I Believe in God...

I Believe...

Christian faith isn't just a set of beliefs and traditions, but should inform the very foundation of all we say and do.

Pastor John Gray, who recently came under scrutiny for buying his wife a $200K Lamborghini, And it was handled by John Crist, popular Christian humorist, pronounced that we are all sinners so we cant really criticize the sins of others.

“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.” — Leonard Ravenhill christian evangelist who mentored the likes of AZ Tozer, Dave Wilkerson, Ravi Zacharis, and more.

Pastors avoid topics where their views are contrary to mainstream: marriage, homosexuality, abortion, war, poverty

The Church used to be a lifeboat rescuing the perishing. Now she is a cruise ship recruiting the promising." Ravenhill Church is recruiting numbers. Many have built campuses that they can no longer maintain or afford because of declining attendance adn that trend has been going on since 2000.

Mega church promises made decades ago of community and powerful social impact have all proven to be wrong. With all that power and money, society in growing colder to the gospel, not warmer, and definetly colder to the concept of church.

This year, I would like to build on the foundation of our faith to challenge us all to see the critical issues facing us as we move into a new year and our response to them as born-again, Spirit-filled Christians.

Spirit of Life is loving faith-filled people. Why don’t I give it a rest? We live out our faith, we look for opportunities to share the truth, be quiet why don’t ya!

I think we are going to be challenged in new and more difficult ways. I’m not sure how. I don’t sense physical persecution like China or the middle east, but it’s not far from my thoughts.

Jesus wants his disciples to mature in their understanding of their faith so that they can discern morality or ethics in the world and teach others to do so.

The problems coming at us today are so many and so convoluted that we need to admit that we might need to look more closely at our long held opinions to confirm that they hold up to scripture and when they do and people may be offended by them, we are prepared Not only with words but by prayer and love.

Begin our series, i want to start with Hebrews 5:13-14.

Background . Paul was writing yes author discussion to those Jews who had accepted the gospel message but were being enticed to go back to the jewish faith.

he document itself informs us that the addressees had learned of Jesus by way of apostolic testimony (2:3). Their own religious background had instilled in them a reverence for the covenant of Moses as mediated by angels (2:2; cf. Ac 7:53), an awareness of the Day of Atonement ritual (9:7), a concern for ceremonial washing (6:2; 9:10), and a hope in the coming Day of God's visitation (10:25). These elements point to a Jewish faith not entirely unlike that of the separatists at Qumran—very conservative, with a heightened regard for purification rituals, perfection of life, and an eschatological (end-times) focus (see Bruce, “‘To the Hebrews’ or ‘To the Essenes’?”). Soon after coming to Christ the addressees had suffered persecution, public abuse, confiscation of property, and perhaps even imprisonment; they accepted these torments joyfully for the sake of Christ (10:32-34). Now, however, the threat upon them was sufficient to make them neglect church fellowship (10:25) and shrink from Christian espousals (10:35-39).

The fledgling church was challanged everywhere especially as it became easy to blame them for societal woes. This loving church has to deal with the probably persecution and seems to be encouraging or resorting to blending their Christian ways with Jewish thougths and traditions. Paul is trying to both show them how superior Christianity is in this book but also warn them that these two religions are in conflict

They had been Christians a long time, he reminded them, so that by this time they ought to be teachers. Others who had been in the faith less time than they should be profiting from their instruction. Instead they needed someone to instruct them again in the basics

exhortation to go deeper and a warning

mature - teleios. brought to completion vs stoicheia - basic truth of the elementary principles

Why the aversion of deeper growth?

Paul is saying leave behind those fundamentals, or original principles and lets get on with the deeper stuff. interestingly Paul lists those elementary principles repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, eternal judgement.

Christianity is not compatible with jewish works righteousness. it’s not compatible with mormonism, jehovah witness, islam, budfdhism, hinduism, and many others. That is not isolational elitism, it is just truth. that is what Paul is saying here.

So here he begins the systematic laying down of the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Let’s not get confused here because we need to push on to maturity, the perfection of our faith.

Why is this going to be important to us?

Jesus wants us mature to teach others and produce fruit for the kingdom.

This year let’s review the fundamentals of our faith and move to a greater maturity.