The Next Right Thing (2)

1-21-2024 Kingsway

The Next Right Thing

Hebrews 5:11-6:1

Introduction: Here at Kingsway, we have every level of spirituality! We have some who come who don’t understand the whole Christian thing yet. If talking with them, it would be very difficult for them to articulate much at all about what it means to be a Christian.

We have another segment of people who would say they are Christians but if you asked what that looks like in their daily life, it may just be some stuff they do or don’t do, and they may be fuzzy on what to do to grow into becoming a better follower of Jesus.

There is another group of people who have been church goers for a long time. For some, being a follower of Jesus is so ingrained, they don’t give it much thought. Their lives are on auto pilot. There isn’t much thinking required. They just do what they always did.

Finally, there is a group of people made up of all ages, who are seeking to grow in their faith and desiring to grow stronger in their daily lives.

Lead Into Subject: Age and the length of time one has professed to be a Christian doesn’t have much to do with the level of Maturity. No matter where you are in your spiritual life, today’s message is going to lay out a path that you can take to propel you toward spiritual growth and a closer walk with Jesus.

Sermon in a Sentence: Do The Next Right Thing!

1. First, Let’s Define Christian Maturity Hebrews 5:11-6:1

11 There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training (gymnazo) have the skill to recognize the difference between good and evil. So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding!

Explanation:

This passage teaches that spiritual maturity is more than what someone knows. It is what they put into practice.

John F. MacArthur

Does knowing good and evil bring anything to mind? I want to look for a few minutes at another way of looking at the test of Adam and Eve, to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Knowing the difference between good and evil is called being mature in Hebrews; we could say knowing good and evil is also the definition of wisdom. Proverbs would support that understanding. So why would God tell Adam and Eve not to eat of that tree? Was He holding out on them?

Yes, He was! He wanted them to learn the difference between good and evil through their relationship with Him.

For Adam and Eve, eating the fruit of that tree was due to seeing something they wanted and taking it for themselves. It was a short cut. Rather than learning good and evil through their relationship with God, they took a short cut. They didn’t want to take the time to know God and learn from Him. They thought they could speed up the process by grabbing it for themselves. They showed their lack of trust, lack of wisdom, and lack of maturity by their choice!

Maturity is having a relationship with the Lord through Jesus, taking the time to learn what He has said, and growing in the ability to make choices that line up with what He calls good and steering clear of what He calls evil.

Illustration: If you would find someone who is a mature believer, someone who makes good, God- driven choices more times than not, they will tell you, some of their greatest life lessons came by poor choices. Praise God, He uses all of life as our teacher. If you strive to live your life for Him, He will use the good, bad, and ugly to teach you, His ways!

I remember when I was a brand-new Christian. I had told some of the guys on my construction crew, I had become a Christian. One day, I was about thirty feet off the ground on some scaffolding and had to reach way out to drive in a nail. I missed and smacked my thumb with a 20 oz framing hammer. I was 21 years old and had developed a habit of using some profane language. Man, I let out a string of you blankety blank blank, kind of language. Before any of the other men could say anything, God’s spirit who now lived in me, grabbed me, and let me know, I belonged to Him now, and that kind of language wasn’t going to further His cause. I’m not going to say, I never used foul language again, but I learned a strong lesson that day through my less than stellar choice of vocabulary! God wanted me to grow up and make better choices that would honor Him.

I could tell you a bunch of stories like that, how in combination with learning the truth of Scripture and my failures, Jesus has taught me so many things about following Him.

None of us can come to the highest maturity without enduring the summer heat of trials.

Charles Spurgeon

Application: Once you have Jesus in your life, He will begin growing you toward maturity. He will teach you through His Word, and through your failures what good choices look like! He will teach you to do the next right thing!

2. Not my Desire But Your Will Be Done Luke 22:41-42

41 He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing (want to, desire), please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will (plan) to be done, not mine.”

Explanation: If you want to see your spiritual growth, take off, this is one of the most powerful concepts I know. Surrender my desires and choosing God’s will instead! We probably aren’t going to sweat blood like Jesus did wrestling with this concept. But God probably isn’t going to ask us to die for the sin of the world either! But saying no to myself, my desires and my lusts to follow someone I’ve never seen is very challenging! But consider the alternative. AW Tozer said,

The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

A. W. Tozer

Illustration: I remember being in a hospital emergency room one night. I don’t remember why I was there, but I remember a guy being brought in who was an alcoholic and was totally wasted. As they wheeled him back to a cubicle, he was singing an old hymn. “He touched me, oh he touched me and oh the joy that floods my soul, something happened and now I know, He touched me and made me whole!”

Application: Nothing severs us from the power of God or stunts our growth toward maturity, more than saying, I know what you want, I even know what is best, BUT I want this, and I’m going to do what I want to do! NO! Rather choose to do the next right thing!

3. Maturity Requires Knowing the Living and Written Word of God Hebrews 5:12-14

12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature. . .

Explanation: You don’t have to go crazy. If you have never read the Bible much and practiced doing what it says, don’t start with a reading plan that makes you read the whole Bible in a year. Do something you can develop a habit of doing. Try starting by reading a chapter a day or reading for 10 minutes at the start of the day. I’d start with the Gospel’s, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read those over and over and learn what Jesus was like when He was on earth, He is the only perfect human that ever lived. When you begin reading, ask God to show you something to show you yourself. Read the Bible as if you are holding a mirror up to your life, let Him show you what needs to change!

This is critically important because, as renowned NT Scholar NT Wright says,

It matters because without maturity Christians are very, very vulnerable to all kinds of trickery that may well take them a long way away from where they ought to be.

N. T. Wright

Illustration: A couple months ago, I went to a funeral for one of the godliest women I’ve ever known. The preacher who did the service, had asked the family if he could see her Bible before the funeral. The family in turn gave him a box of Bibles. Some of them were totally worn out. She had notes written in the margins and passages underlined. She had passages highlighted with a preacher’s name and date she heard a sermon from that passage. She had her own notes from study written on the pages. She had the names of her grandchildren and when they put their faith in Jesus and then when they were baptized. She was 97 years old and had anchored her life by the Word of God and her relationship with Jesus! Oh, and she was known for the love she had for all people!

Application: I’d like to make a recommendation. I know we have everything electronically and reading the Bible on your phone is better than not reading it at all. But, to have a hard copy to become familiar with, to write notes in, to underline, and be able to go find it later is valuable. However, you do whatever works for you, I can tell you, it will really be difficult to do the next right thing, without being informed by your relationship with Jesus and being familiar with what the Bible teaches.

Conclusion: Gayle and I were married about two years when I had come to Jesus. She bought me a study Bible for Christmas that year. Here it is! Some of you have heard this story. I had never read any of the Bible before and the book looked intimidating.

Our TV blew up and we were poor, young married people and couldn’t replace it at the time. That was all we did most evenings was watch TV. I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting on the end of the couch, looking at the TV that didn’t work and wondering what to do now. Then I saw the big black Bible sitting on the lampstand where it had been since I got it. The thought hit me; I could start reading it. Maybe knowing what His plan for my life was, God did what He had to do to get me in His book.

Did I tell you I hated to read? I did. But I wanted to know what the book said more than I hated to read. Eventually, I learned to love to read because I wanted to know stuff! Nothing has helped me grow more than meeting with the Lord and reading his words!

Hey, maybe the next right thing for you will be to begin reading the Bible. If so, keep reading it and your choices will become better informed as you continually seek to do the next right thing!