Greater Than (5)
Notes
Transcript
Greater Than
Greater Than
Good morning, I am so glad that you are here this morning. There is a lot going on. We are recognizing our graduates today, we have potluck, and oh yeah I gotta preach.
Before we get into it all, I do want to address something. You may have seen or heard about an article using amazing journalistic skills, sorry that was sarcasm. Anyway it stated denied our request to build our new building. The real story is that there are questions we have to answer about our plans and we will resubmit as everyone who puts in for any building has to do.
Please hear me, we believe God is leading us this direction and there is no committee or power that can thwart what God has planned. We just need to keep praying and trusting.
Now back to our regular scheduled programming.
We are continuing our journey through Hebrews, so please turn in your Bibles, open your Apps, or whatever you have to Hebrews 5.
A small-town church hired a promising, passionate young minister. Week 1, he delivered an incredible, fiery sermon on a fundamental topic like "Love thy neighbor." Week 2, he preached the exact same sermon word-for-word. He did the same in Week 3, 4, and 5.
The church being frustrated sent an Elder to approach the Pastor. "Pastor," the elder said, "you've done the exact same sermon for six weeks. We love it, but the congregation needs a new message." The pastor responded that he had another sermon but they will keep hearing the same message until they actually start living it out.
Over the last few weeks we have seen how the author has laid out the argument that Christ is superior than all who came before as leaders and priests and no one is greater.
Then all of the sudden the author takes a pause. It is like he is saying before we go further and deeper, lets make sure you are ready for this.
The charge has been why we would not go back to our lives before Christ, but it is also not good enough to stay where we are. We are called to keep moving forward. We are expected to grow and mature.
This is where we are going to sit today, so if you would please stand with me as we read the most important words you will hear today.
11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 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,
13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
1 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, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
3 And this we will do if God permits. 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. 9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.
10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Let’s Pray.
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
“We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when his command, his call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirety.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Week after week, people sit in church services, sing songs, and leave with nothing changing in their lives. How frustrating it can be to hear of all the promises and not fully experience them.
I think this is life Jesus was talking about in John 10.
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Abundant, full life only comes when we are growing, maturing, and becoming who we were created to be.
This passage in Hebrews is one of the most argued and misinterpreted.
The emphasis here is on making spiritual progress.
The idea that we must keep growing, so these are warnings and signs as to why we may not be growing.
The first warning.
Dullness towards the Word.
11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Dullness towards the Word.
When is the last time you heard or read God’s Word and it moved your heart.
Has it become common to you?
The issue with the author’s listeners were falling back into their lives before Christ and could not hear the Word.
First they drifted from the word.
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
Then they doubted the Word.
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
Dullness towards the Word.
Bible study, sermons, anything spritual becomes dull.
It becomes easy to replace those things with anything else.
Inability to share the Truth
12 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,
Inability to share the Truth
Everyone has a story to share.
Not everyone has the gift of teaching, but everyone is called to teach.
We spend so much time teaching our kids that sharing is caring, but when it come to the faith we don’t.
How does that make sense?
As we learn and grow more we have more to share.
We get stuck
12 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, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
Stuck with “baby food” rather than real food.
If our kids never moved from milk to meat we know there is a major porblem.
It is the same with our faith.
We have to get past “Jesus loves me this I know”.
The milk is Jesus came, lived, died for my sin, rose again.
The meat is how this changes my life now and life to come.
I am not saying to forget what Christ has done, but it cannot stop there.
When it does, we become:
Unskilled in using the Word
14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Unskilled in using the Word
As we grow in the Word, we learn to use it daily.
It grows our discernment.
Just as we teach right from wrong to kids, the Word develops a sense and the ability t0 hear the Holy Spirit lead us.
Someone who is not growing, just a like a child who will put anything in their mouth, will listen and believe anyone.
If you don’t know what you stand for, you will fall for anything.
These people are best called “inbetweeners”.
They are between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Saved by the blood but not enjoying newness of resurrection life.
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
What about the other side?
We are are called to spiritual maturity.
We al; start as babies in life and faith, but we must all grow up.
A call to spiritual progress
1 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, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.
A call to spiritual progress
The author is not saying forsake the the doctrines that got you here.
This is a starting point, we grow and progress from there.
Your faith is not based on the families faith, your ethnicity, your country of origin.
It is Jesus as the foundation you build your life on.
These were all basic OT doctrines that pointe to the finished work of Christ.
No fake it till you make it.
4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
No fake it till you make it.
These verses have caused much debate.
It sounds as if we can lose our salvation, but that would be in direct conflict of what scripture says not ony in Hebrews but through out.
Some say yes that is what it means, some say this only about non-believers, and others say this hypothetical.
What is being talked about here is Apostasy is what I believe.
Believer’s Bible Commentary Apostasy
Apostates are people who hear the gospel, make a profession of being Christians, become identified with a Christian church, and then abandon their profession of faith, decisively repudiate Christ, desert the Christian fellowship, and take their place with enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not for a moment believe we can lose our salvation.
Progress results in fruitfulness.
7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Progress results in fruitfulness.
We either grow fruit or thorns.
It is not about amount, it is about what grows
9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
Progress results in fruitfulness.
Fruit reveal love and service.
Progress demands diligent effort.
11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Progress demands diligent effort.
It is God who brings the growth, but we must do our part.
We can’t be lazy in our study or service.
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
“Hope in God, who is not the God of the perfect only, but of the becoming.” — George MacDonald
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
We are the becoming.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
Great Growth Greater Maturity
Great Growth Greater Maturity
The question is what are we becoming.
We are called to run.
We are called to move forward.
Where are you headed?
Something a little different this morning. I am going to ask that you sit there and as you watch the video we are about to play, I challenge and even dare you to ask God, where do I need to grow, and then commit to it.
PLAY VIDEO
Let’s pray.
Senior recognition slide show.
