Transcript

All right. Good morning, church. Good to see all of you. We're in part two of our series through the Book of Hebrews. We began this last fall, and here we are coming to the end of summer, and it was time to get back in part two of this series entitled Jesus is greater.

It's an exposition, a verse by verse exposition through the Book of Hebrews. Now, before we dig in to this passage, I want to make a couple of quick announcements. The first one is this, that I want you to be aware that our brother Isaac Castro, who just gave his testimony, he and Felicia are preparing even now to move to Pachuca, Mexico, to plant a church in Mexico. He has decided not to run for president, as he mentioned, and they're looking to plant a church there. And so I want you to be praying about how you would be a participant in that through prayer and giving and be thinking about how we might support them.

We'll be probably sending them off here in just a few weeks and so be praying for their preparation as they do that. And one other thought I wanted to give you before we dig in is we're kind of like the t shirt church, right? So we're giving out a free t shirt if you volunteer this coming Saturday for our serve day. And this t shirt says CT4W - Christ together for Wilson. And what we are doing, we're collaborating with seven other churches.

So eight churches total right now that are going to be serving at five different schools in Wilson county and doing landscaping projects and those kinds of things. And so if you haven't signed up yet, sign up and you get one of these right in your size, even. We've ordered all kinds of sizes. And if you go to ct four w.org, you can see that we have a gospel presentation there and more information about the churches that are collaborating. Now, our vision for this is that we would have at least one or two churches assigned to every school in Wilson county so that the city and county of Wilson know that the church loves its city.

And when I say the church, I'm not talking about just our church. I'm talking about the church of Jesus. Right. And so the church don't have East GAte on them. They don't have any of the other churches names on them.

It has christ on them. And so if you want one of those shirts and have opportunity to do that. We're praying for revival in our city, and we've been working together for the past five years, moving from church to chuRch, having Prayer BreAKfast with pastors. And things are really starting to happen. And so be praying for us about that and also be a participant.

Dig in. Okay, let's get into the book of Hebrews, the theme of hebrews. Let's look at this verse. This is really like the keys under the doormat. You want to open the house of hebrews.

Here's the theme. Hebrews, chapter one, verse four. This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names. That's what the book is about. The book is about this.

Jesus is greater. He's greater than any other name, any other person, any other goal in your life. That's what the book is about. Jesus is greater. Now, Hebrews is an unusual book, as the books of the New Testament go.

It is an epistle. In other words, it's a letter. It has a benediction, it has a final greeting, but oddly, it has no salutation. In other words, at the beginning, it doesn't tell us who the recipients are. It doesn't tell us who the author is.

And so it has no author's autograph. Yet. It's clearly aimed at first century jewish background, believers who probably had a hellenistic culture immersed in a hellenistic culture. Thus the title Hebrews. That's why we call it Hebrews.

It's so rich with Old Testament allusions and references. It has more Old Testament in it than any other New Testament book in the Bible. And so certainly those who were reading it must have had an awareness of this. So thus we call it the Book of Hebrews. It was probably dated around 65 ad, prior to the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, which fell in 70 ad, destroyed by the Romans.

And so we're pretty certain about this early date. There's so many references to the temple in the book that it seems in the present tense that he speaks of the temple. Now, the majority of you, even though it has no author autograph, is throughout the centuries, the majority of you is that Paul wrote this letter. Oddly, though, all of Paul's other letters do have his autograph. There are others who have been proposed.

Barnabas, Apollos, even Clement has been. However, as I've mentioned last year, and would restate here, I'm in kind of a minority view that I believe Luke wrote it, and I have a basis for this. There are twelve verses in the whole New Testament written in classical Greek. The rest of the New Testament is written in Koine Greek or common Greek. It'd be like saying the New Testament is largely written in southern.

Okay, it was written in the language of the people. Except for twelve verses. Where are those twelve verses? The first four verses of Luke, the first four verses of acts, and the first four verses of Hebrews. Luke we know wrote Luke.

Luke we know wrote acts. I'm suggesting that perhaps he wrote Hebrews. And maybe the reason it looks so much like Paul's writing is because they were missionary partners. And maybe Paul was the influence on how he was writing this. But may I say this, we don't have to have the autograph.

We know who wrote it. The Holy Spirit wrote it. This is the word of God. And so that's where I'll land the plane on that conversation. Now, last fall we covered up through chapter five, verse ten.

So we'll be picking up today at verse eleven. We are going verse by verse. And we would summarize our study last fall by saying this. Jesus, we found, had a greater name. He has a greater salvation.

He offers a greater help, a greater glory, a greater calling, a greater rest and a greater access. And he's a greater high priest. And that brings us to today where we're going to be talking about. He calls us to a greater goal. Now, what is that goal?

That we would become like him. That we would become like Jesus. You ever wonder, what's God up to? I wish I understood what he's up to in my life. He has a goal for your life.

It's that you would become like Jesus, that you would be conformed to the image of Christ. Now, from the time of our birth, parents and doctors begin to measure our physical growth. Educators, when we start school, they measure with testing our intellectual growth. Banks and credit agencies, if you want to go buy a house or a car, they measure your financial growth. They all have tests and goals for where we should be to be considered healthy or to graduate or so forth to qualify for a loan.

But what about spiritual growth? What's the goal of spiritual growth? Does God have a goal for our spiritual growth? And we've said, and we believe the word of God is clear. His goal for us is that we would become like Jesus.

However, many in the church today seem to be unaware of this goal, at least in the way the church seems organized at times. Dallas Willard talks about this. He says a fundamental mistake in much of the western church is that it takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible ready to die and go to heaven. It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people. And this requires that these people who are going to be in must be right on what is basic, he says, and you can't really grow with that.

But it turns out to be that to be right on what is basic is to be right in terms of the particular church or tradition in question, nothing in terms of christlikeness. So actually, he says, the project is self defeating, because the way to get more people into heaven is to get more heaven into more people. And if you don't do that, he says, then you wind up with a group of people that are testimonies against heaven. So the greater goal is not just to make converts, but to make Christ followers.

And the warning is from Dallas Willard, but also the warning from the author of Hebrews, is that very thing that they were in danger of being testimonies against heaven. Let me restate it again, just to summarize what Dallas Willard said. The way to get more people into heaven is to get heaven into more people. If you don't do that, then you wind up with a group of people that are testimonies against heaven. And thus we hear people say, the reason I don't go to church is because the church is full of hypocrites, because the church has so many people who claim to be Christians, and maybe they are, but they don't live like it.

And their testimony is actually, instead of being a testimony for heaven, it's a testimony against heaven. How is it going in your life? Is your life a testimony for heaven? What's your goal in life? Well, in the epistle of Hebrews, the jewish background, believers were warned against being testimonies against heaven, and they were challenged to make it their goal in life, to grow to maturity.

Make no mistake, this passage is about growing to maturity. And I believe today that we can pursue growing to maturity in Jesus Christ. And as we look at the text, I think we'll see three ways that we can grow to this greater goal of maturity in Christ. So let's dig in. We're picking up at verse eleven of chapter five about this.

We have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 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. 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.

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, and of instructions about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 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 for land that is 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 be cursed, and its end is to be burned. This is God's word.

Amen. We're looking at three ways that we can pursue the greater goal of maturity in Christ. Here's the first. We can overcome our tendency for spiritual dullness. We can overcome our tendency for spiritual dullness.

Look at verse eleven. Circle the phrase dull of hearing. Dull of hearing. Now, the author here is not speaking of a physical problem with your ears. Dull of hearing is speaking of a spiritual problem with your heart.

A spiritual problem with your heart. To be dull of hearing is to be apathetic or lazy. The word dull has the idea of laziness or even lack of awareness. To say someone is dull might be a statement about their intellect, but really, more than anything about their response to things when they hear, they have a dull response to things. This is a spiritual problem.

The danger here that he's warning the Hebrews against is to become spiritually stagnant, to be dull of hearing. And he's concerned about them because he's just been talking about some wonderful things about Jesus. And he says in verse eleven, he says, about this we have much to say. And about this we have much to say, again might be an implication that if Luke is writing, that it might be him and Paul and whoever else is on this missionary gathering together, that it seems to be almost a plural way of writing here about this we have much to say. And it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing.

And what had he been saying? Well, if we back up a little bit to earlier, he'd been talking to them about JeSus being the greater priest, that he was the great high priest. And he told them something that I'm sure blew their mind because these are jewish background believers and they knew that the high priest had to be born into the tribe of Levi. And even that's not enough. They had to be born into the house of AaroN in the tribe of Levi in order to qualify to be a high priest.

Now Jesus, we know, is born into the house of, or the tribe of Judah and into the house of David. How could he qualify? Well, Paul tells them something deep. He says, look, you remember that Guy MElchizedek, that AbrahaM before the mosaic law was even given, before even the rules for the levitical priesthood and the AAronic high priesthood before any of that was given. Remember AbrahaM gave a tithe to this mysterious person named MELcHizEdek, whose name in the hebrew means king of righteousness.

Remember that? And remember how he had no origin, mentioned no genealogy and he gave him a tithe and Melchizedek came bringing bread and wine almost as a foreshadowing of the Lord's supper. Remember that? He goes, that's the tribe, that's the order that Jesus is the high priest in. He's from the order of Melchizedek.

And then he says here in verse eleven, he goes, but I can't tell you anything more about that because you're dull of hearing. You're apathetic. You're like, you're like that teenager at the supper table that you ask, so how do things go at school today?

Everything okay like that? You know, are you dull of hearing? Are you apathetic? You know, one way I look at it, and I'm just going to call it, you know, we give you sermon notes, we give you ink pens, we give you all these things when you walk in the door. You either take them or you don't.

I know one thing, the people that are active in their spiritual hearing, I know this. They're looking at the word right now. They're going, making sure that the pastor is really getting it from the word because they recognize the authority. The reason I step away from the podium to the side is so you know what book I'm reading from. This is my authority that I'm under.

And I know the ones that are spiritually active in their hearing are checking me out right now. And you're taking notes and you're circling and you're filling out. I just know that. But some people are dull in their hearing just calling it out. They're not active in their hearing, at least at the bare minimum.

Here's what he says to them. He goes, I'm concerned about you being dull and you're hearing. You're still like children. You still just want the basics. You still just want the basics.

Verse twelve. Basic principles. Literally, first principles. You still want to go over first things. In other words, the ABCs.

You just keep on wanting to study the ABCs. You keep retaking kindergarten. It's about time you moved on to first grade and maybe even graduate someday. Okay, that's what he's saying. But you're like kids.

You should be eating solid food, literally, strong meat. Gonna need teeth for that, kids. But here you are. And here I am. I'm still.

This is what the author here of Hebrews is saying. I'm still going, zoom, zoom, zoom, open up the. You know, that's what I'm still having to do. I have to entertain you in order to get you to open your mouth and feed yourself. This is what he's saying.

It's a strong warning, really. It's the third of five important warnings in the Book of Hebrews. Chapter two had a warning against neglecting so great of a salvation. Chapter three had a warning against developing a hard heart. And here we are in chapter five and six.

And there's a warning against falling away from the path to maturity.

The key word, I think, for this passage, it appears twice. Verse 514, chapter five, verse 14. Then again in chapter six, verse one. And it's the word mature that's the key theme of this particular passage. And everything he's talking about is maturity.

The greek word which is of interest is the greek word teleos, which means to go all the way to the end of a thing. We have the word telescope. That kind of comes from that, which means to see the end from here. It has that idea. It could be translated perfect, complete, mature.

That's what this is about. It's about growing up, no longer being a child, becoming mature in Christ. And this is God's goal for you. That's what he's talking about, being mature. And he says, but instead, I have to keep feeding you milk, not solid food.

And everyone who keeps on drinking milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, verse 13. In other words, they don't know how to apply the word of God. Because they're still going over the basics all the time.

But those, verse 14 who eat solid food, that's for the mature. And they have powers of discernment. Trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. That constant practice is the greek word gumnadzo. And you might like.

Okay, thanks, Gumnadzo. How's that helping me? Well, it's where we get the word gymnasium. That's where we get the word gym from that greek word, which means they've been working out what God's working in. The mature work out the word of righteousness and apply it to their life.

And as a result, they gain discernment. So they know what's true and what's false, what's good and what's evil. Their life begins to look more like. The book is somehow written on their hearts, and it causes them to think different. They have a different worldview, they have a different way of thinking, and it begins to affect their behavior.

That's what the mature. But the. But the. The child hasn't even got to the point of applying it. They're still going over the basics.

They're still questioning, they're still digging up and doubt what they planted in faith, and so they're not beginning to apply. What's going on, this idea of a gem. I really think the church is God's gym. It's the place where we work together and work out what he's working in. Look at the book of Ephesians.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. That's what the church is. The church is God's gem. It's the place where, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. It's the place where we are mutually accountable to one another and we're mutually encouraging one another.

And so that's why God's people, we need to work out what he's working in. I know several of you here that you find that having a trainer, having a personal trainer, and maybe having a peer group that's working out with you under a personal trainer, you really need that training. You need the one who's ahead of you. I'm talking about physically working out, and you need the people around you kind of to hold you accountable and encourage you, because they're going through the same pain you're going through. And so I know some of you are part of this group called CrossFit.

Right? I know that I've seen some of the things you people do in CrossFit. You'd have to call 911, I think if I had to do some of those things you do, but good, good for you. Some of you are part of another group I've heard of in our church called f three. And you're getting up at 05:00 a.m.

and you're working out and it's kind of like CrossFit, but whatever. And I think it's great that you're working on God's temple, which is your body. That's wonderful. Are you working out what he's working in spiritually? The same principle is true.

You need a trainer. You need someone who's ahead of you to disciple you. Everybody needs a trainer, a mentor. Timothy needed a Paul, right? And you need a Paul.

You need someone to look up to. And ladies, you need a Pauline, okay? But you also need a barnabas. You need someone that's a running mate. You know, Barnabas means son of encouragement.

That's what his hebrew name means, son of encouragement. You need a running mate. And we need God's gem. Many of us have become spiritually dull. Is that you spiritually apathetic?

You're pretty good about church attendance, but you don't crack the scriptures until next Sunday.

You feel different on Sunday, you feel kind of charged. But then the week you just run raw and you run on empty before the week's overdem. We may attend church regularly, but are we growing in our understanding of Christ? Are we being challenged in those places where we've gotten comfortable? Are we willing or unwilling to dive deeper into God's word?

The first step towards spiritual maturity is recognizing our need to get past spiritual milk and to start eating solid food to dig in. That's the first way that we can pursue, is we can overcome our tendency for spiritual dullness. Here's the second. Here's the second way. We can press on with God's help for spiritual growth.

We can press on with God's help for spiritual growth. Now, we've finished up chapter five, haven't we? We're now in chapter six. We're going to consider the first three verses on this point. We can press on with God's help for spiritual growth.

Now, may I say to you, first of all, it's unfortunate that there's a chapter break here. I don't know if you realize it, but the chapter and verse markings in your Bible were not part of the original. That was something that was added later to help us find what portion we were talking about. And it is very helpful. I'm glad we have chapters and verses.

It helps us find our place. But it wasn't in the original. And it's unfortunate they broke it right here. Because the author is still talking about maturity. How do I know that?

One of chapter six. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ. And go on to maturity. Okay. He's still talking about the same topic, maturity.

As I told you before, the greek word teleos. And what does he say? He says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine. Which before he called basic principles. But he's talking about the same thing.

Let us leave the abcs of the christian faith. Let us leave the foundational founding principles. And let us go on to maturity. The new american standard translates it, press on to maturity. It's something we do with intent.

Now, this leaving does not mean to leave behind. Like, okay, just forget it. But it has the sense in the greek, the idea of to leave carrying a burden. If you go to the grocery store and you make some purchases and get a full buggy. And they put it in bags and you got your buggy.

You don't just walk out the door and get back in your car and leave your buggy. You leave, but you leave with your groceries. Okay? That's the greek word right here. Leave with your groceries.

Leave with the basics. The basics are important. He's not diminishing their importance. But you start with them, and you hang on to them. Just like if you go to kindergarten, first grade, second grade.

You don't forget what you left behind. When you move to the next grade. You need that. You needed to know addition and subtraction. Before they taught you multiplication and division, right?

And so that's what he means. So, leaving the elementary teaching press on to maturity. This is what he's talking about. Then he calls it something other. He calls it a foundation.

Okay? So he switched terminology. He's been called it basic principles. He says here, elementary doctrine of Christ. Okay?

Still. But then he calls it a foundation. So he says, when you've laid a foundation to your faith. Don't keep working on the foundation. Build the house.

So he's on a different metaphor. You with me? And so it'd be crazy to dig the footers and pour the concrete. And then leave. And come back to the work site the next day.

And dig it all up and start over again. You'll never build the house, so why are you always working on the foundation? And there are those of us here, perhaps even this morning, who are still doubting foundational principles, and you're still having to keep hearing certain foundational things because you've yet to fully believe them.

And so you. But he's challenging this group of Hebrews, these hebrew background believers in Jesus, to move on. And then he gives them three categories of what he would call foundational or basic abcs that they keep on apparently going over, that they need to go ahead and believe and get on with it. He gives three categories. He gives them to them in three couplets.

Okay, so we, first of all, we see repentance from dead works and faith toward God. That category is conversion. So repent of dead works, what's that mean, that you should repent of the works of the flesh? You should turn away from them. That's what it means for every believer.

Perhaps for jewish background believers, it meant the dead works of righteousness, because you thought keeping the mosaic law would make you righteous, but you found out you couldn't keep it, so you repented of that. And then what does it mean, faith toward God? Well, that's placing your faith in God for his salvation through Jesus. So the first category, the first couplet is conversion. You need to get that.

That's the entry point. And then the second couplet is instruction about washings, the laying on of hands. You might call this category church practices. Like, the next step you take after you become a believer, instructions. Instruction about washings.

In the Greek, it's instruction about baptismos, which is baptism. So get baptized. You've repented of your sin. You've gotten saved. Get baptized.

Okay. And why are you still waiting on that? Get that done. Last week we had a baptism service, and it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful service, and it was what? One of the things that made it wonderful for me was some of, of the people that were more mature in age that without shame and without fear said, I want the whole world to know I'm Christ's father.

Wasn't that wonderful last week? I thought it was. And so move on. And then the laying on of hands. Well, one of the things is when you raise somebody up from the baptismal waters, you'll notice that I put my hand on them and I say, risen to new life in Christ Jesus.

That's laying on of hands. Laying on of hands might also be the ordination of, or the setting apart of those to special ministries, special word. It might all be the lay. It might also be the laying on of hands when you're healing the sick. And so there's laying on of hands in church practices.

And then finally we see a final couplet, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. Those are last things. That's prophetic. Future. And you should believe those.

That's the foundational. You might think that don't seem foundational. It is. Will we be raised from the dead? Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead.

You should just believe that. And will there be a judgment at the end of time so that every man, woman and child will stand before a holy God? Absolutely. There are more details there, but believe that. Here's what he's saying.

Go ahead and get those things believed in. And if you still have questions about them, dig in until you get it and get ready to build the house. Get ready to graduate growing more like Jesus. And then he says something unusual. Verse three.

And this we will do if God permits. It's kind of a transitional verse. It connects verse one through three to verses four through eight. And you can kind of run it both ways. Let's run it backwards for a second.

This we will do. What? Leaving behind the abcs, carrying them with us and pressing on, going on to maturity in Christ. This will do if God permits. Now, does God want you to grow up to be more like Jesus?

Yeah, absolutely. So, but what this means, perhaps in this context, then, if God permits, is I can't do it without him. Thus we worded our second point here by saying, with God's help, we'll grow to spiritual maturity because we have to work out what he's working in. You know, if I'm working out in Crossfit and I want to build my bicep, I don't have to start anew. I already have one.

It ain't much to write home about, but I have one. God gave it to me. I didn't create it. It's there. But when I work it out, I'm working out what he already worked in.

Same thing is true spiritually. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He gives us salvation. He gives us eternal life. He gives us the word of God.

He gives us all these blessings. But you don't just leave them laying there. Work out what God is working in and God will. It's important that we include him in the spiritual growth. It reminds me of the book of Galatians, the way he's talking to the jewish background believers here.

Look what it says in Galatians, chapter four. My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth. Until Christ is formed in you, he doesn't like, writing these kinds of warnings, but he's trying to shake them so they'll hear this. The goal is that Christ would be formed in you so that you would be like Christ in this world. His hands, his feet.

You'd have his character so that the world would see Christ in you. He would be fully. And he goes, and what was happening with the believers in Galatia? They were getting caught up in. With the judaizers that were coming up there and saying, okay, now that you got saved and baptized, you need to get circumcised and start following the dietary laws of the mosaic covenant.

And they were trying to put the Old Testament back on top of them, even though they had been set free from the law and saved by grace. And so he's going, do I have to give birth to you again? I mean, I'm in anguish trying to get Christ formed in you. It's not about law keeping. It's not about your effort.

It's about Christ already did all that's necessary. Receive him and grow to maturity in Christ. In the book of Romans, it says, for God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his son, so that his son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. What's God's will? He chose you so that you would be like Jesus, so that Christ is fully formed in you, that you're conformed to his image.

Have you ever heard the phrase failure to thrive? You ever heard this? It's a medical term usually applied to a newborn or a young child. And outwardly they seem to. They do okay on what's called the apgar, which they'll give up, infamous score based on its breathing, its heart rate, whether or not it responds to stimuli.

I'm not an expert, but I've got grandkids and children, so I remember these few details. And so they might have a decent apgar, but then they don't grow like they don't eat. And so then they have the medical people. They have to start doing all these tests to try to figure out, why is the child not gaining weight? Why is the child not growing?

What's going on here? There's something missing in the diet. There's something in the environment. Is there something wrong with the body that we missed? And failure to thrive.

Here's what the author here is saying to the church that he's writing to these jewish background believers. I'm worried that you are suffering from a failure to thrive. And I think I know the reason. You're spiritually apathetic. And you're not pursuing being like Jesus.

You've not made that your goal in life. You've made other things, priority, goals. And I'm concerned with your failure to thrive. Maturity in Christ is a lifelong journey. We are called to continually learn, grow, and apply our faith to our lives.

How do we do this? We immerse ourselves in the scriptures. We pray alone and with each other. We get a spiritual mentor, a discipler that we can follow, and we pour our lives into others because teachers always learn the most. Remember what he said earlier?

You should already be teaching others, and we're still having to teach you. Teachers always learn the most. Who are you pouring into? Whose life are you pouring into? Are you willing to be stretched?

Are you desirous of growing? And now this leads us to the third way. We see that we're called to be aware of spiritual dullness. How to avoid that. We're called to pursue spiritual growth.

Now, here's the third way. We can avoid the danger of spiritual dereliction. We can avoid the danger of spiritual dereliction. The difficult phrase here that brings us to this point is verse six. The phrase is fallen away.

Fallen away. Spiritual dereliction. Dereliction. Has the idea of being derelict in your duty to come short of that which you were called to do? You were called to do something, but you fell short.

Now may I say to you verses four through eight, well, that's a passage most pastors would rather avoid.

Indeed, it's a difficult passage, and there's no way I can say it otherwise. That great pastor that's passed on to be with the Lord now, Ray Steadman, he called it the naughtiest problem passage in Hebrews, if not the whole Bible. It is. It's a difficult passage.

How do we interpret a passage like this? Well, may I say to you, I think there are two important questions to ask of verses four through eight. The first question is, who are these people? Because I want you to notice the change in tense. We had been we in us since verse 511, all the way through six.

Three. Even verse three of chapter six, it was still we, verse three. And this we will do if God permits. Then notice the shift here, for it is impossible in the case of those, notice the shift from first person plural to third person. Do you see it?

So here's the author saying, okay, you've been like children. You've been spiritually dull. You haven't been growing to maturity. In fact, you haven't even been trying to pursue it. Now here's the danger you could become derelict.

You could fall away from the path of maturity and find yourself with such a hardened condition that you won't even repent when the Holy Spirit's pressing against you. It'll become like it's impossible to. To repent. This is a scary warning. It's scary for a couple of reasons.

One, it's hard to hear, and the second reason, it's hard to understand.

So we got to ask two questions. Who are these who have this case, verse four, for it is impossible in the case of those who are they? Are they believers or are they pseudo believers? They're in the church. We would all think they're believers, but they're not.

You with me? That's the first question we have to try to decide on here to get at this text. Now here's the second question. What does he mean by falling away? What does that mean?

Does it mean falling away from salvation so that you lost your salvation? Many take this fallen away as apostasy. Now, that's not the greek word here, by the way. The greek word that's underneath, fallen away, does not say that. It's para.

Pipto para. And I've taught this prefix over and over again. You know it in the english language. Paragraph parallel. It means beside.

Here's what the literal meaning of this fallen away verb is. It means fallen beside, as if there were a path and you stepped into the ditch or you stepped off like that. It's not Apostia. It's not apostasy. However, I must admit to you that in answering these two questions, who are they who have fallen away or who have the potential of falling away?

And what does it mean that they have fallen away? The two majority positions actually agree that falling away means they lost their salvation or they never had their salvation. But it has to do with salvation. That's the majority position of the two majority interpretations. But they disagree on who the people are.

Still with me giving you ways to interpret. Okay, and so who are the people? The first majority opinion is they are believers who have lost their salvation. And some would call this the arminian view, they are believers who've lost their salvation, they've fallen away from their salvation. The second view, which is a majority view as well, maybe it's the largest majority of you in most evangelical churches, and that is they're not believers, they're pseudo believers.

They sure look like believers, but they're not actually believers. And they fell away. And before they died, you could tell by their fruit they weren't actually believers. Strangely enough, both of these majority camps agree that falling away means no salvation, but they disagree on who the people are. Still with me.

Okay, so let's, first of all, just kind of look at the first question. Who are these people? Well, he gives us five character traits of these people, and let's decide what he means here quickly. Now, here's the warning. Here's the danger.

You're going to want to put your theological system on. You're going to want to put that cap on and then read it through the lens of what you already believe. But let's try not to do that. Let's try to let the text speak for itself. The Bible teach, let it speak for itself.

It's hard to have a tablo rasa theological position, a blank slate. It's hard to do but try and just go, okay, does this sound like christians? Okay, here we go. And this we will do if God permits, for it is impossible. In the case of those who have been enlightened, that means the light came on.

They understood the gospel, who have tasted the heavenly gift. They've tasted salvation and have shared in the Holy spirit. They've partaken of the Holy spirit. They have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. In other words, they've already got the foretaste of the miraculous powers of what it'll be like when the kingdom of heaven actually comes.

They've already started experiencing some of that. Does that sound like a believer or a fake believer? Those five sounds like a believer. Oh, does that mean that they've lost their salvation? Well, may I say to you, I don't agree with the first majority view nor the second majority view.

I do believe this is about believers, but I don't think falling away has to do with apostasy. I think it means stepping off the path to maturity, because I think the big idea here is not salvation. It's about maturity. It's about growing to teleos in Christ to the end of being like Jesus. Can I continue to make my point?

Because I know it's troubling. I know it's a difficult passage, but I think it's too much to worry about here to try to make it about salvation. When he's really talking about growing up to maturity, that they've fallen off the path of maturity. That first view I mentioned that they were born again, but they lost their salvation, is usually considered the arminian view. The second one, that they were fake christians and therefore they weren't saved.

It's usually considered more the reformed view or calvinistic view. It's strange, but they actually agree on the second question, but disagree on the first. But I believe this is actually about not being saved, but about having an unrepentant heart. Having come to Christ, you're still stuck on the basics, and then you go out and live like the world. You're not growing up to be like Jesus and actually getting to the point where you're becoming hard hearted.

May I point out to some reasons that I think this is true? It's because in verse seven and eight, he gives us this story. It's a metaphor about land, and it's really an agricultural metaphor, he says, 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. So land that has been in, you know, that the rain has enlightened and they've partaken of the Holy Spirit and they've received the salvation. That kind of rain, those five, they receive that.

The right result of that is that they produce a useful crop that's a blessed and God bless, and they have a blessed life like that. But then there's a kind of land, he says, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to be. Being cursed doesn't say it is cursed, but it's near to being cursed and its end is to be burned. Now, those who hold that first position would say, well, that's about going to hell, but don't mix the metaphors up. This is an agricultural metaphor.

Let's stay with it for a minute. What do people that farm, what is it they're burning? Are they burning the land? No, they're burning the thorns and thistles. What are they doing?

So I grew up spending summers on the farm with my grandfather. He didn't go to Lowe's or some nursery to buy his plants. He would order seeds and they would come in the mail and he would make a seed bede. And the way he would do this is the first thing he would do in off season. He would burn the land that he was going to put the seed bed in to kill all the seeds and even the roots, and he would use hot, hot fire until it just burned right down.

And so you'd have all the ashes, then he would rake it all out and get down to the clean soil. It would sterilize the land. Then he would come back with these new seeds and some fertilizer. He didn't buy fertilizer at Lowe's either. He got it out of the stall in the barn.

Okay, figure that out. Okay. And he would plant, and he would build a little box over it and put plastic, because he would plant these seeds before it got warm enough, and they would start coming up. And then as it got warm, he'd pull that little miniature kind of greenhouse off of them, and then he would plant them. See, this is written to a people who understood agriculture.

The land is destroyed, but everything they produced is worthless and near to being cursed, but doesn't say it is cursed, and it's going to get burned off. Now, what does that sound like? Because here's one of the important rules of good interpretation of scripture. If you're in a difficult passage, it's hard to understand. Go to a passage that's more clear because the Bible doesn't contradict itself.

So now look at first corinthians, chapter three, and see if you see a similarity, because I do. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have. Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials, gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done.

The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames, that sounds like this passage to me. It sounds like a person who had the foundation of Christ.

But then what they built on top of it was hay and stubble. And there's going to come a day when they stand before the Lord where it's not their salvation that's at risk, it's their testimony. Because their testimony, their life, has really been a testimony against heaven. It's really not. And so none of their works.

And may I just say what this will look like? It's a serious warning to all of us that shows the consequences of spiritual dereliction, of stepping off the path, of pursuing Jesus every day, every moment going, I want to be like Jesus in this place, in the school, at the workplace, in my marriage, in my parenting, everywhere I go with my friends. I want to grow, to apply what it means to be like Jesus. Where instead of this, we produce fruit and allow sin and apathy to take root in the soil of our hearts, and so we produce thorns and thistles, and it leaves us vulnerable to dereliction, to falling off the path and even getting to a place so far to where we begin to experience the outcome of sin in this life. And so we begin to live under the curse of sin, even though we're believers, because we've stepped off the path of growth.

And so then you see verses verse six, 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. Their life, this falling off the path, their life is so worldly, but yet they're still telling people they're christians. They're the ones that sinners. Tell us the reason I don't go to church is because of the hypocrites in the church. That's who they are.

These are these hypocrites. They're telling people they're christians. But what their life does, it's as if they're crucifying Jesus all over again, and as if they're lifting him up in a way to the world that puts shame on him. To put him in contempt means the idea of putting him up like that, stripped of his majesty and crucified, making so that your testimony is a shame to Jesus. It'd be better not to tell anybody that you're Christ's follower, if that's how you're going to live.

This is a serious warning. Instead of abiding in fellowship with Christ, the true vine, and producing fruit, we fall out of fellowship. Instead of bringing forth bountiful spiritual fruit useful to the Father, we produce thorns and thistles that are worth nothing. Instead of experiencing the blessing of God in this life, we will be near to being cursed by our sin. And instead of standing before the master throne, before the bema seat of Jesus someday and hearing him say, well done, good and faithful servant, it'll be more like we passed through a wall of fire and all that we did in our life would be burned up, yet still being saved.

I want to hear him say, well done. The way to get more people into heaven is to get heaven into more people. I like that to do. Otherwise, you wind up with a group of people that have testimonies that are actually testimonies against heaven.

Will you heed the warning today of what God's word says today? Well, you decide. I want to overcome spiritual dullness. I'm not going to be apathetic. I'm going to pursue Jesus.

I want to pursue spiritual growth. And I boy, I want to avoid the danger of spiritual derelicts. And I don't want to fall away from the path to maturity I want to pursue, pursue, pursue Jesus. This is not about scaring you about losing your salvation. This is about warning you about being serious in following Jesus to maturity.

Let's read this passage together and may I offer this as a prayer over us? Would you read it with me? I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord, I do lift up this prayer from Paul for the church at Philippi for our people here this morning.

I thank God every time I remember each of you. I always pray with joyous because of our partnership in the gospel together. From the first day I met you and got to know you as a believer, I've prayed like this. And it's caused me to be sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion, to maturity, to perfection, at the day of Jesus return.

Pursue it, Lord. Help us to pursue it. And Lord, I know that you're the one that ultimately is the one working it in. Help us to work it out. And then I pray for the one that's here today.

And you've never gotten on the path. You have not set the foundation. You haven't received. Jesus, would you do it right now? Pray like this.

Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, that you were raised from the grave, that you live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. I want to be a Christ follower.

I want you to be my lord and savior. I decide today to place my faith in you. If you're praying that prayer of faith today, he'll save you and make you a child of God. And then I pray for one more person that's here today. Maybe it's you, Lord, I'm the one that's been apathetic.

I'm the one that's stagnated in my spiritual growth. I haven't been pursuing you with all of my life, with all priority. Lord, forgive me, Lord, as we go forward today. Lord, help me to set a new path, to get on the path of yielding my life to you in every area. I pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.