00: And what they'll do is they'll live in a make-believe world and they'll have a little make-believe family and they'll live little make-believe lives.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, it it brings it'll bring peace to the most stressed-out heart on the longest day, won't it?
SPEAKER_00: But you know what's interesting?
SPEAKER_00: Is if they're still living in make-believe worlds and playing as make-believe families when they're teenagers, we consider that a delay, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: If they're still doing that in adulthood, we would consider that to be a disability.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because as beautiful as it is to see our children play, we expect our children to develop.
SPEAKER_00: We expect our children to grow up.
SPEAKER_00: And as believers in Christ, we ought to expect that we would do the same.
SPEAKER_00: And we ought to have the same expectation in the life of our church.
SPEAKER_00: That maturity in the Christian life isn't optional.
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice what he says here.
SPEAKER_00: He says, About this, we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: For though by this time you ought, you ought to be teachers, you need someone else to teach you again.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's saying, like, this was the expectation.
SPEAKER_00: This is who you ought to be by now.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you ought to have grown in by now.
SPEAKER_00: That you ought not to be immature, you ought not to be on the milk, you ought not to be baby Christians, that by now you ought to be mature believers, you ought to be growing in the faith, you ought to be teaching others the faith.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more beautiful than a young Christian, is there?
SPEAKER_00: When you see that first moment when they they have stepped out of death and into life, and they are filled with zeal and energy, and they are pursuing the Lord, and they're excited to come to church, and they're lifting their hands in worship, and they're they're absorbing everything that they can absorb, and they've come to the realization for the first time that they have received forgiveness of their sins and the grace from Jesus, like that just enthuses enthusiasm and brings enthusiasm to everybody that's around them, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: But as beautiful as that is, there's nothing more tragic than a Christian that never grows beyond that.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more tragic, and I would even argue later on that there's nothing more dangerous than a Christian that never grows beyond being a baby in the faith, because babies are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: That maturity in the Christian life isn't an option of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Maturity in the Christian life is the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It is actually part of the gospel that we would be sanctified through the Spirit by the faith into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That we are meant to grow.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in about the eighth grade, I was easily a head shorter than pretty much anybody else in my grade.
SPEAKER_00: And my parents got concerned about this.
SPEAKER_00: They were worried that there was a developmental issue and that I wasn't just a late bloomer.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was in about the eighth grade, I was so embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00: But they took me to the pediatrician and they like, hey, run all the tests.
SPEAKER_00: We think we have a little person on our hands and we've got some concerns, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so they run all the tests and they're trying to get a diagnosis because they want the diagnosis to see if there's something that needs to happen in my life to make sure that I'm a healthy person.
SPEAKER_00: That's what good parents do, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's what good parents do.
SPEAKER_00: They keep an eye out for developmental issues, they keep an eye out for potential pitfalls, so that they might need to pursue a diagnosis so that the child could be healthy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what we see here is the author of Hebrews is doing something very similar.
SPEAKER_00: He recognizes that there is a developmental delay in the lives of the church in the Hebrew church, and so he comes and he comes to offer a diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just like any diagnosis, it's not an easy thing for them to hear.
SPEAKER_00: See, the context here is he wants to teach them about how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Melchizedekian priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: Melchizedek is this priest king that appears almost out of nowhere in Genesis chapter 14, and he's both priest and king, and he is wanting to show them how Jesus is the joining of both of these offers, that Jesus is the sovereign king, and at the same time, he is the mediating priest and the glory and the grandeur and the beauty of it.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what he's saying: but you don't have the framework for it.
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to show you an even clearer picture on how good Jesus is and on how glorious Jesus is, and on how sovereign Jesus is, and how Jesus right now is mediating for you, but you're not ready for it because you're still on the milk.
SPEAKER_00: You're not yet ready for the filet mignon because you're still on a bottle.
SPEAKER_00: And so he said, I have a diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is, is that you have become dull of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: If you continue to read on in the book of Hebrews, what you'll find is in chapter 6, this exact same word is translated as sluggish or as slothful, that you have become sluggish of hearing, slothful of hearing.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is the diagnosis that the author gives.
SPEAKER_00: That the issue that they have in the Hebrew church is not an issue of capacity.
SPEAKER_00: They have the capacity to learn these things.
SPEAKER_00: The issue is not one of ability, they have the ability to learn these things.
SPEAKER_00: The issue is not time, they have the time to learn these things.
SPEAKER_00: The issue, the issue is one of concentration.
SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't that they can't hear, the problem is that they won't listen.
SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00: You can be completely able to hear and completely unwilling to listen, can't you?
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that they aren't focusing on the deep things.
SPEAKER_00: They aren't concentrating on the deep things, and because they aren't focusing and concentrating on the deep things, they're just floating through their Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: See, concentration is a decision that you have to make.
SPEAKER_00: Naturally, distraction comes, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go looking for distraction, it comes looking for you.
SPEAKER_00: You go home, you're gonna get in your car, and immediately you're gonna look down at your phone, you're gonna have all kinds of notifications.
SPEAKER_00: You've got Facebook, you've got text messages, you've got phone calls, then you add in the emails from work and the pressures from work, and then you add on the children pulling at your pant leg.
SPEAKER_00: You add on the Super Bowl is today, and Netflix is there, and Fortnite is there, and all the other subscriptions that you have are there.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things, you don't have to go looking for them.
SPEAKER_00: They come looking for you.
SPEAKER_00: Because to live distracted is to just float through life.
SPEAKER_00: It's the natural thing that occurs.
SPEAKER_00: No, to focus and to concentrate on who Jesus is, to focus and to concentrate on your relationship with Jesus, that's hard work.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe me that it's hard, tell yourself today that when you get home, you're gonna go and you're gonna spend 60 pen, not even 60 minutes, 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And for 30 minutes, all you're gonna do this afternoon is pray to Jesus and study about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what you're gonna find?
SPEAKER_00: Is every distraction possible is gonna try to interrupt you, right?
SPEAKER_00: Every distraction possible is gonna try to interrupt you.
SPEAKER_00: That you're trying to focus and you're trying to concentrate, but it seems like everything is standing in the way.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's easy for us to become sluggish of hearing, slothful of hearing, not concentrating on what's taking place.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is part of what we're talking about when we talk about discipleship here at the orchard.
SPEAKER_00: What we're talking about is making a decision in your life to set aside some time, to focus in an accountable group, to concentrate on the things of God, to concentrate on who Jesus is, to go in and to make a decision with a group of people together that what we're going to do is we're gonna gather consistently with one another to hold each other accountable, that we would study the deep things of Scripture, that we would spend time in prayer with each other, that we would make sure that we wouldn't rest on our laurels, but rather we would continue to press on in our faith, that we wouldn't stay on the bottle, but we would learn how to enjoy the solid food, that we would learn how to enjoy the filet mignon that has been offered to us in the person of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in 20, it was back in 2016, I just turned 30 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Africa on a mission trip and my small intestines ruptured.
SPEAKER_00: And it became a really dire situation.
SPEAKER_00: I came within 24 hours of passing away, and I had to come and I had to have an emergency surgery, like one of those surgeries like you're on the gurney and they're running you back, and they're like reading you all your rights, right?
SPEAKER_00: Will you take blood?
SPEAKER_00: Will you do all these kinds of things?
SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you what the scariest moment of the whole experience was is I was basically laid up in a chair for seven weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't get up, I had no stomach muscles, all that had been compromised.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get myself up, and so I was just planted in a chair for seven weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Well, after six or seven weeks had gone by, Gracie Kate, my oldest at the time, was four or five uh years old, and she asked me, we had a basement, we had a uh like a TV playroom down in the basement, and she asked me, Dad, would you come and turn on the TV for me?
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I can do that, I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so I get myself out of this chair and I get to the top step, and when I get to the top step, my legs start shaking like this.
SPEAKER_00: And for the first time in my life, I felt frail.
SPEAKER_00: I had never felt frail before, and it scared me to death.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me to expect that.
SPEAKER_00: See what happened?
SPEAKER_00: It's sitting there on that chair for seven weeks caused the muscles in my legs to atrophy.
SPEAKER_00: So that when it was time for it to support my weight, my legs were no longer used to supporting my weight.
SPEAKER_00: The muscle that used to be there and hold me up without me thinking, something that I had assumed and presumed upon all of my life, it was no longer there.
SPEAKER_00: See, what I learned about muscle is that muscle isn't static.
SPEAKER_00: Muscle is always either getting stronger or it's getting weaker, it's being refined or it's depleting and diminishing.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the author of Hebrews is saying to the church.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Your muscles have atrophied in your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he notices.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says at the end of verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You need someone to teach you again, again, the basic principles of the oracles of God.
SPEAKER_00: You need someone to teach you again.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does that tell us?
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that they never knew any of these things before.
SPEAKER_00: It was that they had been coasting so long that they had actually regressed in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: That they had been coasting and just attending and going through the motions and doing all the things.
SPEAKER_00: They're still here, they're still receiving the letter, they're still engaged in the life of the church in some way or another.
SPEAKER_00: But they've been coasting so long that the muscles had actually atrophied, so that now the things that they used to know they no longer know as well.
SPEAKER_00: They need to be trained again in the basic principles of the oracles of God.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also a word of good news there, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00: There's a word of good news.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, my goal is not for you to feel guilty or not for you to feel ashamed about where you are.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that's not helpful for anyone.
SPEAKER_00: The good news about the word again is that they could learn it again.
SPEAKER_00: That there was an offering here of the faith by the author, and he's saying, Look, you you used to know some of these things, you can know them again.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can redevelop those legs so that those legs are under you again.
SPEAKER_00: And not only can you redevelop those things, you can move from the milk to the solid food.
SPEAKER_00: You can become stronger than you've ever been before.
SPEAKER_00: You can develop those things in a way that you've never had them develop before.
SPEAKER_00: They can carry you further than they've ever taken you before.
SPEAKER_00: You can enjoy them more than you could ever enjoy them.
SPEAKER_00: See, this morning, the goal is not for you to feel guilty or ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: It's for you to recognize that you just need to start that you just need to start.
SPEAKER_00: That maturity is recognizing that it's not an option in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Maturity is recognizing that I need to make the decision to concentrate on the deep things of God.
SPEAKER_00: And maturity is making a decision in my life that I'm going to do just that.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what we want to do here.
SPEAKER_00: What we want to do here is we want to create environments that enable you to begin starting out your Christian life, begin enabling you to be able to take new steps in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we want to introduce over time something we're gonna call discipleship groups.
SPEAKER_00: We mean something a little bit differently than maybe even what the orchard has meant by in the past, where we're gonna enter into relationship with three to five men or three to five women to hold one another accountable, that we can go deep in the faith, that we can be challenged in the faith, that we can go and concentrate on the deep things of who Jesus is, because what we're always going to assume is that there is more of Jesus yet to see, there is more of God yet to know, there is more of Him yet to enjoy, and we want every single bit of it that we can have.
SPEAKER_00: See, the question for all of us is are we coasting or are we growing?
SPEAKER_00: Are our muscles getting weaker or are our muscles getting stronger because they will not remain the same?
SPEAKER_00: Are we living in neverland or are we leaning into the deep end?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, brothers and sisters, let us not settle for never land at the orchard church.
SPEAKER_00: Let us jump into the deep end with Jesus that we can see all of his glory and know all of his joy that he has come to offer to each of us.
SPEAKER_00: That Christians must grow up.
SPEAKER_00: And then grown-ups keep growing up.
SPEAKER_00: Grown-ups keep growing up.
SPEAKER_00: In 1997, Michael Jordan, and honestly I feel the same way in 2026, but in 97, Michael Jordan was already regarded as the greatest basketball player on the planet, perhaps already considered the greatest of all time.
SPEAKER_00: He had already won multiple championships, he'd already won multiple uh MVPs, he had already won gold medals, he was already considered a first ballot Hall of Famer.
SPEAKER_00: But his teammates noticed that in 97, he turned up the heat even more.
SPEAKER_00: In a time in which you think he might want to rest on some of his accomplishments and enjoy some of the other things that in life, they said that every single day he was the first person into the gym and he was the last one to leave the gym.
SPEAKER_00: Well, word of this got out, and he got asked about it.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jordan said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because the moment I stopped training, I stopped being great.
SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't doing it to try to prove anything to anyone, he was doing it because there was a drive inside of him, there was a self-actualized appetite inside of him to be able to maximize the potential of all that he could realize.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to know exactly how good he could be and what he could accomplish if he gave everything that he had.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's something of this here in Hebrews chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: That what he's saying here is that maturity in the faith is not about arriving at a particular place in your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about arriving at a particular age in your life, it's not about arriving at a particular stage in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That maturity in the Christian faith is not about arrival, it's about appetite.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he's getting at when he talks about that the solid food is for the mature.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that that mature believers have an appetite for the right kinds of food.
SPEAKER_00: They have a hunger for the right kinds of food.
SPEAKER_00: That y'all, once you've tasted filet mignon, you don't want to go back to baby formula, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like you've recognized that there are better things.
SPEAKER_00: You've recognized that food can do more than just sustain you, food can delight you.
SPEAKER_00: And the mature believer recognizes that going deep with Jesus isn't just about being sustained.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about going to heaven, it's about being delighted in Jesus and enjoying the fullness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says that for mature believers, they lean in to training.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice.
SPEAKER_00: The word there that's translated as trained is the Greek word gymnazo.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we get our word gymnasium.
SPEAKER_00: It brings into our mind, when he talks about here, especially about constant practice, it brings into our mind athletic pursuits, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: The picture here is Scotty Scheffler, who's my personal favorite athlete, and he's hitting a thousand golf balls in the morning and a thousand golf balls in the evening, so that when he's at the masters, he just swings and it just looks like it happens.
SPEAKER_00: It just all seems natural.
SPEAKER_00: It seems so easy to watch him do it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's uh Steph Curry.
SPEAKER_00: And Steph Curry is shooting hundreds of threes every day.
SPEAKER_00: But then when he's in the game, when he's in the game and the buzzer beater comes, he just seems to just throw it up and it just falls right through the basket.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even seem like he's trying, it just seems like it just comes naturally.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That the idea here is the development of muscle memory and doing the right things the right way.
SPEAKER_00: It's muscle memory in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's training yourself in what is good and what is right and what is wise in such a way that what is good and what is true and what is wise becomes instinctive for you.
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice that he talks here about the powers of discernment.
SPEAKER_00: That discernment is really what the author sees as being both the goal of the training and the marker of maturity.
SPEAKER_00: And this is really what discernment is.
SPEAKER_00: That discernment is instinctive godliness.
SPEAKER_00: It's a Bible-saturated intuition.
SPEAKER_00: That wise people, wise people recognize that though the Bible doesn't explicitly address all of the things that we face in our lives, the Bible adequately prepares us for all of the things that we can face in our life.
SPEAKER_00: How is that so?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible trains our conscience.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible develops our intuition.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible it forms in us a character that we're so that our reactions are bent in the direction of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how different our homes would be if our dads' reactions were bent in the way of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how different our workplaces would be if everybody's intuition was saturated with the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the picture.
SPEAKER_00: This is the picture that your godliness over time becomes instinctive, so that it becomes in such a way that it is a muscle memory.
SPEAKER_00: You know, life doesn't really come with a study guide, does it?
SPEAKER_00: But it certainly comes with plenty of tests, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That you come through life and all of a sudden you didn't expect to deal with infertility, but you are, and it's a test.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't expect to battle through what you're battling in your marriage, but you do, and it's a test.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't expect your company to go belly up, you didn't expect your job to play out, but it did, and it's it's a test.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't expect your child to go wayward or to face the diagnosis that you did, but but it's a test.
SPEAKER_00: Well, brothers and sisters, when you face the tests of life, even though there was no study guide, it's too late to cram, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's too late to forge the character that is needed to withstand those things in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: That character has to have already been formed.
SPEAKER_00: It's too late to develop the instincts and the intuition.
SPEAKER_00: Those instincts and that intuition has to have already been developed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: It happens through training, it happens through preparation.
SPEAKER_00: It happens when you are pursuing Jesus with a concentrated focus in the good times so that you are ready when the tests come.
SPEAKER_00: Life is filled with buzzer beaters, and what we need is muscle memory so that when we can turn and shoot, we know already the direction of the basket.
SPEAKER_00: It's having our reactions bent in the direction of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is what we need in our families here, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We need dads, we need dads who have their intuition and their instincts formed and saturated with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We need women who can come alongside one another, that have walked through these tests already, who have the character to withstand it, to be able to hold one another up.
SPEAKER_00: We need elders that have wisdom that has been trained through the scriptures and trained and galvanized through discipleship that can lead our church forward.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, otherwise, we are vulnerable to the attacks, the way that infants are vulnerable to attacks.
SPEAKER_00: No, we need mature believers leading our families and leading our churches and reaching our community that we would be able to withstand the evil day that comes upon us.
SPEAKER_00: This is the purpose of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of discipleship is to put a training regimen into your life that enables you to forge the kind of character that you're going to need, to develop the kind of instincts and intuition and muscle memory that are going to be required so that you can become everything that God intends for you to become.
SPEAKER_00: I witnessed this one time in a discipleship group that I was leading years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We were kind of, and every discipleship group kind of encounters this.
SPEAKER_00: We were kind of in the dog days of the group, right?
SPEAKER_00: And man, we had been doing a Bible reading plan together and a prayer plan together, and a um we were reading books together, we were memorizing all of Romans chapter 8 together.
SPEAKER_00: And y'all, it was just hard work, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like it was just hard work.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to just tell you that having a quiet time with Jesus every day doesn't feel like work, but man, it's work, it's work.
SPEAKER_00: And when you go really deep and you start to concentrate on it, like, expect it to feel like work.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember one particular day, we're there in the group, and everybody is a little bit threadbare and a little bit jet lagged with all the responsibilities and all the things that we've committed to do accountably with one another, and a discussion breaks out on something that was a particularly hot button issue at that time.
SPEAKER_00: It was controversial in the culture, it was controversial in the church, and we begin to have a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: But we had one particular brother at the table who was able to speak so much wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: He was able to speak so winsomely and extemporaneously, just seemingly off the top of his head.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody at the table was able to have a deeper understanding just because of what he was able to add to our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking us good questions, he's prodding our thoughts along, he's bringing good insights, he's he's tethering it to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one of the brothers at the end, he said this, he said, Cody, I wish we'd just do this every week.
SPEAKER_00: I wish you'd just do this every week.
SPEAKER_00: Because this was a lot more interesting to me, and this was this was a lot more engaging to me.
SPEAKER_00: I wish we would just come every week and we would just have one of the brothers do something like this.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him, I said, How do you think he was able to have that conversation?
SPEAKER_00: The way that he was able to have that conversation is that he was reading and preparing his mind before it was a controversy.
SPEAKER_00: He was reading and preparing his character before it arrived.
SPEAKER_00: That he was able to speak winsomely off the top of his head, not because it's an easy thing to talk about, but because he had been hitting a thousand golf balls on the driving range and he had already developed the muscle memory.
SPEAKER_00: He had already focused himself to think about the deep things of the faith and the difficult things of life and how they come together.
SPEAKER_00: Yo, that's what we need in our families, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we need in our churches, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we need in our community.
SPEAKER_00: That is the kind of conversation that will draw people in at the at the water cooler at work where they might not be interested in hearing you talk to them about sin.
SPEAKER_00: They'll be interested to hear you talk about the difficult, complex issues of life with the wisdom of scripture, and then you can have a bridge to talk to them about the gospel, sin, and salvation, right?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, let's not settle for never land here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not settle for never land here.
SPEAKER_00: Settling for never land shortchanges our own joy, but it leaves our families vulnerable and our church vulnerable and our community vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: Let's commit to doing the hard work of training, of getting in the gymnazzo, of doing the constant preparation that our intuition and our muscles would know so that when the light, when the when the buzzer beaters come, we can turn and shoot, and it looks easy even though it's not.
SPEAKER_00: Christians ought to grow up, and grown-ups ought to keep growing up.
SPEAKER_00: And then grown-ups help others grow up.
SPEAKER_00: I think I've told you before that Megan and I, we often joke that our middle daughter, Sarah Eliza, doesn't need parents.
SPEAKER_00: Like she has some kind of like internal drive, internal governor that's just she's just built different, right?
SPEAKER_00: All your kids are different, she's just built a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like we spend so much of our energy saying, sweetheart, just chill out.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have to be perfect, all this doesn't have to fit together.
SPEAKER_00: But that's hyperbole, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We joke about that, but it's not true.
SPEAKER_00: She does need parents.
SPEAKER_00: She needs parents to help her figure out the weightiness of life.
SPEAKER_00: She needs parents to figure out like what burdens are worth carrying and what ones aren't worth carrying.
SPEAKER_00: She needs someone to help govern her her moral compass.
SPEAKER_00: She needs someone to help to be able to run to when she's afraid and when she's sad and when she's upset.
SPEAKER_00: She needs someone to teach her and to learn coping skills with the realities of life.
SPEAKER_00: She needs someone to correct her when she goes away.
SPEAKER_00: She needs that.
SPEAKER_00: We have a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: But parenting's not just our responsibility either, is it?
SPEAKER_00: She also has a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: She has to respond to it, doesn't she?
SPEAKER_00: She has to listen to it, she has to obey it.
SPEAKER_00: She has to remember it.
SPEAKER_00: She has to train it.
SPEAKER_00: She has to actualize it and apply it in her life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we recognize is that growing up is not just a you responsibility, and it's not just a me responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Growing up is an us responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: That we do this together, collectively.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the author of Hebrews recognizes.
SPEAKER_00: There's an interesting uh transition that happens at chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: I think he's continuing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that the verses and chapters in your Bible are not inspired, inspired in an error.
SPEAKER_00: They came much later, right?
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes I don't think that they always got it just right.
SPEAKER_00: We inherited those from about 500 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that there's meant to be a thought break between chapter 5, verse 14, and chapter 6, verse 1, but there is a transition that takes place.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 5, verses 11 through 14, he keeps saying, You ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to be mature, you ought to be on the solid food.
SPEAKER_00: You, you, you, you, you until he gets to chapter 6, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: And then what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.
SPEAKER_00: He goes down to verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He says, And this we will do if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: This is interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because he already knows these things.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's wanting to teach them.
SPEAKER_00: He already knows about the Melchizedekian fulfillment of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He already understands it.
SPEAKER_00: It's already filled, it's already uh in encouraging his worship, it's already provoking him toward deeper mature.
SPEAKER_00: He's already enjoying the deep things of life.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what he recognizes: that them growing up is not just their responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: He has a responsibility in there too.
SPEAKER_00: And this is an us coming in together that we could pursue this with one another.
SPEAKER_00: That the goal is not just to yell at you and say you need to get off the milk.
SPEAKER_00: The goal is to help you wean off the milk and get onto the solid food.
SPEAKER_00: The goal is not just to shame people and to make them feel bad about where they are, it's to come in alongside them and say, and we will do it if God permits.
SPEAKER_00: Let us together, I'm in this with you, leave the elementary doctrines of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Like, let us together go after Jesus with everything that's taking place.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, he intends for them to multiply.
SPEAKER_00: He intends for them to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think he's talking about being an elder or being a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about being a disciple maker.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that everybody in the church ought to grow so that they can begin to articulate the faith in some kind of way that would enable them to teach their children and their grandchildren and their classmates and their neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, so so here's here's what I want y'all to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want y'all to grow into teachers.
SPEAKER_00: I want y'all to grow into disciple makers.
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come alongside you and I'm gonna show it.
SPEAKER_00: That he here is establishing a pattern for them to follow.
SPEAKER_00: He's showing them what it looks like, not just telling them what to do.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming alongside.
SPEAKER_00: And I think what he does is actually, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: He says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's here and he doesn't just see their life as a bunch of responsibilities that he has to keep.
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting here and he's dreaming about their faith.
SPEAKER_00: He has a vision for their lives.
SPEAKER_00: He has a dream for what who they're going to become and what they're going to know and how their worship is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: That here he is, and he's recognized that the responsibility of the teacher is not just to teach, the responsibility of the teacher is to dream on behalf of the students and to cast a vision of where they ought to go so that when they get there, they can all celebrate it and enjoy it with one another.
SPEAKER_00: See, there's a reason that our mission statement says that we want to make flourishing disciples through the enjoyment of God together.
SPEAKER_00: The best way for you to enjoy God is by helping other people enjoy God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no deeper joy than that.
SPEAKER_00: You guys know that I love the outdoors, I love to hike, I love to camp.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and recently, before I came to the orchard, I was able to go on a solo camping trip to the great Grand Tetons, and it was it was awesome, it was fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what I was sitting there thinking the whole time?
SPEAKER_00: The whole time I was thinking, man, I wish Sarah could see that.
SPEAKER_00: I wish Gracie could sit here in the truck with me and and watch this bull moose eat breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: Like I man, Megan would think this is so cool, right?
SPEAKER_00: I got the opportunity uh a couple years ago to go fly fishing in Yellowstone, man, and that was like a lifelong dream of being able to be out there.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm there and I'm there in the water, and the water's pressing in on you, and you're just in this serene place, and you're doing this poetic motion with a fly rod.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I thought?
SPEAKER_00: I thought, man, when Josiah is 13, when Josiah's 14, he'd be big enough, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like when when Josiah is 6.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm out there, and the only thing that I can think about when I'm out there enjoying this incredible experience is that I want to share this experience with the people that are important to me, with the people that I'm responsible for.
SPEAKER_00: That's the vision of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the vision of disciple making.
SPEAKER_00: Is that yes, I want you to enjoy the fullness of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand the glory of the Melchizedekian fulfillment of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know and have the framework of all these things that the author of Hebrews wants us to have, and Paul wants us to have, and Peter wants us to have everything that they saw there on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to want other people to have it too.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have a vision of what it would be like, not just for the light to come on in your life and for you to lean into Jesus, but what would it be like as you lean into Jesus to watch the light bulb come on for your son?
SPEAKER_00: To watch the light bulb come on for your daughter.
SPEAKER_00: You think worship is good right now?
SPEAKER_00: Wait till they're standing beside you with their hands raised and their hearts abandoned before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to dream about what it would be like, man, for your mom or your dad, even as an elderly couple, to come and to get to know the Lord and to walk with the Lord and to begin enjoying him.
SPEAKER_00: You think you're enjoying him right now?
SPEAKER_00: Come with them.
SPEAKER_00: They've never come with you to church as a child.
SPEAKER_00: Let them come as senior adults and know that you brought them there and experience the fulfillment of joy that you'll have in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, in your hardest day, that day when you think you just want to quit church and all this isn't worth it, to be able to look across the sanctuary and see that person that the Lord allowed to cross paths with you and that the Lord used you to sustain them another step in their life to bring them deeper.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you just to try not to let the fullness of joy overwhelm your heart so that you lift up your voice even in your hardest season.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, y'all, God is meant to be enjoyed, but he is meant to be enjoyed together.
SPEAKER_00: This is why all of the Psalms have this global vision.
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations be glad.
SPEAKER_00: Let all the nations sing a new song because worship isn't there yet.
SPEAKER_00: And our responsibility is through the enjoyment of God to bring all peoples in all places to be able to enjoy him most fully.
SPEAKER_00: That's the good stuff, man.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what it's about, and that's what our discipleship pathway is about.
SPEAKER_00: That because growing up is an us responsibility, our pathway is an us pathway.
SPEAKER_00: That it's not just meant for you to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think it is a clear path on if you enjoy God, share life, and make disciples, you're going to enjoy God.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole idea is that you wouldn't do that by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: That you would take other people along with you to enjoy God, to share life, so that then they would multiply themselves to become disciple makers, so that they would begin to spread across Collierville and across Germantown and Shelby County and Fayette County and the Mid-South, the good news of Jesus, that it would go to the ends of the earth and that the nations would be glad, and all the peoples and all the places and all the homes and all the neighborhoods here, that they would be filled with the gladness of God and the enjoyment of God because of the truth of who He is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I get really excited.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: I get excited.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe you're hearing all that and you're like, Cody, I'm with you, man.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know where to start.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's easy for you to say you've got a seminary degree, this comes, this comes naturally to you.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, this is the good news of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the good news of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what you need to start?
SPEAKER_00: You just need to be one step ahead, man.
SPEAKER_00: You just need to be one step ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Your children don't need you to be a skilled theologian with a master's degree.
SPEAKER_00: They need you to know Matthew better than they know Matthew, and then teach them Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: And while you're teaching them Matthew, you start studying Mark.
SPEAKER_00: And when you start, when you wall them through Mark, you start studying Luke.
SPEAKER_00: And when you start walking through Luke, you start studying John.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta stay one step ahead.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta take one step ahead and keep keep going deep and training yourself in the gym.
SPEAKER_00: Keep taking the shots on the driving range.
SPEAKER_00: Keep hitting the threes as often as you can.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are gonna go, some of them you're gonna brick, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like some of them aren't gonna go in.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Your goal is to just stay one step ahead of the other people in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And you find somebody that's one step behind you, you don't need a program.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need a you don't need a training certificate.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need a master's of divinity.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be one step ahead in the enjoyment of God and then commit yourself to enjoy God a little bit more every single day.
SPEAKER_00: And if you commit yourself to enjoy God a little more every single day, guess what you can help other people do?
SPEAKER_00: You can help them enjoy God a little bit more every single day.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the apostolic vision.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all, let's not let Neverland become normal at the orchard church.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not let Neverland become normal at the orchard church.
SPEAKER_00: Because as much as we know of God, there's always more of Him that we can know, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00: As beautifully as we have seen Jesus in all of His majesty and all of His grandeur, there is more of His beauty and more of His Majesty and more of His grandeur for us to know.
SPEAKER_00: As much as we have experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit, He is even more available to us than we can begin to fathom.
SPEAKER_00: So, so together, together, let us make flourishing disciples through the enjoyment of God together.
SPEAKER_00: Can I pray for us?