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Growing Deeper and Further in 2023 (Hebrews 5:11-6:3)
Hebrews and chapter five. Hebrews chapter five, this afternoon we're going to consider Hebrews chapter five from verse 11 through to chapter six, verse three. If you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles that we give away in the back, that's page 1063.
1063, Hebrews chapter five from verse 11 through to verse three of chapter six. I feel the need to give one of my sermonic health warnings. This might be a longer sermon than usual, so please don't look at the clock.
We might be here a while. As we were coming to this new year and I knew that we would be gathering on the first of the year, I began to wrestle with, well, what will I preach that first Sunday? I thought, might be testing fate to try and just jump back into our regular sermon series.
And I knew I wanted to do this series on worship. But as some of you know, I keep a preaching calendar. In my preaching calendar, up until about two weeks ago, this Sunday was blank. I did not know what I was going to preach about.
Well, I have to give credit to my dear friend who will be here, actually, in the month of February. Pastor John Benzinger, that great source of information, YouTube, pulled up a recommended sermon from his YouTube channel.
I watch it regularly enough that it just throws up videos from there from time to time. And he had a message from this text. And as I listened to it, it inspired me to maybe tackle this text. And so there are some themes.
The sermon is entirely my own. I did pick up a bunch of help and some great themes from Pastor John, so he might be watching this. Thanks, coach, greatly appreciate it. Hebrews chapter five, verse 11, through to chapter six, verse three.
If you're able to do so, would you stand with me and have reverence for God's word as we read this? Hebrews and chapter five, verse 11, through to chapter six, verse three. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words.
We have a great deal to say about this, and I'll explain what this is in a moment. We have a great deal to say about this, and it is difficult to explain since you have become too lazy to understand. Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's revelation again.
You need milk, not solid food. Now, everyone who lives on milk has an experience with the message about righteousness because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.
Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment.
And we will do this if God permits. Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and grant us understanding. Let's pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and then we will come to this portion of God's word.
Well, Father, we would ask that as we come to your word now, we come to a passage of scripture that is convicting, that is challenging, that calls us to self-examination. That, Father, even as we come to this passage, we would not do so disconnected from the gospel, that we would not do so in a flesh-powered way, but we would do so in a Spirit-empowered way.
Father, as we think about our own growth in godliness, I pray that you would help us that this coming year would be a year of growth in godliness. Father, it's our custom at Redeemer to take a moment to pray for other churches in our valley.
Well, Father, on this first Sunday, I take a moment to pray for all the churches in our valley, those that are faithful to the gospel and seeking to see others reached for Jesus. Even as it is my prayer for Redeemer that we would grow and abound in the knowledge of God.
May that be the case for all the churches in the valley. May this be a year of going deeper and going further with you. I pray that for them, and I pray that for us now as we come to this portion of God's word.
Asking all these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. Well, as I said, our text is Hebrews chapter five verses 11 through six, three. And I've tagged this message, growing deeper and further in 2023.
Notice I said growing deeper and further, I didn't say going. Because really what I want us to think about in this message is about our own growth in godliness. I want us to think about where we are, where we ought to be, and if necessary, what do we need to do to get from where we are to where we ought to be.
If you know my personal story, you know that at the age of 16, I met a man who would have a seminal influence on my life. That man's name was Reverend Nathaniel Lee Ramshire. He always would say his name out in full.
I came to realize because he was Welsh, lots of people were called Nathaniel. So he just got used to saying his name out in full all the time. And very early on when I met this man, I realized very quickly that this man had forgotten more about his Bible than I had ever remembered.
Just a remarkable handler of his Bible, like nothing I'd ever seen. And very quickly I realized this man knows something. He knows a thing or two. So since he knows a thing or two and I don't, I'm gonna get this guy to teach me.
Oh, did I mention he was 89 years old when I met him? Not the time in life you typically wanna take on a project. And let's be clear, at the age of 16, I was very much a project spiritually. But without any hesitation, and that's a story for another time how even that came about.
I asked, like, you take me under your wing and teach me a thing or two. And he graciously said, yes. And for three years, this 89 year old retired pastor poured not just the Bible, but of himself into me.
Three years later, he would be dead. Cancer was the carriage that took him into the presence of the Lord. In those three years, he was used by the Lord to put me on a trajectory that despite the attempts of many, and there have been many, despite the attempts of many, by God's grace, I've done my best to stay on that trajectory.
Without that man taking his own spiritual growth seriously, and then taking the growth of this teenager seriously, I can honestly say without contradiction, I would not be standing here today. He took his own growth in grace so seriously.
And because he did, he was in the best position to minister to someone else. Well, when I began to realize that the Lord was drawing me into the ministry of his word, I kind of took it up as a personal, as a personal interest, if you will, honoring my late mentor to think about growth and discipleship and spiritual maturity.
Because if I had learned anything from this man, it was the reality that a growing Christian is a useful Christian. And I can't speak for anyone else in this room, but I am thoroughly convinced that if there's one thing we need more of in 2023, it is useful, growing Christians.
And so I began to think deeply about this subject and to read all that I could and to listen to everybody who spoke on this as best I could. And sometimes it was an exercise in eating meat and chewing, all the way around.
Yeah, eating the meat and spitting out the bones. That's right. And other times it was finding people who shared the mindset of the man who had discipled me and saying, okay, this person knows what he's talking about.
I'm gonna stick a little closely to him. And really ever since that time, I've been on a personal mission to see a revival of concern in the church about growth and discipleship and maturity. What is it about spiritual growth that can seem so evasive as we think about our own walk?
I don't know about you, but I look at my own self. I just turned 32. I look at my own life and I sit there and think, okay, praise God, I've seen some growth in some areas and in some areas I'm still not seeing growth.
What's the deal? Why is it that growth can seem such a mystery when it comes to ourselves and to other members of the family of God? What's the difference between the believer who is making steady strides in their growth and the believer who appears for all intents and purposes to still be in the starting blocks?
Well, as we begin this new year, I thought, you know what, it's as good a time as any for all of us. Myself included. To do something of a spiritual growth checkup. First to ask ourselves, how are we doing?
How was 2022 in terms of our own growth in godliness? Did we make as much progress in our faith as we maybe could have? As we think about these questions, as I think about these questions, I think this text in Hebrews chapters five and six has a few things to teach us about growth.
Since we're not doing a full exposition of Hebrews and we've kind of just parachuted in, something of the background might be helpful here. As you all know, I love the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is a book written to people who were in need of a little encouragement.
As the title suggests, as the title we've had for this book since its earliest copies, these were Hebrew Christians. These were Jewish Christians who had come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah. They had heard the good news of God's plan of redemption, of Christ's coming, of his perfect life of obedience to the Father, of his all atoning death, of his resurrection and ascension, the fact that he was interceding for them.
They had heard that message and more importantly, they had believed that message. And since they had heard and had believed that message, they had for some time been walking with the Lord. But as time wore on, the temptation as it were to slide back, the temptation to go back to the Judaism that they had left behind, that temptation was evident,.
It was heavy,.
And it was unrelenting. The writer, who I actually like to call the preacher. Well, the writer takes pen in hand and he writes his listeners a sermon. I say it's a sermon because if you're taking notes, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 22, he uses this phrase, he calls his letter a word of encouragement, the only other time that phrase is used is in the book of Acts to refer to the teaching portion of a synagogue service.
Only other time we see that phrase in the whole Bible, which leads me and countless others to suggest, Hebrews was a sermon that was committed to paper. Well, the preacher takes pen in hand and he writes this as he calls it, a word of encouragement.
This word reminding his readers of why they were compelled by Christ in the first place and imploring them to stay focused on Christ. And really, as you read the lessons of the Hebrews, he has two ways of doing this.
Sometimes he will take the Old Testament, what one of my favorite writers, Alec Mortier, used to call the First Testament. He will take the Old Testament, the First Testament, and he would show how the words and the events and the institutions of the Old Testament pointed to the superiority and sufficiency of Christ.
At other times, he doesn't do that. What he'll do instead is take the teaching he's given and he will press it home, like a good preacher should, will press it home in application to his hearers. And as he does this, he moves from, as it were, explanation to application, from teaching to pleading as he calls his audience to listen, hold onto this good news that you've heard.
And so he's been for almost five chapters up to this point, extolling the virtues of Christ, the fact that he is greater than the prophets, he is greater than the angels, he's greater than Aaron, he's greater than the Exodus generation.
He goes on and on and on in explaining this. And then he comes to chapter five and he wants to launch into the fact that Christ is greater than the priesthood in the Old Testament. And he wants to, as it were, go a little deeper with that.
And in fact, he will in chapter seven. But before he can dig into that, did you catch it as we read this?
There was a problem.
Look again at verse 11 with me. Verse 11, he says, we have a great deal to say about this and it is difficult to explain since you have become too lazy to understand. Probably one of the most, actually, yeah,.
Next to Paul,.
Probably one of the most brutal ways of talking to your audience you will see in the entire Bible. The phrase lazy to understand is actually a hard one to nail down. Different translations. Some of you will have them in the room.
They do different things. Some will say sluggish to understand. Some will say sluggish to hear. I grew up in the King James Bible. The King James Bible says you are dull of hearing, which sounds even more harsh.
There were different ways to translate this because this Greek phrase, excuse me, is kind of difficult. The general sense is this idea of a dullness of understanding due to a lack of effort. One New Testament commentator, Richard Lenski, translated the verse like this in his commentary.
He said, quote,.
So much is there for us to discuss and so hard is it to do because of the condition of your ears. It would seem for all intents and purposes that his audience weren't quite where they needed to be. And I put it to you that this passage forces all of us to ask the question, am I where I need to be?
What if 2023 could be the best year of your spiritual life? What if this was the year of all the years you've been walking with the Lord? I don't know how long everyone's been walking with the Lord in the room.
I know for me, this March will be 17 years. Yeah, it was March of 2005. So 18 years, 18 years. So 18 years. What if this was the year, speaking to my own self for a moment, where I, as it were, took it up a spiritual notch?
Now, allow me to say something that's very important as we come to this passage. Please do not hear anything else I'm about to tell you. And I'm going to say a lot of things. Some of them I've just warned you in advance.
Some of them will sting and some of them you might be annoyed by, but just hear me out. But before I get to any of that, allow me to give you some comfort just as we begin. Everything I'm about to say does not affect your eternal destiny.
Let me say that again. Everything I'm about to say does not affect your eternal destiny. None of what I'm about to say will affect whether you'll be with Christ in glory. If you are a believer, if you are justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, because of God's grace alone, you are going to heaven.
Please do not hear this as, okay, if I don't do any of this, I'm not going to. No. And I say that because it's very easy that when we talk about spiritual growth, we make it sound as though salvation is contingent on growth.
If that were the case,.
People who got converted and then died the next day aren't going to heaven. After all, they've done no growing, have they? But no, we recognize what the Bible tells us. How is a person saved? Romans chapter 10.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing about the word about Christ. As you hear the word of God, and as you believe it, you are saved. That's what saves. So please, please hear me. Like I said, I'm going to say some pointed things.
Some of them might sting, but none of them affect your eternal destiny. Well, Colfie, that's because, why are you talking about this then? Well, while your eternal salvation has no conditions, maturity and usefulness, on the other hand, slightly different affair.
Because I want to argue from this text, as we'll see in just a moment, that if a believer isn't growing, a believer isn't useful. And if a believer isn't useful, there's a massive problem. So if that's the case, how can we ensure that 2023 is something of a watershed year, as it were, when it comes to our own growth and usefulness in the Lord?
Here's my big idea for this message. In light of who Christ is, and in light of what he's done, believers make every effort to pursue spiritual growth for themselves and for the sake of others. Again, we don't disconnect this from who Jesus is and what he has done.
We don't disconnect this from the cross and from the gospel and from the full assurance that we should have as Christians. But in light of the cross and the gospel and the full assurance that we should all have as Christians, in light of that, believers make every effort to pursue spiritual growth for themselves and for the sake of others.
I'm gonna leave that up on the screen for a few moments. Let that sit with you for a moment as we come to this passage. In light of who Christ is and what he has done, believers make every effort to pursue spiritual growth for themselves and for the sake of others.
Well, when you came in,.
You hopefully received the study guide. That might help you to track along with the message. For the rest of our time this afternoon, I want to consider three life-altering realities from our text that you need to understand if you wanna grow this year.
If you want this year to be a year of spiritual growth, I've got three life-altering realities from this text I need you to consider with me. I'll do my best not to be long, but like I said, this might take a while to explain.
Consider first of all with me, the fact that you need to understand how to measure your own growth. You need to understand how to measure your growth from verses 11 and 12 of our text. If we're going to think clearly about growing deeper and further in this new year, it might actually help us to have some objective,.
The key word here,.
Some objective measurements for our growth. Because the reality is our hearts are so deceitful, our hearts are so capable of lying to us, Jeremiah 17 and nine, we can look at ourselves and say, you know what, actually I am growing.
And the reason why we say that is not because we're objectively going by God's word, but because we have developed a standard for ourselves that we can easily meet. And so it kind of helps that we have an objective measurement for what growth looks like.
I think back to when my son was born two years ago and I didn't get to go to most of his checkups because of all the stringent requirements about entry and stuff. So my wife would go and then bring Gareth back.
Actually no, I went to my first one and then all the other ones I couldn't. But I remember Laura would come back and I'd ask her, well, how did it go? Everything okay? You know, you parent, you're completely panicked.
You don't know what on earth any of this means. My wife less so, she's a nurse, so she understood more of this than me. But it's like, no, he was great. He was fine. And then she would say this phrase that the first couple of times I didn't know what she meant by it if I was really honest, Gareth is in the 90th percentile.
Okay, I vaguely know what that means. So, I mean, I honestly still don't fully understand all that it means. I asked Laura this week as I was preparing this and she explained it again. I was like, okay, that's not what I thought it was.
Nevermind.
But be that as it may, even if I didn't know what the phrase meant, it did mean two things. I think we can all agree these two things. One, it was good because she came home, she was happy about it.
And it was measurable.
It was objective. The doctor could look at a set of measurements, could look at the numbers and say, yep, your child is here. It's specific and it's measurable. Oftentimes, I think the problem we have when it comes to thinking about spiritual growth is that, and let's be honest, we do this in church sometimes, we can make spiritual growth sound weird and mystical when actually it's not really all that weird and it's really not that mystical.
But it's actually specific and measurable. In verses 11 through 12, the author of our text actually gives us three benchmarks, three very simple things you can look at which should help you to know if you're growing or not.
So, three benchmarks. The first of them he gives is asking them the question, how is your hearing? Here's a question you can ask them, how is your hearing? So we just read it in verse 11. We have a great deal to say about this and it's difficult to explain since you have become lazy to understand.
First problem he identifies, the first marker he measures them by is,.
How is your hearing?
Like I said earlier, this is kind of a difficult phrase to translate from Greek to English. But what's very clear is that the original Greek word carries the word of hearing. It's the word we get acoustic from.
So we talk about the acoustics of this room. That's where this word comes from. And it's interesting because all throughout the Bible, growth and how you hear are attached together. So Matthew chapter seven, if you're taking notes, Matthew chapter seven, 24 through 27, Jesus says, therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
The rain fell, the rivers rose and the wind blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn't collapse because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
The rain fell, the rivers rose, the wind blew and pounded that house and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash. Jesus says, you need to hear, but you need to hear the right way. Verse that in most of my Bibles I have marked.
I don't have it in this one because I keep this one without any marks in it. But Mark chapter four and verse 24, Jesus said to them, pay attention to what you hear. By the measure you use, it will be measured to you and more will be added to you.
In John's gospel chapter 12 verse 47, Jesus says, if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has this as his judge.
The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day. And this is just a highlight, realize that I skipped a bunch of references we could have looked at. You see in the Bible, hearing isn't just a physical act of your ears picking up vibrations of air.
That's just part of it. Now in the Bible, hearing is the spiritual act of listening to and heeding the word of God. How we hear and how we respond to the word of God is a vital indicator of our spiritual growth.
So allow me to make it practical for just a moment because it's very easy to use that phrase and just walk off. Let's sit here for a moment. Do we have a passion for the gospel centered proclamation of God's word?
Are we making hearing the word of God a priority? Are we in the words of Jesus, not just paying attention to what we hear, but paying attention to how we hear? There's a reason why our followers in the faith were very, very specific in saying that God blessed not just the reading of his word, but the hearing of it to the growth of his people.
There's a reason they said that, because they were hearing this language in the New Testament that emphasized hearing, that emphasized hearing. I'm not sure how plugged into evangelical culture you are, but if you are even a little bit plugged in, you'll know that the concept of the pulpit, not the physical piece of furniture per se, but the idea of preaching the faithful proclamation of Christ and all of his benefits through the ministry of God's word, that that's under attack.
And it's under attack in an unusual way these days. The way that it's often under attack is, well, we don't want to hear more preaching and teaching. We need more dialogue and discussion. Now, let's be clear.
I think this is a time and a place for dialogue and discussion. That's why we have growth groups. We have them Wednesday in Medford, Thursday in Central Blend. Discussion and dialogue has its place, but you need something to dialogue and discuss over.
And unfortunately, we live in an evangelical culture where this is becoming the norm, even in our theological circle, where the preaching and the teaching of God's word is becoming increasingly less central.
Well, how can people grow if people don't hear? The preacher could tell that there was a hearing problem, and because there was a hearing problem,.
That led to a second problem.
Here's a second marker you can use. Not only should we ask the question of how is our hearing, you also need to ask yourself the question, how's my service? How is my service? Beginning of verse 12. See that there?
He says, although by this time, you ought to be teachers. Let me pause there for just a moment. This is a verse I come back to often on. If I'm honest, am I thinking about the church with a big C around the world?
Now, those of you who are maybe a little more biblically aware would say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You just read a text that says for although by this time, you ought to be teachers.
Kofi, don't you know the Bible teaches that some people have the gift of teaching and some don't? This can't be talking to everyone. And on the surface, it seems like a fair objection until you realize that the person who's making the objection and I've heard it multiple times over the years, the person making that objection has far too narrow a view of what teaching is.
Two things about this text that I would ask that hypothetical person who's not so hypothetical to consider. First of all, nothing in the book of Hebrews limits the letter to just pastors or teachers, nothing.
In fact, we'll get, well, we won't, but if you read it, chapter 13, verse seven and verse 17, he has to tell his readers how to respond to their leaders. If he were writing to the leaders, that would be redundant.
So nothing in this text says that he's just talking to those who occupy teaching office in the church. Secondly, like I said, I think if you take teaching purely to mean, well, I'm doing right now, I'm up at the front, delivering a pre-prepared message in a sustained monologue.
If that's your only definition of teaching, this rebuke doesn't work anymore, does it? Because he's only speaking to people who teach, right? But the letter isn't written just to people who teach. You see, here's where I think many of us in the church kind of miss this sometimes.
You see, our perspective is often there are some people who have this gift to teach and others who don't. The New Testament perspective is different. The New Testament perspective is there are some who have a visible upfront office of teaching, but everybody is teaching everybody at some level.
The New Testament perspective is that while not everyone occupies the office of the teacher, all God's people have the calling to instruct others in the faith. Rick Phillips, excellent commentary on Hebrews.
If you want a nice readable commentary on Hebrews, Rick Phillips, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, in his commentary on Hebrews, he said this. This is one of the passages that indicates that the readers of this epistle were not recent converts or new believers.
By this time you ought to be teachers, he says. He does not mean that they should all be ordained ministers. But that they ought to be able to instruct others in the faith, whereas in fact, they haven't yet grasped the most elementary truths of God's words.
Beloved, this rebuke ought to sting at some level. Because if you've been walking with the Lord for any length of time, the author seems to suggest you should know enough to help somebody else. As the late Reverend L .K. Curry, Southside Baptist Church in Chicago said in a rather famous message he preached from Acts chapter three.
You know, Acts chapter three, in the King James Version, it says, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee. Reverend Curry said, if you've been walking with Jesus for any length of time, you should have some such to give.
There comes a point where the disciple ought to have become the discipler. Like I said, I'm very passionate about this subject, so much so that in the middle of 2021, where it became apparent, okay, guess Kofi, you're leading this thing called Redeemed Bible Fellowship.
One of the first things I did, I waited a few months. It was October of 2021. First thing I did was, I don't like the phrase casting a vision, but I can't think of another phrase for it, so I apologize in advance.
But essentially, I cast a vision for what discipleship would look like in our body. Last page of today's study guide, scan that QR code, it'll take you to the YouTube video. You can hear, it took me about an hour to explain it, what I thought the vision for discipleship should be in our body.
Part of that vision I explained at the time was moving from a model where the pastor basically does all the ministry, to where everybody in some aspect is doing part of the ministry. If I can be so blunt for a moment, the sort of pastor-centric model of the church that has been so prevalent in evangelical sectors, the sector that, the mindset, excuse me, that says, I don't need to know that, I don't need to push myself, I don't need to learn that,.
That's his job.
The mindset that kind of says, the minister will do it, not Ephesians 4 .12, which is actually, the minister equips you to do the work of the ministry, because God has a ministry for every one of you.
I don't know what it is, but God knows what it is, and if you ask him and you start serving, he'll make it apparent to you what that place is. Can I point you to that? The pastor-centric model actually doesn't encourage growth, it stunts it.
The kind of growth that the author talks about here. In an ideal universe, what I do is, in the teaching of God's word, you hear it, you internalize it, you meditate on it, so that you can turn around and help somebody, guide somebody, instruct somebody who knows a little less than you.
My pastor back in London, Dr. Tom Drion, used to say, who are you discipling, and who's discipling you? Because everybody, he said, is somewhere on that line.
So how's your hearing?
How's your service? How is your ministry to another believer? How is your discipling going? One more area of growth, and again, I'm laboring this first point. Trust me, this first one's gonna be really long, the next two will be really quick.
But I'm laboring this because if you don't know your target, what's the saying, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time? Well, I don't want that for you. I don't want that for our body. I want our body to know what the target is, so that we can hit it square one.
So how's my hearing?
How is my service? Thirdly, how's my spiritual diet? How's my spiritual diet? End of verse 12. He says, although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's revelation again.
You need milk, not solid food. Now, this illustration of the milk, and some of your translations will say meat, the idea is milk versus solids. This illustration, unfortunately, has at times been dragged, kicking and screaming out of its context and used for not so good purposes.
Allow me to hopefully make this illustration somewhat clearer. First of all, milk is not always a negative, which is how often sometimes people, like milk is bad, solid food is good. Well, in that case, you've now got a contradiction in the Bible.
Remember folks, when we were in first Peter, those of you who were here, first Peter 2 .2? Peter says that we are to desire this pure spiritual milk of the word so that we can grow thereby. If growth, if milk is bad, why is Peter telling you to go look for it?
That's a problem. Secondly, I think more importantly, it's not that milk is bad, but if you're paying attention, as we read verses 11 and 12, there's a contrast being drawn. The contrast is between the mature and the immature, between those who are grown and those who are not.
So following in the passage, the mature should be able to handle deeper teaching, which is what he says in verse 11, but the immature can't. The mature should be teachers, but the immature still need to be taught the basics.
The mature should be on the spiritual equivalent of solids, but the immature can only handle milk. Here's the point of the illustration. It's not that milk is bad and solid food is good. It's that for these believers at this stage, the diet wasn't quite matching the stage of life.
It would be akin to me at age 32, deciding, you know what? My brother Ross is here. We both share a love of smoking things.
Not like that.
Like meat, smoking meats. I forgot I was in the state of Oregon. I've got to be careful using that language. It would be akin to me saying, you know what? I don't need all of it. Just give me formula.
Not because I have a health issue, not because something just perfectly fine. I can eat solid food. I just don't want to. I would trust that all of you who came by my house and was expecting a meal sometime and then found me offering different kinds of formula would all look at me and say, Kofi, what's wrong with you?
Why? Because it's not appropriate for a 32-year-old to drink holy formula. And that's his point here. If you're maturing, your spiritual diet should reflect where you are. And so again, allow me to get maybe somewhat painfully personal for a moment.
Are you, as a believer, partaking of material appropriate to the amount of time.
You've been walking with the Lord?
Someone say, wait a minute, Kofi, you can't put that pressure on people. People grow differently. Okay, I can see that.
That's true.
We do grow at different stages. But you just said it. People grow differently. People don't stay at the same place for long periods of time. Allow me to put it a different way. Are you being stretched by the things you hear and the things you partake of?
This past October, some of you know, I was at the Puritan Conference down in LA. Had a great time. It was the Friday of the conference, last day. We had just come out of breakout sessions. I was walking around.
One of my friends had flown in from Florida. He was staying with us, my friend Fred. And I caught up with Fred. He was talking to another friend of mine who is a professor. He's a Reformed Baptist pastor in California.
Really, really well-known guy. And so I just sat down and was listening to them talk. He was sharing some really rich stuff with us. And at one point, he was explaining something which was, yeah, it was a little on the stretching side.
And my friend Fred, who's extremely hilarious, was like, okay, Prof, explain this to me like I'm five. Now, how many of you have heard that phrase before where someone says, like, explain to me like I'm five?
You know, the idea is, like, kind of dumb it down for me. And I loved it, because my friend, Dr. Barcellas, he said, Fred, I can't do that.
Dead serious. I'm like, oh gosh.
This feels like a miscommunication at this point.
Fred's kidding.
But then my friend Fred said, why not? And my friend, Dr. Barcellas, said something that stuck with me. He said, brother, the Bible wasn't written to people who are five.
Wait, what?
Wait, he's right. He says, there comes a point, and I asked him about this later on. He said, brother, there comes a point where people need to be stretched a little if they're going to grow. And so I ask, is the stuff you're partaking of, is it stretching you?
Is it growing you? Is it forcing you to be pushed, as it were, to a point where, okay, either I grow or I can't take this? You take all three of those questions.
How's my hearing?
How's my serving?
How's my spiritual diet?
You take all of those questions together, and I think the authors of the Hebrews gives us a very simple, I mean, there's a few more things we can add to this from the rest of the scripture, to be fair, but he gives us at least some basic things that we can look at that present a comprehensive picture of a growing Christian.
They're attentive in their hearing of the word. They have ability to serve others in discipleship, and they have an appetite for deeper truth from the scriptures. That's where they should have been, but they weren't there, and it was a problem for the author.
So why was it a problem? Why is it a problem for us? Well, you need to understand how to measure your own growth, but secondly, you need to understand the dangers of stunted growth. You need to understand the dangers of stunted growth.
Verses 13 and 14. I told you, point one was really long. These next two will be nice and quick. Spiritual immaturity wasn't something to be played with. In fact, two dangers he gives us in verses 13 and 14.
First of all, if your growth is stunted, you fall behind in your development. So look at verse 13. Fall behind in your development. He says, now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness because he's an infant.
Now, some of your translations doesn't say now everyone. It will probably say something like for everyone. Good translation, because it's a continuation of his thought. Here's why it's a problem that you are where you are.
For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message about righteousness. I want to keep this point short and long of this is that when he says inexperienced about the word of righteousness, that they are lacking in the experience which comes with walking as one of God's people over a period of time.
Again, I'm a young Christian, so I've often been around Christians who are much older than me. Sometimes I just ask myself, why is it that some believers can claim to walk with the Lord for years and yet demonstrate such little development in their walk with the Lord?
They say, Kofi, how do you know that? Well, the way the Bible says you know someone, by what they say. You talk to them about the spiritual life, their responses are often shallow. And I don't mean that they use, they don't use big words and they don't sound like a, I don't mean that.
But that rather than give concrete answers with depth from God's word, they kind of just hit you with, you've heard this. Kind of, you've heard me use this phrase before, spiritual ease. You know, just kind of vague spiritualisms that sound good but don't actually mean anything.
The kinds of things that you wouldn't expect somebody who's been walking with the Lord for quite some time to say. Like I said, I've often wondered and I've asked myself, why does that happen? Well, I think this text gives us an answer.
They've fallen behind in their development. They've not been keeping pace with where they ought to be spiritually. Again, I think about my son. I live with someone who is growing for the first time in a very long time.
My son is able to walk at this point. He's actually decently coordinated for a child his age. But there will be moments every now and again where it's very apparent by the way he walks,.
Yeah, he's a two-year-old.
If I walked like that, you'd all again say, everything okay? We don't expect. Adults generally, some of us just have no coordination. I pray for you regularly. But for those of us who have generally good coordination, there's a difference between how an adult walks.
And an infant walks.
Why? Because there's been enough development. You've learned enough of the world. You've learned enough of how to handle your own body that you know how to walk properly. You've not fallen behind in your development but that's what was happening here.
But not only had they fallen behind in their development and that's not the only danger that comes with stunted growth. You also start to fail in your discernment. So verse 14, what does he say? He says, but solid food is for the mature, for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.
Not only are the immature falling behind in their development, they start to fail in their discernment. And it's interesting in this passage that the definition he gives for discernment is interesting.
He says, solid food is for the mature, for those whose senses, excuse me, have been trained to distinguish between good and evil. I've read this passage again. There's one I'll come back to again. I've read it multiple times.
This week, for the first time, I asked a question I'd never asked this passage before. Let me see if I can help with this. If something is good and evil, do you necessarily need to, in the way we often think of good and evil, if something is good or evil, do you need training to know if something's good or bad generally?
You ever thought about that question? I mean, there are some things that is really obvious. So if you go driving, let's say me coming from the UK, I decide to drive on the side of the road that people in the UK drive on, not the US one, I will find out very quickly that's not a good idea.
If I decide that I'm going to basically sleep 20 hours a day and not do anything of use, I will learn very quickly by my actions that that was a bad decision. But you don't need a lot of training for that to happen, do you?
But he intentionally uses the word here for training, for teaching, for the kind of hands-on, it's the same word that's used in Ephesians, by the way, for parents raising your children in the discipline of the Lord, same word, it's the verb form.
This is the part that got me. Sometimes what is good and what is evil isn't quite so obvious. Sometimes what is good and what is evil, remember the context, he's talking about spiritual growth. I would argue that good and evil here isn't just the general terms, it's about what is good and what is evil in terms of our growth.
Let me see if I can make this even simpler. So we're in the book of Hebrews, like I told you, these are Hebrew Christians who are being tempted to go back to Judaism. The things that they would have been tempted to go back to on the surface weren't bad things, were they?
Think about it, the law of Moses. Nothing's bad about the law of Moses, you read the law in the Old Testament, some of it's just good common sense, it's not a bad thing. The sacrificial system, sacrifices aren't bad.
The feast days, yeah, who doesn't love a good holiday? We just came out of one. The priesthood, that's not bad. The temple, not bad. All of these on the surface are good things. But let me take all of those things and put them next to Jesus and say, hey, replace Jesus with these things, good or bad.
We would all agree those are evil things, why? Because they're seeking to be replacements for Jesus. Okay, Kofi, where are you going with this? Very simple. Part of growth, brothers and sisters, is knowing the difference.
Between something that is good for you spiritually and bad for you spiritually, even if on the surface, it doesn't seem that bad. It's the spiritually mature person who knows the difference between the spiritual good and the spiritual evil, even when it doesn't externally look good or evil.
If you want another text, or if you're taking notes, Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. One of these days I'll preach my sermon from Hebrews 12 here. Also the Hebrew says to his audience that they're to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles them.
He doesn't say weight and sin are the same thing,.
Because sometimes they aren't.
Sometimes a externally good thing can be a weight and now it becomes a bad thing because it's hindering you. I think that's the same language he's using here. Is this thing I'm participating in? Is it increasing my love for Christ?
Is this thing that I'm participating in? Is it growing me closer to the Lord? Are these folks I'm so eager to spend all my time around? Are they helping me to mature? Are they actually making me fall back?
So I mentioned my late mentor at the start of this message. Funny story between me and him. The way it used to work was I would call him and be like, hey, I'm thinking about this subject in the Bible.
Can we talk about it? That's typically how that worked. I go over to his place and we study the Bible together. Well, one day I had called and said, hey, I want to talk about this thing. Okay, come over this time.
We had it arranged. And then I had gone to see some friends and I knew the time was getting close. Like, guys, I got to go. I've got an appointment.
Like, oh, where are you going?
I was like, oh, they knew that there was this older guy I called the Rev that I hung around with. Oh, I promise I'll go see the Rev.
Got some stuff to talk about.
He's like, you guys are always spending,.
Spend some more time here.
I'm ashamed to say I blew off the Rev that day. He didn't say a word. I called him and said, hey, something's come up. I can't make it. He was like, that's fine. But then I went to bed. I like my sleep, but I couldn't sleep that night.
Something was just gnawing at me. Like, you really shouldn't have blown him off. He didn't do anything of any real substance. So I called him again. I was like, hey, are you free today? And again, he's 89, he's not going anywhere.
At that point in his life anyway. So who, you know, I called him again and he's like, sure, come on over. And I got there and my conscience just wouldn't let me rest. I said, Rev, I've got to be honest with you.
You know, the other day when I was supposed to be here, he just stopped me and said, let me guess, you were hanging out with your friends?
How do you know that?
And he said, you know, Kofi? He was one of, at that time, most people won't call me by my first name. He's one of the few who call me by my middle name. You know, Kofi, not everybody you hang around with today will be people who'll be there in five years.
You need to ask yourself,.
Are the people I'm hanging around with.
Helping me to get where I want to go?
And he left it at that.
But I put it to you that maybe he understood that because he understood texts like this. There's nothing wrong with hanging out with your friends. The Bible commands us to be social people. I don't think it's biblical to be a loner.
No, you should do that. But is, are the people I'm around, are the things I'm engaged in, good, like things that on the surface are neutral, aren't they the best things for helping me to grow? Worth considering if you want to be at your best this year.
Falling behind in our development, failing in our discernment. That's what's at stake when your spiritual growth is stunted. Real quick, and I'll be done. If those are the dangers of stunted growth, well, how do we move from a position of stunted growth, of growth that isn't really happening, to flourishing growth?
One more thought the author gives us. You need to undertake your next step towards spiritual growth. You need to undertake your next step towards spiritual growth, verses one through three. So he's giving them this rebuke in 511 through 14.
It's a ringing one, it's pointed. But now he applies it, chapter six, verse one. Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about ritual washing.
Some of the translations will say baptisms. It's not baptism like we think of baptism, it's washings. Laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And we will do this if God permits.
In light of his argument that you guys should be growing, you guys should be on some different stuff from where you are now. In light of his argument, the preacher calls for his audience to make a decision.
Either just keep with the basics or pursue maturity. If we were doing a full exposition of Hebrews, I'd take time and walk through all of these six things that he mentions. Thankfully, we're not doing that, so I won't do that.
I just wanna draw your attention to a couple of features and we'll be done. First of all, he says that everything he's about to say, verse one, is rooted in what he's just said in 11 through 14. Spiritual growth, brothers and sisters, is grounded in very clear and theologically grounded principles.
Spiritual growth is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling and oh, this sounds like something fun to do. No, it's grounded in some clear and some theologically grounded principles. Again, he also calls them to a specific and appointed decision.
Negatively, leave the elementary teaching about Christ. Positively, go on to maturity. There's no room for, I don't know what he wants from me here. I don't know what this looks like. No, actually, it's pretty obvious what he wants.
He even spells out, gives them six things that you need to move on from this and move on to this. Each of these six things he tells them to move on from were unique to those Hebrew Christians. They're not the things that you're being called to.
The next step for them looked like this. Here's my question to you as I close. What does the next step look like for you? Now, that's an open-ended question. And I know enough about open-ended questions to know that open-ended questions are usually large enough that if someone wants to wriggle out of them, they can.
So, as your pastor, or at least the pastor for today, may I offer some suggestions? You don't have to do any of these. You may think, hmm, that maybe should be something I should do. Allow me to give you some suggestions, just stuff we have here at the church.
For some of you, your next step towards maturity is, you know what, I've never read my Bible from start to finish before. Well, actually, you're in good company. I think the numbers tell us now something like 30 of evangelical Christians haven't read through the Bible in the last five years.
Just so happens that we're starting a Bible reading plan. Took all the work out of it for you. All you have to do is read it. Some of you maybe already have that habit. So maybe that's not where your focus needs to be.
Your next step might be, you know what, I've never actually taken a book of the Bible, started at the beginning, gone through the end, and just worked that book till I understood what this book is saying, how it connects to Christ, how it connects to God's plan of redemption.
For some of you, your next step isn't so much, I need to read the Bible in a year. It might be, I just need to read one or two books of the Bible in depth. Maybe you already have a solid habit of Bible intake.
Maybe that's not your problem. Your problem is you don't like to read much else. Well, just so happens that every month we give away a magazine with really short articles in it.
It's called Table Talk.
If you can get done with that one, we have three months worth of back issues that we keep back there. I think we have some few, I think we have a few more hanging around somewhere. For some of you, you may think, okay, you know what, reading's maybe not where my area is.
Or let me tell you, you do like to read, but you like to read things that are comfortable. And you may need, for some of you, your next step in terms of maturity might be reading something that stretches you, something that's maybe not as easy.
There's a reason we recommend a resource of the month every month. Sometimes they're not the easiest reading, but they're the most helpful. Maybe there's a specific topic that you need to dig into. Come see me, I'd be more than happy to help.
For some of you, maybe it's, okay, I need some more teaching in God's word. Well, just so happens we offer Redeemer U classes, another one starting next week. Maybe it's joining a growth group, digging into the stuff we talk about more on Sunday.
For some of you, maybe growth and knowledge isn't your problem. For maybe for some of you, it's your prayer life. Not praying as often as I should.
Maybe for some of you,.
Your next step is 10 minutes a day devoted to prayer. Some of you might be just coming to our prayer meeting on Sundays. Coffee, I get too distracted when I pray.
Well, pray with other people, that usually helps.
Maybe it's finding an area to serve in. Maybe your issue isn't, okay, maybe you are as, I think it was a leadership expert, John Maxwell said, educated far beyond your level of obedience. You know tons and do absolutely nothing with it.
Well, maybe this is a year you find something to do with it. Fellas, let me talk to you for a second. Maybe you've never actually been trained for ministry before. Maybe the thought of training for ministry sounds super daunting.
Well, it just so happens we have a training group here at the church. There are three guys who are in that program. Stop them, ask them how it's going. Maybe we need to run the first season again. For some of you to plug into, might be your next step.
Can't say it too often, especially after the damage that COVID did. Maybe for some, well, not you, because you're actually in the room here, but for some, maybe their next step is actually just coming to church a little more regularly and attending to the means of grace.
Again, all of these are suggestions. Ultimately, only you and God know what your next step is. I know for me, I sat down this week, I was preparing this, I try my best to practice what I preach. And so I took some time and I asked myself, what are some things I need to do in the next year?
Ultimately, only you and God know what your next step is. Maybe even you don't know, well, pray, James 1, 5. If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask some God who gives liberally and doesn't upbraid. Maybe you just go to God and say, God, help me to understand what I need to do this year.
I'm pretty much done.
But before I come to the Lord's table, can I give you some motivation for pursuing any of this? I told you, I don't doubt that for some, you've heard this message and it's best been like, dude, this was relentless.
Seriously? This is how you wanted to start the new year?
Mm-hmm, yes.
Because you've never thought about it. But allow me to give you a motivation. Go back to chapter five and verse 11. There's one observation. Remember he starts off by saying, we have a great deal to say about this.
What was this? It was about Jesus and his high priesthood. The fact that he is the mediator for God and his people. The author wanted to say so much more about Jesus. He wanted to deepen their love for and their commitment to Jesus.
He wanted to say more about Christ, but he couldn't because they couldn't handle it. Faith family, those of you who call this church your home, as your pastor, I love you way too much to not call you to deeper communion, deeper enjoyment and deeper relationship Christ.
I would be failing in my job and quite frankly, all of you should rise up as one and say, get out of the pulpit if I didn't do it. We pursue growth, not because we want to take something off or we wanna keep people happy or we want to present the image of ourselves.
As these deeply spiritual people.
No, we pursue growth ultimately so that we can enjoy more of Christ together. And heavenly father, we thank you that we are not alone in this endeavor, that as we seek to grow deeper and further with you, that you don't leave it to us, you don't leave us to ourselves, but that you give us your word, you give us your spirit, you give us the means of grace, one of which we'll participate in in just a moment.
You give us all of these things that we need to pursue closer relationship with you. Father, I pray that the prayer of our hearts would be the same as that old song that says, just a closer walk with thee, granted Jesus be my plea, I'll be satisfied as long as I walk close.
To thee.
We ask you in Jesus name and for his sake, amen.