"Be On Guard Against Spiritual Immaturity"

(Story of my dad sitting me down when I was in jr. high and telling me it was time to get a job and helping me to begin to grow from a child into an adult, into a man. I was no longer going to sit around and sleep in. As a young man I had a paper route and by the time i was in High School I was working two jobs, going to school and playing sports. All of these things were helping me to learn that being an adult was not easy, but their came a time where I had to grow and not just sleep in or sit around at the comfort of mom and dad.)

What stands out to us from our passage is that the author of Hebrews is not only rebuking his people, but he is also exhorting them. He exhorts them the way any caring and compassionate Father would do with his very own children. He admonishes them for their ignorance and immaturity in their trust of God. The author helps us see that these people have never grown up, they still need the spiritual milk that an infant Christian would need when they should be eating solid food or desiring the deeper things of God’s Word. The author wants them to leave their childish ways behind and to grow up by developing a solid appetite for the food of God’s Word. It’s as if the author is saying, “Hey church it’s time to grow up!”

1. Immaturity hinders us from growing in the Lord.

Hebrews 5:11–13 ESV

11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

The author uses this phrase, “about this” which is reference to the previous discussion that Matt addressed last week about the differences between the priesthood of Christ and Aaron. The important lesson of that is this, the great high priesthood of Christ is superior to that of any priest because of what Christ has done for us. The author desires for his readers to grasp this and that is why the rebuke happens. There are several things we see here in these first few verses about the people’s immaturity.

-The first diagnosis or problem is that they have dull hearing. (vs. 11)The author really wants to keep talking about the priesthood of Christ, but he stops because he knows that it is hard to explain. We see this in verse 11. But why is this so? It is hard to explain because the people have gotten too lazy to understand. These people don’t have mature ears, hearts, and minds for grasping the concepts of God’s Word. As Christians we should have a desire to grow in our faith, and as the Lord is growing us and teaching us things we are better equipped to understand the priesthood of Christ along with other mature subjects. When we shut our ears to God’s Word and become spiritually lazy we regress in our faith and have a hard time comprehending things.

Church, believers have a moral responsibility to grow and when we do we are able to know and understand what God’s Word says. In fact, God’s Word teaches us that our ignorance of God’s Word is a moral problem and not an intellectual one. The Hebrew church had become sluggish, they were immature and became dull of hearing, and their hearts were indifferent to Scripture. I pray that this is not true of us.

-The second issue here is that the church had a childish understanding. (12-13)Not only do they have dull hearing and no ability to understand spiritual concepts like the priesthood of Christ, but they have also forgotten the main things of their Christian faith. They have been given plenty of time to learn these things and should have now been teaching the elementary things of the faith to others but they can’t. They actually need teachers to reteach them these doctrines of the Christian faith once again. What this shows us is that they had a willful choice not to know and grow in their faith.

Here in verse 12 we see the reference to teachers. This is not talking about a pastor or elder, someone who teaches God’s Word in the church. No, this is talking about the responsibility of discipling other believers. Not all Christians will be pastors or elders in their church. However, all Christians are expected to be teachers in the sense that they should train new believers (children, students, single adults or couples) in the basic fundamentals of the faith. We all should have a desire to help people know the Lord and grow in Him.

Notice this word “again.” It is here because the people did not grasp the teaching they already had. They turned off the hearing because they were lazy and childish. Maybe they desired to hear some jokes or something culturally relevant for their time. They may have even desire a leadership talk more than the teaching of God’s Word but for whatever reason they had to be taught again. Sadly, this congregation needed more than a recap lesson, they actually had to go all the way back and relearn the basics.

I want to address a quick thing here and I need you to please listen. As a church and as a pastor I have a duty to help feed you the Word of God each week. This is designed in a way to help you grow. However your spiritual life should also be that you take responsibility for your own growth. You need to have an appetite for grace, knowledge and understanding. The more you know about God, the more you should want to learn. When you begin to grow in your faith the natural out pouring of that is to share that and help others grow.

The author here helps us to see something important in our Christian faith. Before we can handle the more difficult subjects in God’s Word we have to be able to understand the basic truths. What are these basic truths? We will see these in just a moment at the beginning of chapter six. For right now, I will just say that these truths make up the story of Scripture. Scripture is God’s spoken word and He shows us the history of Israel and the church. God reveals truths about Himself that help our understanding of who he is and establish the foundational doctrines of our faith.

Here is the point I want us to understand today church. As a result of spiritual laziness, we will remain infants in our faith. Physically speaking, any doctor will tell you that for a young child their digestive systems can only handle milk and not solid food. The same is true for spiritual infants. So, I want you to hear this today because we need to be growing in the faith. This congregation here in Hebrews should be ready for the spiritual filet migion, but instead they are still using the sippy cup to get milk. Here is how Paul says it in 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 3:1–2 ESV

1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,

Paul is contrasting the spirit and the flesh, the author of Hebrews contrasts the skilled to the unskilled. But, what happens here is that when we put both of these texts together we learn that spiritual immaturity leads to moral immaturity. When infant believers don’t understand God’s Word or are not in God’s Word they live to the flesh rather than the spirit. They don’t see that they need to live in a right and obedient way to God. Let me ask you today have you submitted your life to Christ? When you do that you die to yourself and begin to follow God.

The last thing I want to point out here is this phrase, “the word of righteousness.” This essentially means the message that leads to salvation. This points us toward the good news of what Christ has done for us. Christians are not to be ignorant about the gospel. No, we should be able to explain it and help others know about Christ. We should have a desire to become spiritually mature. That is why the author here pleads for his people to leave behind the infant childish ways and grow up into maturity.

2. We must heed the call to move from the basics to maturity.

Hebrews 5:14–6:3 ESV

14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. 1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.

We now come to the critical point of this text. We see the difference between a mature Christian and those who are immature. There should come a time in a believers life where they see the importance of faithfully and diligently studying God’s Word so that they can have a sense of discernment. What that means is that only those who know God’s Word and are mature can distinguish good from evil. So many of us look at our world today and wonder why they act the way they do right? Well it is because they are not believers, they think and believe they can live and do and say whatever because you only live once so why not live for yourself and please yourself. I would even say immature believers can fall into this category. Those who are immature are too weak and have not had enough practice.

As believers, discernment is so critical to how we live. It takes shape in ways that are not overtly intellectual. Discernment is like a theological grid or a worldview that helps us make instant moral judgments about our circumstances. The author of Hebrews says that when we learn to practice discernment, we are ready for the solid food or the more weightier matters of God’s Word.

Now this does not mean that as Christians we stop reading or studying God’s Word because all Christians even mature ones still need the Word! As believers when we possess discernment and can distinguish between good and evil we have a capacity for spiritual reasoning.

Now lets look at these last few verses of 6:1-3. The author tells us to leave the elementary teachings aside. This does not mean that we leave Christ behind. However as Christians we need to be mature rather than settle for infancy. The believers here in Hebrews needed to move beyond the their foundational teachings of the old covenant which was Judaism. These foundations were repentance from dead works, instructions about washing and laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

Clearly, we need to know that there is no authentic faith without repentance from sin. But here in our text we see that repenting from dead works is in mind. As believers we need to know that we trust in Christ’s righteousness, not our own to save us. The temptation here can be that we try to earn our own salvation. This may be why the author is warning the church not to return to Judaism which focused on works. Jesus Christ is our great high priest, and he has established our righteousness through his atonement.

The ceremonial washing and laying on of hands were both a very important part of Judaism. The washing of Israel under the law represented the purification of God’s people and some of the people of this church were placing their faith in ceremonial washings, and not in the work of Christ. Thats why they are told to leave behind these things.

The last thing that I want to address here is the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. These two things actually fit together. Unless Christ stands as our advocate and our substitute, we cannot stand before God in the judgment that is to come.

Closing: Church, this is a huge warning for us today to help us all see the need that we should be growing. We cannot and should not remain as spiritual infants. There comes a time to grow up. We all have as individual believers a responsibility to grow in our spiritual understanding so that our church can help and minister to those who are in need. And let me just say this, we always have people who are in need. They are in need of encouragement, they are in need of counseling, they are in need of hope, they are in need of Jesus. Can you point them to Him?

Today there are many churches who are drinking a solid diet of milk because they are not even teaching God’s Word. It may be more like a diet of cokes than milk because it’s not even helping the body of Christ.

But, on the other side of this problem I feel that there are many Christians who are stubbornly refusing the solid food of God’s Word that their pastors are feeding them. We desperately need healthy Christians and healthy churches today. The process of spiritual maturity is not easy. I know that it is long and challenging. That is why as we have seen today that we have to move from a diet of milk to a diet of solid food. We can’t stay in the same place. There comes a time to grow into mature believers so that we can distinguish good from evil and help others to know that as well. If this is to happen, we can’t stop delighting ourselves on the solid food of God’s Word.