Grow: Head, Heart, Hands

The story is that this 35-year-old guy is still living at home with his parents. And not only is he still living at home with his parents. He’s happy to be living at home with his parents. He’s got a pretty thing going on as far as he’s concerned. His mom enables this laziness on his part by doing his laundry and cooking his meals. He goes to work, makes a good salary, doesn’t pay rent. He’s got his friends and a boat and a pretty good life.

That’s where Jennifer Aniston comes in. She specializes in getting men out of their parents’ homes. If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you.

The point of the movie is that there is something wrong with this guy who still lives at home at the age of 35. He may be physically grown and developed; he may be a full grown man. Yet in a very real sense, he still hasn’t grown up.

Alot of Christians are in the same position spiritually speaking. They’ve been believers for years, maybe decades; yet they have not grown in the faith. They may have gray hairs, but their biblical knowledge is more along the lines of an infant.

And just like in the movie, we have people who enable these believers to keep sort of coasting along. Pastors and deacons and other church leaders place these believers in positions of leadership because they may have business credentials and leadership experience. But they harm the church and the people in it because they don’t have the biblical knowledge and Christian maturity that it takes to serve in church leadership.

There’s something wrong with this picture. This is what our text is about today. Spiritual growth - growth in Christ - growth in biblical knowledge - growth in Christian maturity - growth in wisdom - growth in sanctification. God expects it. God provides the meaans for it. And there is something wrong when it doesn’t happen. It can even spiritually dangerous, perhaps even eternally dangerous, to fail to grow.

This is part of our sermon series on summer theme. What was last year’s summer theme?

What is this year’s summer theme?

Be The Church.

You can see the permanent logo for our church on your screen.

Now you can see the summer theme on your screen. Be The Church. What does it mean to be the church? It means to worship, serve, grow, and love. It’s the purpose of these sermons to help you understand what it looks like to worship, serve, grow, and love.

May the Lord bless the preaching of His word.

#1: Growth begins with the mind (head)

Notice with me what the author of Hebrews says in verses 11-12.

“About this we have much to say.” About what? If you went through the book of Hebrews with us in Sunday evening Bible study, you saw how deep the book of Hebrews is. It’s all about how Christ is fulfillment of the old covenant, the priesthood, the sacrifices. The theme of the book is: Jesus is better than all that and He’s better than any other God-substitutes we might have in our lives, so put them away, don’t go back to them.

“About this” - about Christ and His greatness and the fullness of His salvation - “about this we have much to say.”

They aren’t understanding the depth of teaching they’re being given. But not for the reason we might expect. We might say that people don’t understand depth of teaching because the preacher talks over their heads, or since the subject matter is too much for them to handle. Those are common objections to pastors and teachers who preach and teach with depth.

But is that the reason the author of Hebrews gives for their failure to understand? Let’s see. Verse 11: “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since” - what? “since you have become dull of hearing.”

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand...”

Now that is hard to hear, because it suggests that sometimes if we don’t understand, it’s our fault. Anybody have the NIV translation? The NIV brings this out.l What does it say? It says this: “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand” (Heb 5:11 NIV).

Sometimes we grow and progress and mature and then we have a set back. That was the case with the Hebrews. You’ll notice he says in verse 11 that you have become dull of hearing. Now he says, you need someone to invest that time with you again to help you re-learn what you’ve lost. We see that in verse 12: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers” — not meaning like an official teaching position in the church per se, but at least you need the knowledge to help a new believer grasp the basics. Burt that’s not possible for them, because he goes on to say: “you need someone to teach you again — note that word — “the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.”

Notice with me in your Bibles the contrast he draws between mature and immature. Verse 13: “For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

“You’re immature in the faith”, he’s saying. “And you shouldn’t be. By this point you should be teaching and discipling others. Instead we have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over.” If this happens to us, it is our doing.

In fact, if you and I don’t understand Christian doctrine, it might even be more our fault than for the Hebrews. Hebrews was written to Christians who didn’t have any of the resources that we have today. They had no Bibles of their own. The New Testament was still being written and collected.

By contrast, I have more Bibles in my house than I can keep track of. I’ve got access to every translation in the world in any language in the world simply by a couple of taps on my phone. Church, we have more biblical resources at our fingertips, accessible within seconds, than any other previous generation of believers, and yet we have less knowledge, less maturity, and more biblical illiteracy than our grandparents and their grandparents. There is just not any excuse for this.

Now let me reassure you. If that’s hard for some of you, that’s ok. The Holy Spirit will teach you. It doesn’t require you to be super smart or to be a scholar. You just have to be willing and open to receiving through the teaching of your pastors what God wants to show you about Himself. Do what you have to do. Take notes if that helps you. Have your Bibles out and open and following along. Have a pen or pencil in your hand to underline things in your Bible. Be an active sermon listener.

[Active sermon listener slide]

Growth begins with the mind. Let me give you a few suggestions to getting God’s truth into our minds so that it makes its way down into our hearts.

[Getting Christian truth into your mind slide]

Getting Christian truth into your mind:

1. Be an active sermon listener

2. Take notes

3. Have your Bible out and open

4. Keep a pencil/pen nearby and underline

5. Come regularly to at least one small group Bible study

Growth begins with the mind. Once we understand this and get to work, then we can do what the author encourages us to do chapter six verses 1-2. “Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.” Literally the Greek says “let us be taken along”. The NIV again captures this:

“Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity...”

We study and learn, but God uses that and He is the one who brings us along; we merely yield to Him. Jesus beckons us to go on to maturity. He stretches out His hand to us with no shame or condemnation but with a smile on his face he invites us. “Are you ready to go? Are you ready to try again?”

Growth begins with the mind. God never bypasses the mind to get to the heart. But beginning with our minds, growth then takes root in our hearts.

#2: Growth takes root within the heart

Growth takes root in the heart.

Let’s recap last week, shall we?

Remember Mr. Head? He’s the thinker. He can reason. He can critique. He loves Bible study. But he can’t feel emotion. He’s not in touch with what’s going on in his heart. And he can’t get to work serving, using his hands.

How about Mr. Heart? Mr. Heart is the feeler. Mr. Heart is easily moved. He’s emotionally self-aware. He’s emotionally-expressive. He doesn’t mind feeling things while he worships, he’ll raise his hands while he worships. But Mr. Heart sees Bible study and teaching as a downer. He’d rather feel than think or do.

And lastly, I give you Mr. Hand. Mr. Hand is not a feeler or a think but rather a doer. Action seems to mean more to Mr. Hand. Let’s not stay in the church and sing; let’s go outside the church and be the church. He’d rather go and out and let his life be a sermon rather than sit and listen to a sermon.

Now, which one are you? Are you a thinker, a feeler, or a doer? All of us gravitate toward one of those things. It’s just the way God has wired us. But there’s the problem: Mr. Head, Mr. Heart, and Mr. Head tend to think that everyone should be like them. We take the way God has wired us and make it a standard for everyone else, and when fail to measure up to that standard, we judge others who aren’t like us.

God intends for us to grow in all three. Mr. Hand can’t be content to just do; he needs to learn how to think and feel; he needs to study and worship. Mr. Heart can’t be content just to feel; he needs to invest time in Bible study and service. And Mr. Head shouldn’t be happy just studying; he needs the transfer from his head to his heart to his hand.

Head, heart, hands. Now we applied these to worship last Sunday but they apply to growth too and in fact all of life. This is biblical. Here’s why. Look with me at the screen at what Jesus said about head, heart and hands.

Matthew 22:34–40 ESV

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

He says to love God with all of our mind, which means He wants to teach us to be thinkers and students of God’s word. He tells us to love God with all of our heart, so He wants to teach us to be feelers who have affection for God, whose emotions are active. And when He tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, He tells us to put head and heart together in serving others with our hands.

So, growth in Christ begins in the head and, then, takes root in the heart. How do we see that in our text?

Look with me at verses 3-6: “And this we will do, if God permits. 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, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 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.”

Questions to ask:

Have I trusted fully in Christ for salvation?

Am I still trusting Him to save me?

Am I growing in obedience?

If not, do I at least want to?

Now this is kind of scary langauge. It should make us a little bit — not afraid — but introspective. These are the questions we should ask ourselves: Have I trusted in Christ wholly? Am I leaning and resting on Him now at this point in my life for my salvation and on Him alone? Am I growing in obedience to Him? If I’m not, do I at least desire to grow? If I’m not, do I at least experience some discomfort because I’m not growing?

These are the questions we should ask ourselves. “Examine yourselves,” the apostle Paul says, “to see whether you are in the faith” (2Cor. 13:5). Why? Because true believers grow. Not all the time. Not without fits and starts. Not without ups and downs. But the overall direction of our lives must be growth.

[SCREENSHOT OF TEXT MESSAGE]

As you all know, the youth and several adult chaperones went to camp this past week. My daughter Abigail one nightr was texting me and telling me about the fun she was having. They’d been to the pool and to the beach and they were going to go for a night swim in the pool that evening. She met this really cool camp counselor and she had someone take picture with him and she sent it to me. She was so excited and I was engaging with in texting.

And then, all of a sudden - I get this message: “Well dad Gracie’s here and we’re really busy and we have a lot going on so I gotta now, love you.” Now fathers, you all know that as dads we sort of dread our children growing up, but it’s different with our little girls. Because, you see, she’s under my care until she meets the man God has for her to marry. And it’s hard to imagine one day that won’t be my responsibility to her anymore. That text message, especially the phrase “gotta go”, was like a wake up call: she’s growing up.

But the fact is, too, that even though both of my kids are growing up way too fast, as parents we know that growing up is good. It’s what God intends. And if they don’t grow up, something has gone wrong.

It’s the same thing spiritually for Christians. Growing in Christ is good; growing in Christ is expected for all believers. If we aren’t growing and never grow, and don’t even have the desire to do so, we might be in the situation the author of Hebrews is warning about.

This verse is not saying that a true believer can lose their salvation. Here’s why I say that. This passage uses words never used in the Bible of believers.

Phrases that do not refer to true believers in vv. 4-5

“have once been enlightened”

“have tasted the heavenly gift”

“have shared in the Holy Spirit”

“have tasted in the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come”

What does it mean to “fall away” (v. 6)

To prove ourselves unbelievers by our lifelong lack of growth in obedience

These verses are saying that if we never grow, never have the desire to grow, never have periods where we’re striving for growth, then by our lack of growth, and by our lack of a desire for growth, if that continues, in the end we will have proven ourselves to have been unbelievers. Growth is expected. We see that in verses 7-8:

Hebrews 6:7–8 ESV

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. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

God has given us the rain of His word that should bear fruit in our lives. He’s given us pastors and teachers to be our farmers, to cultivate the land. He’s given us Himself, His own Spirit, to live within us and change us gradually. What the author of Hebrews is saying is that all of that must lead to a change in our lives. In other words, the truth of God’s must take root in our hearts and bear fruit there. “I have hidden thy word in my heart,” declares the psalmist — how does the rest of it go? “That I might not sin against God” (Psalm 119:11).

It must, in other words, not only start with the mind and take root in the heart, but show itself with our hands.

#3: Growth shows itself with the hands

Now the author of this letter warned the Hebrews about the potential danger they were in by not growing. But here, like a good pastor, he turns to comfort them. Honestly, this passage used to really scare me until I noticed the context, what he says right after in verses 9-11. Look first at just the first verse, verse 11: “Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things — things that belong to salvation.”

Just writing that verse as I wrote my sermon and just saying that verse now is very moving to me. It is God reassuring us. The warning is there as a guardrail to keep us from completely giving up and walking away. But the reassurance is here to communicate to us that God is not the kind of God to just let us walk away. “I have spoken about the dangers of walking away from the faith and proving yourself to be an unbeliever. But in reality I really feel like that isn’t the case with you.” The author is almost saying, “I believe in you.”

Why does he believe in them? He explains in verse 10: “For God not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints” — notice that love for God’s name and fame and glory is expressed by loving one another — “God is not so unjust as to your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

He’s saying, “I have seen the fruit of your faith. I have seen and heard about your love for those fellow Christians who are struggling. You have a reputation for caring and loving your neighbor. You wouldn’t be doing those things if God hadn’t been at work in your heart. And if he’s been at work in your heart, he will complete that work, because God always finishes what He starts.”

In other words, “your knowledge of God’s word you have taken in with your mind has taken root in the heart and it is showing itself in the works of your hands.”

But we can’t coast along on past good deeds.Where do we see that? Verses 11-12: “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

We can’t live forever on mountaintop experiences. We can’t let our guard down and stop serving and growing just because we have grown in the past. Youth, you had a wonderful week at camp. Some of you made decisions and commitments. To some of you God revealed Himself in a way you haven’t experienced before. You grew!

Don’t rely on those experiences you had to carry you through the rest of the year. Now it’s time to focus on following Jesus and growing every day — being grateful for the experience you had with God, but not demanding or expecting that He show up that way all the time.

Conclusion and call for response

Growth begins in the mind. Growth takes root within the heart. And growth shows itself with the work of our hands.

So as our musicians come this morning, let me ask you two questions.

Are you growing? Can you look back over the last five years and see ways that you’ve matured? Can you spot areas where you’ve become more consistent in obedience? Are some things easier for you now than they were then?

If you’re not growing, why do you think that is? Is it because you see God as being disappointed with you? You’ll never grow if you see God that way. God is not disappointed with you if you’ve trusted in Christ for your salvation, and He never will be. He is as pleased with you as He is with His Son Jesus.

Last question: if you’re not growing, what do you need to do today to fix that?

Put one foot in front of the other every day, and when you stumble and fall, and you will, choose to see Jesus standing beside you, smiling at you, holding out his hand, raising you up, and saying, “Do you wanna try again?”

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