Turn in your Bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter
five. We're gonna look at the last few verses
of chapter five and then the first three verses
of chapter six this morning. As I was thinking
about how to just begin the message this morning
in full course in light of Mother's Day, it dawned
on me and I think this is true. I can speak for
moms out there. I believe it's every mother's...
desire to see her children grow up to become
mature adults. Moms, wouldn't you agree? Isn't
that what you'd like to see? Your children grow
up to become mature adults. I mean, we even talk
about the fact, you know, we're not really raising
children. We're raising adults, right? We're
trying to get them through that young years so
that they can do well as they become adults.
And again, I think that's true for us as parents
in general. We can't wait for the firsts in our
children's lives, right? We want to hear them
speak their first word. And dads, of course,
you want that to be dada, right? And moms, mama,
we want our kids to speak their first word. We
can't wait for them to cut their first tooth.
And then, of course, we want that to be over
with, right, all the teething. We can't wait.
to watch them and to video them taking their
first step, all of these things, a progression,
an advancement in this life that has been brought
into the world. You know, there's a verse of
scripture in 3 John, verse four, where it says,
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children
are walking. You're supposed to laugh at that
point. Because that's not the end of the verse,
right? He says, I have no greater joy than to
hear that my children are walking in the truth.
But again, first, I have no greater joy than
to hear that my children are walking. God did
not call me to be a comedian, I will say. We
not only desire, but we also delight in the growth.
I mean, we celebrate birthdays, and we often
have marks that we put on the wall of our door
frames, you know, chronicling the growth of our
kids, and we celebrate that. I know that there
are times that we speak of not wanting our little
ones or that we want our little ones to remain
little for a little bit longer, right? I hear
parents say that. But the reality is, if our
kids didn't grow, It would discourage us. It
would disturb us. We want them to grow physically,
mentally. Again, we want them to become mature
adults. And I guess what we're going to see today
is that our Heavenly Father feels the same way
about us as His children. He wants us to grow.
He doesn't want us to remain babes in Christ
throughout all of our lifetime. And that's what's
being recorded for us here at the end of chapter
five and the beginning of chapter six. So we
wanna read these verses together, beginning in
verse 11 of Hebrews chapter five. And of course,
the writer is about to take the next several
chapters in this book, in this letter, to explain
the high priesthood of Jesus as being one after
the order of Melchizedek. And Neil kind of got
us off to a good start last week talking about
the nature of the high priesthood of Jesus in
the sense that it is much like the high priesthood
of Melchizedek and that Jesus is not only priest,
but he's also king. Melchizedek was a king, priest,
Jesus. not only our high priest, but is our king.
So we'll kind of start with that fundamental
introduction, but there's gonna be much, much
more as we move along. And of course, the writer
begins to talk about that in verse 11. And he
says about this, about this Melchizedekian priesthood,
all right, about this, we have much to say. And
it's 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 or meat as
the old King James Bible said. 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 instruction
about washings and the laying on of hands, the
resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
And he says, and this we will do if God permits.
So let's pray together this morning as we look.
at this passage of scripture together. Father,
we do pray that you would help us to grasp the
teaching of scripture. And Lord, we understand,
we acknowledge in our own lives that there are
portions of scripture that are indeed hard to
explain, hard to understand. They demand effort
on our part, mental effort. You ask us. to think
about you, about ourselves, about others, about
the gospel. And I pray that you would give us
the strength to do that. And of course, Father,
we simply acknowledge that this is your desire
for us, again, not to remain children, but to
become mature adults in our understanding of
you. and what the word of God says. So today,
Father, help us as we take that next step in
our advancement toward maturity. And we will
give you praise and honor and glory for it all.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And of course,
it goes without saying that the first step toward
becoming a mature Christian is that initial step.
of believing upon the name of Jesus, receiving
him as Savior and Lord. And so I trust that if
you've not done that, that today, what a better
day than Mother's Day to receive Christ as Savior
and Lord. No greater gift you could give your
Christian mom than to come to Christ today. But
we're gonna look at two things in this text.
It's pretty neatly divided between those last
few verses in chapter five that speak of Christian
apathy. Or spiritual apathy really would be a
better word for it. And then the next three verses
of the beginning of chapter six speak of spiritual
advancement. And of course, our lives are not
to be characterized by spiritual apathy, right?
But rather, spiritual advancement. So I want
you to be thinking about that today, asking yourself
that question, is my life advancing? Am I progressing
in my understanding of God, the things of God?
You should be. You know, we had a discussion
this morning in our life group and we ended up
talking about life in eternity, life upon the
new earth. The question was raised about whether
or not in heaven we'd really get to sit down
and talk with Old Testament saints, Abraham,
Moses, David. Would we really be able to talk
to those? And of course, we believe yes, absolutely
we'll be able to spend time talking with those
people. And I believe that even upon the new
earth, even in eternity, we're gonna continue
to grow in our understanding of who God is. God
is infinite, right? We are never going to be
able to exhaust. the knowledge of God. And I
think that through all eternity, one of the joys
of our life upon the new earth is going to be
learning more and more about God and the people
of God and the creation of God. It's going to
go on throughout all eternity and for all time.
But now, in this present world, we have to be
careful. We have to be warned. We have to be
encouraged not to allow our lives to be spiritually
So the writer says, I've got much to say about
this whole idea of Jesus being a high priest
after the order of Melchizedek, but it's hard
to explain. And when I taught this verse on Wednesday
nights, I remember sharing that I'm glad those
words are there in scripture. Do you often find
that scripture is hard to understand, hard to
explain? I know I do. There are some things that
are relatively simple, but much of scripture
is difficult to understand. And as a pastor who
seeks to stand before a congregation and expound
the word of God, even more difficult once you
have a semblance of an understanding to then
explain what the text is saying. And the writer
of Hebrews is expressing the very same. thought,
what I want to share with you is going to be
difficult. It's going to be hard for me to explain.
And again, it comforts me to know that this one
writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
is having this issue in his life. But then he
goes on and he says, the reason that it's going
to be hard to explain is because you've become
dull of hearing. It wasn't just the difficulty
of the concept of Jesus being a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek, but it was the spiritual
apathy of the people to whom he sought to impart
this truth. There was indeed a problem and this
hard to explain concept was going to be made
even harder to explain. Well, Again, because
of this whole idea of spiritual apathy, they
had become dull of hearing. So two reasons. Some
biblical truths are simply hard to understand.
We have to go back over them time and time again.
We have to refresh ourselves. We have to remind
ourselves of these great truths and how we are
to apply them. to our lives, and certainly this
whole idea of Jesus being a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek is one of those hard
to explain concepts. You know, most people love
to talk about Melchizedek, right? He's kind of
a mysterious person in scripture. We want to
know more about him, and I think the reason that
we have this infatuation with Melchizedek is
because of that passage of scripture that says
that he didn't have a beginning, he didn't have
an end. And I think all that means to us today,
or should mean to us today, is that his birth
simply wasn't recorded. His death wasn't recorded.
I believe Melchizedek was a real man. I mean,
Abraham met him, paid tithes to Melchizedek.
But we have this infatuation with these mysterious
characters of scripture, and again, often, because
of the difficulty of explaining these concepts.
We want to hear as much as we can about them.
The second reason, of course, that the readers
of Hebrews, the ones who would listen to this
letter read, we're gonna have a difficult time,
was because of their own spiritual immaturity.
And we just have to face the reality, church,
that sometimes that's the reason. It's not just
that scripture can be difficult, but sometimes
it's because we just will not do our part. Things
become difficult that shouldn't be so difficult.
He's simply saying, look church, you've been
sitting under the preaching and teaching of God's
word long enough that you should be able to teach
others. But they were still in need of being
taught, and not just being taught, but being
taught. The ABCs, you ought to be able to teach
others, but you need someone to teach you again
the basic principles of the oracles of God. Basic
principles. Again, those words could be translated
the ABCs. They should have been reading on their
own, but they were still having to be taught
the ABCs. They weren't where they should be at
this time in their Christian lives. a medical
term. It was relatively new to me. I think I've
heard of it, but I've never really thought about
it too much. But it's a medical term, failure
to thrive. Have you heard of that? And it speaks
of a condition wherein children do not develop
or grow physically at the expected rate. You
know, new parents, they take their kids to the
doctor for those wellness checks after the baby's
born, and they come back and they tell you, well,
you know, my child was in the 85th percentile.
of such and such for their height or their weight
or the circumference of their head. All these
measurements are taken. Children who are experiencing
failure to thrive are those who are in the bottom
measurements. They're not progressing as they
should. They're not growing as they should. They're
not advancing as they should. The medical community
calls that failure to thrive. And the interesting
thing, there are several causes for failure to
thrive. But the most common cause of failure
to thrive is malnourishment. Simply an insufficient
caloric intake, and thus the child falls behind
other children its age in the physical growth
categories that I just mentioned, height, weight,
head circumference. What the writer of Hebrews
is saying to us is that failure to thrive is
something that's taking place in the church.
It's a condition that afflicted church members
to whom he was writing. And I believe it afflicts
church members today. Failure to thrive. And
again, what we need to note here is that the
most common cause is self -infliction. It's just
the neglect of proper nutrition. We're not feeding
on the word of God the way that we should. We're
not spending time in God's word. as we ought
to. And so we are malnourished spiritually and
thus dull of hearing. What we should be able
to understand, we are often not because we simply
have chosen not to feed on the word of God and
grow as we should in our knowledge and understanding.
of the word. So the condition, failure to thrive,
the condition, you've become dull of hearing.
Again, those words, dull of hearing, it's really
not speaking about the ability to hear as we
often talk about it. If you were with us in church,
you would hear about hearing and hearing aids
all the time in the church office. We talk about
that a lot in there. It seems that some of us
older staff members are becoming dull of hearing,
but that's not really what this dull of hearing
is talking about. This dull of hearing means
to have no push, no drive, seemingly no motivation
to advance spiritually. To advance in maturity,
to advance in my knowledge and understanding
of the Word of God is the context in which this
phrase is being used. We were taught just a few
verses earlier in our study that we're to strive
after the things of God, right? We're to strive
after this rest that God has provided for us.
We're to strive after righteousness. Well, one
who has become dull of hearing, there's no striving
in that life. They have no desire whatsoever
to strive. for the things of God. There is no
pressing on in that life, as Paul says in Philippians
312, to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus
has taken hold of me. So all I can do this morning
is to simply ask you to search your own heart,
to allow the Word of God, the Spirit of God,
to search your heart. Is your life characterized
by an ever -forward, pushing, pressing on, striving
toward the things of God. Or have you just decided
to pull off the side of the road and park for
a while? It's what a lot of people do. Dull of
hearing, no motivation, no drive. It implies
that these people had become lazy, perhaps even
bored with the word of God. Let me ask you a
question today. Does the word of God bore you?
One of the things that I found to be true in
my own devotional life is when I fail to engage
the Word of God on a regular basis the way that
I should, it becomes increasingly difficult to
do that. It's as if the Word of God doesn't hold
the same interest as it once did. And I think
we can all understand that because we've probably
all been there. But when I... When I determine
every day to spend time in the Word of God, praying
over God's Word, searching God's Word, reading
God's Word, memorizing God's Word, whatever you
choose to do, then the more that you do that,
it's as if God just multiplies that desire within
you. You can't wait to get back to it the next
day. That's what we're talking about here. This
whole condition of being dull of hearing was
a self -inflicted problem. They had neglected
the word of God. They had become apathetic. Again,
perhaps even bored. I would love to stand up
here and say I can't imagine anybody being bored
with the word of God, but I can't imagine that.
We should never be bored with the word of God.
And if you're bored with God's word, you need
to pray and you need to get into God's word.
You need to ask God to revitalize your interest.
in him and in the things of God. Proverbs 19,
24 is a verse that I've highlighted dozens of
times in various Bibles and translation. But
it pictures one who is too lazy to even feed
themselves on the nourishment that is right before
them. Of course the word that the Bible uses
for this kind of person is a sluggard. You've
heard that word, you've read that word in scripture,
the sluggard. We could say the dull of hearing,
the spiritually apathetic. But the verse says
this, the sluggard buries his hand in the dish
and will not even bring it back to his mouth.
That's what we're talking about. The nourishment's
right there in front of you. It's been prepared.
It's hot, ready to eat. Got your spoon. that
you won't even bring the food back to your mouth.
That's a slugger. And let me tell you, if you
identify with a slugger, that's not a good thing,
by the way. That is not a word that you want
to be referred to as a slugger. But that's what
was happening among these early Christians. They
had simply allowed themselves to fall into spiritual
apathy, neglecting. the things that would have
strengthened them to resist the temptation that
they were being faced with, would have given
them wisdom to face the difficulties that were
now presenting themselves as a result of their
newfound faith in Christ. And so because of their
spiritual apathy, because of their dullness of
hearing, they were no longer or they weren't
feeding on the solid food, the meat of the Bible,
but rather they were simply satisfying themselves
with milk. And again, you can just think of an
infant, right? I mean, when we first begin to
feed our children from a bottle, I mean, they
won't even hold the bottle themselves. Talk about
a first, remember that first night, your baby
reached up and held the bottle for himself? That's
a pretty great night. But before that, you have
to hold the bottle for him. You prepare the milk,
you warm it, you get it all ready, and then you
have to hold that bottle. That's kind of what's
being pictured here. You need milk, the scripture
says, and not solid food. For everyone who lives
on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
The reason that the writer of this letter was
gonna have such a difficult time explaining the
concepts surrounding the high priesthood of Jesus
is that these people to whom he was writing,
many of them had chosen to live on milk. And
they just weren't able to have. Solid food, they
couldn't stomach it. It was too difficult. You
have to choose solid food. Milk just goes right
down. You have to prepare and eat solid food,
milk. Not so much trouble with milk. But those
who refuse to move on, to advance in their spiritual
life, to the nourishment of the solid food, the
meat of scripture. The Bible says they're not
able, well, they cannot handle the word of God.
They are unskilled in the word of righteousness.
Of course, 2 Timothy 2 .15, the verse upon which
our Awana Club's motto is based, these spiritual
apathetic people They don't know how to rightly
handle the word of truth. They are not, as it
says a little later in that letter, 2 Timothy
3 .17, they are not complete, they are not equipped
for every good work. God has given us his word
and he has commanded us to engage in that word
so that we might be complete, so that we might
be able to do that which he has created us to
do, called us to do. But for these people, these
spiritually apathetic people, when trouble comes,
and it had come, they didn't know what to do.
They weren't prepared to deal with it. When temptation
arises, they were not discerning enough because
of their lack of understanding of the scriptures
to even recognize what they were being tempted
with and thus to resist it. They were in trouble.
They were, again, unskilled in the words. of
righteousness and we need to be a skilled people,
you know. Again, Neil often talks about this
church being a big word church. We need to know
the big words, we need to understand the big
words, we need to understand the big pictures,
the big context, the big issues. In scripture,
God has given us his word so that we can know
him. And yet, because we choose to live on milk,
we find ourselves. unskilled in the word of righteousness.
Paul says to the Ephesians that we must grow
up in order that we may no longer be children,
because children are tossed to and fro by the
waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,
by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful
schemes. It is amazing to me and really discouraging
at times when I see people who have been a part
of this church or some other church for a long,
long time and yet they find themselves deceived
by some false doctrine that they heard on television
or heard from some new preacher. It's discouraging.
It's amazing to me the things that Christians
that ought to know better embrace. simply because
they haven't availed themselves of the word of
God. We wanna grow up into maturity. We don't
wanna remain children. Children are gonna find
themselves in trouble, deceived by the falsehoods
that are so prevalent in our world today. So
how do we overcome this? What's the cure to this
spiritual apathy? Well, he says, In verse 14,
solid food is for the mature, for those who have
their powers of discernment trained by constant
practice. There's the two words you need to key
in on, constant practice. You and I will never
reach the point that we no longer need to look
to God's word. We will never get to the point
that we know all that we need to know about one
of the books or any of the books. about one of
the doctrines or any of the doctrines. We will
always need to know more, to understand more,
and the reality is we can through the constant
practice of applying God's word to our lives.
It's one of the greatest things that I believe
we've done with our life groups. Taking the sermon
as a context for our meeting together and then
talking about how we can apply what we heard
Sunday morning to our lives. Let me tell you,
that's what we ought to always be doing. How
can we apply what we have heard, what God has
shown us to our lives? And that's the way to
overcome spiritual apathy. That's the cure for
it. Constant practice, and in so doing, we are
able, again, to become skilled in the word of
righteousness. We are able to distinguish good
from evil. So just as James reminds us, we must
not only be hearers of the word, but doers of
the word, right? We hear the word of God and
now we are to put the word of God to work in
our lives. This is the way James says it in chapter
one, verses 23 through 25. He says, for anyone
who is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's
like a man who looks intently at his natural
face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and
he goes away and at once he forgets what he's
like. In other words, the word of God speaks
to our condition, where we are, where we need
to be. But when we're not looking in the word
of God, at least not looking at it regularly,
we forget. But we need to be the one who looks
into the perfect law of God, the law of liberty,
and perseveres. Being no hearer who forgets,
but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his
doing. So the cure for spiritual apathy is engagement
in the word of God and constant practice in discerning
good. from evil. Don't remain spiritually apathetic.
You don't have to. Get back on the road. Pull
that car back into drive. and move forward. That's
what we're looking at. That's what he encourages
here in chapter six, those first three verses.
Spiritual advancement. That's what we wanna be
doing. There's no neutral in the Christian life.
You're either moving forward or you're falling
behind. He says, therefore let us leave the elementary
doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Go
on to maturity. Again, it's a decision we need
to make. I'm gonna grow up. And again, these
words imply effort. It demands effort on your
part if you're gonna grow up, if you're gonna
go on to maturity, if you're gonna advance to
become a spiritually mature adult. So let me
just ask you the question. Are you making an
effort? Are you doing the Word of God or just
hearing the Word of God? Have you become one
who constantly practices, discerning good from
evil, that's where we should be. So, let's leave
the elementary doctrine of Christ. And again,
that doesn't mean that we forget those things.
It just means that we move on from them. Many
people can't tell you any more about their relationship
with God than their salvation experience. Let
me tell you, your salvation experience was the
beginning of your walk with the Lord. You should
be moving on from that. We'll never forget that.
It's that moment that we came to know Christ
as Savior and Lord that puts us on the road.
But now we need to move on. We need to move on
down the road where we don't abandon those elementary
principles of the gospel, but we build upon them.
We grow up from there. And look what he says,
not laying again a foundation of repentance and
from dead works. faith toward God, instructions
about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection
of the dead, and eternal judgment. We move on
from that. We don't lay that foundation again.
Now we're gonna build upon that foundation. In
other words, the foundation has been laid. And
he gives us, just real quickly, I'll talk about
these issues that are listed for us here. It's
really three sets of two, three pairs of... spiritual
doctrine or issues. Repentance from dead works
and faith toward God. Again, repentance and faith.
Those are basic and elementary teachings of the
gospel, right? When we come to Christ, we repent.
We turn from our sin and we believe upon the
name of Jesus. Repentance and faith. And let
me just say this. The writer is telling his readers
that these were things that were first Written
in the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant,
these principles were there as well. You don't
have to read far in the Old Testament to find
out that God's people were to repent of their
sin. They were to turn from their sin and return
to Him. Faith was an important issue under the
Old Covenant. The scripture says Abraham believed
God and it was credited to him or accounted to
him as righteousness. So this first... couplet,
repentance from dead works and faith toward God.
That's talking about the beginning of salvation,
turning from our sin and repentance, turning
to Christ in belief for salvation. And then instructions
and washings and laying on of hands, maybe not
as clear as we would like it to be. But these
two are Old Testament concepts that are expanded
in the New Testament. And basically for our purposes
here today, These things are talking about our
entrance into and then our ability to participate
within the body of Christ. In Jesus, we are clothed
in his righteousness. We are made fit for service
to God. The laying on of hands there was something
that was done under the old covenant when one
was being sent out for some service. And the
implication there was that what was being done
was that the Holy Spirit was being imparted to
these people. And of course, the Holy Spirit
isn't just imparted to us. The Holy Spirit comes
to indwell us. Why do I know that you can go
on to spiritual maturity? Because you have the
Holy Spirit of God in you that will enable you.
to do that. So this couplet talking about that,
our entrance into the body of Christ and then
the enabling power of the Spirit of God within
us that will generate our power and service to
the Lord. And then resurrection from the dead
and eternal judgment. Again, Old Testament concepts
that are expanded upon in the New Testament.
Fundamental issues that the New Testament clarifies.
I guess if we wanna talk about that first couplet,
repentance from dead works and faith toward God,
if we're talking about justification there, and
then if we're talking about instructions and
washing the laying on of hands, we could be talking
about our sanctification. Well, this last couplet
talks about our glorification, resurrection from
the dead and the eternal judgment. We're all
looking forward to that, right? To the return
of Christ. We know that in Jesus, because he
has been raised, we will be raised. We know that
what awaits us in eternity is a new heaven and
a new earth where we're gonna live in our resurrected
body for all time with our brothers and sisters
in Christ. It's gonna be a wonderful thing. These
are the elementary principles, the ABCs of the
scripture, which we should have a firm grasp
of in our lives as Christians and that we should
build upon. That's what the writer of Hebrews
is saying. These fundamental doctrines. should
be firmly grasped by everyone who claims the
name of Christ, and then we should be advancing
in our knowledge and understanding of scripture
from there. And of course, I love the last verse
that we're looking at, verse three, and this
we will do if God permits. Do you think God wants
you to move on into maturity as a Christian?
Absolutely, he does. Do you think he's gonna
help you to do that? Well, absolutely, he does.
As a matter of fact, we've already said he indwells
us through the person of the Holy Spirit who
does what? who guides us into all truth. So a
Christian, there's no reason, no valid excuse
to remain a spiritual infant. You have the Spirit
of God within you who will guide you into all
truth. So there's the choice this morning, spiritual
apathy or spiritual advancement. Of course, my
prayer for you and for myself is that we will
choose spiritual advancement, that we will go
on with Jesus, that we will grow from this point
forward, that each and every day of our lives
and right on through this life and into eternity,
we will continue to grow in our understanding
of God's word, of what God says about himself,
what he says about us. That's a decision that
you have to make. Don't become dull of hearing.
Don't neglect the nourishment of the Word of
God that's right here in front of you, but engage
with the scriptures each and every day.