Laying The Foundation

Oh yeah -- back to the Sunday School -- you see -- it is kind of hard to teach anybody anything of substance in a forty-five minute period once a week. Especially, when many of the people do not even attend but once a month, they attend only sporadically.

But I have a question this morning to those truancies -- How do you ever expect to get -- a solid foundation [repeat]?

Enough of this introduction -- let go to the word. Lets see what other truths we can discover from the writer of Hebrews to help us on this Promotion Sunday.

Drop down with me to Chapter 6:1-3 where you will finds these words:

“Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.”

The writer of Hebrews is telling his newly converted Jewish audience that certain elementary teachings are essential for all believers to understand. The basics of those teachings include: the importance of faith, the foolishness of trying to be saved by good deeds, the meaning of baptism and spiritual gifts, and the facts of resurrection and eternal life.

Read it for yourself -- and you will discover that the writer is encouraging them to go on to maturity in their understanding. You see -- the lesson that we can draw from this -- is that we need to move beyond (but not away from) [repeat] the elementary teachings to a more complete understanding of the Faith.

What do you mean preacher -- well, I don’t know everything but I think that we ought to have a whole lot folk around here, who would be willing to get excited about what God is doing in this church -- and be willing to wean themselves from their bottles of Simalac, and step out on faith and teach new Christians the basics of religion.

You see -- when the mature Christian, put down their bottles and pacifiers and act on what he or she already knows -- then God opens up the doors of knowledge and wisdom and allows the mature Christian to understand Him better by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Laying the Foundation

We find the writer of Hebrews 6:1-3 -- telling his listeners -- that before they are allowed to mature. Before they are given their building permit, they must first understand that Jesus is better than the law, they must understand that Christianity is superior to Judaism, he wants them to know and believe in their heart that Christ is supreme and completely sufficient for salvation -- and not good works. He is telling them about the important of a solid foundation.

The term foundation has been borrowed from the language of building and architecture. It refers to the very first thing a builder does before erecting the building -- he prepares a solid and stable support structure. Since the foundation bears the weight of the entire structure, it must be done well. More than one building has later sagged or even fallen because of a faulty foundation, the taller the building the deeper the foundation.