Sharpening the Spiritual Senses
What it means to Become Spiritually Mature
Rev. Sean D. Lester
June 8, 2003
Hebrews 5:11-14
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. [12] In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! [13] Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. [14] But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Introduction
A. “We have much more to say about this…” The writer stops in the middle of talking about how Jesus is our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. He says that he wants to stay on this topic, but it is hard. He says, “I want to say more, but you won’t be able to understand it.
1. Literally, the writer says, “you have become dull of hearing.” He implies that his recipients had heard at one time (otherwise they wouldn’t be believers), but that they had stopped listening.
2. It would be a shame if you and I regard this passage merely as one writer reprimanding a church that existed two thousand years ago. This isn’t the time to detach ourselves from what the Spirit is saying. His voice can be heard screaming to you and I even today, “Why did you stop listening? You are in danger of falling away!”
3. Jesus warned the twelve disciples in Luke chapter 8, by saying, “Be careful how you listen, if you do, you will be given more truth to live by, but when you stop really hearing the Word of God because you think you know enough, you will lose what truth you think you know.”
4. You and I tend to get lazy when it comes to the Word of God. We are attracted to certain preachers cause we love what they preach, which agrees with what we want to feel, or aspire to become. We read books and watch videos that resonate in our hearts. But the things we aren’t excited about, that seem dull or irrelevant we avoid. But, the truth is, those are things we most need to hear.
5. Illustration: A guitar string will resonate when the pitch to which it is tuned is sounded near it. So do you, a sermon that resonates with you can’t change you, because it is at your level. It’s the message that forces you to change how you are tuned that causes you to change.
B. But, we must change how we are tuned in order to understand what the Holy Spirit wants to say to the church, to our own congregation, to you and I. The Spirit will tech us about how to worship the Father and the Son. If we hear what the Spirit says in the coming weeks, our relationship with God will become increasingly more intimate. If we assume we know all about worship, if we say that our experience is our teacher, we will miss the voice of the Spirit and we will lose even what we think we have.
1. Illustration: A young man (or even my two sons), will claim to be strong already and smart already. You and I know how little they really know, and you and I know that they will make many mistakes because of their arrogance.
2. For instance, if you became a Christian in the last twenty years, a move of God would take place in the midst of music and or loud and exuberant praying in the spirit. But if you have been in the church longer, you will remember when a move of God was associated with silence and awe as people waited on God to change them in some way.
Conclusion:
So, the Holy Spirit says to us, today, “I want you to mature into the character of your Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Interrogative: You and I must come to God with a heart for repentance. We must ask, “What must I do to become mature?”
Transition: You must hear the Spirit of our Lord as He tells you what you are supposed to be, as he convicts you of what you have become, and leads into change.
I. “You ought to be teachers…”
A. “You” actually means you. It is Jesus’ commission to you. “Make disciples, preach repentance.”
1. You ought to be telling people how to be reconciled with God. In every relationship where someone is separated from God, you need to call them back to obedience to God’s commands. Call them to obedience to Jesus Christ, to salvation, to become one in the body of believers.
2. You ought to be teaching people how to follow Jesus and giving them the skills necessary for becoming teachers and preachers in this world. First, in your own household, you should be teaching these things to your family. Second, you ought to be doing it in the church.
3. The Holy Spirit is given for exactly this purpose. How full does the Holy Spirit need to keep someone who won’t engage in making disciples?
B. Teaching is the mission of all believers.
1. A teacher is one who not only knows facts, but the theories of why the facts work. A teacher is not a proclaimer of “do’s and don’ts.” A teacher enlightens people to the truth that governs why we do and don’t do certain things.
2. A teacher if first and foremost a student. Illustration: You would not want a doctor who didn’t keep up with current methods and sciences governing health care. If your doctor was current up to twenty years ago, many things would kill you that can be cured now.
3. Illustration: A teacher who is a student knows and can understand a students’ concerns and struggles. Such a teacher remains sharp and effective.
II. “…you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again…”
A. God is not pleased when believers depend on others to repeat the basic principles continually.
1. The whole point of teaching is so you will have the skills necessary not to need the teaching anymore. Illustration: If I have been trained as an accountant, an employer may hire me because I already know the basic principles of accounting. But if, when I show up for work, I get confused about where to put a debit and a credit, or I have trouble adding and subtracting, will my employer not fire me as quickly as possible?
2. And we don’t worry about how God will react to a believer and a church that refused to learn the basics of faith and put it into practice? Didn’t he say to the church “because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out?” and “Because you hid the talent I gave you I will throw you out into the darkness with the sinners?”
B. The constant need to hear the basics is a sign of rebellion.
1. Illustration: You may see in your own children what you were like as a child in school. A child who resists serious study of schoolwork will not have basics of education learned will enough. They may repeat classes, or be passed on anyway. Does it frustrate you as a parent? Were you the same way?
2. Illustration: I have to keep learning, if for no other reason, so that my children will have an example to follow. My children see me study my Bible. They see me taking classes to improve my skills as a pastor. I used to try to do as little as possible to pass a course with a respectable grade, but now I feel compelled to do as well as possible. I need to learn the subjects, but I need to set an example, even if it is an act of repentance. Laziness is a grave act of rebellion that I have no intention of committing again.
III. “You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness…”
A. “Milk” is for babies.
1. Babies are dependent, and will accept anything that is put into their mouths if it tastes good.
2. Herein lies the ugliness of the baby Christian. When a baby is young, no one minds having to hold them. Any mother (and secretly, and father) would hold your baby and feed it. They would even change his diaper. But when the child turns nine, if the boy walks up to you with a bottle, you won’t hold him. If he wears a diaper still, you aren’t about to change it!
B. Babies don’t know what is good for them and what is dangerous for them.
1. Illustration: Some oil from a lawnmower was put inside pop bottle and laid on the floor of the shed. My son was too young to discern that what was inside wasn’t really pop. I tried to get to him as he picked up the bottle, but he had already taken a drink before I could reach him. He was fine, but he burped petroleum for two days!
2. Likewise, people who do not learn to discern what is right are at the mercy of anyone who has something sweet to say. So-called apostles and bishops who were nothing but greedy profiteers have taken in immature believers, even pastors. These men and some women, have sweet things to say that are easily digested, but the immature hearer can’t discern the poison mixed into the milk. To them, it sounds good, so they believe it.
IV. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
A. Solid food is everything else in Scripture besides the basic teachings.
1. We will see that in the next chapter what the basic truths are: repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, (6:2) instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
2. Nothing in that list tells you how to identify a false teacher, how to worship, where it is most effective to preach to sinners, what job to take or which girl to marry. But, all of this can be found in the pages of scripture. It isn’t stated in the format of a “how-to” manual. You have to study and figure out the how-to’s for yourself.
B. The mature constantly use Scripture to make decisions.
1. Be careful about Christian “how-to” books. There are many good books written by knowledgeable people that “pre-digest” scriptural principles for you. These should be used to help you after you have studied the Scripture for yourself. Use them to kick-start your thinking, or to inspire you to greater study.
2. Training comes both through study, and repetitious practice. When I teach t-ball, I not only tell them how to thrown and demonstrate it for them, I make the kids throw the ball repeatedly.
3. Illustration: A preacher in the Detroit area has a charismatic personality who preached engagingly and inspiringly. In the years following accepting his pastorate, he convinced the members his church, using the Bible, that the pastor is the ruler of the church, and the board and everyone else is subject to his vision. He set himself up as a bishop. He went on television. He told people to tithe to him if they weren’t getting enough out of their churches. Then, he withdrew from his denomination. Soon, as happens to all who have done this, he will fall and take thousands of followers into the pits of confusion and despair. He is a preacher of the flesh and greed, but his own congregation, by their refusal to mature, allowed him to become their God, to substitute for the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion:
A. Scripture makes it plain that in the last days people will follow false prophets and teachers to their own destruction. But, the mature will not fall prey because they will have trained themselves to be discerning.
B. People are by nature lazy, we would prefer to learn what we need to survive, but not much more. Yet, we are not called to survive life and go to heaven, we are called to continually grow and train our minds to discern what is righteous.
C. The fulfillment of every believer is to each righteousness through belief in Jesus Christ and to preach repentance and salvation through Him. It is your purpose, with the promise of God to fill you with the Holy Spirit with power to accomplish success as you carry it out.
