Somebody about Jesus, I'm gonna hear this morning.
That's really, really cool.
If you have your Bibles, go to Hebrews.
We're gonna be in Hebrews five at the end
and then chapter six, as you may well know.
Hebrews chapter five, chapter number six.
I am so glad to have spent a large part of yesterday
and today to be able to see Pastor Herb and Miss Judy.
Are you glad they're here this morning?
We love them so much.
Anybody here miss them?
I miss them, yeah.
We miss them, but we're so glad that God,
and we're glad that God brought them.
And man, make sure if you haven't seen them already,
go by and see them today.
And we're just so thankful for the ministry
that God had for them here.
And the minute, you know what was so cool
about Pastor Herb and Miss Judy is
they're not out of the ministry.
They're still doing ministry.
And so we're really grateful for that.
I grew up playing sports.
I love, love, love as you guys know.
I love playing basketball.
And as a player, one of the things
that I really enjoyed was just developing,
getting better and having coaches that coach me
and help me get better at what I do
and learning you have to be able to shoot a layup
before you can shoot a three pointer
and dribble and pass well before you can do an alley-oop.
And I never got to the alley-oop part.
I passed a couple, but that's about it.
But there's that development that happens.
You start with the simple
and you go on to the more complex.
And I love now that I can't hardly run.
I wheeze a lot.
You laughed a little too hard, Megan, when you just now.
I love being a coach, not necessarily of sports,
although one of the hazards of being a pastor and a dad
is sometimes you use your family too much as illustrations.
But I'll go ahead and do it.
And is Milana even in here?
I don't know.
I don't think she is.
She's probably in junior church.
My girls are playing volleyball now.
And to see them, they started two seasons ago.
And to see Milana and Audrey go from their first season
to the end of the season.
How many of you guys have experienced
seeing your kids develop over time?
And you see somebody else coaching them
and it's like, wow, you're listening and obeying.
Some other adult and that'd be nice to do at home.
And so anyway, but to see people start to get it
is just so fun.
How many guys have ever trained somebody
and got a thrill about seeing them go from not being able
to do something to then being able to doing it
and then mastering it.
And how many of you guys ever coach somebody
that got better than you did?
That's just a thrill to see that happen,
to go from not being able to do something to doing something.
And that's a big part of what it means to be
any kind of leader, but it's a big part of what it means
to be a pastor.
The Bible says that God gave leaders in the church,
apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints,
for the growing of the saints, the maturing of the saints,
for the work of the ministry.
So my job as a pastor is not to execute all the ministry.
My job is to be a coach for you to help you go do the ministry
because there's way more ministry than just I can do.
You have a ministry to do too.
You know that, right?
If you're a child of God,
if you're a follower of Jesus Christ,
then God's called you to be a fisher of men.
That's what he's called you to do.
And some of you who aren't even saved yet,
God wants to help you to come to know Christ
and a big part of why he wants you to come to know Christ
is because he loves you and he cares about you.
He doesn't want you to go to hell
and he wants you to go to heaven,
but he's also got some people for you to tell too.
Some people for you to connect with and to reach.
And so that's a big part of it.
So coaching can be this amazing experience.
When you see someone go from point A to point B
in any skill set, it's amazing.
That's one of the reasons I'm excited about tonight.
Did you hear about tonight?
We're having a family service
and in our family service,
the teenagers are taking over
and I'm a little bit nervous,
but I'm excited.
They've been working on it and Miss Dawn and Noah,
Ellie, it's been coaching our teenagers to get them
helped and ready for the music and for the,
and Miss Peggy, they're all kind of working
so these kids can come up.
And you know what?
They're not the church of the tomorrow.
They're the church of right now.
They're a part of us right now
and they have a ministry for us to us
and with us right now.
Do you believe that?
We love them and we care about them
and we're excited about seeing them do that.
And so that's all a part of what we're trying to do.
And the connection I'm trying to make this morning
between this introduction, getting to the text for today,
is to tell you this,
God has an incredible plan for your life.
God has an incredible plan not for your life,
for your life.
Point to who I'm talking about.
Everybody point to who I'm talking about.
Yeah, I'm talking to you.
God's got a plan for your life.
Ephesians 2, 8 to 10 tells us that he says,
for by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God,
not of works lest any man should boast.
You know what that means?
You are saved by grace when you put your faith in Jesus.
God doesn't have to give you salvation,
but he does because of Jesus.
It's not by works.
We don't get saved by doing good things,
but he says this, for you are his workmanship,
his poyema, his poetry, his masterpiece,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God has foreordained that you should walk in them.
You know what that means?
God made your personality the way you are.
God gave you the talents and the gifts and the abilities
that he's given to you.
When you got saved, you got spiritual gifting.
There's a spiritual gift that he's given to you
and a diversity of gifts.
You know not everybody hears the same, right?
You're like, I can tell.
Not everybody's here the same.
I'm glad not everybody's like me.
I thought you guys would aim in that a lot more quickly,
right?
Not everybody's the same.
God has shaped us and put us where he is, where we are,
and when we are, and with the gifts
and the abilities that we are,
and when we get saved, when we get put in the body,
God places people in the body.
Not everybody has the same gifts,
but he's places here for a function, for a reason.
Here he calls it, he says that he created us in Christ Jesus
unto good works.
We're not saved by good works, but we're saved to them.
God ordained them that we should walk in them.
And so what I wanna tell you about that today is this.
Spiritual maturity is the condition
where we are most likely to fulfill
what God would have us to do.
Spiritual maturity, growth in Christ after we're saved
till we are of full age, as Hebrews five calls it,
is a spiritual condition that God's kind of prompting us to.
He wants us to grow up.
And as we grow, he wants us then to use the things
he's done, that's what he says when he says he's working on us,
or his workmanship, he's growing us through his word
and through his church and through his leaders
and through the Holy Spirit.
He's growing us to do the things that God's called,
and he's gifted us to do what God's called us to do.
And that means God's got a plan for you.
And we need you and you need us, amen.
That's what it means.
And can I tell you that God's plans for you
and God's plans for your life are so much better
than your plans?
They are so much better than your plans.
And sometimes God's plans become your plans,
and that's a great place to be.
We're walking through Hebrews,
the book of Hebrews verse by verse,
and this week we come to Hebrews chapter six.
This is one of the most debated passages
of the scripture in the Bible.
So much so that as you go read commentaries about it,
sometimes people just skip the whole section.
Please pray for me this morning.
It's actually not that hard.
Many commentators skip it,
but because of verses four through six,
which if you read verses four through six
out of its context,
some take it to mean that you can lose your salvation.
And I'm here with good news this morning.
Once you're saved, you're always saved.
If you could lose your salvation,
you probably would have already lost it.
If you could lose it, you already have,
because we can't keep our salvation,
we can't save ourselves,
why do you think we could keep it?
And the Bible's so clear,
it's important that we know
that the correct way to interpret scripture,
and there's a lot of principles in that,
but two principles I wanna bring up today
that have kind of governed our interpretation of this,
number one, context is king.
Context is king.
Don't read verses, read passages.
Don't take a verse and read it
and pull it out of its context and read it.
That's what so many people do.
I've even had that happen to me.
This is one of the hazards of being a teacher,
Sunday school teacher, a pastor,
anybody that gets up and with authority,
preaches God's word,
is that people then come to you with Bible questions.
And I've read the whole Bible.
I'm acknowledged in it and so yeah,
sometimes people bring me a verse
and they'll read it to me out of context
and at first there's a little bit of like, oh no,
that is a good question.
What's the answer?
You know what, 99.9% of the time,
what they're assuming about that passage,
you just gotta go and read the whole thing.
And then once you put it in this context,
it's no problem.
And that's kind of what's going on here.
So there are no verses in the Bible.
Paul, when he wrote Ephesians, didn't start chapter one.
Verse one, that's not how it happened.
We put those in there so that you can have bigger Bibles
and smaller Bibles and different things
so that when I say Genesis chapter one
or Romans chapter three, you can get there.
I don't have to go page number 763.
Does that make sense?
It's a tool that we used to all get on the same page.
But those verses aren't necessarily,
those chapter headings and verses aren't necessary,
they're not in the Bible.
They're not in the original language.
And so sometimes what happens is,
you're in the middle of a thought
and then it goes chapter six.
And you think, well, it's a new topic
because there's a chapter there,
but the topic hasn't changed.
That's what I wanna show you today, Context is King.
Number two, here's the other thing I wanna tell you,
never let a difficult passage of scripture
be at odds with the clear teaching in scripture.
Don't let that happen.
Jesus said what can separate you from the love of Christ.
Jesus said, God said that,
Jesus said, if any man be in me,
then he's in my hand and I'm in the Father's hand
and no man could pluck them out of my hand.
And he said, I and the Father are one.
So the Bible is very, very clear.
You can't lose your salvation.
The Bible says in Ephesians,
don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God, which is in you.
Why can you grieve them?
Because he can't leave and we sin.
That's how we grieve them.
So you can't lose your salvation.
The Bible is so clear.
If you wanna talk about that,
if you're worried about your salvation
or losing your salvation, come see me.
We'll grab coffee and I'll help you understand that,
think through that.
This is not a passage about someone being saved
and losing their salvation.
This is a passage about what a company's salvation,
God's desire for every person that gets saved
is spiritual growth, spiritual maturity.
This is talking to the Hebrews on the day of the writing
of this passage, who were saved,
but were tempted to backslide to what their life looked like
before they were saved.
The text applies to us then,
in regard to being a backslidden believer.
They're saved, they're going to heaven when they die,
but they're not living in full maturity.
They are not moving on into perfection
or into maturity as six verse one says.
They're not becoming all that God intends them to be.
They're not at rest in him,
they're not bearing fruit in their lives as believers.
And I'm gonna say this by faith.
We all want to move into what God has for us, don't we?
Anybody here wanna grow?
Anybody here wanna fulfill those plans
that God foreordained that we should walk in them?
That's what we want.
Who here wants to grow?
Yeah, I hope that if you're not saved today
that it will be very clear that you could be saved.
If you're not saved, the Bible says
that you're dead spiritually
and you don't need to grow spiritually,
you need to be born again.
That's what needs to happen.
And so let me just pause here and say,
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
He was both God and man.
Fully man, fully God.
God sent Jesus to live in this world.
He was born of a virgin.
He had no sin nature being born of that virgin.
He never had that sin nature.
And then he never sinned.
He never did anything wrong.
He kept the law that you could not keep.
And he did it for the right reason.
He did the right thing for the right reason.
He didn't do the wrong thing
and he did that for the right reason.
He did everything he could to glorify and honor God.
And then like our lesson talked about this morning
in Sunday school, if you're not in Sunday school,
you should go.
It talked about how that John chapter 12
that unless a seed goes into the ground and dies
and can't bring forth new life,
and that's exactly what Jesus did.
He died, he was buried and he rose again.
He died for our sin, he was buried, he rose again.
He rose again.
That's not a metaphor.
That actually happened in history.
Jesus really died.
He was really buried and he really rose again.
And the Bible says that if we would place our faith in him,
we can spend eternity with him forever.
Your sin could be forgiven.
God can legally dismiss your case.
The debt could be paid by Jesus.
He gives you his righteousness.
He takes away your sin and it happens.
Not by works, not by coming to church.
You're not gonna be saved because you're Baptist
or because you're at Trinity.
You're saved because Jesus died for you
and you put your faith in him.
So just because, and like you cannot earn it,
you can't keep it.
And so if you're here today and you're not saved,
today's the day of salvation.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved, the Bible says.
That's what you need to do.
Don't wait.
I don't recommend not even wait until the invitation time.
Do it now, call in the name of the Lord to save you.
Now for the rest of us, this is talking about,
these are talking to saved people,
people who have already been born again.
And here's the idea that I want you to take away today.
We must respond to the call,
respond to the call to spiritual maturity
that we see in this passage
by understanding what spiritual maturity looks like.
Here are four truths about spiritual maturity
that will help us to think rightly
about the progress to which God's calling us.
Here's the first one.
The progress is about leaving,
this will blow your mind, ready?
Leaving spiritual immaturity.
Remember how I said there's no verses or chapters
in the Bible?
There's passages.
Well, this passage really kind of begins
where I was at last week.
To really understand the passage,
the whole passage, we must look like we've said
at its whole context.
And the subject change really happened back in verse 11
of chapter number five.
This is where the Holy Spirit through the author
begins to speak about the immaturity of his readers.
He identifies several sparks
of a spiritually immature person.
They're saved, these are someone who knows Jesus,
but they need to grow.
And let's look at each of these marks in this text, okay?
And briefly get us oriented to the rest of the passage.
One of the things he calls them,
he says the mark of what's going on here
is dullness toward the word, dullness toward the word.
In verse 11, it says, of whom, and that's speaking,
let me catch you up if you weren't here last week,
he just referred to the high priestly office
of Jesus Christ and how that Jesus is not
after the order of Aaron,
but he's after the order of a guy named Melchizedek.
Melchizedek was this figure in the Old Testament,
historical figure, a real person
that gets brought up there in Genesis,
it also gets brought up in Psalms,
and then again here in Hebrews.
And it's this guy who was both a king and a priest,
which is very rare.
And the Bible says that Jesus is our kingly priest,
and he's after this order of Melchizedek.
And it's almost like the author of Hebrews
is getting into this very detailed, meaty passage,
and then he pauses and it's not like
he forgot his audience, but he then goes,
oh, I need to say something to my audience
who I'm giving this really incredible truth to.
And he says, here's what I'm having a hard time with,
verse 11, of whom we have many things to say
about this Melchizedek and Jesus' order,
and he picks it up at the end here
of chapter six into chapter seven.
He says, this thing I'm talking about with Jesus
and Melchizedek, I have a lot to say about this,
but it's hard to be uttered.
It's hard to be uttered seeing ye are dull of hearing.
God has a desire for them to grow in their learning
and in their obedience, but a spiritually immature person
as he's referring to here is dull of hearing.
I told you last week that word dull is the word nothros,
which means not only dull, but slothful, sluggish,
or lazily, lazy.
So we're gonna say slothful, and I'm gonna say nothros,
and you're gonna say slothful, so you get it.
Nothros means slothful.
Okay, that's gonna come up later, so pay attention.
What does nothros mean?
You got it, lazy, dull, slothful.
Okay, it's the idea here that maybe they hear
what he's saying, but rarely do they seek out
the kind of thing he's saying.
It's the idea that maybe they hear what he's saying.
Hey, you're hearing what I'm telling you,
but you're not quick to obey what I'm telling you.
You know the Bible's not just for hearing.
The Bible's for obeying.
In fact, if you get in the habit of listening
to the word of God or reading the word of God
and not obeying it, it's really bad for you.
Because you can get to the place where you get insensitive
to the word of God.
You get used to having something to do about it
and being disobedient.
And so he says, hey, one of the marks of immaturity
is slothful to hear, slow to hear, dull in hearing,
not able to hear it.
Now, letter B, the second mark of spiritually mature
is the inability to share, inability to share.
Chapter five verse 12 says this,
for when, for the time you ought to be teachers,
you have need that one teach you again,
which be the first principles of the oracles of God.
Notice that word ought.
God desire is for everyone who knows Christ
and has been born again to grow and influence
and reproduce spiritually.
He says here that they ought to be teachers.
And teaching is merely sharing with someone
the things that you have both learned both in knowledge
and in experience and in obedience.
And he's saying, you should be at the point
where you're teaching others and you're not doing it.
A spiritually immature person can't share.
Instead of teaching and influencing,
they needed to still be taught.
And that was the problem that they had in mark of immaturity.
Now, if you're a brand new believer,
it's not bad for you to be immature.
You are because you just been born, right?
So don't take that the wrong way.
But he says this is a mark of immaturity,
dullness to hear, inability to share,
letter C, a baby food diet.
A baby food diet.
Another indication of their maturity
was what they call a baby,
what we'll call a baby food diet.
Look at chapter verse 12B.
And are become as such that have need of what?
What is it?
Milk and not strong meat.
For everyone that uses milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
A mark of spiritual maturity is that
all you can process is the milk.
They can't process the meat.
They do not hear and obey.
They're the first things.
So it makes no sense that they would hear
the more difficult things.
If they're a lazy or dull to hear,
then they never move on to the bread or to the meat.
I remember hearing about a famous preacher.
I don't remember which one it was.
I'm sure this has probably happened more than once.
Where a guy came and took a church
and he preached a message.
And then the next week he came
and he preached the same message.
And then on the third week he came in
and preached the same message.
And they're like, why preacher?
Why are you preaching the same message?
He goes, because you haven't obeyed the message
the first time I read it.
We're not gonna move on until you obey.
Now I'm not gonna do that.
But there's something to it.
Why would you obey the more difficult things
if you're not even processing the simpler things?
He goes on to talk about two more marks.
Letter D, unskillfulness and using the word verse 13
says this, for everyone that uses milk is unskillful
and the word of righteousness for he's a babe.
But strong meat belonging to them that are of what?
Full age.
And what's the point of this strong meat?
Is it to be able to say, I can eat meat?
I'm really mature.
Look how great I am.
I can tell you all the disciples names.
I can tell you all the bigads.
I've memorized whole passages of scripture.
I know a lot.
Is that the point?
No, it is not.
Man, there's a lot of people like I told you last week
who are incredible at Bible Jeopardy and their babies.
Cause it's not just about,
there's some people that are spiritually fat.
They've taken in a lot of God's word,
but they're not living it out.
And so he says, what's the point of strong meat?
It's for those who are full age of full age verse 14,
even those who by reason of use,
reason of use of that strong meat
have their senses exercised to discern
both good and evil.
You know what the point of the spiritual nutrition
of God's word is?
To equip you to go out and live
what it is you're supposed to do.
To go out and live God's word in the world.
You're not dismissed.
You're getting it.
That's the point.
Eat the spiritual meal so that you can go exercise.
Go live it out in the world.
Now this leads us to this idea.
Like I said in the introduction,
God has an incredible plan for your life.
You are his workmanship,
which you will do as you're growing up in him.
And that leads us to chapter six verses one through three,
which although we've changed chapters,
we don't really change topics.
We're still being warned about not growing up
or not maturing.
Here's the fifth mark of spiritual immaturity.
Sometimes this is just way too simple.
Not moving on to maturity.
In verse one it says,
therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection.
You know what he's saying?
He's saying, let's move on from just the milk and mature.
Let's move on from the first things.
Remember he's writing to these Jewish believers
and he says, you know that Christ is the one
that Christ is the Messiah.
What has he been talking to him about for five chapters?
He's better than the angels.
He's better than Moses.
He's the greater high priest.
He's the better rest.
All those things in the Old Testament are pictures of the real,
the true.
Do you get it?
He's saying, these are the truths that you need to move on to.
It's on these truths,
these truths about Jesus Christ's identity
that our salvation rests.
Hey, listen, if Jesus is not the Christ, are you saved?
If Jesus isn't God, are you yet in your sins?
Yes, we are.
So the way we get saved is by putting our trust
in the one person who could save us, Jesus.
Buddha can't save you.
Hinduism can't save you.
Islam can't save you.
Your mama can't save you.
Your daddy can't.
Are you with me?
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man coming to the Father, but by me, not me, Jesus.
So he says, here's what he's saying, back to verse one,
leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection.
Now that you're saved, keep growing.
But don't go back to not laying again the foundation of repentance
from dead works and faith towards God
and the doctrine of baptism, the fact that that letter's there
is key, and of laying on of hands and of resurrection
of the dead and of eternal judgment.
And this we will do if God permit.
He is speaking here of the things that Jewish people
would have believed before they believed in Jesus.
Okay.
It was a belief about salvation that was incomplete.
Repentance from dead works as a means of salvation
apart from Christ.
They didn't know about Jesus.
They were looking to Jesus.
They didn't know it was him.
And he's saying, don't go back to the way you thought about
salvation before separating it out from Christ.
You have this tendency to go back to what Judaism was like before.
There was repentance, sometimes a repentance like our repentance
was just going through the motions.
And it was our repentance that was devoid of Jesus.
But now that we have Jesus, we understand that our repentance
and our faith ought to be in Christ.
He says, and a faith towards God.
This is a faith that's in God the Father
but not acknowledging God the Son.
He goes on to say of the doctrine of baptisms.
That word baptisms, there's multiple, it's a plural.
And the word baptisms could also be called washings.
There was ceremonial washings that they would do in the temple
and in the on different days as part of what they would do
and worship to God and trying to go back to that.
The laying on of hands and talking about here
when they would sacrifice an animal,
when they would go back to those sacrifices before
one of the parts that they would do after they,
as part of sacrificing that animal,
they would lay their hands on that animal
as a picture of that animal becoming the substitute
that would atone for their sins.
Does that make sense?
And what he's saying is,
don't go back to the old sacrificial system.
Don't go back to the old way you used to think about salvation.
Don't go back to that old way you repented,
not understanding who Christ is.
It was partial, it was incomplete.
This baptism is talking about here is not Holy Spirit baptism
or water baptism as a step of obedience,
as a first step of obedience.
The laying on of hands was, hey listen,
we have a better sacrifice.
Those lambs were a picture of the lamb that would come
that would lay down his life for his sheep.
We hold the Lamb of God that takeeth away the sin of the world.
He's saying don't go back to that.
Jesus is greater.
Resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment,
as it says here, is exactly what they believe would happen.
Jewish people, especially the Pharisees,
they believed in these things,
but outside of Christ they were still spiritually dead.
They believed in God's judgment,
but they were in danger of God's judgment
because they had rejected Christ.
All of these things, if not done by faith,
and done outside of a belief in Christ,
we're trying to pursue a relationship with God
on the basis of the law.
And that still happens in so-called Christian denominations today.
Sure Jesus died, but you got to do this and this and this and this.
It's Jesus plus something else dead works to bring you to salvation.
Can I tell you salvation?
It's Jesus plus nothing, minus nothing.
That's it.
How are you saved? Jesus.
That's how it happens.
All of these things, if not done in faith,
and done outside of a belief in Christ,
we're trying to pursue a relationship with God on the basis of the law.
And the law can't save you.
Paul talks about this in Romans 9 where he says,
what shall we say then?
This is Romans 9.30.
What shall we say then that the Gentiles,
which followed not after righteousness,
have attained to righteousness?
Even the righteousness, which is of faith,
but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
having not attained to the law of righteousness,
wherefore, because they sought it not by faith.
But as it were by the works of the law,
salvation was never intended to be by works.
It was always by faith.
And he's saying, this is what's happened.
The Gentiles who didn't have the law and didn't try to follow all that law stuff,
they're believing and they're being saved.
And then you had these Jews who were believing.
They were trying to obey and practice the law,
but they thought that they would be right with God by keeping the law.
And he says, what about them?
And he says, they didn't seek it by faith.
They thought about it by works of the law,
for they stumbled at that stumbling stone, Jesus.
As is written, behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone
and a rock of offense and whosoever believeth on him.
Who's the stumbling stone?
Who's the rock of offense?
Who's the stone that is the head of the corner?
The stone that the Buddha has rejected
has become the head of the corner.
Jesus Christ is the foundation stone.
And he says, whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed.
You know what that means?
If God makes you a promise, he'll keep it.
He'll keep it.
If he said, believe in me and you'll be saved.
Period.
End of discussion.
If you've been given salvation, that's a promise he's made to you.
You can't lose it.
I'll make you promises and let you down.
Let's meet at 11 on Friday, 1115.
Where's Pastor Ben?
Right?
Anybody ever have that?
Don't raise your hand.
Anybody ever been let down by somebody?
Jesus won't let you down.
So here's what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
Go on to perfection.
Go on to maturity.
Move beyond just believing rightly about Christ when it comes to your salvation.
And definitely do not go back to what you believed before you were saved.
Don't go back to believing in the ceremonial law as the way you ought to worship God.
Don't backslide.
Don't be dull.
Nothrose.
What does nothrose mean?
You got it.
Don't be dull of hearing.
The ceremonial law that you believed before cannot save you.
It cannot grow you.
Jesus is who does it.
And so here's what we're trying to do.
We're looking at four truths about spiritual maturity that will help us to think rightly about the progress God's calling us to.
We got to leave spiritual maturity.
And this progress is about leaving spiritual maturity.
This progress and sanctification, this maturity does not affect your salvation.
Look at verse four.
I want you to understand verses four through six are all in this context and one sentence.
Here we go.
For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost
and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come
if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing that they crucify to themselves
and have gone and got it fresh and put him to an open shame.
Look at what it says in verse four.
It is impossible for those.
Then he begins to give a series of statements.
I think there are about four of them which give us every indication that the person being referred to here is a saved person.
He says those who are once enlightened, the word enlightened means the light has been turned on.
The word once there means once for all being enlightened.
It seems to be a description of a saved person.
When you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, the light comes on and you're brought out of darkness into God's marvelous light, once enlightened.
The same word used in Hebrews 10.32 is translated differently.
It says in Hebrews 10.32, it's the same word, but it's a different English word.
In 10.32 it says, Bacauldo remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of a thick of afflictions.
The word illuminated is the word enlightened.
This is a description of a person who's been saved.
They've been enlightened.
The light has come on.
2 Corinthians 4.6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So, do you see that?
They've been enlightened.
Then it says they've tasted of the heavenly gift.
Do you see that?
You guys see it?
Look at your Bibles.
What does it say?
They were once enlightened.
They've tasted of the heavenly gift.
That is a clear reference to the gift of salvation.
Romans 6.33 says, the wages have sinned his death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Salvation is God's heavenly gift.
He says that they've tasted of the heavenly gift.
There are some who say that the word tasted means that they just sampled it.
They didn't really partake of it.
They didn't really get it, but this word is used in another place in the book of Hebrews very significantly.
In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9, we've already studied this.
Here's what it says.
But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, but that by the grace of God should what?
Taste death for every man.
He says here that on the cross Christ tasted death for every man.
Does this mean that Jesus got a little sample of death?
No.
It means Jesus experienced the fullness of death on the cross.
Did Jesus die?
Did Jesus really die?
Yes.
So the word taste as it's used here does not mean sample.
It means experience.
Back in verse 4.
You there with me?
Walking through the phrase, phrase by phrase.
Here's what it says.
For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.
That were partakers that there really means to take hold with someone, to become a partner with someone.
When you come to Christ and you're saved, then you enter into a partnership with God the Holy Spirit.
When God saves you, He wants you to grow and become everything He intends you to be.
He wants you to become like the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wants you to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wants you to mature in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So you and the Holy Spirit are in a joint project together.
That's why in Philippians 2.12 it says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Does it mean work into your salvation?
It means now that you're saved, work it out.
Do something with it.
Then in the right, in the next verse it says, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
You see, you and I work out what God is working in.
That's what the process of sanctification is.
That's what Christian growth is.
God is working in you.
You're working it out in your daily life.
That sounds like a safe person to me, doesn't it?
Back to our text.
In verse 5, he says, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come.
A safe person has experienced the blessings of God's word.
A safe person has experienced the powers of the world to come.
That is, safe people get a little foretaste of heaven.
It happens all the time.
You ever been reading your Bible and just got excited?
You ever been in a service and the worship and music was so sweet?
And then you heard the word of God and it just got up all in you?
You're like, no, I'm Baptist.
It happens to us sometimes too, amen.
We've had those services here, haven't we?
Where God just, man.
Yeah.
Safe people getting a little foretaste of what's going to be like.
Let's say people.
Verse 4 says, it's impossible for folks like that if they shall fall away.
That phrase in verse 6 fall away is not the word apostasy.
It's not apostasy means like a falling away.
That's almost like a permanent thing.
There's a different word for apostasy than the word that's right here.
The word is a different word.
It means to deviate from the path.
It means to wander off course.
Back in verse 1, he told us, let's move on to perfection.
He's already been talking to safe people saying, hey, the problem isn't that you're not safe.
The problem is that you're dull of hearing.
The problem is that you haven't grown up.
You get it?
So apostasy here is not them losing their salvation.
It's that they've wandered off course.
Anybody know anyone in the Bible that wandered off course?
Have you heard of David?
Man after God's own heart?
Peter?
Denied Jesus three times?
Peter, do you love me?
Peter, do you love?
Can a Christian backslide?
That's a dumb question.
Anybody here ever mess up?
Everybody here ever mess up for a period of time in a pattern?
Yeah.
Grow up.
That's the point of the passage.
Grow up.
Verse 6 is essentially saying that it's impossible for safe people.
If they get off course, it's impossible to renew them to again to repentance.
The word renew means to restore them under repentance.
I've repented more since I got saved than I did before I got saved.
Can you agree with that?
When I came to know Christ, now as I've tried to live out the Christian life,
I've come to understand more about the Lord.
It's kind of like when you put something you're making next to the standard,
like that sidewalk I told you about last week.
This is what a straight line looks like and this is what your sidewalk looks like.
When you compare, the more you get to know Jesus, the more you realize,
man, I messed up.
He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
That's some old school, Sunday school song, but it means something.
He says the backslide is a believer that it's impossible for anyone to get into repentance.
Is this saying that when you backslide as a Christian, there's no way back?
No. That's not what it's saying.
How many of you have gotten away from the Lord at some point in your life
and then you're repented and came back?
It's not saying that. Here's the key.
Up into this point, the verbs in the passage are all in a particular tense in the Greek language.
They're definite in nature.
They talk about something that's a definite action in the past.
They were enlightened.
They tasted the heavenly gift.
They were partakers of the Holy Spirit.
They tasted that we're a good word of God.
Definite experiences when they were saved.
The tenses though of the verb change in verse six and it says,
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God or fresh to put him to an open shame.
He's saying if they shall fall away, it's impossible to renew them again under repentance
while they are in the condition of crucifying the Son of God or fresh
and while they are in the condition of putting him to an open shame.
Do you get it?
Here's what it's saying.
A backslidden believer is a pitiful believer because while they are in that backslidden,
unrepentant condition, they are not teachable.
They're not teachable.
You can't do a thing in the world with them.
Those Hebrews who were going back to that old way of thinking,
knowing about Christ but wanting to go back to those old ways of thinking about salvation,
they were saying that Christ's death were of no effect and that there was some other way to be right with God.
Those of us who have been in the ministry for some time all have experiences with people
who once served the Lord faithfully and who turned from serving to the Lord to other things.
Some left their families, others left the church.
And when they were sought by after those who were trying to help them to be restored,
they simply refused.
They were hard and unrepentant.
A believer can get into such an unrepentant state that it feels like a wasted time to talk to him.
Talk about dull of hearing.
Don't go there.
Wake up.
Move on.
Don't go backwards.
Go forwards.
Pastor Warren Wearsby said this.
The writer's purpose was not to frighten the readers but to assure them.
If he wanted to frighten them, he would have named whatever sin or sins would have caused them to disgrace Jesus Christ.
But he didn't do that.
In fact, he avoided the word apostasy and used instead to fall by the wayside.
Christians can sin unto death.
You know that, right?
Christians can be of no earthly good anymore.
So God just takes them home.
This is God's chastening.
A theme the writer of Hebrews will take up again in Hebrews 12, 1 to 29.
So he's saying, don't go when you're trying to use a ceremonial law again.
It's like you're crucifying God again or fresh.
Don't go back.
You already know Jesus.
Jesus is the only way.
Those things were just pointing to Jesus.
Go.
Don't go back to what the old way was.
Grow up.
You're born again.
Grow up.
Don't go back.
And what I want to say to us.
If you've been saved for a long time and there's a point in your spiritual walk that's a higher watermark than what's now, repent.
There's rest for the people of God.
One of the most miserable persons in the world.
One of the most miserable people in the world are the people who are saved and not living like it.
You can't enjoy your sin like you used to.
But you're also not enjoying the fellowship of God.
Grow up.
Lord, help me get through this.
Number seven.
Number three.
The progress results in fruitfulness.
Look at verse seven to ten.
I may have to come back to this next week.
I may not be able to do it justice, but let's go.
Verse seven.
For the earth with shrinketh in the rain that cometh off upon it, and bringeth forth herbs, and meeteth for them by whom it is dressed, receiveeth, brusting from God.
But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh into cursing, whose end is to be burned.
What that means is there's a fruit that should accompany salvation and spiritual growth.
When someone gets saved, as they begin to grow in God's word and move on into maturity, to imperfection, because of that salvation and the indwelling spirit, there's fruit.
Some of the things we do as we grow spiritually are of the Lord.
Those things are of eternal value.
Brother Rex was talking in our Sunday School class this morning.
There's some things that I do that are of eternal value.
There's some things that I do are wood, hay, and stubble.
Gold, silver, precious stone.
If I told you I have some gold and I have some silver and I have some precious stone, but I accidentally dropped it in a fire.
But if you, it's cooled off now, do you want it?
What would you say?
Sweet.
If I came to you and said I got some wood, some hay, some stubble, and I dropped it in the fire, do you want it?
What would you say?
Right.
It gets burned up and the things that has intrinsic value remain.
Those are the eternal things.
The author gives a testimony of what he thinks of the fruit of these people.
He says in verse nine, how do you know this is not about salvation, Ben?
Look at verse nine.
But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation.
Though we thus speak.
For God is not unrighteous to forget your work in labor of love, which you have showed toward his name,
and that you have minister to the saints and do minister.
He points to those things that they've done and are doing as a result of their spiritual growth,
the work, the labor of love, the ministry to the saints.
And by the way, how do I know I'm spiritually mature?
One thing that spiritually mature people do is serve.
They serve.
Spiritual mature people are generous people.
They give, they do, they work, they reproduce.
Do you get it?
Babies are consumers.
Have you noticed?
All they do is get taken care of.
They don't serve.
They can't serve.
It's fine.
I don't ask my one year old to clean his room.
I do a little bit, but I don't expect this.
We got to help.
Have you noticed?
They're good at dirty in the room.
Right?
Babies are consumers.
Adults give.
Parents give.
Has anybody noticed that parents give?
Grandparents give.
That's the joy of it.
Right?
Spiritual mature people result.
It's always a result in service and giving and generosity.
So, four things about spiritual maturity.
Last one, the progress demands diligent effort.
Look at verse 11 and 12.
And we desire that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope and to the end.
The author is not saying that you have to stay diligent in order to be saved.
The author is saying that diligent focus must be made to stay close to the Lord so that the fruit of the mature Christian life can be present.
Progress in your spiritual life can be made as you rest in Christ.
So, work hard at staying in Christ.
In turn, not it positionally, but in fellowships.
How does that happen?
Here it is.
Verse 12.
How do you stay?
How do you be diligent?
That you may not be...
Guess what the word is?
Nothrose.
What does nothrose mean?
There it is.
But followers of them who through faith and patient inherit the promises.
That word slothful is the same word in the Greek as the word dull of hearing, dull, back in verse 11.
When we take in the word of God as believers in Christ and we are not dull of hearing,
but listen to do what it says, we will grow in maturity.
When you drink milk and you eat bread and you take in meat and you do it for the reason to go have the nutrition to not be dismissed,
but sent to go work out what God wants you to do in the world.
Man, what an incredible life you find.
You get to fulfill all that God has in plan and in store for...
I had a meeting this morning.
You guys wouldn't believe the meeting I had this morning.
God orchestrated the details of this area and this area and this area and somebody calling me and telling me about something that's going to happen.
And then I go, well, he would be good for that.
And I go over to this other guy and he goes, I've been praying about that for three months.
And I'm going, God did that.
God shaped the guy I'm recruiting to go do something.
And God had it in mind months ago, probably longer, further than months ago.
And he orchestrated, am I confusing you?
Okay, my point is God's got a plan.
He's going to grow his church and he's going to do it by growing his church, the assembly point to what I'm talking about.
Yeah, that's how he's going to do it.
And when we partner with him, he grows us and as he grows us, then we become everything he wants us to be.
So good news.
This passage is about losing your salvation.
In fact, one of the most reassuring passages in the whole word of God is Hebrews chapter six to help us know you can't lose your salvation.
You can't stay tuned to next week.
You can't lose it.
We just have to grow up.
We must respond to the call to spiritual maturity by understanding what this spiritual maturity looks like.
It's progress that's leaving spiritual maturity, leaving dullness toward the word and inability to teach the word in the baby food diet and being unskillful in the word and not moving on to perfection.
It's not about your salvation.
It's about fruitfulness and God wanting to produce fruit in you when you stay connected to him.
And when you take in his word, his word gets into us and then his word as it gets into us is his word is what comes out of us.
And when it comes out towards my family, it's it affects how I parent.
It's affects how I do my marriage.
It affects how I when I do it as a pastor, it affects my ministry.
When I do it as a Sunday school teacher, it affects that ministry.
When I do it with a lost person, it looks like evangelism.
When I do it with other fellow believers and trying to grow them, it looks like disciple shit.
You get it?
God has an incredible plan for your life.
Grow up.
Don't go back.
Don't be unteachable.
What's the point of this message?
The point of the message is, where are you being immature?
Where are you being dull hearing?
Are you saved?
Do you know for sure that heaven's your home?
Do you know for sure that your sins forgiven?
Does God have some good works that he wants you to do in your fighting them on it?
Don't be nothrose.
Grow up.
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?
There's nobody in here, God, that understands.
Let me start over.
You know I need to grow.
And I'm saying out loud to you in front of our church family that your desire is for me to grow.
I have not arrived.
And God, there's not a person in this room that's arrived.
You all have something you want us to grow in.
So God, as I pray this morning, as the invitation is beginning, I pray that you would prick,
your Holy Spirit would prick each and every heart to know where it is that they've been dull of hearing,
where it is that maybe we've been slothful, where there needs to be true repentance.
God, I thank you that our salvation isn't up to us. It's up to you.
You told us if you could lose it, you'd never get it back.
I'm so glad I can't lose it.
So God, I pray that for me, I pray that for our church family.
God, if there's someone here that doesn't know you as Savior, I pray that today that they would come to know you as Savior.
If there's someone here that needs to join the church and partner with our church family to grow in their walk with you,
I pray that today that they would make that step, that they come forward,
that they'd submit themselves to church membership so that we can help them to grow and partner with them in that.
If there's someone here that needs to be baptized, that they made that decision.
If someone here needs to know you, like I said, that they make that decision.
And God, if there's someone here, God, no one in here would be surprised that there would be others in here that need to repent,
that need to not be slothful, but need to be open to hearing and teachable.
So God, if you've convicted of sin and they're feeling led, would you lead people to respond to your word and the preaching of your word today?
God, may you do your work in this invitation, help us not to be slothful in Jesus' name. Would you stand?