The Mature Christian

0:04Hi. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Grab your Bibles, if you would, and go ahead and turn to the book of Hebrews. We're going to finish out chapter five of Hebrews this morning, covering those final three verses. Actually, four verses, 11, 12, 13, and 14. We are preparing our hearts to enter in then to one of the most feared or perhaps the most misunderstood sections of the New Testament, which is this section on the warning against apostasy, which comes to us from Hebrews chapter 6. I'm excited, though, to have the opportunity, God willing, to offer some clarity to that passage and to see the hope and the encouragement that it really does bring to us. I am hoping that we can get there next week, but I haven't quite figured out exactly how to divide up chapter six. There's several ways that it could be gone about dividing up. So pray for me this week as I prepare that I will figure all it out and the Lord will guide us to the best way to divide up chapter six, or the clearest way, perhaps. But we have to get there, and that means that we have to go through this week in these four verses in the ending of chapter five. The theme of our sermon this morning is the mature Christian. Or maybe we could say growing up to spiritual maturity. I think and I hope that we all desire for spiritual maturity. So we will begin to look at what it looks like and what it doesn't look like. I pray we'll also see how God's word and more specifically how his deep gospel truth grow us to maturity. And as always, I pray it pleases the Lord to reveal himself to us in a powerful way this morning. So that's all the intro we're getting. Stand with me once more as we read Hebrews chapter 5, verse 11. About this we have much to say, and it is 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. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we pray and thank you for your word. And as always, we pray and ask that you would speak for Christ's sake. It is in his name that I pray. Amen. Several of us have talked about this before, but to say that many in the church have become dull in hearing would possibly be an understatement. I saw this past Christmas season, there was a church in Phoenix, Dream City Church, that did a Grinch-themed Christmas service, where the entire service was basically an exegesis of the Grinch, illustrating him, Grinch, as Herod, and his attempts to steal Christmas. If upon me saying that, you thought, well, actually that sounds interesting. I'd like to hear that. Then I have a word for you this morning. I've seen Super Bowl-themed church services, Marvel movie-themed Easter services where Iron Man died on the cross. Even a Die Hard, the Bruce Willis film, themed Christmas service. Why are such blasphemous services even thought about, much less followed through on? Because the church has become dull of hearing. As the writer of Hebrews is quite literally this morning in the middle of a point that we began last week about the priestly office of Christ. He feels the need to pause here to chastise his listeners. His intent, as he clearly says this morning, was to continue his exposition of and the comparison between Christ and Melchizedek, right? He intended to expound more fully on the nature of Christ as our priest forever. And he will continue that in chapter 7. But he felt the need to stop here and remind us of the dangers of spiritual immaturity. He was going to draw out this illustration of Melchizedek as a type of Christ, in that Melchizedek had, as far as was revealed to us in Scripture, no father, no mother, no genealogy, no beginning of life or end of days. And in drawing that illustration, he would need to dig deep into the typological aspects of Scripture. He would need to draw out those rich metaphors. However, when such an exercise is done by the immature or the dull and given to the immature or the dull, you will inevitably end up with a Grinch-themed Christmas service. Spurgeon mentions that sluggishness as it relates to scriptures and the laziness among the hearers leads men to take something like the doctrine of the Trinity, for instance, and equate it to all manner of silly things, many of which you have undoubtedly heard. And that is done in an attempt to dumb it down for an even duller audience. To that point, Spurgeon says this before-inspired saints like John Bunyan and those masters in Israel who are not to be carried away upon the back of every figure, but who can ride their figures like good horsemen with a bit in the mouth of the allegory, and make it keep straight the road and bear them safely to their destination. Dull men speak in dull allegory because they assume that their people are as dull as they are. And we are all, in fact, dumber for it. But there is a proper way to use allegory, metaphor, and various illustrations, and we will get to the full depths of that when we return to the Melchizedekian metaphor in chapter 7 and certainly beyond as we finish the rest of Hebrews. But to get there, we have to pause this morning, as the writer of Hebrews has paused, and hear the warning for us. As many commentators have pointed out, it's actually the warning that comes next, and that we're going to talk about in chapter 6. But even before we got there, he sufficiently shames us, the reader. Then he warns us. But don't let that discourage you, please. Because, as I mentioned, he also encourages us later in chapter 6. He assures us later in chapter 6. But we have to get real first. We have to get real first. If we want to get the meat that this glorious word and the gospel has for us, full of these deep, rich truths that stir us right down to our souls, we have to grow up beyond the dullness and the sluggishness of our ways. Our text begins then by telling us that these truths that are to come in the later half of this letter, even some that are in this next chapter and beyond, are certainly, well, I would say, and certainly much of the deep truths of Scripture, these are things that are hard to explain. Difficult to explain. And we need to really fully unpack what it means that these truths are hard to explain. And to do that, let me point your attention to a couple verses. You don't have to turn here unless you want, but I'm just going to read it pretty quickly. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, Paul says this the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Far too often, when we get to these difficult passages in Scripture, like the ones we're going to be coming up against in chapter 6, when we have these difficult truths given to us, we may scratch our heads or we rub our heads because they give us a headache. We just reject them or we dismiss them or we ignore them because they are too hard to explain. The issue, though, that is being addressed here is not one of intellectual dullness, as though the readers aren't smart enough, but rather through supporting verses like the one we just read in 1 Corinthians, the issue here is spiritual dullness or dryness or laziness. Certainly, yes, spiritual dullness can lead to intellectual dullness, but the issue at hand for the dull Christian is a spiritual one. Things are hard to explain because we are too often spiritually lazy. And we get Grinch service because that's easier than having our discernment sharpened and honed by the power of the Spirit. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the word, which we often do, feeling like it's too much or that you aren't smart enough to understand it, let me assure you this morning that you are not smart enough to understand it. No one is. Verse 12 from our text says this 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. We'll talk next week about those basic principles a little more because he does offer some clarity at the beginning of chapter six. And in those basic principles, he says that the church doesn't need to keep going over and over again, but the emphasis here is not necessarily that they don't desire solid food, or that the listener that is being addressed here just has a preference for milk, though that may also be true, but that such basic principles are all that they can handle, that is, these basic principles are all that they can digest because they haven't matured beyond them to actually know what to do with the richer truths of God's word. Sinclair Ferguson has a great illustration that he used with regards to this text, and I'm just going to flat out steal it, just letting you know this morning. I'm stealing this one. I think we've all had this experience on Christmas morning, uh, either in our own young kids or our own families, perhaps even ourselves, although we wouldn't remember, where we present a one-year-old with a gift. We've done this. After struggling with them a bit to open this gift, we smile and we say something like, Oh, look what you got. They proceed to pay no attention to the gift and instead they crumple up the paper or they stare at the ribbon that it was tied around the package. Everyone laughs. And in our instance, I would usually come in from the kitchen and say something cringy like, Oh, it looks like he likes the rapping more than the gift. Have y'all said this before? I definitely have. We all chuckle and it's cute. When they are one. Such behavior is expected from a one-year-old, cute even, right? But as the child gets older, there comes a time when, if year after year, they ignore the gift and they play with the wrapping, in frustration we may say to them, who cares about the wrapping? Look at the gift. Such is the case for the immature Christian. They are spiritually still a one-year-old. And you can go to all the trouble in the world to prepare them for that 24-ounce tomahawk with garlic butter. But if you set that in front of them, they won't even know what to do with it. They need milk, not solid food. But they haven't grown up. And such the prize is of little value, only the trappings and the trimmings. The implication here is that no Christian is called to spiritual immaturity. No Christian is called to spiritual immaturity. Let me preface this by saying that everyone comes to Christ at a specific point in their life. And that point comes at dramatically and drastically different seasons of their life. To expect that someone becomes a theologian the second they are saved, or ever, for that matter, is silly. This is also why I take a little bit of issue with late R. C. Sprohl's book titled Everyone's a Theologian. Not in the context, not in the context, perhaps, of that book itself. I think this sermon in many ways briefly summarizes a lot of the things that Spurgeon says there. But in the fact that I don't think everyone should be a theologian in the true sense of the word, and I will explain. I don't think every Christian should be able to articulate the differences between supra and infralapsarianism, or to wax poetically about pre-trib dispensationalism versus post-millennialism. In my estimation, such things would be required of someone who calls themselves a theologian. So to say everyone's a theologian is perhaps to reduce the definition to something less than the full extent of that word. For the purpose of allowing others to fall under that umbrella. Rather, what we should do is elevate and uphold the true meaning of a word and delight in simply being that thing in which we are called to be. So to deeply know the truth of God's word, to be able to articulate and even to teach the pure gospel, to uphold the foundational aspects of faith and salvation, to feast heartily on the deep doctrinal riches of God's word, and to know and to delight in his incredible gift that he has given you. This doesn't make you a mediocre theologian, it makes you a mature Christian. Consider Paul and his letter to the Galatians. The church in Galatia was quickly moving to another gospel. Everybody's read Galatians. They were quickly moving to another gospel, not that there is one. That's using Paul's words. Because they were being deceived in large part because they were immature Christians. Paul says to them in Galatians 1, verse 6, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and returning to a different gospel. He then goes on for six chapters about salvation by faith alone, not by works. He talks about the righteousness that is given to us by faith. He talks about the distinction between the law and the gospel, or the law and the promise. He talks about our sonship in Christ, our adoption into Christ. He talks about our freedom in Christ. Paul talks about walking in the Spirit and what that means for us. Paul addresses our call to a Christian community, a deep Christian community, to which the Galatians certainly did not reply, hey Paul, settle down. We're not theologians here. Because knowing such things and being able to articulate such things and holding on to such things doesn't make you a theologian, it makes you a mature Christian. Necessarily then not knowing them makes you an immature Christian. And immature Christians will quickly desert him who called you in the grace of Christ. So the point then is not emphasizing this, so that my point and the word's point in emphasizing This is not to push you to fill your minds or your stomachs, to keep the metaphor, with knowledge or doctrinal truth to make your brain full or your stomach fat, but rather spiritual maturity is concerned with preserving our faith. It's concerned with keeping us in Christ. This becomes even more clear in chapter 6 with the specific warnings and the encouragements that he offers. We grow up in Christ. Because in maturity we treasure the gift. And in treasuring the gift, we will never lose sight of the giver of these gifts. And we've talked several times now in Bible study, as we're going through Romans, about Christian liberty. And in those conversations and in those teachings, Brother Stephen has rightly pointed out that our Christian liberty extends to our dietary preferences, right? Meaning that you are perfectly fine in Christ to be a vegetarian, or to only eat meat, or to drink only milk, or to live off locusts and honey. From a health standpoint, might advise against some of those. But I'm certainly not going to bind your conscience to eat in a particular way. Spiritually speaking, though, I can and must bind your conscience to say meat is required. And yes, I know before you even say it or think it, if you did, well, what is meat exactly? And how do I know if I'm eating it? Or what do I do if I'm not? There's a lot of questions. There's a lot of nuance here, I know. And because we're speaking metaphorically, I'm not actually giving you a stake to digest. We do need to be careful and thoughtful, of course. That being said, though, we are all called to be mature Christians. That is healthy Christians. And according to God's word, healthy Christians digest meat, solid food. Hebrews 5, verse 14, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. In context of the motivation of this letter, then, and in context of what the author of Hebrews paused on to make this clarification, we can deduce then, at the very least, that the solid food that is for the mature that the writer of Hebrews is addressing, is the clear understanding of Christ's priesthood over and against the Levitical priesthood. I think we could make the argument from places like Galatians, which I have quoted, that perhaps there is a fuller plate of solid food than just the priestly arguments. But at least we need to dig into and know well what it means that Christ is our priest. This is of vital importance. I'm not going to get into specifics of that, that meat, though, this week, because we're going to get to that in chapter 7 when we return to this analogy. But in preparation for that and in keeping in step with our text this morning, I want to again re-emphasize the outcome or the aim of this maturity. We already know that maturity is concerned with preserving faith. This has been made clear. But more specifically, this solid food is about refining our palates to clearly distinguish from that which is good against that which is evil. Or that which is of God and that which is not of God. This is what verse 14 says. Because the enemy and deception is very subtle, isn't it? And only those mature Christians who have their powers of discernment refined through a steady and constant diet of this solid food will have the means to distinguish good from evil. This is the real danger in the Grinch Christmas.

26:52Right?

26:53Or any other continued emphasis that is shallow or immature. The Christians' discernment growth, our discernment growth is stunted. And we're more easily deceived. We're more or less apt to be able to distinguish good from evil. That's the danger. In the case of those addressed in this letter to the Hebrews, it was a deception to go back, right, to the Levitical priesthood and all of its trappings and religion. For the Galatians, it was the deception to return to a righteousness earned from a religious act, i.e. circumcision. For the modern Christian, it's a deception to reject the true gospel. For any number of gospels, like the prosperity gospel or the social gospel or the gospel of universalism, or the rejection of the true Christ in favor of all of these modern distortions of him. In short, a steady diet of solid food keeps our appetite centered on the only true God, the only real gospel. Nothing else is palatable for us. Our call is to be healthy Christians, and healthy, mature Christians, again, need that solid food. I want to offer us one final word in conclusion. It's relatively easy for us who may be considered meat-eating Christians, I'll say, to fall into the trap of thanking God that we're not like all of those other dull Christians who are still young babes living off milk. Okay? I've already mentioned him once, but Sinclair Ferguson had this great podcast episode this week. If you listen to his podcast, and now the name just left me. It's Things Unseen, I think is what it's called. Have y'all seen that? His podcast this week on Isaiah 6. He noted how Isaiah received this vision of the Lord sitting on his throne. And Isaiah receives this, or Isaiah, as he says, receives this vision in the middle of his lamenting and his woes against the waywardness and unfaithfulness of Israel. We might say that Israel was still acting like children. They were not moving on to the meat of God's promises. They were certainly deceived. But it is here in that mitzvah for Isaiah where the Lord reveals himself to him and where he sees the mighty seraphim worshiping the Lord with wings covering their faces. These holy creatures worshiping in the presence of God cover their faces before the Lord who is holy, holy, holy. And to which Isaiah responds, Woe is me, for I am lost. The one called by God to warn and to pronounce judgment, right, is himself humbled to the point of being undone before the presence of the Lord. I've mentioned that text in Isaiah more than once recently, but I do think it's so important for us. It bears much repeating. One of the truest marks of Christian maturity. And one of the surest fruits of digesting the meat of God's word is deep and abiding humility. And we can poke fun a little at some of the silly stuff that goes on with immature Christians. Exclusively those milk-drinking churches that I've pointed out. Mostly, I hope, out of our concern for the state of the souls and for the souls of those in their charge. But at the end of the day, we must also recognize that each of us, each of us, if exposed to the pure glory and holiness of God, we would be reduced, like Isaiah, to nothing but a puddle of spilt milk. But by his grace alone, he takes away our guilt. He removes our sin so that we stand before him blameless. This is not our own doing, or because of our maturity, or any discipline in and of ourselves, but all by his grace, so that if we boast, we boast in him. And from that grace and from that forgiveness, then let us move on to maturity. Let us graduate to meat, so that we are healthy, so that we are well fed, grounded in our God. For our own good, not for our own good only. But so that like Isaiah, after experiencing the depths of his mercy and the riches of his grace, we too may stand before a holy God in the presence of a sinful people who need to hear his word and say, Here I am. Send me. Receiving the free gift of salvation, growing to an appetite for the meat of his word, maintaining complete humility before a holy God, and walking faithfully as he calls. These are the marks of a mature Christian. And certainly I pray we all aspire towards that. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, as always, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the meat that you give us in your word, Lord. We pray and ask that you would help us to not be immature Christians, Lord, that we would grow up in you. Or that we would desire the rich depths of your word, Lord. But we trust and we know that it is only by your Spirit that we have those, Lord. So we pray and we ask, Lord, please. Please change our hearts. Please help us, Lord, to grow in you. Lord, and in that growth keep us humble. That we may continually return again to your grace. That if we did not have, Lord, we would be nothing. So we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your sanctification, Lord. And most of all, we thank you for Christ. It is in his name that I pray.