Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

In 2006, a movie was released called Failure To Launch.

Anybody see this movie?

It starred Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Aniston and Kathy Bates.

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: