DOMINANT THOUGHT: One must grow in one’s relationship with Christ through instruction and practice, or risk falling away.
PURPOSE:
- Head: For the people to realize that if one is not moving closer to God, one is moving further away.
- Heart: For the people to have a healthy fear of God.
Hamds: For the people to commit to Christian education and Christian service.
MANUSCRIPT:
Introduction:
What does it mean to be mature? Well, if you’re a fruit, it means that you become ripe. If you’re speaking physically, you become mature when you’ve reached your full height, weight, and strength. If you are referring to the ERSB rating of a video game, being mature means you are filled bloody violence, sexual content, and/or strong language. Not quite the maturity I want to emphasize this morning. Emotional maturity is something different. Being mature emotionally means that you have a healthy picture of yourself and others, that you can identify with others. Steve Carroll’s character Michael on the television show The Office is the antithesis of emotional maturity. But today I want to talk about a different kind of maturity--spiritual maturity.
We’ve been taking a trip through the book of Hebrews, learning that God has offered us a better life through his son Jesus Christ. Remember from last week that the main thrust of this letter is that God has spoken to us by Jesus. Today we will hear that he has given us a better warning. Listen to the Word of God starting in Hebrews 5:11.
“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.
6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
I believe that the writer of Hebrews gives us three pictures here: a picture of those who are spiritually immature, a picture of those who are spiritually dead, and a picture of those who are moving toward spiritual maturity.
Discussion:
1.) Those Who Are Immature (5:11–6:3) [SLIDE OF AN UPSET INFANT].
The writer of Hebrews starts out with a strong rebuke. His audience is charged with being slow to learn. Instead of being able to teach others, they still needed to be taught the simplest of things all over again. Now on the surface, this doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe he’s being a little too rough on these people. But he isn’t complaining about ability to learn; rather it is their refusal to learn that gets him started.
“Slow to learn” does not describe an innate learning disability. It describes a deliberate laziness on their part. In other words, these people were just playing dumb. There was no real spiritual growth going on in their lives. They’d come to church every Sunday with a bottle and a baby rattle. Instead of their lives being changed, they needed someone to change their diapers. They were crawling around on their knees instead of praying on them. The writer of Hebrews was trying to figure out if he was leading a church or running a nursery. He was wondering if he should bother investing all the time and using all his rhetorical skills or if he should just make silly faces at them and say, “Goo, goo, gaa, gaa.”
A lot of people seem to think that Christianity is this simple one-way transaction. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by someone, “I believe Jesus died for my sins. I’m okay, I don’t need the church.” I will agree that you don’t need a local body of believers to receive Christ, but I would maintain that you do need a local body of believers to remain in Christ. People who do not have that network in place where they can worship, serve, and learn experience no growth in their lives. Their spirituality is a hollow shell, a sham, a show. Such people are spiritual babies. They need to be re-taught the basics of the faith, because it is apparent by their lack of fruit that they haven’t wanted to grasp any of it.
Now if these people were just to remain spiritual babies for the rest of their lives, I guess it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. We’d just leave them in their cribs and try to find some people willing to grow into mature kingdom workers. But the Christian faith isn’t static. In other words, you can’t just find a spot along the road to spiritual maturity and put it in park for the rest of your life. It’s an uphill climb, and there are no spiritual parking brakes. We are either moving closer to God or we are headed back down the hill, getting farther and farther away from him.
Another danger in being a spiritual baby is that babies aren’t equipped to deal with spiritual attack. The sword of the Spirit is too heavy for an infant to pick up. If you’ve ever watched Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel, you know that predators will always single out the ill or the young of the herd. Peter describes Satan as a roaring lion. And just like a lion, Satan will target the babies of the flock first.
That’s why I am a little concerned with the Western church’s apparent apathy toward the spiritual disciplines, such as reading the Bible, prayer, meditation, and so on. I’m reminded of a story Leroy Eims tells of when he and his family were vacationing in Florida. As far as the eye could see, the orange trees were loaded with fruit. When they stopped for breakfast, he ordered orange juice with his bacon and eggs. “I’m sorry,” the waitress said, “I can’t bring you any orange juice. Our juicing machine is broken.” There they were, surrounded by millions of gallons of orange juice, but they couldn’t get to it because they depended on a machine to get it.
Christians can be like that little café. They can be surrounded by Bibles in their homes, but if they never open them up, they get no nourishment for their souls. The problem is not a lack of spiritual food, but that many Christians haven’t grown enough to know how to get it for themselves.
So let’s not be babies about it. Let’s not be deliberately lazy. Let’s make it our life’s ambition to grow closer to God. Pursue the spiritual disciplines. Do not neglect fellowship with other believers. Never tire of doing good. Grow up in the faith, and help others to do the same.
If we are not moving toward God, we are moving away from him. If we continue our downward slide, we might very well find ourselves in the second picture we will look at today—a picture of those who have fallen away.
2.) Those Who Are Spiritually Dead (6:4-8 [SLIDE OF A TOMBSTONE]).
What does it mean to fall away? Well, in the simplest of terms, if a Christian “falls away,” it means they have renounced the faith, they have rejected Christ, and they have turned their back on God. Falling away is a deadly serious topic.
Everyone can share a story about someone who has “fallen away” from the faith. At one point in my life I was very proud of being a Barry Sanders fan. You might remember the name. He played for the Detroit Lions. Possibly one of the greatest running backs to ever play football, he would have broken the all-time rushing mark once held by Walter Payton if he had not retired in his prime. He also never showed up his opponents. When he’d finish off an electrifying run with a touchdown, he simply walked over to the nearest ref, gave them the ball, and went to the sideline. Those are good reasons to be a fan, but what made me proud to be a fan of Barry Sanders was that he was also a Christian. Sanders was one of the few good guys in the NFL. He even gave $100,000 of his $1,000,000 signing bonus as a rookie to the little country church where his mama had taken him as a child. He was a great role model for millions of kids. But then something went wrong somewhere. He started living with a woman who wasn’t his wife. He had a child with her. He began to be spotted at several nightclubs around the Detroit area. Finally, during one interview, a reporter asked him how Christianity affected his life as a pro football player. Barry’s answer was both terse and tragic: “I don’t believe in that stuff anymore.” He wasn’t talking about pro football.
Some groups within the church believe falling away is impossible. Their thinking is that, since God sovereignly chooses whom he will save and whom he will not save, no one he chooses to save can willingly give up the gift that God has forced on them. And when you point out to them those who, apparently at one time, exhibited all the qualities of being a Christian, but who now have rejected the faith, they will tell that they were never saved to begin with.
But that is not how the writer of Hebrews describes it in verses 3-6 in chapter 8. He describes those who have fallen away as being enlightened, as having tasted the heavenly gift, as having shared in the Holy Spirit, as having tasted the goodness of God and the powers of the coming age. These people were showered with the blessings of God, but instead of producing fruit as they should, they only produced weeds and thistles. In other words, these people were once Christians.
Wait a minute, you say. The writer says that these people only “tasted” some of these things. Maybe they have heard the gospel, believed it, but never responded to it. Perhaps these are people who got all the way to the baptistery and then backed out. Though some scholars try to make this case, it doesn’t hold water, if you’ll pardon the pun. To “taste” something in the first century meant to fully experience it. For example, in Hebrews 2:9, Jesus is said to have been made lower than the angels for a little while, in order that he might taste death for everyone. If Jesus just took a sampling of death, then you and I are still in our sins, and to be pitied above all men.
The forecast for those who have fallen away seems pretty grim. The writer says it’s impossible for them to be brought back to repentance, because they are re-crucifying Christ and subjecting him to public shame once again. Does this mean that we just give up on people who have fallen away, since it’s impossible for them to come back? On the surface, this looks pretty bad, but once again we have 2,000 years and a different language to wade through before we can make a good interpretation.
Hebrews 6:4-6 is a string of participles in the original Greek language. I don’t want to get too complicated with grammatical rules. What is important to know is that the last two participles, recrucifying Christ and subjecting him to shame, are present participles. Now to you and I, that doesn’t mean much. But to a person in the first century, a present participle meant continuous, non-stop action. In other words, a better translation is that it is impossible for people to be brought back to repentance while they are recrucifying Christ and subjecting him to shame. It’s not impossible for people to be brought to repentance. But just like in story of the Prodigal Son, they must first realize that they are wading through pig slop. They have to drag themselves out of the sewer and take a look at where they are. Then it is possible for them to turn back to God.
Never give up on those who have fallen away. They can still be brought back into the fold. Pray for them. Show them the love of Christ. Be their friend. Your prayers and your actions might be the very things that help them to realize the God is there, and that he is good.
3.) Those Who Are Moving Toward Maturity (6:9-12) [SLIDE OF A PICTURE OF JESUS].
Our last picture is of those who are moving toward maturity. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the writer ended on a good note. Up to now, you have to admit, it hasn’t been all that cheery.
Starting in verse 9 he tells his readers that he is confident that they will not end up as either spiritual babies or worse, spiritually dead. What he has said previously he intended as a warning. The readers are at a crossroads; they can either head back downhill or keep climbing. The writer believes they will keep climbing.
There are many areas in which we can evaluate our spiritual maturity, but three stand out to me, areas of the head, the heart, and the hands. Are we growing in our knowledge of God, is the ground we are standing on becoming firmer and firmer as we invest ourselves in his Word? Are we growing in our attitude of worship? I’m not talking about worship service, but in our inner life, our daily walk with him? Many people miss heaven by eighteen inches—the distance between our heads and our hearts. Last but not least, are we growing in our service to God and others? Are we taking bigger risks? Are we more and more willing to get our hands dirty? Love that is expressed through action is the ultimate gauge of anyone’s spiritual maturity.
I can think of no greater example in this than our Lord Jesus Christ. He was definitely the most spiritually mature person the world has ever seen. He invested himself in God’s Word. He devoted a lot of his time to his inner relaitonship with the Father. He loved the Father andhe loved us. And the ultimate expression of love in action was his demonstration at Calvary, where he took up his cross and laid his life down for us. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to follow his example and the examples of others like him.
We can’t become lazy in these matters. We are urged to be diligent, to make every effort to accomplish them. In doing so, we make ourselves confident in our hope. And not only do we make ourselves confident in our faith, we help others around us by the example we set.
Conclusion:
A.W. Tozer once wrote that true spiritual maturity manifests itself in seven ways: (1) The desire to be holy rather than happy, (2) The desire to see the honor of God advanced through his life, (3) The desire to carry his cross, (4) The desire to see everything from God’s viewpoint, (5) The desire to die right rather than live wrong, (6) The desire to see others advance at his expense, and (7) The desire to make eternity-judgments instead of time-judgments. How do you measure up on that list?
Today we have seen three pictures of people who have encountered the risen Christ. First we looked at the spiritually immature, those who have accepted Christ but refused to grow in him. Then we looked at those who have fallen away, people who were once Christians but because of their deliberate laziness they eventually came to the border between faith and unbelief and have since crossed it. Finally, we took a look at those moving toward spiritual maturity, believers who understand that Christianity is a process and who have pursued their relationship with Jesus as hard as they can.
Which picture do you see yourself in? Are you sleeping beside the path of righteousness, content where you are, unwilling to grow deeper in the Christian life? Or are you already spiritually dead and buried, going through the motions, doing church stuff but not really believing in it? It is my hope that you find yourself in the last picture we looked at today, that when you look at yourself, you see a believer filled with joy and life, someone who is eagerly pursuing spiritual maturity and a deeper friendship with Christ.
I want you to take a moment to reflect on where you see yourself. If you don’t like where you see yourself, I have some good news for you. This is a place where you can admit that you’re not where you want to be. This is a place where you’ll find love and acceptance, where you’ll find people who care enough about you to help you get on the right track again. So if this warning spoke to you today, now is the time to make a change. And here you will find others willing to make the change with you.
