Hebrews 5:11-
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Desire to Grow up.
Desire to Grow up.
As a child, I was the youngest of three boys.
I came along as a surprise to my mom and dad.
The oldest in my family is 7 years older than I am, and the second oldest in my family is 5 years older than me.
As the baby of the family of two older brothers, I was often left out of doing the cool things they were able to do because I was too young, too little, too short, and most of the time probably just too annoying for my older brothers to let me tag along.
In fact, one strategy they would use to get rid of me was to play hide and go seek.
They would send me to hide and they would “forget” to seek.
For years, I just thought I was a really good hider, but then I wised up.
The only time they seemed to enjoy doing things with me was when they needed to boost their ego by beating me in a game of one on one basketball or letting me pitch to them in the front yard or even worse practicing wrestling moves on the trampoline.
I’ve been power-bombed and choked slammed or stone cold stunned more times than Hulk Hogan.
I remember as a child longing to grow up. I just wanted to get bigger, to get older, so that I could do the things the Big kids get to do.
I wanted to grow up. I wanted to turn 15 so I could get my permit. I wanted to turn 16 to get my day license.
Abi and Evan Grace cant wait to 40, so that they will be allowed to date. I’m for real.
And I think that strikes a nerve with all of us.
I think we all relate to a time in our lives, when we just wish we were old enough to do this, or big enough to do this or tall enough to ride the ride.
We just want to grow.
And while this is certainly the case when it comes to our age or even our physical bodies, it seems there may possibly be a disconnect when it comes to our spiritual lives.
When we just examine the majority of Christians, it seems the desire to grow up and mature in the faith may be altogether absent.
What I mean by that, is it seems that there may at times be an unhealthy contentment in our spiritual lives to just stay where we are.
We seem to be satisfied with the simple things.
But there is so much more.
We have in our hands, the very Word of God, and we are satisfied to remain just casual readers of it or never even read it at all.
We need more than a casual, cursory, elementary knowledge of God’s Word.
We need a church here at Mt. pisgah full of students of this book that make it their aim to know the Word of God not because we want to fill our minds with knowledge.
Ultimately we need to be students of the book because we desire to know the God of the Word. Pause.
Study the Bible.
Just as an aside.
I want you to know as your pastor, that no question is out of bounds here at our church. That goes for adults or children. We need that.
If you have a question, ask it. If you come to a difficult portion of Scripture, Don’t skip it.
Read it, Study it, Learn it. We must do that in order to grow up.
For believers, there should come a point and time in our lives where we should desire more and more knowledge of God through His Word.
This was Peter’s desire.
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s the goal.
Having said all that, This lack of desire. This contentment with casual, cursory knowledge of the things of God is exactly what the author of Hebrews is dealing with right here.
Look what he says in verse 11
Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
He begins here with Concerning Him- The immediate reference he is mentioning here is Christ and Melchizedek and how Christ is a priest like Melchizedek.
And Essentially what He is saying is this, We have a lot more to say about this.
And it is difficult information to digest. But what makes it even harder is his audience have become dull of hearing.
What does that mean?
Later this same Word that is used here for dull of hearing, is translated sluggish.
so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
In other words, the audience has become lazy.
He has much to teach them, but they are lazy.
Its not that they are not intellectually unable. They are unwilling to listen
And you can’t teach someone something if they will not listen.
If they will not try to comprehend and give their minds to thinking what you are saying through, its impossible to convey truth much less hard, difficult truth.
And again, I know I have already spoke toward this, but is this true of us?
Let me just ask you a few questions this morning:
Did you come to church today to learn something?
Did you bring your Bible? Did you come prepared to learn and to grow? Will you take notes? Will you give thought to the sermon this week after 11 o’clock today?
Why did you come here today?
Sometimes I think it is accurate to say that we come to satisfy our conscience for another week and just try and make it to 11 o clock, so we can go eat and get to what we really want to do today.
Is that you today? I want to warn against that.
If you are spiritually lazy, you can’t grow.
If you give little effort, you can expect little gain.
And we will learn next week that perpetual laziness with no desire for obedience is ultimately flowing from a heart of rejection. If you hear and taste of the Word and experience the grace of hearing God’s Word and never respond in obedience with a desire to do God’s will. Well that may indicate that there is no true spiritual life at all.
My hope is that doesn’t describe you.
I encourage you to listen. Don’t lazily come just to get through it.
This time that we are engaging in now (Called the Sermon) is not for me to get up here and put on a show, and you just watch.
The goal is that you hear God’s Word. That you learn now and then later dive even more deeply than I take you in the sermon. There is more to learn about Hebrews 5 than just what I tell you. But you have to go and mine for it.
This sermon is a time to encourage you in your own spiritual journey.
You need to Listen to it! You need to take measures to prepare for this time. Maybe leave your cell phone in the car or turn it off.
Maybe sit on the front row. I promise its normally vacant.
We need the sermon.
There is a danger of becoming so familiar that we actually become careless. And thats when our hearing becomes dull and we come useless.
Look what he goes on to say:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
There are three problems we find in verse 12 about the audience here.
They should already be teaching someone.
By this time you ought to be teachers. In other words, they have been Christians long enough to have grown to the point where you should be teaching others.
They had been in church long enough to where they should know these things.
And with knowing these things theologically, there is an expectation to teach.
Which tells us, that every believer should be teaching someone. This doesn’t mean that every believer is to be a pastor or elder.
This does mean that the time that you spend in Sunday School, or here in the sermon on Sunday Morning, or Sunday Nights, or Wednesday Nights is not merely for your individual benefit.
Its for you to take in so that you may pour what you have learned into someone else.
Children, friends, neighbors, family. Every believer should be helping another believer to follow Christ.
This is called discipleship and all Christians are called to this. Jesus called us to this.
Go and Make Disciples of all nations. That’s the Great Commission.
You should be teaching someone, but you have to exercise the spiritual muscle to learn so that you can. These people should have been teaching, but they were lazy and because they were lazy, they didn’t learn and they couldn’t teach.
2. In fact the second problem what that They needed to be taught the elementary principles. The ABCs
This need to be taught was not because of failure of their teachers. It was their own failure to listen and to learn from the teachers God in His grace had given them.
So after having been Christians long enough to be teachers, they should have been useful.
But they still don’t even really understand the elementary principles of the faith. They still needed to learn the ABC’s.
Its like a senior in High school, who still doesn’t know how to count.
3. They are still spiritual babies.
They need to be fed milk still rather than solid food.
They’ve never been weaned.
You should see here. He is being firm with them.
As believers, we are called to grow in our faith. Empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God, we are press into the truth of God’s Word and seek to grow deeply from it.
The Apostle urges the Corinthian church:
Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.
Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
His audience here had neglected this, and as a result they’re not teaching, instead they need to be taught, and they are babies. He says this again in verse 13.
For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
His language is strong here.
Essentially he is saying these Christians are like grown adults who are still attached to their nursing mothers.
Its been long enough for them to be eating hard meat, but they are still nursing.
Here, he says they are not accustomed to the Word of Righteousness.
The infant Christian here is one who care littles for more knowledge of God’s Word.
They are not accustomed to it because quite frankly they don’t want it. They are not feasting from it daily.
And that can only result in stunted Christian growth.
And a lack of growth as a believer results in a lack of consistent righteous behavior.
This lack of maturity become really evident when that person goes through a hard time.
In other words, those who only drink milk will have a hard time when life demands more sustenance than that.
When dealing with hard questions or hard times in life, its the spiritually mature who handle those things well.
Why?
Because the Word of righteousness produces a righteous life, a life commited to God’s Word. Committed to the spiritual disciplines and committed to studying and growing constantly.
And this will produce a life of discernment. These are the people who handle life’s difficult decisions well.
Look at verse 14
But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Solid food is for the mature.
And solid food comes from the Word of God.
Now to be clear, we never outgrow the Gospel.
(Preach the Gospel)
We never outgrow the need to hear of Christ’s righteous life, Christ’s death, his resurrection, his ascension and his return. How he rescues us from our sin who are unable to save ourselves and gives us life.
We never outgrow the Gospel.
But we do grow deeper in it.
When I first got saved, I understood the basics and the Gospel broadly, but since then, I’ve grown to appreciate and love the intricacies of the Gospel.
God’s Word is rich. Its treasures are deep. The more I study, the more there is to learn.
And the more we learn, the better we are equipped to live our lives according to His will.
But this takes dedication and practice.
Look at the end of verse 14
But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
In that last portion of verse 14, we find the solution, and the goal.
The solution- Because of practice.
That is they carry out these things. Its not enough to know it. We must do it.
But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
Final Illustration: In high school, I did pretty well in school, but I didn’t really try all that hard. I was more concerned with sports and talking with friends and cutting up in class than the school work. i had two teachers. Mrs Margaret Locklair and Mrs Brandi Barbee
And both of them wrote something on my report card that I had to take home.
They wrote the words: Potential Greater than Effort
I would always get in trouble. My grades were fine, but those two teachers saw my effort.
At times, I think we are like that in our walk with Christ.
We’re getting by, so we think. But God knows our effort.
I don’t want that said about my walk with Christ. Potential Greater than Effort.
Application:
We must repent of spiritual laziness.
We must long for more.
Status quo doesn’t exist. We are either growing or we are shrinking.
We need to grow up. Teach someone. You should be making disciples.
It is not just my job to make disciples. Every believer is given that task.
How do we do that?
Give you mind and attention to the things of Christ. Listen to the sermon. Study His Word.
Give proper time and effort to studying The Word of Righteousness.
Use God’s Word as you navigate the difficult decisions of life.