Measuring Maturity

How do you measure maturity? No matter how you measure it, we all expect that with maturity comes some sort of stability. But who is experiencing that these days? Who doesn’t need an anchor for the soul right now?

Seriously holding fast and drawing near to Jesus leads to maturity. (Denying Jesus leads to destruction.) How do we measure maturity? Obviously not physical stature (NBA players). Intelligence and knowledge? There are very smart people who are spiritually bankrupt. According to our passage, maturity is measured by a lifestyle and mindset that comes from anchoring your soul to Jesus. An anchor only works as well as it grabs a hold of something solid. What is your soul anchored to?

So far in Hebrews, we’ve seen in chapter 1 that Jesus is God’s way of speaking to us today. Chapter 2 told us that we as humans have fallen from our glory as created in God’s image but because Jesus is the human being who has restored that glory through His perfect obedience, He restores our glory through redemption. This is good news, a message of salvation. So we had better pay attention and obey the message. Abide in Christ. He will restore you. But the passage last week ended with some words that could be a little troubling, 4:12-13. God’s word is living and active, and exposes what’s in my heart, my thoughts and intentions. But my heart is so filled with corruption, I’m not sure I want God poking around in there. So our passage today gives us a renewed hope, not in our own purity, righteousness, or spiritual maturity. Our hope is in Jesus. Spiritual maturity can be measured by the degree to which a person anchors their soul to Jesus.

Begins (4:14) and ends (6:19-20) with the declaration that Jesus Christ is our great high priest; He has entered heaven itself to minister on our behalf. With this in mind, there are three exhortations, three “let us(es)”…

Hold Fast Our Confession

4:14 - “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.”

“Since then” - refers all the way back to 2:17 where we found out that Jesus was made just like us in the flesh that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest who offered Himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So, in other words, Jesus knows exactly what it is like to be you, in all your humanity. Your good intentions and your failures to measure up. 4:15, He is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He understands you like no one else, and He understands how to succeed where we have failed. Don’t we all want someone like this in our life?

Considering who Jesus is, we are to hold fast our confession. What is our confession? “Jesus, the Son of God, is our High Priest.” What have we learned about Jesus in Hebrews? Jesus shares the nature of God, He is God who became man. He is the complete human being. He is the Son of God and our Great High Priest. Our High Priest, the one who represents us to God, and ministers for God to us, has “passed through the heavens.” What does that mean?

The Bible records the experience of people who have gotten a glimpse of heaven and found out that it is set up as a temple, with a throne at the center. Moses received a vision of this heavenly temple and set up the tabernacle as an earthly copy. Jesus is our unique high priest, who did not just offer sacrifices in an earthly temple for our sins, but has offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and so has been accepted in heaven itself by God. This was demonstrated when God raised Him from the dead and ascended Him from the earth, through the heavens, to sit at the right side of the throne of God to minister there on our behalf, praying for us, offering us God’s forgiveness.

So this passage is telling us that our confession of who Jesus is as a merciful, faithful, understanding, victorious High Priest, strong enough to save us, is the starting place of our spiritual maturity. A confession is not just words. It is a truth that guides the way you live.

I am going to throw the anchor of my soul on this truth, that Jesus is the one who has re-united heaven and earth. He is the Son of God. He can unite me to God. This is where my peace, confidence, hope, stability, and joy are found.

Draw Near with Confidence

(4:16). God’s throne is a throne of grace. When we recognize how needy we are, this could cause us to hide and avoid God. But that’s only for the person that doesn’t know Him. For those of us who have come to know God in the Person of Jesus, we realize He is strong and kind, true and gentle, powerful and humble. He is merciful and faithful. This is what God is like. In our greatest moment of need, it may be temptation and we need grace to help us overcome it, or it could be after we have been overcome by our temptation and failed once again and we need mercy. Both are available, so draw near confidently.

You can measure spiritual maturity by the ability to get over yourself, to realize that your relationship with God does not depend on your strength to succeed. It depends on who Jesus is for you, and what He has succeeded in doing even where we have failed. A mature Christian is not one that gets everything right all the time. It is the person who, no matter whether they are doing well or are failing, God wants them to draw near.

Go On to Maturity

Our third “let us” comes in 6:1. God’s desire is that we have a solid hope, faith, and patience as we inherit the blessings promised to Abraham.

The person who does these things,

· Has “confidence, earnestness, full assurance of hope, faith and patience, strong encouragement, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope”.

· Receives blessings like mercy and grace to help in time of need, the Holy Spirit (who brings enlightenment, the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come (resurrection)).

· Has communion with Jesus.

The warning: “falling away” - enlightened to the truth of the gospel, which comes to us from the Holy Spirit, participating in the life of the church, and never abiding in Christ, this person falls away and dies, and doesn’t come back. Many people have heard the truth of redemption and restoration in Jesus and maybe even agree to the truth, but don’t live according to the truth. When the tests of life demonstrate that their faith was not truly in Jesus, they fall away, but because they have been deceived, don’t come back. This is the person we all probably know that “tried Jesus once and ...” This is a very serious warning. Don’t come to church, listen, benefit from the blessings of the community of faith, nod your head in assent as if you understand, if you’re not going to put this truth into practice. You’re deceiving yourself, and you are destroying yourself.

But there is hope. The author says, if you’re reading this, “in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things — things that belong to salvation (6:9).” If you are not hard hearted, if you let God transform you by the gospel of salvation in Jesus, through His word, and you work out of love by serving others, our desire is that you would apply that same earnestness to your assurance and hope. Don’t be tossed around by doubts and a troubled heart. How do we become mature, stable Christians, who aren’t constantly doubting and fearful?

The passage ends with these awesome words, 6:19-20. Jesus has entered the presence of the Almighty, Holy God to pray for us, to advocate for us, to say yes every time we go to Him for help or for forgiveness. The mature person is the one that has thrown the anchor of their soul onto Jesus, and learned to abide in Him as their security, their hope, their life.

Our passage describes human nature with words like: weak, ignorant, wayward, dull of hearing and immature, sluggish. Maybe well meaning and wanting to do works of love, but ultimately sinful, weak, in need of mercy and grace. But we are not helpless. We can grow into maturity. In Jesus Christ, we receive grace, blessings of promises made to others, into which we enter by faith. Jesus, who was perfectly obedient, is strong to save. He uses His time to pray for us. In His time in the flesh on earth, he experienced every suffering and temptation we face, but conquered. He is the measure of the mature human. We don’t measure up by more effort. We only measure up as we abide in Christ.

Discussion Questions

What were you able to apply from what we learned last week?

What did we learn today about who Jesus is?

What are some ways we can center our own lives on our confession of who Jesus is? What are some ways we can center the life of our church community on this confession?

What are some things we learn about ourselves in this passage?

What are some ways we measure maturity that are incomplete and inadequate, according to this passage?