Weaning off the baby Bottle

The overall concensus seems to be that our children seem to be maturing a lot slower than they used to. Some of it has to do with economics and the fact that things are more expensive than they used to be, some of it due to technology. Today not all but many kids are opting to wait getting their drivers licence and would rather have their cell phone and social media accounts. As a kid growing up without those things having to interact with your friends and others face to face rather than on social media caused you to mature in your relationships faster. You could not just block someone you didn't like on Facebook. Kids are living at home through their 20’s and 30’s and are are not getting married until much later in life.

You are immature

Dull of hearing.

This word means really that they were slow to hear, they were lazy, or sluggish. Some years ago my wife and I went to the Chinese restaurant and the lady came up and asked my wife something, I could tell that my wife had no idea what she said, so the lady asks her again and my wife looks at me like I have no idea what she is saying. I looked over at my wife with a slightly less than understanding tone said “What do you want to drink Mindy?” The woman spoke said it in English but she could not understand.

Unable to handle solid food.

The author of Hebrews is not saying that they are incapable of it otherwise he would do as Paul did tell them that he must continue to give them milk for the Corinthians were not ready for solid food, but these believers had evidently been taught to in such a way and enough time had passed that the author tells them to move on. The author is convinced that enough time had passed that they ought themselves to be teachers but they are not.

The word here to practice is actually means to be in a state of maturity. It does not mean what we think it to mean by practice makes perfect. I means that we are all made and built for maturity, we have all that we need. Some people are just naturally athletic and made for sports, they have the bone structure and the body type, and some people are not. But with believer in Christ not so, we are all made for maturity, we all have the perfect body type for it. We are all designed for maturity. Not what we are by nature but what we have become by default.

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT?? Bite by bite

The author in chapter 6 continues with this same them but shifts his illustration to building.

So get on with it!

Lest we think that the author of Hebrews is being entirely was too insensitive he does include himself, let us!

The author is convinced however that the gospel seed has fallen on good soil, that the believers need only to move on to maturity. At some point in time we have to cut the cord and the child must move on and be pushed out of the nest.

the beginning is not a stopping-place; it is the door to progress and the springboard to achievement.

There are 6 doctrines that the author speaks of as elementary. These are the building blocks of the christian faith. I remember my first grade teacher Mrs. Coleman from Montpelier Elementary school in Montpelier Indiana. She taught me how to read and write, the foundation for the rest of my education that I depend on to do the more complicated tasks in my life.

When the author of Hebrews tells us to “leave the elementary doctrines” he does not mean to abandon them, but rather to move forward and build upon them. No one build a foundation just to abandon it, and build some where else, no to leave the elementary is to build upon those things, brick by brick.

What is interesting about theses elementary doctrines is that they are not entirely exclusive to Christianity, but are things that the Christian faith has in common with Orthodox Judaism. These are basic truths that are carried over and informed and given greater significance in Christ.

This is the remedy to thier stunted growth as believers. This is why the author of Hebrews pauses to give this intermission about the important and deeper things of Christ an His Melchizedeckian priesthood.

What is it that is going to help them to press on in thier Christian walk? Moving on from the elementary teachings of Judaism and seeing Christs greater work, His greater Preisthood.

Application: We need to be willing to willingly accept loving confrontation from one another. One of the ways that we hope to help you with this is through our “community groups”. Our goal would be for everyone one of us to be connected to one of these during the week. A time to gather together in small intimate groups where people pray for one another and feel free to share deeply with each other and hold one another accountable in the Christian walk.

Growing up is awkward, even painful, when I was a freshman in high school, I was probably the one of the smallest in my class I was 5’ 2”. My wife jokes around that she probably would have beat me on the play ground if we had known each other. She was bigger and taller than I was. But she was definitely sweeter. By the time I started my sophomore year of high school I as about 5’10’’. I grew almost 8 inches in one summer, I remember crying an literally having growing pains. My parents were probably crying too because of how expensive it was to keep me in clothes.

The point that I am trying to make is that growth in our christian life is often painful and akward and messy, but we need to be willing to be a little uncomfortable. To be humble and vulnerable to allow others to speak into our lives. We also need to give one another room to grow and mature.

What Paul is saying here and will further develop next week is this. Here is what is happening the Hebrews had indeed in the basic elementary things in life had initially seen the things that relate to salvation and the simple gospel. They had a firm foundation, but all of the sudden instead of building they are looking over across the way, and they see greener grass over there.

Like the baby that sits there quietly playing with his own toy until he looks over and sees the kid next to him with something else, it doesn't matter to him what it is, it only matters that he doesn’t have it. So what does he do he crawls over to take it.

They were in danger of leaving the foundation of Christ, and going back. To abandon the the foundation of Christ is to engage in spiritual suicide. If you walk away from your faith what sacrifice do you have. You have abandoned the only thing could actually save you in the first place.

So in a in a sense though their former faith had to be informed by Christ and it is that foundation that they must cling to an not move from, he is in another sense.

When we went camping a few years ago down the Delaware Gap. We had to find a camping spot along the river, and we kept going until we came to the end of several camp sites. So we got out and it was getting late so we made a decision to make camp and after we had all set up our tents and gotten ready, we saw a small path, it led back to several other camp sites and all of them looked better than ours. I went back and forth trying to decide whether it was worth packing up and moving, but finally it was time to decide and that this was the one.

We need to do the same thing in our Christian life, after building on the foundation of Christ we must learn to cut ties with all that we placed our trust in before, we must fill in the path and place a hedge row of trees to block the view lest we be siting in the kitchen one day staring out the window longing for something better, as if that even existed.

It is a foundation that once laid cannot be laid again, but one that we must return to on a daily basis.

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Ezekiel 12:2 (ESV)

“Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house.

Romans 6:20–21 ESV

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.