Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see all of you. This morning we are hopping back into a series that we started together last year, going through the book of hebrews together. The title of this whole series, we determined, was Jesus is greater. Really, that's the theme of the whole book of Hebrews, is that he is a greater salvation, a greater name, a greater calling.

All of THeSe things, really, the theme verse for all of the book of hebrews comes right at the beginning in hebrews, chapter one, where it says in 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. There's an emphasis of the writer of Hebrews to tell us things are so much far superior now, believer in Christ Jesus. Things are so much better. Oh, they're not perfect because there's sin still in the world.

There's still brokenness and injustice. But in comparison with Christ, things superior. That's the theme of hebrews. Jesus is greater. We're going to spend the next few weeks together, going from chapter, the end of chapter five on to a few more chapters of Hebrews together.

We won't finish this year. And the way I'm doing this, I'm really trying to unpack, go under every rock. We don't always preach this way, but there are certain times of year where I really try to dig deep on certain texts, certain scriptures. If you were with us, we did this with Romans and Galatians, and now Hebrews together. And so that's where we're gonna spend time.

Now. I wanna remind you of something. Cause some of you may have not been with us last year, and last year was a long time ago in a lot of ways. So even I had to kind of dust things off and go, okay, let me remember some key points about Hebrews. For one, Hebrews is very unusual.

If you've ever read through your scriptures, you know that Hebrews kind of sticks out as kind of an odd thing, that some of the things that the writer of Hebrews is attempting to do are kind of different and unheard of in comparison to some of the rest of scripture. He brings up the priest, Melchizedek. He talks more about angels than just about any other place in scripture. It's a very fascinating book, but it's more than that. It's unusual in that Hebrews is a letter, an epistle written with no salutation.

There's no GrEetIng, really, in hebrews. There's no recipients listed. So many of the other letters say, hey, this is to the church. Of Ephesus, or this is to the, the jews of the desporah. There's all these different recipients listed throughout the letters.

And not just that it has no AuToGRApH, no mention of who this is writing. But there's some clear things about hebrews. It's clearly aimed at first century jewish background christians who have apparently a firm grasp on the old testament and a firm grasp on temple worShip. But clearly they're immersed in a greek culture, a new kind of culture. So you get all of that internal evidence.

And because of their understanding of temple worship, I would argue that this has an earlier date. Now, anybody, any students of the word of God know that a lot of your modern scholars like to late date just about everything. There's a reason for that, and I don't think it's a good one. The reason is often that they're trying to pull away from the emphasis on the divine. I don't think that's a good bias.

So I believe here because of their, the way in which the temple is being described in many parts of Hebrews, that the temple had not yet been destroyed. The temple gets destroyed in Jerusalem, just so you know, around 70 ad. That one we know pretty historical because we have evidence of that from historians in Rome. So I think this dating is somewhere between 65 ad and the destruction of the temple in 70. The majority view that Paul is the author of the book of Hebrews.

That's a very common belief. I would say if he's not the author, he's a voice of the author. You're going to really see that clearly, I think, in today's text, this sounds like Paul, but I would argue that perhaps it's not Paul who pens this. Some have said it's barnabas or apollos or Clement. The problem with all of those is we have absolutely no idea.

We have very little writings from the first two. We have some writings of Clemente, but this most similarly looks like two other books in scripture, and that's the Book of Luke and the Book of acts, which are both written by Luke. This scripture starts with classical Greek, which only other two scriptures start with Luke and acts. So I'm of the impression that this is written by the physician Luke, but the voice in the head. And often, as you're going to see today, he says, we.

There's this pastoral sense of not I, but we. So I think it's perhaps Luke writing, as Paul and some of their companions are traveling and working on these jewish believers. So last fall, we covered the first few chapters of Hebrews and we've already dealt with some really crucial topics. So if you missed that, go back and check it out. It's on Eastgate church.

I think I did a pretty good job with it. I'm always rating myself poorly. I think y'all show up, so you must be okay. You keep coming back for some reason. But we talked about some really great topics already.

How Christ is a greater salvation, a greater help. He's a greater calling, a greater rest. We have access. There's some awesome stuff there in the first few chapters of Hebrews. Now today we're going to discover, I think, and I believe it'll be clear to you, that there is a greater goal for our lives in Jesus.

This is this idea of greater purpose. Because of who we are in Christ, we have a meaningful life. I really believe this. This is something I believe maybe as much as just about anything, that in Christ Jesus I have a purpose that's way beyond just the normal day to day stuff that everybody else is doing more than just making sure I have another meal and making sure my kids get into the best college and making sure every opportunity is afforded to them. Those are okay goals.

But the goal in Christ, that's this eternal goal that has eternal meaning, is way better, way better. And that's where the writer of Hebrews is going to spend his time today, that the greater goal is to grow up into a mature believer in Jesus. And so this is not really all that foreign, if we're honest. From the time we're born, from the time we enter this, this earth, there's people constantly measuring our growth, measuring our maturity, if you will. This is one of the first things you do as a parent with children.

You go and you get these things measured. Oh, your kid is eight pounds. Your kid is 21 inches. There's this and that. Oh, your kid has, you know, some things that we're not sure about.

When you check his hearing, check his eye, there's all this maturity growth conversation. As soon as they start entering education, you start hearing about intellectual growth. I'm not sure. Your kid seems very advanced. Or sometimes you hear your kid is not catching up.

Well, you get measurements of things constantly. How is the growth happening? You get older and people start assessing your financial growth. Credit agencies will tell you, hey, we really like what you're doing. We would like you to give us more money.

That's what they start doing. So there's constant measuring of growth. Constant. But the one thing that almost nothing on this earth measures is spiritual growth. There's no doctors doing this?

No educators. The financial people really probably would prefer you not to be spiritually mature. Because then if you're spiritually mature, you're probably going to spend and be a steward and be wise. And then you're not going to pay high interest rates, which I've done plenty of. There's no one really looking at spiritual maturity other than what the church should be about.

And the word of God should be about that. There perhaps should be one place that's measuring spiritual growth. This is what the writer of hebrews today is all about. Is. Are you growing up now?

I made myself a little note here and about skipped it. I'm glad it was on top. Just so y'all know, this Friday is September 27. Anyone in the room know the significance of September 27? Anybody?

It is our church's anniversary, and so we will hit nine. We're moving out of adolescence, y'all. We might make it. We might make it to teenager. We'll see.

And then things are gonna get weird. Cause we know teenagers, you know, we got a couple more years before things start getting real strange. But nine years this Friday. So here's why I tell you that next week, if you'd like, we're going to serve lunch after service. And the church will provide the main course.

So if you'll bring aside, bring yourselves, bring your appetite, and hang around, and let's celebrate. You know, it's a good thing to celebrate. As a church, we don't all have to be constantly about repentance and maturity. But today in this sermon, that's all we're going to do. All right, but be encouraged.

Next week, we're going to be eating together. So bring aside. But anyway, let me continue now, this idea of spiritual growth should be really what the church and what the leadership of the church should be all about. I love what Dallas Willard writes about this. And this is going to sting a little bit because it kind of stung me as I thought about it.

The writer Dallas, 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. 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 some particular church or tradition in question, but not in terms of Christ's likeness.

So basically. So, actually, the project itself is self defeating. Because the way to get more people into heaven is to get heaven into more people. And if you don't do that, then you wind up with a group of people that are testimonies against heaven.

I almost didn't want to share that with you this week because as I read it, I went, wait a minute. What is my goal as a shepherd at the church? Many of you are shepherds. Many of you are leaders. You're called to lead others to Christ.

Is your goal fire insurance? Is that your goal? He's saying, that's not. That's a very, very baseline goal. That goal doesn't offer any growth.

I just want to make sure that my friends and family don't go to h***. That's not a bad goal. But it's incomplete. Super incomplete. In fact, it's not even all that enticing.

You know what's more enticing is to see someone who walks around as if they're heaven on earth. This is why people were attracted to Jesus. He's heaven on earth. This is why people might be attracted to you. It's not because you have all the answers and you can help them with their theology and their doctrine.

It's because they see in you heaven on earth. It's far better testimony. And Dallas says, in fact, when we don't do that, we're testimony's against it. So what's your goal in life? What's your life testimony?

Are you growing spiritually since becoming a Christian? Are you growing to be more like Jesus, who was indeed heaven on earth? That's where we're gonna spend time today in the book of Hebrews, the jewish background. Believers here are warned, warned not to fall away from the goal of growing into maturity in Jesus. And we can heed this warning, too.

The text, I believe, is going to give us three ways to pursue the greater goal of christian maturity. That's where we're going to be, right here in Hebrews, chapter five. Let's pick up where we left off, verse eleven. Then through chapter six, verse eight. Buckle up, church.

This is some heavy reading about this. We have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. Okay? 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 and 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. And 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 towards God and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

This we will do if God permits. For here's a challenging word for you, church, 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 once 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 has drunk the rain, and often that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it's worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Hard to say this, but God bless the reading of his word. Amen.

You like? Kind of how it started. Although if we're honest, all of it was a bit like dull of hearing. Did he just call me dull? Yeah, he did.

To all of us, to his readers here, to his listeners, these jewish background believers. He's talking, I want to remind you, he's talking to christians. He's not talking to non believers here. So this is a very important text about pursuing maturity. That's really the key word in the text.

It appears several times mature. Mature. Going on to be teachers and not children, eating real food and not milk. It's all about maturity. So how do we pursue this greater goal of maturity in Christ?

We can overcome our tendency for spiritual dullness. We have to come clean about this one. Our tendency is spiritual dullness. Why? Because our tendency is towards comfort.

Our tendency is even towards taking it easy. Right. That's why. Vacation. We long for it because we can take it easy.

That's not a bad thing. We need some Sabbath day. Rests all through the year. We need to take the opportunity to rest in Christ. But when your whole life is just rest and comfort, you're gonna enter a state of what the writer here says, dull of hearing.

I want you to know something. When he says dull of hearing, he's not saying you have a physical problem with your ears. That's not what this means. He's not saying you guys are deaf. Nope.

He's saying you have a spiritual problem with your hearts. You're not listening. And if you are hearing it, you're not doing anything with it. That's what this term means. They have become spiritually stagnant.

They're not growing. In fact, Paul or the writer, whoever, Luke, goes on to say that you're in a constant state of spiritual infancy. You just keep needing to drink milk. Now, this is one of the warning passages in Hebrews. We've already covered a couple I want to remind you of.

These. Hebrews two talks about one warning. Hebrews two, one, four. It says, there's a warning against neglecting your salvation. Last time we were together.

There's in Hebrews three, warning against having a hard heart. This one seems to be a warning against not pursuing maturity in Christ. Now, next year, because I don't think we're going to get to the end of chapter ten of Hebrews this year. Next year about this time, we're going to deal with the last two warnings, which are a warning against deliberate sin and a warning against rejecting him who warns us from heaven. Hebrews ten and then Hebrews twelve.

So here the warning is, hey, don't be so dull that you don't pursue Christ anymore. Again, this word, dull of hearing is the greek word no, thros, which means sluggish. Sounds cool, too, right? No thrust. It means lazy.

It means slow. It means not active, but apathetic. Do you get it now? He's not saying, hey, your ears are bad. He's saying, when are you gonna do something with what you've learned?

When are you gonna be something more than the way I left you? You know, people like this in your life that just seem to have their feet in concrete. Like maybe people you've worked with, coworkers. Maybe it's not even about spiritual things. You've just observed that there are some people who just don't change.

You could give them great advice and say, hey, if you would actually get up early, you could probably get to work on time. But they never change. And eventually you have to fire them. And you hope that maybe that'll change them, but maybe not in this modern world. I don't think that would.

They just go get a job somewhere else. Somebody else who's lax. Cause everybody's late to everything. It's wild. He says here, hey, y'all got your feet stuck in the mud.

It's not that you can't hear me. It's that you're not listening, because you keep having to go back to the basic principles. Verse twelve says, basic principles. This word literally means first things, the ABCs, if you will. He's accusing them of this.

He's saying, you guys will not graduate kindergarten. We keep having to deal with the ABCs. What's one plus one? Can we move past this at some point and get to verse twelve where he says, solid food quite literally means strong meat. I don't know what strong meat is, but I'm guessing you might would think of, like, some good, hearty red meat, something that's gonna take some time to digest.

It's a strong meat. You need to grow. And you know what happens? The reason that you can't give a little child anything but milk, there's. Well, there's probably many reasons, but a key one that I thought of Washington.

They don't have teeth. They can't chew it. And when they start getting teeth, you mothers know it's time to move on from milk, all right? Because this is getting uncomfortable. And they teeth come in, you start going, okay, we can chew, we can eat.

He's calling them out and saying, I haven't seen you chewing yet. I keep having to come bottle feed you and goes on to say, and this has resulted in you being unskilled in some areas that are really hurting you. For one, it's hurting the church, because you ought to be teachers, but you're not. You ought to be the kind of people who can stand up and give a testimony about something that God has done. And somewhere that God has moved you and stirred you and pulled you through, but you can't do it because you yourself have not overcome whatever it is.

He says, no, you're unskilled. You're inexperienced. And he says, what are you unskilled with? The word of righteousness? That is this teaching, this justification.

But more than that, it seems to me he's saying, you have not even learned how to apply it. Perhaps you've heard it, but you've not learned how to apply it to your life, which ends in a state that some of you find yourselves. And I want to encourage you, not discourage you. That the more you walk with Christ and make your intention, that I want to be more like Jesus Christ. Show me the way that you're in your word and in prayer.

You may be immature in this moment, but I can encourage you with this. You will not be the same tomorrow. You will not be the same next year at this time. That the more you walk in Christ. In fact, that's one of the things that people started saying about the disciples who were untrained, uneducated men, a lot of them fishermen, not brilliant people.

And people started saying, well, we can tell that you've been walking with Jesus by the way you speak and the way you act. That will be true of you, my friend. But the writer here is saying, look, at this point, you're unskilled, you're immature, and it's causing some things in your life that I bet some of you are feeling. And that is, I don't have the power of discernment. I don't have the power.

As he puts right there in verse 14, look, it says, constant practice that helps you to distinguish good from evil. This causes young, immature believers to not know which direction God is leading. They can't distinguish whether or not this path is good or this path. And they may even fall back into sinful areas because they can't distinguish whether or not this is God's good and perfect will for them. Do you think he's trying to hide this stuff?

Is this God's game? I'm going to make these people, I'm going to save them and redeem them and set them free, and then I'm going to play hide and seek. This is going to be great. They're going to love this. They're going to ask me, hey, God, what do you want?

I'm going to be like, you got to, like, find out. You think that's God? Would that be a good father? Would that be a good mother? Absolutely not.

No. He wants to inform you of his will. In fact, maybe he's trying at times, but you lack the ability, the practice, if you will, to discern because you're not spending any time with him. Oh, he won't tell me his will. When did you ask?

It was a couple weeks ago. Huh. Maybe try, keep trying some more. Maybe he wants to talk some more, maybe part. And I'm going out on a limb here, this isn't scripture, but Jonathan's opinion.

I think sometimes he wants to draw us closer so he could spend time with us before he'll give us such an answer. He's not. It doesn't seem to me that God's good with like every once in a while ringing the phone. God, I need answers right now. Why is that?

Why wouldn't he be that way? Well, because he's about my relationship with him. He has an eternal purpose for me. This little now thing, this. I don't know if I should take this job or that.

Do you realize how irrelevant that is in eternity. That's why he's wanting more than one phone call, because he wants to build a relationship with me. So, yeah, he doesn't always respond instantaneously to my requests. Now, I can get frustrated about that if I want to, but when I really think about it and I think about the fact that my heavenly father wants to know me perfectly or more, he wants me to know him. He knows me, but he wants me to get to know him.

That he cares that much, that he would delay things, that's actually a great joy. It says in verse 14 that by constant practice, that means the more that you work and constantly practice the things of God, spending time with him in his word, taking time daily to pray and be in community with him. The more you're in constant practice, the more your powers of discernment are growing. The word here for practice is gumnadzo. That sounds wild unless you know that this is where we get the word gymnasium.

Gumnadzo. Gumnadzium. It's an old greek word because they're the ones who invented so many sports. I don't know if you're aware of this. The Olympics, Greek.

All right? That's where it started. And the idea, in fact, those of you who like to lift with barbells, I learned this this week. You're going to think, why are you even trying to figure this out? That's as old as the Greeks.

Barbells. That's wild, isn't it? That tech, if you will, has been around for 2000 plus years. He says, here, gumnadzo, get into the gym. Don't miss this.

The writer here is saying this is a workout of faith. It doesn't just come. You don't just wake up one day and, I gave my life to Christ. Now everything's going to be smooth. I might argue the opposite is true.

Why? Because the evil one hates what you just did, hates you. And everything that you've been doing in your life, oh, it doesn't just suddenly, like, just fall off. Yeah. In Christ, you put off your old rags and now you're a spirit.

You have spiritual clothing, that your destination is heaven. That's all true. But all of that baggage, you still got to keep laying that aside. I've been an addict. I've been angry.

I've been mistreating my spouse. That stuff doesn't just suddenly go away when you say yes to Jesus. You got to work on it. He says, constant practice. Get into the workout.

Jesus gifted the church for this. In fact, he's given us many gifts that we would build each other up. This is why he says in Ephesians four that Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers. For what? To equip the saints.

Does it say he gave all these five fold gifts to go out and preach the gospel? No, they should be doing that. Sure. That's not why he gave the gifts. He gave the gifts to equipment, the saints.

What's my job, church? I don't know if you know this. My primary job is to help you lift weights correctly, that you're coming in here. And I am hopefully just someone who's trained a little harder this week on this text so that I can help you go. Yeah, you gotta hold the elbow in the right spot as you lift this one.

That's my job, to equip the saints, to counsel, to advise. Yeah, I have my own personal ministry, but that's not about this gifting. Now get this, pastors, no matter who ministers, no matter what your work is, we're all called to one thing, and that is go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. That is our individual mission. But he's called these people to equip the saints.

He goes on in verse 13 to say, till we have all attained 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. Boy, that is a big calling. That's our goal then, as christians, is to become the fullness of Christ. We're not even close, which means we've got some good work ahead of us. This is great news.

Job's not done so that we are no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves, carried by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and craftiness and deceit schemes. That's everybody around you that believes every single thing they see on the news or hear from anybody. That's not your calling. Your calling is the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now let me end this particular thought, this idea of spiritual dullness with this, that there's a lot of ways you might look at what it means to be a Christian or what it means to be the church, because the church isn't this place.

The church is. You and I, we are the church. It's not a facility at all. It's a people. And what it means to be the church is.

You might think it's a place to have a therapy session. That's not terrible. I hope that it's therapeutic I hope that you walk out of this place feeling encouraged, feeling like you worshiped, feel like you were in the presence of God. I hope that's true. Maybe you even walk away with some challenge.

That'd be great. That's not exactly what it is. Maybe for you, it's an escape. This is a place to get away from reality, where people are nice, I hope. Be nice to each other, please.

Kindness goes a long ways, but maybe it's a place to get away, where work is like, ugh, people are so rude, mean, and you go out in the public. But maybe church isn't an escape from that difficult reality. Maybe it's a social. I hate to use it this way, but, like a social club, it's a place where your friends are. That's good.

That's not bad. I want you to understand something here, though. Ephesians, Hebrews, so many other places. To some degree, you might say, the church is God's gem. This is a place to come and work out that which God is working in you.

That means when you walk out of here, you don't think about what you just heard and go, you know, that was a good message for so and so, but not for me. You forgot your workout clothes this morning. If that's you, you showed up, you weren't ready. Tie your shoes, get ready. Cause we're gonna sweat.

That maybe is more true of what the church really is, at least in the sense of the fellowship of believers, is that we're to get together, as proverbs says, and be iron. That sharpening ironization, that we're working out the kinks together. And sometimes this hurts. This is why you hear these stories of church hurt. I would argue they're not all bad, some of them, in fact, or somebody got offended when they had an opportunity for change.

Maybe they were wrong, but the friction caused them to run. People do that all in society, and sometimes they'll do it in the church. Jesus, in fact, says that when you abide in the vine, the vine dresser does some pruning. And I got news for you. I don't think pruning feels good because you've got some problems that he's wanting to cut off.

So do I. A good doctor would do this, too. Any good doctor would look at you and say, hey, you've got a growth there. You know, we might want to cut that off. First of all, it's gross to look at, and that's some believers.

We don't see it, perhaps, but the church could be a place to work out how many of you have become spiritually dull. Maybe the truth is in you. You've heard the good news, but is it moving you forward? Are you the same believer you've been since the day of spiritual conception, if you will? That's a haunting thought, but one that the writer here is challenging you on.

It's time to be mature. It's time to be a teacher and no longer a constant and mature student. Here's the second. The second pursuit, if you will, towards the greater goal of maturity. And that is we can press on with God's help for spiritual growth.

Press on with God's help for spiritual growth. This verse right here, it picks up in chapter six, verse one. He says some stuff that almost sounds weird. He says, therefore, let's move on from the elementary doctrine and go on to maturity. You're like, wait a minute.

Should we really leave behind the basics? Here's what the new american standard says. In fact, on verse one, it says, therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about Christ. Let us press on to maturity. I think they kind of got it right.

It's not so much the sense that you're leaving something behind, but that this is building you onto something more. The writer here is saying, hey, I don't want you to forget this stuff and to move on from it in such a way that you don't believe it anymore. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, you've got it now. Let's start building the building.

All right. This will be like construction workers who have laid the foundation. They're like, job's done, looks good. And the person who bought, it's like, I kind of wanted to live in there. You know, there's no walls.

He says, no, you can press on from this point. You've laid the foundation. We can move forward. This word here in the Greek is a subjunctive. This let us, means it has potential.

This isn't going to be automatic. Again, this is a good reminder, believer in the room. You're not just going to instantaneously mature. In fact, the way of things, the way of this world and the way of sin, the fallenness of our creation. As things break down, they don't improve.

This is one of the laws of physics. As things break down, not improve, it's the same is true with your spiritual condition. If you do nothing, you will atrophy, much like your muscles. You already know this in every other way. If you don't do anything about this physical body, it will atrophy.

You won't run like you used to run. Same is true with your spirit. He says, let us, there's an opportunity for us to move forward. Some of the definitions of this are the idea of not so much leaving the basics behind, but carrying them on with you. You can now pick this up and let's move forward to some more mature conversations.

Now, let me remind you, this is how he started in chapter five, verse eleven. You notice he said this. We have much to say about, but it's hard to explain. That's him referring to stuff he's already taught in four and five. And he's saying, look, I know this is challenging, y'all.

Cause here I am talking about Melchizedek and you're going, Melchuza, huh? It's hard to explain why, because you guys, you're not doing the work. Now, this isn't me accusing you. This is the writer here saying, hey, I've been teaching on this stuff for a while, but I can see your eyes are glazing over as I'm trying to instruct you. And it's because, because you're not listening, you're not moving on.

So now we kind of have to keep coming back to the foundation. Now, he gives you three couplets. Three couplets right here in verse one and two. These are the things that he says are the foundational things. I learned something this week, y'all.

Well, I learned a lot, as I always do in scripture, but I learned that there's a whole group of, a whole denomination, if you will, of Baptists out there called six principal Baptists, and they get their six principles from Hebrews. Six, one and two. I'd never heard of this, but as I'm reading, I'm going, those are pretty good, pretty solid foundational things. Here's what he says. Notice the first couplet, the first two, verse one.

He says that you have a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God. I've heard it said this way, that that is the couplet of conversion that you've repented from dead works and now have a faith towards God. This dead works is perhaps the idea of the deeds of the flesh that you were doing prior to Christ that really just are spiritually dead. They characterize a dead person spiritually, or even they may, since these are Jews. He's speaking to the dead works of some self righteousness that they thought would bring them salvation.

He says, you've repented of that. That's the beginning of this is true. That's the beginning of the gospel is that you look at your mess and say, that ain't good enough, and I can't make myself right. That's repentance from dead works. And then goes on to faith in Christ, faith in God.

All right, that's the first couplet conversion. The second he gives immediately following is he says, and of the instruction about washings and the laying on of hands. This seems to be about church practice, if you will. The instructions of washings. The greek word there for washings is baptismos, which is where we get baptism.

He says you should be moving forward, moving beyond the foundation of. We understand what baptism is. It's not these ritual washings of the jewish culture. This is now something new in Christ Jesus. Now it is in the plural there.

So baptisms, this is interesting. He's trying to describe the difference between something, but in the sense he's saying, look, the foundation's already been laid. Now I got news for you, church. The church as a whole has never gotten over this one church practice, the instructions about baptisms. Did you know we have like, I don't know, somewhere around 200 or some churches in town.

I don't know if you're aware of this. And guess what? I can go to probably at least half of them. And we'd have some real big differences about the instructions of baptism. And I would confidently think I'm right, and I do.

But they would equally be confident in their covenantal forms of baptism. Infant baptism. There's a lot of forms of. Paul says these are foundational issues that are not leading us towards maturity. Now we have some disagreements, that's for sure, and it'd be nice to have agreement on this, but he says you should be moving forward towards more mature things.

He goes on to say in the laying on of hands, now this one hurt me. I'm just going to say it. Any of you who have ever doubted your purpose, any of you who have ever thought to yourself, I don't know if I'm doing what I should be doing to that. The writer says, you need to move on from the foundation. If someone laid their hands on you and said, you're called, it's time to move forward, that's the foundation.

Spiritual maturity can't happen until you finally say, I know confidently that I am a son of God. I know confidently that I'm a daughter of God. Those of you who are questioning your salvation, he says that's a foundation. You've already had the laying on of hands, if you will, in confirmation of the good gift of salvation. But for me, I heard calling that there have already been the testimonies of other people that said, you're called.

And so when I dig that up in doubt again, I can't move on to spiritual maturity. So I said to the writer this week, ouch. Like, okay, fine, I'll try. I'll try to move forward. I doubt.

Do you ever doubt? You ever doubt stuff? Doubt what you're doing in life is what you should be doing. Like, but, pastor, you're not supposed to do that. Like, well, I got this unfortunate thing.

I'm a human. It's really unfortunate. But this week I heard from the Lord, hey, these are foundational issues. Maturity can't happen until you say yes here. I agree.

And then there's the third couplet. The third couplet is of the future, really, the prophetic future, he says, of the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment.

Now, we really love to talk about eschatology as a church. And what I mean by that is just about every one of you. If I said, hey, we're going to preach through the book of revelation, you'd be like, hallelujah. That's all I've ever wanted, was to preach through the book of revelation. And everybody wants to know the end times.

I got news for you. We can read through that and study that, and we still won't have any confidence of what in the world Christ is doing. We can make a lot of decisions, and we can make some very educated decisions about it, but we might not be right at all. Why are people so interested in that? Because it's the unknown.

It's mysterious. All of us, if we're honest, have just a little bit of Sci-Fi love in us. We just do. We all want to figure out something no one else has figured out. Paul says that's foundational stuff.

That ain't gonna lead to your maturity. I don't know who needed to hear that today. That's all I care about, though, is I just wanna understand end times. Great. Like, let that be a tiny side job.

That's not your goal. Your goal is spiritual maturity, and it's not found in hunting down these, what he calls elementary principles. He says, the author here is not interested in the prophecies and things to come, not in the sense that, like, hey, just overlook it. We should never study revelation, not at all what he's saying, but he's saying this is part of, like, the foundation that you've been building and working on. If you're looking towards maturity, it's something more swindal.

When writing on this, he says, the matters here are simple. The resurrection of the dead is a basic hope of every Christian. So if you're questioning the resurrection, you do need to look again at the foundation and say, what is going on here with me? Because that's a foundational issue. And then he goes on to say, an eternal judgment.

Paul ties into the proclamation of the gospel. You'd have to go to Romans, chapter one, that the very judgment of God is built into the foundations of our gospel story. Now, that's an attack on some people that, I don't know if it's as popular now, but there was a very popular book there for a while called Love wins, by an author named Rob Bell. I don't know if any of you read that or heard about him. He had been a very influential pastor, a very influential speaker.

I liked a lot of what he had written and said. But then he moved in a direction where he no longer believes there's a hell, there's no longer that love. When he says love wins, he means, in a sense, universality, if you will, that all will go to heaven, that there's a universal love that wins a. There's a problem with that. It doesn't really meet any of the tenets of the gospel.

So here the writer of Hebrews says, this is foundational stuff. If you are questioning heaven and hell, until you lay that foundation, it's hard to move on to maturity. You get this so far. So he says, and we can do all this if God permits. Verse three, the word permit there is literally to allow to give leave.

One translator said, let us be carried on into perfection, and this we will do, God granting us the mercy we may be so enabled to do. Paul emphasized, in fact, this goal was for Christ and to be fully formed for the Galatian believers. He says in Galatians four, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Paul is saying, as a pastor, as an evangelist, I feel this anguish until I see that Christ is really that you're maturing in Christ. I think for my part, I'm starting to understand what he means by that.

We are coming up on nine years, and some of you, you can raise your hands if you want. Some of you have been on that nine year journey with me. There's a handful of you in here. And when I look at you, I feel the anguish of childbirth if I don't see maturity happening. But on the opposite, when I see growth in your life and many of you.

I see it, boy, it's so encouraging to me to see progress.

Christ is formed in you. Paul says it's this idea of spiritual maturity. Now, God's purpose for believers is that they would become like his son. Paul writes to the Romans in chapter eight, 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. We have this term in medicine, if you will, called the failure to thrive.

I don't know if you've ever heard this term. This is basically the thing that Paul is warning them about. This term is the idea that some infants or young children or even adolescents, if they have a failure to thrive, it often has to do with their inability to grow or gain weight for some reason, or it could be other developmental things. This is what the writer here is now saying. I'm concerned as I look at you, as I look at you, I'm getting worried that I'm not seeing spiritual growth, not seeing development.

And I don't want you to land in this third and final place where I've got to fly. Is that clock right? I don't know about that. This third thing says we can avoid the danger of spiritual dereliction. I just want you to know, Pastor Gary, my father chose that word, and I'll admit it is the right word.

However, it's a hard word, that word, to be derelict. It's the idea that you would neglect a thing. It's the idea that you would be purposefully neglecting. We can avoid this danger. I should have saved a lot more time for this section, so I'm going to go fast because this is the hardest piece of the scripture, verse four.

He says it's impossible for this person who has done these things. What, enlightened, tasted the gift, the heavenly gift, shared in the spirit, tasted the goodness of the word, has seen the powers of the age to come. It's impossible for that person, when they fall away, to be restored. Now that's a hard word. Just think about that for a second.

That's a hard word. Why is that a hard word? Is he saying that we can lose our salvation? Is that what he's saying here? Some think so.

There's some problems. There's two important questions we really need to ask about these last few verses of our scripture today. Who are these who have fallen away? As he says, who are these people? Are they genuine believers or are they pseudo believers?

They looked right, but they aren't right. And then the second question is this, have they fallen away from the faith or have they fallen away from pressing on to maturity? Now that's a good question. Now I want you to know something. I'm going to tell you of a interpretation that is kind of a minority, and it's the one I think this is.

I share that openly to let you know. Hey, generally I go with consensus oftentimes. I think majority commentators are right on this. But there's two major interpretations for this. One is that these were real believers who were truly saved and lost their salvation.

That's what we call in doctrine an arminian view. If you've ever been a part of a free will Baptist, that's likely the course they've taken with this. The other major interpretation is that they only appeared to be saved but actually didn't lose their salvation. They just fell away from this false faith that they were trying to put on. And that's the more reformed calvinist view of this.

I don't think either one of them are right. I'm just going to openly put that out there, deal with it as you may. Here's why, though I think the evidence is very good. I found a couple of commentators that leaned this way. I was troubled by it.

What is the goal of the writer here of Hebrews? Is the goal to talk about salvation? No, he's talking about spiritual growth and maturity. So the right question to ask is not have these people fallen away from the faith, or rather have they fallen away from pursuing Christ in spiritual maturity? The word here for fallen away only appears one time in the whole Bible.

It's the word parapypto, which means literally to fall aside. Other writers have used this word, like Clement, who we talked about earlier. Early church fathers use this word to describe people who fell into sin. We have a term like this, in fact, those addicts in the room, we say we fell off the wagon. Right?

It's a very similar term. This means this person likely means they've fallen into sin. Now, believer in the room, when you fall into sin, did you lose your salvation? God? I pray not.

It cannot be so because so many of us fall into sin daily. Not by choice, not because that's what we were trying to do, but we make mistakes and it's a reminder that we desperately need the savior. We never get over that need. But I think the other interpretation is problematic because of the ways in which it's phrased for us to say this is a pseudo believer. Well, good grief.

This person, it says, was enlightened has tasted the gift, has shared in the Holy Spirit. How do you share in the Holy Spirit and not be saved? Impossible, I would argue. For this reason, I believe the writer is saying something that's maybe even more challenging, and that is there's some authentic true believers walking around who are a humiliation to the church. Ouch.

Isn't that a harder interpretation in some ways. Oh, we'd rather say, well, these just can't be real believers. Of course, they're out being silly. No, he goes on to say it's going to be impossible. Impossible for who, though?

Impossible to restore them to repentance. He says, if God permits, look at verse three. He says, God may permit, but for us it is impossible. He's not saying for is anything impossible for God? Don't we have other scriptures for this?

Is he saying it's impossible for God to lead these people to repentance? Where did that come from? Not so. He's saying it is impossible for us, looking at the situation to ever lead them back to repentance because they tasted the good gifts of Christ and have decided I'm good to just be a mess. Yeah, I know Jesus, but I'm not going to represent that well at all.

He goes on to say it would be like crucifying him once again and holding him to contempt. The word there, holding to contempt, as you see there in verse six, holding him, jesus up to contempt, literally has the idea of being a bad testimony for Christ, being a humiliation. It literally means holding to open shame anybody in the room. Ever met a person who claimed to be a Christian who was a shameful person? You ever met anybody like that?

I'm confident that almost all of you have. This is why people say there's hypocrites in the church. This is why people say this. Why? Because there are hypocrites in the church.

Guess what? I'm one of them in the sense of the word I am. I make mistakes. I don't want to, but I do. And I come to repentance.

In Christ there's a lot of people, and if you're honest, you just go ahead and say, hey, co worker, I wish you'd stop telling people in our workplace that you're a believer. I wish you'd just stop telling them because when they look at you, they go, yuck. I don't want nothing to do with Christ if this is what he looks like. I think that's who he's talking about here. He's saying to these believers, I don't want you to look like this.

Now, he's not accusing them of this. I want to remind you of this. In verse four, he says, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, until this point, he's been saying, you are dull of hearing. You are not teachers, you're immature. But here he says, in the case of those, that means there are people I have run across.

I'm not saying this is you, but I'm worried it could be you. That's the word to us today, church. This is how this comes across the Bible bridge. So nice. We're not necessarily these believers that are being a humiliation to the gospel, but we could be, which means you can't walk out of this service going, wow, that was a good message for so and so.

You better check yourself. Am I representing Christ well, or am I putting him on the cross again, as this thing says, that people would look at the cross once more and go, that's stupid. That's shameful. Oh, I would hate that my testimony would be remembered that way. But I've known people like this.

I would even say boldly, you know, if you've been coming to our church a long time and you're a part of this, mitts, but you act like a terrible person outside these walls. Don't tell them you go to East Gate church. Don't tell them. Keep it to yourself. Don't put a fish insignia on the back of your car when you're flicking everybody off as you drive with your road rage.

Don't do it. Put one of those, like, coexist signs on the back of your mess and let everybody know what you are. Don't do it.

Why? Because your crop. And this is how the verse ends, because your crop is no longer useful. And I think that's why he ends there, because he is talking about believers, some of which have gone on to produce a worthless crop, a crop that is, in fact, thorns and thistles. And he goes on to say, and its end will be to be burned.

Now, some have interpreted that and say, well, that's the fires of h***. But he didn't say it was the land that's getting burned. Verse seven and eight. It's the crop. This is why.

And we talked about this in the heaven series. This is why some of us, when we get to heaven, we're going to come in smoking. And this is the sense that all of our fruit, all of the things that we come to heaven with are going to be refined away, and we're going to come in with our hair on fire. And we're going to go, wow. And the first people we talk to, maybe Christ himself, he's going to be like, you barely made it.

You might not hear, well done, good and faithful servant. You might hear, by the skin of your teeth, you believed, and that was all. All you did was believe. You did nothing with it. I don't want that.

That's not what I want. I don't want to be refined by fire. And all that's left is just that tiny little mustard seed of immature faith.

This is why he ends in verse eight by saying, and their end is to be burned. The end of those crops. In fact, he's using a great thing to talk about, the way in which people treat the land. I've heard, and I heard again afresh this week, talking to my dad, who grew up on the farm with his dad. I didn't get a lot of that experience.

I got to farm some with my granddad, but he kind of had some more and more modern ways of doing things. But the ancient way in which to kill all the weeds and prepare the soil for a new bed was they'd burn this stuff. Like he was telling me how he would go and get a bunch of tires, a bunch of old rubber, because rubber burns, boy. It burns. And he'd get a bunch of tires, lay them out, and put all this branches and stuff down and burned the soil to death so that the weeds whose roots are way deep, who lay fallow, would all be burned up.

And then he would plant. This is the idea of what's being said here. The end of all these worthless thistles and thorns that are worthless and near to being cursed. Their end is to be burned. He's going to burn them up so that way good crops can grow.

But some of us, we may get up there and all of our crops are just filthy rags burned up. What do you do with this church? What do you do with this? There's a serious warning here to each and every one of us that there's a consequence to spiritual neglect, to making the decision. I'm good.

Have you done that? Yeah, I believe. Yeah. My faith is in Christ. But I'm not interested in any more change.

I've run into people like this before. That said, I've changed enough.

If you're newer to this church, I want you to know something. Christ calls you to a lifelong pursuit, a life of change that you never get too old for. You always have more progress to be made. How do I know this? Cause you don't look like Christ, yet his goal is to make you look like the son.

Son Jesus. We won't be there until we reach glory. It's a good pursuit. Have you reached this place, my friends, believers in the room? Have you said, I'm good?

I don't need any. That's a dangerous spot. I would encourage you to come out of it. Don't allow sin or apathy to start to take root such that you produce worthless fruits and become a humiliation to the gospel. Pursue this greater goal of maturity.

There is no greater goal. It's greater than your comfort. It's greater than your bank account. It's greater than having kids who are obedient. You know, these are all things you, I bet, want.

But the greater goal is maturity in Christ that's eternal. Overcome the dullness of your spirit. Press on for spiritual growth and avoid this danger of I'm good. Avoid that neglect. Let's pray now together, and I want to begin as we pray with a prayer from Paul that he prayed over believers in Philippi.

Heavenly Father, I'm lifting this prayer up to you, reading back to you your word as you wrote to the philippian church through your man, through your servant, Paul. 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, hear this church, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. I pray that over you now, that he who began a good work in you would bring it to completion. God's not done with you yet. I know this confidently because you're still here.

He didn't take you home. He's left you here for a purpose. And that purpose is to be heaven on earth. That you would represent Christ to your friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members, that you would be an ambassador of reconciliation to a broken and fallen world. That's why you're still here.

Not to be a humiliation and to put Christ on the cross to shame. No, that you would be an encouragement. That people would say, wow, I've seen life change in you, and I want it to God, the work, the good work that you began in us by faith, the first step of salvation, that you would continue it on to completion in us, bring us to a place of spiritual maturity. Do this, and your people here, with just a few, you could change the world. Just a few people who might say, you know what?

I am going to press on spiritual growth for the rest of my life. I will never cease. No matter what odds come my way, I am yours. God, you could change the word world with such a person, and I think you intend to do it. God, set us free of our tendency towards dullness, towards laziness, towards apathy.

Wow. It's one of my greatest weaknesses. I can't speak for everyone here, but I know for me that tendency to just want to sit back and do nothing and just let the chips fall as they may. Wow. That's deep in me.

I lay that at your feet. Now I pray that for these believers in the room that might be wanting to rest now in their past victories and say, well, I've done enough. God, help us to press on and not become dull. God, for that person who's come in today, they haven't even built the foundation yet. They haven't even repented of those dead works that can't save.

They haven't even put their confidence and faith in you. If that's you today, my friend, there's no need to wait anymore. It begins here. Your life's greatest goal starts today. That you would first put your faith in Christ Jesus, who saved you and set you apart for his good purpose.

If that's you today, say simply with me this prayer, this confession of faith. There's no mystery. There's no magic underneath this. This is about your faith in action, about the move of God in your life today. Paul writes to the Romans in Romans ten.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lordezhe and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. This is the idea of what's happening in your heart's conviction today. And then what will start to happen today with the things you say and the way you behave, that your faith will begin to act. If that's you, my friend today, believing that Christ Jesus has set you free, pray simply this confession. Jesus, I believe that you are lord of my life.

I'm believing that today with my mind and with my heart, placing my faith in you now. Jesus, I believe today that you died on the cross for my sin, that you have set me free from my mess, my brokenness, my shame, my guilt. You've paid for it already. I believe that today. And, God, I believe that you raised Jesus from the dead.

That gives me incredible hope that not only did you accomplish what you said you accomplished on the cross, but you've also accomplished power over death. I put my faith in you today, Lord Jesus, and I'm asking you, give me the strength and the diligence to pursue you with my life. I want to understand this great goal that you have for me. Would you show me the way in which you've purposed me to live and where I work and the people I live with and my family? Show me this purpose you have for me.

Help me to pursue it. Dear friend, welcome to the family of God. We're all praying with you that same thing. God, show us this greater goal in Christ Jesus, that we would be spiritually mature. God, would you do a unique thing in our church, I boldly ask, help us to be known as a people who are serious about our faith, that people wouldn't hear about East Gate church and go, wow, I don't want to have anything to do with that mess they got going on.

God, protect us from that. Help these to be the kind of people that represent you well, that people would encounter them and say, wow, that was as close to heaven on earth as I could get. How encouraging, how generous us. How kind, how merciful. How the grace of God pours out through that person.

Let that be us. Let it start with me. Say that with me, my friends. Let it start with me. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen.