Are You A Mature Christian? (part 2) - [Hebrews 5:11-14]

Senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, wrote a book called The Vanishing American Adult.

And he said, basically, people live in perpetual adolescence now. It's the stereotypical 35 -year -old young man who lives in his parents' basement.

And the senator said that this kind of came out of celebrity -driven, wealth -driven, consumerism -driven mentality.

He said it's estimated that young males have played more than 14 ,000 hours of video games by the time they reach 21 years old.

He reports in his book, fully one -quarter of Americans between ages 25 to 29 now live with a parent, compared to only 18 % over a decade ago.

And in many ways, this juvenile aspect of life has filtered into the local church.

I mean, you can just imagine if you give kids a junior church, and the focus is not

Bible teaching and the gospel, but the focus is on fun and entertainment and loud music.

And then they move to junior high, and the focus isn't on the Bible, but on loud music and entertainment. And then you go to high school, loud music, entertainment.

College loud music, entertainment. What do you think they expect when they come to big church for worship?

When you're trained on strobe lights and skinny jeans and fog machines, that's what you want. I didn't mean that to rhyme, by the way.

By the way, the visitors won't get it, but look what somebody gave me today. Okay, I don't know who you are, but God knows.

He searched you and known you. If I preach powerfully and drink it, you'll say it was the

Red Bull, it wasn't the Spirit of God. So I am a no -win situation. And not just the language and the culture and the music, but also what the message is at junior church in these juvenile situations.

Give us jokes, give us entertaining stories, give us messages like God loves you unconditionally,

He's not mad at you, give me what I want. And I want faith journeys, and I want small groups, and I want some

Bible enough to think it's Christian, but nothing too convicting, nothing about Jesus the only way. After all, isn't it a sin to bore a kid?

And this language, you know, of God is transcendent and holy and different and other and great and majestic.

I'd like to have you talk to me about God in a way that makes me think He's kind of like my boyfriend, or kind of a girlfriend relationship.

I want personal fulfillment. I want self -development. I want TED Talks. This whole idea of 1

Timothy 1, to the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be glory and honor forever and ever.

Amen. That just doesn't sell. My question to you this morning is, have you been affected by the juvenileization of American Christianity?

Turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 5, and let's talk about that today. Let's talk about this very issue of growing up and maturing, so that you're not the perpetual adolescent spiritually.

Now, as we're turning to Hebrews chapter 5, there's nothing wrong with being immature, as long as you're a new

Christian, right? We don't expect little children to act maturely.

But we expect people that have been around for a while to act maturely. And so the writer is saying simply, you readers know enough that you could teach people, but you need to be taught.

You know enough that you should desire meaty doctrines, but you say, I want milk. And you know enough to discern between right and wrong, but you'll just put anything into your mouth.

You're like a child, and you need to grow up. Verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 5 reads, about this we have much to say.

He's talking about Jesus and the high priesthood according to Melchizedek. And it's hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

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.

You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child.

But solid food is for the mature. For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

And the same type of maturity language continues into the next chapter, verse 1 of chapter 6.

Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ, and go on to maturity.

Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God. And of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Negatively stated congregation, the writer says, grow up. Positively stated, it could be said, you need to mature.

You need to mature in Christ Jesus. Ogden Nash said, you're only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.

And I think for the most part, BBC, you are a thriving congregation, a growing congregation, a maturing congregation.

I love the depth that so many of you have, so many men teaching other men, and women teaching other women.

I don't think you're complacent. I don't think you're lazy. I don't think you're sluggish. Not that long ago,

I was approached by a large megachurch. Would you come be our pastor? And I thought, you know what they don't want there?

They want an administrator. They want somebody to kind of like rally the troops or the staff.

But they don't want somebody to preach the word of God to this congregation that says, we want to know about Christ Jesus.

I think they were an immature church. I don't think you are. But there's that immaturity lurking in all of us if we're not careful.

And some of you, frankly, sadly, are immature. If you're growing, keep growing.

That's the message. In gentleness, but with firmness, in the pastoral heart of the writer of the epistle of Hebrews, if you're immature and you should be mature by now, make this the last day of your immaturity.

And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, you're not either immature or mature. You're an enemy of God, hostile toward God, angry at God.

You act like you are God. And this passage today, I hope, will drive you to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, the only true

God, for your salvation and forgiveness. He made you. He will judge you.

And you need a Savior provided only by Him. It's hard to hear a message about grow up.

It's hard to hear a message about, do you know what? I've expected more out of you. Have you ever gotten those job reviews?

And you think, you know what? You were all happy thinking they were going to give you a raise, and they tell you, you should be doing better.

It's difficult, but it's good to hear.

He loves the people. He wants them to do well. Did you notice in chapter 5, verse 11, and about this we have much to say.

What is he talking about? About this. He, the writer, has been saying,

Jesus is a great high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek. And these people that he's writing to, they're suffering persecution.

There's all kinds of issues in their life that are real. But they want to go on to some other things.

They need to get to the practical aspect. They've heard enough about Jesus, enough about high priests. I mean, how relevant is

Melchizedek? That's the question. And he said, you know what? You're talking that way, it shows that you're immature.

And the problem isn't the topic. The problem isn't the preacher. The problem is you.

Do you notice that in verse 11? It's hard to explain, since you've become dull of hearing.

He wants them to grasp the high priestly nature of Jesus Christ, because it is relevant.

It's the most relevant. And I can prove it. Have you sinned enough today to deserve hell?

Have you sinned enough today that God would justly send you to hell? And the answer is yes.

But we have a high priest. We have a mediator. We have someone who's got the infinite righteousness of God, because Jesus is

God. And someone who's truly human, who can stand in our place as representative.

And we not only get His righteousness, He gets our sin. And even though we sin today, we can stand in His presence with great joy, blameless.

How relevant is that? No, no, you don't understand. I need to get on to the other things in life.

And the writer knows that's a sign of immaturity. It's a sluggishness.

Do you see the word dull there in verse 11? There's kind of bookends in this section. Dull of hearing.

And the exact same Greek word is found in 6 .12. Let me read 6 .11

and 6 .12. This is the other bookend. This whole section's about being dull and sluggish and listless and indolent.

And we desire each one of you, Hebrews 6 .11, to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be dull, is the way it's in 5 .11.

But here he says sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

So congregation, this entire sermon is so you don't be sluggish. If you're really energetic now, so that you don't go back to sluggishness.

It's all about who Jesus is. You think, well, you know what? I have a sluggish marriage. I'm lazy in my marriage.

I'm indolent in my marriage. I'm indolent in my work. I'm indolent in church service. Whatever it is, if you want four easy steps, here's step number one.

Now let me remind you who Jesus the high priest is. I want to keep maturing.

I want to keep growing. And I know you do too. I just looked up synonyms for sluggishness.

I mean, in my mind I thought it was like molasses or something. But these are some of the words that describe someone's approach to receiving the word about the gospel.

Receiving the word about Christ. Ask yourself, when it comes to preaching and studying Jesus, do any of these words apply?

Inert. Laid back. Slothful.

Slumberous. I don't even know what this word means, but it sounds good. Torpid. Unresponsive.

Comatose. And by the way, the text says in 5 .11,

since you have become dull of hearing, you used to be energetic. You used to love the word.

You used to love it. And it's in a slow process where you've become this. You're supposed to, you know, when you're a kid, you're supposed to go up against the side of the door, and your mom, and people do this in India.

They do it in Rome. They do it all across the world. You stand there, and the kid wants to know, am I growing? And then there's that little pencil mark, and yes, you're growing.

You keep getting taller and taller, and you think, yes, I am growing. It's imperceivable. But yes, in fact, that doorstop proves to me, or that door, what's it called?

Gary, what's it called? Casing. Thank you. I'm growing.

Except now, if you're like me, I stand there, and I'm getting shorter because I'm an old man. I used to be 6 '2", and now

I'm 6 '0". I mean, woe to me when I'm 5 '11", 5 '10", et cetera. It just keeps shrinking. You think, if the kid's 7, and he's shrinking, you would take him to the doctor.

That's what's happening here. Instead of saying, you know, I love the Word, and preach me the Word, and I know even when it convicts me,

I need those hard convicting words, because I like to have a tender, soft heart for the

Lord, and I don't want to lose my first love. But there are some people, because of persecution, have lost their first love, and He says to them, you need to grow up.

Today's the day. He's not mad at them. He's not being mean to them. It's a pastoral desire, designed that they might just rest in Christ, and trust in Christ, and keep resting in Christ.

So this morning, let me give you three self -diagnostic questions to determine if you're immature or mature in Christ Jesus.

Gauges are markers, are pointers, to ask yourself the question, am I immature or not?

Three diagnostic questions. Let me give you the questions, and then it will probably take this week, and next week, to get through them, or longer, but I'm going to California soon, so three diagnostic questions that are right from the text.

Can I teach others? Immature Christians can't teach others. Can I handle meat?

Doctrine. Immature Christians just want milk. And can I discern? Immature Christians can't discern.

Those are the three diagnostic questions. If you're a brand new Christian, this doesn't apply to you. You will learn and grow into that.

Right now, you're just voracious for the Word, and you want to study the Word, and you want to learn all about Jesus. You want to learn about the

God who would save you from your sins, and rescue you, and who would die for you while you were a sinner, while you were an enemy, while you were ungodly, while you were unjust, not because you were good, but he just loves sinners like you.

You're at that stage now, and you think, okay, I don't think I can teach anyone. That's fine.

I do need milk and ABCs. That's fine. I don't really know, you know, is Joyce Meyer a false teacher or not?

She seems to quote the Bible. I don't really know. That's fine for now. But if you've been around for a while, you should be teaching others, or have the ability to.

You should say, I want doctrine, and I know right from wrong. Joyce Meyer is an obvious heretic.

Now, before we go through those diagnostic questions, let's look a little bit more of the problem found in verse 11, and then we'll get to the questions found in verse 12, 13, and 14.

Spiritual maturity. Paul says, it could be Paul, we don't know.

The writer says in verse 11, about this we have much to say. There's a lot he could say about Jesus.

A lot that he has says about Jesus. In chapter 1, he's greater than angels. He's the son.

All the Old Testament passages from Psalm 45 to Psalm 102 to Psalm 2 to Psalm 22 to Psalm 110, they all point to Jesus.

He's talked about how he's the incarnate high priest, that he knows what it's like to suffer and sympathize with people, yet he doesn't sin.

He's talked a lot about Jesus. Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, and the early part of 5, it's all about Jesus. And he says,

I've got more to say. I need to say more. But you won't hear it. So he stops and he gives this warning.

If he didn't give the warning, you know what the next verse would be from 5 .10? 5 .10 reads, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Without this warning, without this pastoral goad, he would go straight to 7 .1. For this

Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham, etc. But he has to have this little interlude.

He has to tell them, by the way, it's time for you to grow up. Of course, for you who are a growing congregation, keep growing.

Now this is a very insightful paradigm here for Bible teachers. From your children to VBS.

Does VBS start tomorrow? I'm wondering if I should come by and watch or not.

I'm afraid. All the kids running around. Can you imagine? God, bring us kids that just need to hear about who

Jesus is. They might never hear in their life. And let's tell them about the Savior Christ Jesus. What a great opportunity.

The problem is not with the teaching. The problem is not with the doctrine. And frankly, the problem isn't with the preacher.

The problem is with the listeners. So if I've got people that won't listen, here's what most people do.

Well, you know what? I'll change my approach. I won't say it in such and such a way. And I'll change because the people are stiff -arming me.

And they're sluggish. And they're preoccupied. And they're all tabbing their way through life with hedonism and consumerism and materialism and everything else.

So what most Christian preachers will do, well, you know, I've got to find a way to get back in there. That's not what this writer does.

This writer says, you're dull of hearing and the solution is I'm not going to give you what you want. I'm going to give you what you need.

And it starts with a goad. He says you just can't understand this because of your sluggishness.

It becomes hard to explain. By the way, for you Greek students, it's the word hermeneutics is in there and the word hard.

You put two words together, hard interpretation, it's hard to explain. It's hard for me to interpret to you.

These people have allowed themselves to get lazy. Things going on at home. Things going on at work.

Things going on all around. And he wants to rouse them. He wants to wake them up. He wants to stir them up.

They haven't become dull by the preaching. They haven't been dull by the parent. They haven't been dull by anyone. They themselves are to blame for their negligence.

It's important to listen. Do you remember chapter 2, verse 1? Has not the book of Hebrews highlighted hearing the word?

Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. Chapter 3, verse 7.

Today, if you hear His voice. Chapter 3, verse 15. Today, if you hear

His voice. And here's maybe the best news.

This sluggishness, if you've got yourself into this pickle, it's not permanent,

Christian. Why would He say this if there was no hope for repentance and changing and now becoming re -motivated by the

Spirit of God's power? There's an opportunity for you to change your mind and repent and start today.

Repent of your listlessness. He wants to tell about the high priest

Melchizedek, but they become dull. And as you do some self -diagnostic pre -questions, you say to yourself, how did

I get here? How did I get to this spot? I'll never forget what MacArthur said once.

He said, you don't just fall out of a tree. You climb up it first. Step by step, making the wrong decisions.

And then all of a sudden, you get to the spot where you're like a baby Christian again. He's not mad at them.

Probably the most extreme counseling case I've ever heard of is this was back at Calvary Chapel in Los Angeles and that was 30 years ago.

And it was Pastor Romaine. And he was the marriage counselor. He had a couple come in and the husband said,

I throw things around the house and I have a fit and I scream and yell and stomp around when

I don't get my way. And the pastor said, you act like a baby. He said, yeah, I do.

He said, can you help me? So he said to the husband, come with me. The wife used to hear.

So they walked down the church hallways. All the lights were off. It was during the day and nothing was going on church -wise, schedule -wise.

And he walked into a room, the light's still off. The man felt something go into his hand and then the pastor turned the light on and they were in the nursery and it was a diaper.

And he said, young man, when you'd like to be a baby, excuse yourself from your wife. Go into the bathroom, put the diaper on, do what babies do.

Come take that diaper off, clean yourself up and go be a man to your wife. I thought, our congregation needs to know that because they think

I'm a tough counselor. Now they think I'm easy. It's time to grow up.

It's time to say, you know what? How did I get here? I want to blame my wife, my kids, my husband, my teachers, my pastor, my church, my elders, my deacons, everybody else.

You made yourself into this situation. God didn't. You did. So repent.

God is beckoning you through this chapter. You don't have to live like this for the rest of your life and if you want to, it's on you, friend.

The high priest, he's able. You say, well, you know, I've got it tough.

Friends, these people in this book were going to have their houses taken away and eventually killed.

I get it. We're lazy. I get it. We backslide. I get it. We're sinful. I get it.

We're dull. That's why we have corporate worship services so we can sit before the

Word of God and see again the beauties of Christ and say, okay, yeah, I was cutting some corners for a while and no longer.

Lord, please forgive me. You can't blame other people. The text here is saying it's on you.

You have become dull of hearing. Turn to Colossians 1, please.

As you know, it's on the front of our bulletin. This is our theme verse and it has been and I hope will be for as long as I'm here and even after.

I don't know how long I'm going to live, how long I'll be your pastor, but I thought to myself, you know,

Luke would like to go to seminary. What if Luke Abendroth is your next pastor? You never know.

I'd vote for it. I would love to sit on the elder board when

Luke was the pastor and then have somebody come to me to complain about the pastor. I would so love that.

I would probably change my last name so people would think I wasn't related. I want to grow.

I want to learn. I know you do too. And again, for most of you, I don't think I have to tell you grow up. How do you mature in Christ so you can say no to temptations, yes to self -denial, yes to loving your wife, yes to etc.,

etc. It has to do with the person of Christ. And look at Colossians 1. Why do we want to talk about Jesus?

By the way, Colossians 1 is the book of Hebrews. Him we proclaim.

He's talking about Jesus. Chapter 1, verse 28. Warning everyone, teaching everyone.

We're talking about men, women, children, everyone. We're talking about Jews and Gentiles, everyone. We're talking about old and young, everyone, with all wisdom that we may present everyone what?

There's the word. Mature in Christ Jesus. For this

I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me. This is not some kind of Gnostic deal, some special Corinthian thing where only certain people get to learn, only certain people go behind the veil.

This is for everyone. And the writer wants them to be complete, are mature. That's the theme.

That's the heartbeat of Hebrews. When you study the word teleosar, our end, our complete, our maturity in the

Old Testament, it's used of a heart that says, God, I am wholly turned to You.

We used to ride motorcycles. My dad would say, don't ride at full throttle. You know, you put a kid on a motorcycle and you tell them, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast.

Right, kid? Repeat after me. Slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast. I got it. I got it,

Dad. I got it. Or like if Sam Farah comes over. True story. Slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast.

This was a long time ago. This wasn't this week. They were little. Slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast. And the second that kid gets on the motorcycle.

That is what you want. When it comes to full throttle for the gospel, I'm all in.

And I know because here's who Jesus is. I do deserve hell and I have a high priest. That affects the way

I pray. Thank you. That affects the way I'm content. I don't deserve anything and I get all this. That affects the way

I evangelize. That affects the way I work. That affects everything. And people say, well, no, no,

I just need those three steps. Grow up. You're not going to grow that way.

I mean, some of the practical steps, maybe. But how about now people say, I want to be entertained at church.

I don't like those songs that you pick. I don't like that kind of preaching style that you pick. That's all a sign of being dull and immature.

The goal for the ministry. People are like, okay, Mike, what's your goal in ministry? What's your five -year plan, ten -year plan, twenty -year plan?

What's your goal in ministry? It's this verse. I'm going to keep preaching Jesus Christ until I lose my mind.

You kick me out or Luke takes over by unanimous vote. And then you bury me and go, he did a lot of things poorly but he always talked about Jesus.

That's the paradigm for your parenting. Your parents taught you the

Bible. They did a lot of bad things. But you go, you know what? They taught me about Jesus. And that's you teaching your next generation and the next generation.

And the goal is maturity. My goal is I show you Jesus Christ. Sinfully, frailly proclaim the truth.

You grow. Next week, guess what? Repeat. I think it was the president of a seminary who said, you just look at a bottle of shampoo.

What's it say? Rinse hair. Apply liberally. Rinse. What's the fourth step?

Repeat. What's the goal? I have no idea what the goal is. Next year we could have 50 people or we could have 5 ,000.

I want you to mature. I'm not concerned about money. I'm not concerned about how many people here. People say, well, here's what ministry is all about.

This is kind of funny in a sense. Ministry is all about being there for when they're hatched, matched, and dispatched.

You're there for when they're born, when they get married, and when they're dead. That all may be true, but at the birth, at the marriage, and at the deathbed,

I'm going to tell you about who Jesus is. Don't you dare invite me to the wedding thinking I'm just going to get up there and give you a bunch of moralism because that doesn't help anyone.

I'm after your maturity. People running around with a thousand how -to books.

I'd like to be a better wife. And every single book they get is how to be a better wife. They're thinking wrongly. It's Christology.

If my goal is to get unbelievers here, I know how to do it. We have PowerPoint right here, and I put some

Braveheart videos up. And if you can't preach, that's what you do. What?

Okay, you're in trouble. If my goal is numbers,

I do some self -help stuff. David Wells quote,

The problem of Christ missing as the focal point in the church today is not like the abduction of a child who's happily playing at one minute at home and then is no longer to be found.

No one has abducted Christ in this sense. The disappearance is closer to what happens in homes where children are ignored and to all intents and purposes abandoned.

They remain in the home, but they have no place in the family. So it is with Christ in the church. He remains on the edges of evangelical life, but has been dislodged from its center.

And if you think Jesus should be dislodged from its center, the writer of Hebrews says, Grow up.

Him we proclaim. Do you see the text there? It isn't even written kind of in a funny way. We proclaim him would probably be the best

English, but Colossians 128, Him we proclaim. The focus is on who Jesus is.

By the way, Greek students, it's a present tense. We proclaim him all the time.

We're always proclaiming Jesus. We want to make him known.

We want to teach about him, this abdicator for us, this finisher for us.

Luther said, We always preach Jesus, the true God and man. This may seem like a limited and monotonous subject, likely soon to be exhausted, but we're never at the end of it.

That's the book of Hebrews. I just want to hear more about Jesus. This week I'm thinking about Jesus, and he's talking to the men.

Hey, we want to sit on your right hand, and we want to be their ruling in your kingdom. And then Jesus says,

Listen, I came to seek and save the lost, is what he said in Luke. But what he said in Mark is,

I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve and give my life a ransom for many. And then he meets blind

Bartimaeus, and he says, What shall I do for you? What do you want me to do for you?

As a servant coming to blind Bartimaeus, a servant says, How can I serve you? And Jesus says,

How can I serve you? And you think there's nothing like Jesus studying who

Jesus is. He comes, and he could have been worshipped, and he was worshipped. He could have demanded all that.

He came to serve and to do his Father's will. I want to learn about Jesus. And maturing congregations love that.

One lady ran up to Spurgeon and said, Oh, Mr. Spurgeon, if Jesus Christ does love me like that, he'll never hear the last of it.

And I don't want to hear the last of it. I want to hear about Jesus made me an heir of God.

I want to hear about how I was poor spiritually. He made me rich. I want to hear about I was weak spiritually.

He made me strong. I want to hear I was a slave to sin. Now I'm a slave to righteousness. I want to hear about Jesus, the object of my faith.

Not even what he's necessarily done for me, although that's wonderful as well. Sinclair Ferguson, True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself.

Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength, therefore, depends on the character of Christ.

Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others. So if you're listless and sluggish and you need a jump start, you do the same thing that people who are maturing do.

Go back to who Jesus is. Is it not true when the

Baptist wrote, When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin. But when I found

God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against one who loved me so and sought my good.

And then, Christian, you can rest in Christ Jesus. The world says this,

Master life. How's that going for you? The catechism says,

Enjoy the life that God has given you. And I can, and I can rest. And I can enjoy life because I know my standing with God is secure, legally standing before God.

Turn to 1 Peter 2. We're going to end there. 1

Peter 2. Maturity is found in Christ, so don't try to bypass that.

And to help you become less dull, there's some things that you need to just get rid of before you come to the

Word of God to learn about Jesus. And that is discussed in 1 Peter 2.

Now, we'll highlight on this next week, but when Peter here talks about milk, he's just talking about the

Word, like a land flowing with milk and honey. He's just talking about sustenance. Hebrews says,

Milk, meat, there's a difference. You should be having meat, but you're having milk. He doesn't make that change here in 1

Peter. This is just sustenance. This is just nutrients. So I don't want you to think this milk is a bad milk.

This is a good milk. How can you be helped with your listlessness and your immaturity and to run far from it if you are mature?

There's some sin that needs to be dealt with. God is gracious and will forgive, but look at how

Peter writes this. So put away all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, and envy and all slander.

Just get rid of all that sin. And then now you can come to the Word. It's been said that this book will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from this book.

That's exactly what's going on here. So Lord, please, I'm angry all the time,

I'm deceitful, and I've got this, that, and the other. Please forgive me. And now, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk.

This is just nourishment. That by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the

Lord is good. He says, I want you to long for the Word. I want you to just desire the

Word. I want you just to soak up the Word. Because the Word contains the personal work of Christ Jesus.

I think it's the Belgic Confession that says, how do you know there's a real church? 1. Preaching.

2. Sacraments. 3. Discipline. But the preaching part, it doesn't say preaching of the Word, it says preaching of the

Gospel, who Jesus is. Because when you preach the Word, you do preach the Gospel. He's everywhere.

From Genesis 3 .15 all the way down. Of course, earlier in Genesis 1 .1. Long for the pure milk of the

Word. There is no other way to grow, Christian, than through the Word of God.

Zero. It is the pure milk of the Word that you might grow by it.

What does it say earlier in chapter 1 of 1 Peter? Verse 23.

For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding

Word of God. All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers, and the flower falls off. But the Word of the Lord abides forever, and this is the

Word which is preached to you. So he wants you to long for that. He wants you to use

Paul's language in Colossians 1 to desire a proclamation of Jesus. To use the language of Hebrews chapter 5 to say, you know what,

I want to keep learning about the high priest. And here he says, long for the pure milk of the Word. But notice in chapter 2 verse 1, you've got to deal with sin, as I said earlier, before you come to the

Word. You need to go to your husband and say, please forgive me. You need to go to your boss, and you need to go to the people that are in your life and you've sinned against.

Or maybe you haven't sinned against them, but against you, Lord, and I need forgiveness. Please, you've promised, if I've confessed, that you will forgive me.

Please forgive me. And then it says, you go for the Word. Put aside all malice.

Could it be, sluggish Christian, that you're not growing because you're harboring these sins?

That you're not putting them aside and stripping them off? The language is, they laid aside their robes so they could stone

Stephen. It's hard to throw a baseball 95 miles an hour with a parka on.

I've got to get my robes off so I can throw these stones to kill Stephen. Lay those robes aside.

They couldn't get them off fast enough. That's the language there. To put aside, so that you can carry out the command, desire for the

Word. And what does he say, put aside all malice? This is a hatred.

This is a seething. This is an ill will that says, you know what? Whatever that other person in my life does,

I automatically assume the worst. It says, get rid of deceit.

This has to do with motives. This has to do with, I'm going to try to have some ulterior motives and kind of cut and paste to my own good.

Get rid of hypocrisy. I mean, we're all hypocrites. We know that. But this is that pretended piety,

God talk around other people. You can't even deny yourself at home. I like what the country preacher once said, be what you are and not what you ain't.

Because if you ain't what you are, then you are what you think you ain't. That might take you a while.

By the way, when I first moved to Massachusetts, I thought I was moving out to a place like Brook Brothers and like, you know,

Harvard and all that stuff. And that's true. That's 50 miles that way. This is the kind of country, isn't it?

Get rid of envy. This is a resentful discontent. Most people think, you know, I'm not envious about other people's things.

This is really before the Lord. I'm just not content. I'm not content.

You know what? You could have that cancer not in my body. Lord, you could have made it not so. You could have given me a different gene pool.

You could have prevented me from marrying so -and -so. You could have given me kids that were just kind of better.

You could have given me better jobs and better situations and all this lack of contentment that breeds up.

It's hard to then go to the Word and say, Impress me, Lord. I want to see who Jesus is. No, that needs to be repented of.

Not that I want to see Jesus, but that discontentment, that envy, and then the slander.

Got to get rid of that. Talking about someone else, discrediting them behind their back, and then you think you can just go to the

Word and say, God, change me, mature me. I want to be different. Thomas Watson said,

It was under the old law a sin to defame a virgin. And what is it to defame

Christ's spouse? I don't even think we think about these sins much anymore.

If you'd like to grow, you put aside these sins and you study the Word. It does not say,

Go get zapped at a charismatic meeting. It does not say, Go get all hyped up with the music and you feel the

Holy Spirit in your heart. Friends, that's the bass guitar. I'm not kidding.

It says it's the Word. I want to be mature. I want to honor you. We're talking to Christians here, and I think the writer of Hebrews was too.

I really want to honor you, but I'm stuck. And God loves you enough to tell you, you know what, there's a way out.

You don't have to live this way the rest of your life. Hold fast to the

Word of life. Rest in Christ. You don't have to go find wisdom, psychology, how -to books, and everything in me wants to give you a list, a legalistic list.

Everything in me wants me to ask you, how many minutes do you spend in FaceTime versus the Bible? Everything in me wants to do all that, but I'm not going to do it.

All you have to do is to remember what your life was like before God saved you, how

He monergistically, freely, sovereignly, graciously saved you, and what

He's promised you in the future, and what heaven will be like, and then I'll switch it around a little bit.

I dare you to learn enough about Christ. Are you immature?

Well, if you're a new Christian, there's lots to learn, and Hebrews gives us the Lord Jesus to learn about.

If you're a Christian and you're immature, undo the things you did to get there by repentance and forgiveness.

And if you're a Christian who's still growing and maturing, grab one of those immature

Christians and move forward. Let's pray. I thank you,

Father, for this day. I thank you that there's not enough time to learn about Jesus.

And even in heaven forever, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. And we will be shouting out wisdom and power and mercy and strength, grace, longsuffering, all the attributes that your

Son has and praising Him. We deserve hell. We get heaven.

We deserve our Father, Satan, and yet you interrupted all that, and we have now our

Father who's a heavenly Father who's holy. I pray for those today that need to be doing some maturing and be told to grow up.

Father, so convict them today that their only opportunity is humility, contriteness, repentance, and then as David repented, he got that joy back.

We want that. Father, for those who are Christians today who are maturing, and you have so gifted to just be miles ahead and learning and growing,

Father, help them to excel even more. And Father, for those that are here today that are playing a big game regarding their standing with you,

I pray that you would really convict them of their sin so they might turn to Jesus and believe in that risen