Untitled Sermon (21)

September Becoming Spiritually Mature (Hebrews 5:11–14)

Now comes the call to engage the mind.

The Christian faith is not an intellectual exercise, but it is intellectually satisfying when we dare to think it through.

However, immaturity is not just for the mentally lazy, since often the intellect is not over-ready to entertain any idea that the heart finds unpalatable.

So the writer brings his gentle but firm rebuke about immaturity (5:11–14).

He sees his readers as still being babies needing milk, when they should have been enjoying solid food and even teaching others.

This has shades of Paul, who has similar complaints in 1 Corinthians 3:1–3: ‘Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ.

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.

Indeed, you are still not ready.

You are still worldly.

For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly?’

There has always been a fatal misunderstanding about the Christian faith.

It is true that we begin our pilgrimage as new-born babes needing the ABC of truth (1 Peter 2:2) and we remain ever childlike in our trust.

However, CHILDLIKENESS is very different from CHILDISHNESS.

No Christian is meant to be a perpetual Peter Pan.

Beware of the temptation to join every Basics course that you can find.

God brings problems and struggles into our lives so that we will not stray from the main road.

He is not angry with us but disciplines us so that we can mature spiritually.

As we mature spiritually, we exhibit a growing capacity to care for and appreciate one another in the body of Christ, regardless of our differences.

Baby Christians are in constant danger from a devil who delights to distract the people of God (see Eph. 4:14).

So let God through his Word and Spirit help us to grow up.

The world in this century, as in the first, needs to be confronted by a strong, mature church.

We do not find such divisions in the early church; they were all one.

Age differences did not count; and they should not count now.

An old man may be a babe in Christ; and a young person can be spiritually mature.

As demonstrated in Hebrews 5:11–6:3, this principle of loving confrontation must be a mode of operation at times between one who proclaims the Word of God and those under his or her charge.

All bodies of believers need to progress in the faith and in the advancement of the kingdom, and most people need to be challenged from time to time to get back in step with biblical principles.

The word that summons believers to evaluate their lives and move on in the pursuit of holiness must be a consistent word from those who preach the Word.

In particular, he wants to see grown-up Christianity: people and communities who have learned, in the only way possible, how to tell right from wrong.

Just as a child learns, or ought to learn, that some things are good and others bad (and learning this is part of the process of human maturity),

so the Christian individual, and the Christian community as a whole in any church or place, should expect to grow up to maturity in discovering the difference between what is appropriate behaviour for a Christian and what is inappropriate.

It isn’t so much that the writer has as his principal aim a desire to get them to change their behaviour.

That is nowhere suggested in the letter.

Rather, he is highlighting this sign of maturity as a way of reminding them that there is such a thing as maturity, that they should be seeking it, and that mature people normally need, and indeed prefer, solid food rather than a purely liquid diet.

The message for us should be clear.

If we find ourselves wanting to turn away from the challenge to think harder about our faith, we should ask ourselves whether we are really prepared to settle for permanent spiritual babyhood.

But there is nothing more irritating and depressing than someone who should be mature but who has become a babe.

Have you become a babe? Perhaps your Christian life is unstable.

Babies are handed from one person to another, and spiritual babes are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14–16).

Have you become a babe?

Perhaps you are divisive in your Christian life.

Babies each have their own crib that they stick to, and spiritual babes have their particular denomination or church that they think of as “my church.”

Have you become a babe?

Perhaps you are star-struck by Christian celebrities of one kind or another.

Babies are focused on one particular person (their mother), and spiritual babes glory in men (I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, as in 1 Corinthians 1:12).

Have you become a babe?

Perhaps you are spiritually asleep.

Babies need a lot of sleep, and spiritual babes spend much time spiritually asleep.

Have you become a babe?

Perhaps you are fussy and cranky with others. Babies can be cranky, and spiritual babes will fuss over any little thing.

Is unskilled in the word of righteousness: Those who have become babes reveal themselves because they are unskilled in the word of righteousness.

We don’t expect brand new Christians to be skilled in the word of righteousness, but those who have been Christians for a time should be.