Sermon Tone Analysis

*Dull of Hearing*

Hebrews 5:11-14

As a parent of five children, I’ve seen many things that my children have attached themselves to.

They have loved cars, Legos, dolls and stuffed animals.

But then there have been blankets and pacifiers – those comfort objects when they cry or feel tired.

All of my children have loved pacifiers, except for one child.

He loved his middle two fingers.

I wonder if he just thought that was more convenient than finding a pacifier.

After all, pacifiers can be lost.

But fingers, well, they’re with you all the time.

So, he would walk around his house with those two fingers comforting him.

This habit lasted a few years.

And then there was this one day when Tracy was talking with some of the kids and she commented on how our son sucked his fingers – to which he corrected her and said he didn’t do it anymore.

Tracy thought about that and then realized he was right.

One day, he just decided he was done – and that was it.

I think we’ve all had scenarios like that.

Maybe your parents told you that you were too old for something or maybe you thought to yourself, “I’m a big girl or a big boy.

I shouldn’t do this anymore.”

Either way, with growing up, you gave up things that were meant for children.

Every human being has a desire to grow up.

Adults, if someone said to you, “You’re acting like a five year-old,” I don’t think you’d say, “Well, thank you! That’s what I’ve been striving for!”

Yet, from a spiritual perspective, I think many Christians are content with spiritual infancy.

I can’t speak for other cultures, but I can say that in our culture, I’m very concerned.

I’m not trying to be unfair or sinfully judge others when I say what I’m about to say.

Please understand that in what I’m about to say.

It feels to me that many churches in our culture don’t really care about doctrine – and many leadership in churches cater to the anemic state of their congregation.

You can pick up a book or listen to “experts” regarding how to attract people to the church, and there will be comments on sermon length and how many songs.

And, while I get some of it, I’m also concerned that pastors don’t try to challenge their people.

They simply try to find where their people are at, and they stay there.

Sadly, I think that many in the American church want a cool Christianity and not a costly one.

And, when talking about doctrine, many professing Christians find it to be a drudgery and not a delight.

The spiritual laziness in the American church is seen even more when you compare it to other cultures around the world.

For example, when you hear Christians in China praying for us that we would experience persecution because maybe that’s what will wake us up.

Or, when you have a Christian pastor from another country coming to America and being amazed at how much the church can do without the Holy Spirit – and that pastor is commenting on the prayerlessness of the local churches themselves.

But even if you compare the church today to the church 500 years ago, you see a dramatic contrast.

During what was referred to as the Reformation time-period, when God awakened many to the glorious truths that we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone – God revealed his work through people longing to know more of him.

This is what God’s grace does.

God’s grace gives us a thirst for him.

Right here, before me now, I have a two-volume theology treatise written by a Reformer who was also a pastor – the pastor I spoke of last week who was kicked out of his town and then invited back.

This two-volume work is almost 2,400 pages, and you want to know who the general reader of this work was?

The average person in the pew.

It was written for the congregation.

Yet today, that work is read in the seminaries.

And, I would imagine if I handed you that book, you’d either say that’s too deep or maybe that you just don’t have the time.

Maybe both of those reasons are true, but it still concerns me.

Even recently, I came across a statistic on television viewing.

The average person spends more than 70 hours watching television per month.

If that’s you, did you realize that if you exchanged that time with reading the Bible, you’d read the Bible through in /one/ month?

As you hear me say all of these things, don’t simply hear me speaking to you and not to myself.

Over the last couple weeks especially, I’ve been concerned about my time spent with social media and how it affects the other priorities in my life.

So, this past week, I took one significant step in being more proactive with my time.

And I also told my wife and David Pollard what my plan was.

You see, I was concerned that I was getting all these social media snippets, but my brain was turning to mush.

As a result, I was concerned my mind wasn’t engaged when I’d read the Word or read other books.

I was concerned about my priority with family and the church and others.

Then I realized, the only way things are going to change is if I take proactive steps to change.

Novel idea, right?!

Then, on Tuesday, I began to study for the message for this morning.

As I began to study, I realized how God merged my life-situations with the text at hand.

Here, in this text, the author of Hebrews takes a break with talking about theology and Melchizedek, and he confronts the Hebrew Christians.

If you remember, last week, the author talked about how the high priests dealt “gently” with the Israelites.

That term was a term to indicate a gentleness while still dealing with sin.

As you hear that, you could have been confused and thought, “What does this look like?”

Others could have thought the author was thinking sin can’t be dealt with firmly.

Well, these verses here (and in chapter 6), reveal that dealing gently is not opposed to being firm.

As I read these verses, I think of the people and preachers I’ve known who could confront me and yet I was confident of their love.

I’d listen to a sermon and think, “That hurt so good.”

While I felt I had been cut up, I knew it was with the precision of a surgeon in order to remove sin.

I pray this sermon functions that way for you.

You see, the author has been urging this struggling Christian church to not drift from Jesus, to exhort one another daily as long as it’s called today, to gaze at Jesus and see his superior worth.

And finally, the author essentially says, *“I’m not simply warning you to not drift.

You have drifted, and if you keep going, you’re going to shipwreck your faith.”*

As you hear the words from the text, I pray that they would convict you as they convicted me, and that where the Spirit calls you to repentance, that you would turn to the Lord for forgiveness and also for grace to obey.

With this in mind, let’s pray together for us, for the churches around the globe and also for another church in our area: Grand Haven Community Baptist (Ray Paget: preach the Word with power, clarity, confidence and expectation.

That I would love and shepherd God's people and not neglect praying for the Lord's work and mercy in their lives.

Pray for a wonderful servant of the Lord who has non-treatable cancer.

She continues to serve others, without thought of her own impending demise.

Please pray the Lord would allow her to bring glory to Himself, either through her healing or through her ongoing care and concern for others as a life-changing example of servanthood.)

*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]

About Jesus and Melchizedek, the author has a lot to say.

That’s true.

He picks up the topic again later in Hebrews.

Then he says “it’s hard to explain.”

And some of you may have felt it was hard to understand last week.

Why in the world is this guy talking to a persecuted church about the order of Melchizedek.

Maybe you thought that the author seems to be pulling something out of nowhere to try to give encouragement.

So, you turned your brain off.

The author, while not being with the Christians as they read this, anticipates that the Hebrew church is probably not going to track with him here; so, he takes a step back and admits this is hard to explain.

But then he states the reason why it’s hard to explain.

It’s not because the information itself is so difficult to grasp.

It’s because the church is dull of hearing.

Finally, the author brings his concern to the forefront.

The church isn’t just in danger of potentially drifting.

They have drifted.

And, instead of thinking, “Well, they’re going through persecution, I’ll tell them my concern when circumstances get a little easier.”

No, the author knows that painful circumstances can be precisely the moments when we are drawn away from God and shipwreck.

Out of love for the church, the author confronts.