Of Milk, Meat and Maturity

Turn in your Bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter

five. We're gonna look at the last few verses

of chapter five and then the first three verses

of chapter six this morning. As I was thinking

about how to just begin the message this morning

in full course in light of Mother's Day, it dawned

on me and I think this is true. I can speak for

moms out there. I believe it's every mother's...

desire to see her children grow up to become

mature adults. Moms, wouldn't you agree? Isn't

that what you'd like to see? Your children grow

up to become mature adults. I mean, we even talk

about the fact, you know, we're not really raising

children. We're raising adults, right? We're

trying to get them through that young years so

that they can do well as they become adults.

And again, I think that's true for us as parents

in general. We can't wait for the firsts in our

children's lives, right? We want to hear them

speak their first word. And dads, of course,

you want that to be dada, right? And moms, mama,

we want our kids to speak their first word. We

can't wait for them to cut their first tooth.

And then, of course, we want that to be over

with, right, all the teething. We can't wait.

to watch them and to video them taking their

first step, all of these things, a progression,

an advancement in this life that has been brought

into the world. You know, there's a verse of

scripture in 3 John, verse four, where it says,

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children

are walking. You're supposed to laugh at that

point. Because that's not the end of the verse,

right? He says, I have no greater joy than to

hear that my children are walking in the truth.

But again, first, I have no greater joy than

to hear that my children are walking. God did

not call me to be a comedian, I will say. We

not only desire, but we also delight in the growth.

I mean, we celebrate birthdays, and we often

have marks that we put on the wall of our door

frames, you know, chronicling the growth of our

kids, and we celebrate that. I know that there

are times that we speak of not wanting our little

ones or that we want our little ones to remain

little for a little bit longer, right? I hear

parents say that. But the reality is, if our

kids didn't grow, It would discourage us. It

would disturb us. We want them to grow physically,

mentally. Again, we want them to become mature

adults. And I guess what we're going to see today

is that our Heavenly Father feels the same way

about us as His children. He wants us to grow.

He doesn't want us to remain babes in Christ

throughout all of our lifetime. And that's what's

being recorded for us here at the end of chapter

five and the beginning of chapter six. So we

wanna read these verses together, beginning in

verse 11 of Hebrews chapter five. And of course,

the writer is about to take the next several

chapters in this book, in this letter, to explain

the high priesthood of Jesus as being one after

the order of Melchizedek. And Neil kind of got

us off to a good start last week talking about

the nature of the high priesthood of Jesus in

the sense that it is much like the high priesthood

of Melchizedek and that Jesus is not only priest,

but he's also king. Melchizedek was a king, priest,

Jesus. not only our high priest, but is our king.

So we'll kind of start with that fundamental

introduction, but there's gonna be much, much

more as we move along. And of course, the writer

begins to talk about that in verse 11. And he

says about this, about this Melchizedekian priesthood,

all right, about this, we have much to say. And

it's 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 or meat as

the old King James Bible said. 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. Therefore, let us leave the elementary

doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not

laying again a foundation of repentance from

dead works and of faith toward God and of instruction

about washings and the laying on of hands, the

resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And he says, and this we will do if God permits.

So let's pray together this morning as we look.

at this passage of scripture together. Father,

we do pray that you would help us to grasp the

teaching of scripture. And Lord, we understand,

we acknowledge in our own lives that there are

portions of scripture that are indeed hard to

explain, hard to understand. They demand effort

on our part, mental effort. You ask us. to think

about you, about ourselves, about others, about

the gospel. And I pray that you would give us

the strength to do that. And of course, Father,

we simply acknowledge that this is your desire

for us, again, not to remain children, but to

become mature adults in our understanding of

you. and what the word of God says. So today,

Father, help us as we take that next step in

our advancement toward maturity. And we will

give you praise and honor and glory for it all.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And of course,

it goes without saying that the first step toward

becoming a mature Christian is that initial step.

of believing upon the name of Jesus, receiving

him as Savior and Lord. And so I trust that if

you've not done that, that today, what a better

day than Mother's Day to receive Christ as Savior

and Lord. No greater gift you could give your

Christian mom than to come to Christ today. But

we're gonna look at two things in this text.

It's pretty neatly divided between those last

few verses in chapter five that speak of Christian

apathy. Or spiritual apathy really would be a

better word for it. And then the next three verses

of the beginning of chapter six speak of spiritual

advancement. And of course, our lives are not

to be characterized by spiritual apathy, right?

But rather, spiritual advancement. So I want

you to be thinking about that today, asking yourself

that question, is my life advancing? Am I progressing

in my understanding of God, the things of God?

You should be. You know, we had a discussion

this morning in our life group and we ended up

talking about life in eternity, life upon the

new earth. The question was raised about whether

or not in heaven we'd really get to sit down

and talk with Old Testament saints, Abraham,

Moses, David. Would we really be able to talk

to those? And of course, we believe yes, absolutely

we'll be able to spend time talking with those

people. And I believe that even upon the new

earth, even in eternity, we're gonna continue

to grow in our understanding of who God is. God

is infinite, right? We are never going to be

able to exhaust. the knowledge of God. And I

think that through all eternity, one of the joys

of our life upon the new earth is going to be

learning more and more about God and the people

of God and the creation of God. It's going to

go on throughout all eternity and for all time.

But now, in this present world, we have to be

careful. We have to be warned. We have to be

encouraged not to allow our lives to be spiritually

So the writer says, I've got much to say about

this whole idea of Jesus being a high priest

after the order of Melchizedek, but it's hard

to explain. And when I taught this verse on Wednesday

nights, I remember sharing that I'm glad those

words are there in scripture. Do you often find

that scripture is hard to understand, hard to

explain? I know I do. There are some things that

are relatively simple, but much of scripture

is difficult to understand. And as a pastor who

seeks to stand before a congregation and expound

the word of God, even more difficult once you

have a semblance of an understanding to then

explain what the text is saying. And the writer

of Hebrews is expressing the very same. thought,

what I want to share with you is going to be

difficult. It's going to be hard for me to explain.

And again, it comforts me to know that this one

writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit

is having this issue in his life. But then he

goes on and he says, the reason that it's going

to be hard to explain is because you've become

dull of hearing. It wasn't just the difficulty

of the concept of Jesus being a high priest after

the order of Melchizedek, but it was the spiritual

apathy of the people to whom he sought to impart

this truth. There was indeed a problem and this

hard to explain concept was going to be made

even harder to explain. Well, Again, because

of this whole idea of spiritual apathy, they

had become dull of hearing. So two reasons. Some

biblical truths are simply hard to understand.

We have to go back over them time and time again.

We have to refresh ourselves. We have to remind

ourselves of these great truths and how we are

to apply them. to our lives, and certainly this

whole idea of Jesus being a high priest after

the order of Melchizedek is one of those hard

to explain concepts. You know, most people love

to talk about Melchizedek, right? He's kind of

a mysterious person in scripture. We want to

know more about him, and I think the reason that

we have this infatuation with Melchizedek is

because of that passage of scripture that says

that he didn't have a beginning, he didn't have

an end. And I think all that means to us today,

or should mean to us today, is that his birth

simply wasn't recorded. His death wasn't recorded.

I believe Melchizedek was a real man. I mean,

Abraham met him, paid tithes to Melchizedek.

But we have this infatuation with these mysterious

characters of scripture, and again, often, because

of the difficulty of explaining these concepts.

We want to hear as much as we can about them.

The second reason, of course, that the readers

of Hebrews, the ones who would listen to this

letter read, we're gonna have a difficult time,

was because of their own spiritual immaturity.

And we just have to face the reality, church,

that sometimes that's the reason. It's not just

that scripture can be difficult, but sometimes

it's because we just will not do our part. Things

become difficult that shouldn't be so difficult.

He's simply saying, look church, you've been

sitting under the preaching and teaching of God's

word long enough that you should be able to teach

others. But they were still in need of being

taught, and not just being taught, but being

taught. The ABCs, you ought to be able to teach

others, but you need someone to teach you again

the basic principles of the oracles of God. Basic

principles. Again, those words could be translated

the ABCs. They should have been reading on their

own, but they were still having to be taught

the ABCs. They weren't where they should be at

this time in their Christian lives. a medical

term. It was relatively new to me. I think I've

heard of it, but I've never really thought about

it too much. But it's a medical term, failure

to thrive. Have you heard of that? And it speaks

of a condition wherein children do not develop

or grow physically at the expected rate. You

know, new parents, they take their kids to the

doctor for those wellness checks after the baby's

born, and they come back and they tell you, well,

you know, my child was in the 85th percentile.

of such and such for their height or their weight

or the circumference of their head. All these

measurements are taken. Children who are experiencing

failure to thrive are those who are in the bottom

measurements. They're not progressing as they

should. They're not growing as they should. They're

not advancing as they should. The medical community

calls that failure to thrive. And the interesting

thing, there are several causes for failure to

thrive. But the most common cause of failure

to thrive is malnourishment. Simply an insufficient

caloric intake, and thus the child falls behind

other children its age in the physical growth

categories that I just mentioned, height, weight,

head circumference. What the writer of Hebrews

is saying to us is that failure to thrive is

something that's taking place in the church.

It's a condition that afflicted church members

to whom he was writing. And I believe it afflicts

church members today. Failure to thrive. And

again, what we need to note here is that the

most common cause is self -infliction. It's just

the neglect of proper nutrition. We're not feeding

on the word of God the way that we should. We're

not spending time in God's word. as we ought

to. And so we are malnourished spiritually and

thus dull of hearing. What we should be able

to understand, we are often not because we simply

have chosen not to feed on the word of God and

grow as we should in our knowledge and understanding.

of the word. So the condition, failure to thrive,

the condition, you've become dull of hearing.

Again, those words, dull of hearing, it's really

not speaking about the ability to hear as we

often talk about it. If you were with us in church,

you would hear about hearing and hearing aids

all the time in the church office. We talk about

that a lot in there. It seems that some of us

older staff members are becoming dull of hearing,

but that's not really what this dull of hearing

is talking about. This dull of hearing means

to have no push, no drive, seemingly no motivation

to advance spiritually. To advance in maturity,

to advance in my knowledge and understanding

of the Word of God is the context in which this

phrase is being used. We were taught just a few

verses earlier in our study that we're to strive

after the things of God, right? We're to strive

after this rest that God has provided for us.

We're to strive after righteousness. Well, one

who has become dull of hearing, there's no striving

in that life. They have no desire whatsoever

to strive. for the things of God. There is no

pressing on in that life, as Paul says in Philippians

312, to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus

has taken hold of me. So all I can do this morning

is to simply ask you to search your own heart,

to allow the Word of God, the Spirit of God,

to search your heart. Is your life characterized

by an ever -forward, pushing, pressing on, striving

toward the things of God. Or have you just decided

to pull off the side of the road and park for

a while? It's what a lot of people do. Dull of

hearing, no motivation, no drive. It implies

that these people had become lazy, perhaps even

bored with the word of God. Let me ask you a

question today. Does the word of God bore you?

One of the things that I found to be true in

my own devotional life is when I fail to engage

the Word of God on a regular basis the way that

I should, it becomes increasingly difficult to

do that. It's as if the Word of God doesn't hold

the same interest as it once did. And I think

we can all understand that because we've probably

all been there. But when I... When I determine

every day to spend time in the Word of God, praying

over God's Word, searching God's Word, reading

God's Word, memorizing God's Word, whatever you

choose to do, then the more that you do that,

it's as if God just multiplies that desire within

you. You can't wait to get back to it the next

day. That's what we're talking about here. This

whole condition of being dull of hearing was

a self -inflicted problem. They had neglected

the word of God. They had become apathetic. Again,

perhaps even bored. I would love to stand up

here and say I can't imagine anybody being bored

with the word of God, but I can't imagine that.

We should never be bored with the word of God.

And if you're bored with God's word, you need

to pray and you need to get into God's word.

You need to ask God to revitalize your interest.

in him and in the things of God. Proverbs 19,

24 is a verse that I've highlighted dozens of

times in various Bibles and translation. But

it pictures one who is too lazy to even feed

themselves on the nourishment that is right before

them. Of course the word that the Bible uses

for this kind of person is a sluggard. You've

heard that word, you've read that word in scripture,

the sluggard. We could say the dull of hearing,

the spiritually apathetic. But the verse says

this, the sluggard buries his hand in the dish

and will not even bring it back to his mouth.

That's what we're talking about. The nourishment's

right there in front of you. It's been prepared.

It's hot, ready to eat. Got your spoon. that

you won't even bring the food back to your mouth.

That's a slugger. And let me tell you, if you

identify with a slugger, that's not a good thing,

by the way. That is not a word that you want

to be referred to as a slugger. But that's what

was happening among these early Christians. They

had simply allowed themselves to fall into spiritual

apathy, neglecting. the things that would have

strengthened them to resist the temptation that

they were being faced with, would have given

them wisdom to face the difficulties that were

now presenting themselves as a result of their

newfound faith in Christ. And so because of their

spiritual apathy, because of their dullness of

hearing, they were no longer or they weren't

feeding on the solid food, the meat of the Bible,

but rather they were simply satisfying themselves

with milk. And again, you can just think of an

infant, right? I mean, when we first begin to

feed our children from a bottle, I mean, they

won't even hold the bottle themselves. Talk about

a first, remember that first night, your baby

reached up and held the bottle for himself? That's

a pretty great night. But before that, you have

to hold the bottle for him. You prepare the milk,

you warm it, you get it all ready, and then you

have to hold that bottle. That's kind of what's

being pictured here. You need milk, the scripture

says, and not solid food. For everyone who lives

on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.

The reason that the writer of this letter was

gonna have such a difficult time explaining the

concepts surrounding the high priesthood of Jesus

is that these people to whom he was writing,

many of them had chosen to live on milk. And

they just weren't able to have. Solid food, they

couldn't stomach it. It was too difficult. You

have to choose solid food. Milk just goes right

down. You have to prepare and eat solid food,

milk. Not so much trouble with milk. But those

who refuse to move on, to advance in their spiritual

life, to the nourishment of the solid food, the

meat of scripture. The Bible says they're not

able, well, they cannot handle the word of God.

They are unskilled in the word of righteousness.

Of course, 2 Timothy 2 .15, the verse upon which

our Awana Club's motto is based, these spiritual

apathetic people They don't know how to rightly

handle the word of truth. They are not, as it

says a little later in that letter, 2 Timothy

3 .17, they are not complete, they are not equipped

for every good work. God has given us his word

and he has commanded us to engage in that word

so that we might be complete, so that we might

be able to do that which he has created us to

do, called us to do. But for these people, these

spiritually apathetic people, when trouble comes,

and it had come, they didn't know what to do.

They weren't prepared to deal with it. When temptation

arises, they were not discerning enough because

of their lack of understanding of the scriptures

to even recognize what they were being tempted

with and thus to resist it. They were in trouble.

They were, again, unskilled in the words. of

righteousness and we need to be a skilled people,

you know. Again, Neil often talks about this

church being a big word church. We need to know

the big words, we need to understand the big

words, we need to understand the big pictures,

the big context, the big issues. In scripture,

God has given us his word so that we can know

him. And yet, because we choose to live on milk,

we find ourselves. unskilled in the word of righteousness.

Paul says to the Ephesians that we must grow

up in order that we may no longer be children,

because children are tossed to and fro by the

waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,

by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful

schemes. It is amazing to me and really discouraging

at times when I see people who have been a part

of this church or some other church for a long,

long time and yet they find themselves deceived

by some false doctrine that they heard on television

or heard from some new preacher. It's discouraging.

It's amazing to me the things that Christians

that ought to know better embrace. simply because

they haven't availed themselves of the word of

God. We wanna grow up into maturity. We don't

wanna remain children. Children are gonna find

themselves in trouble, deceived by the falsehoods

that are so prevalent in our world today. So

how do we overcome this? What's the cure to this

spiritual apathy? Well, he says, In verse 14,

solid food is for the mature, for those who have

their powers of discernment trained by constant

practice. There's the two words you need to key

in on, constant practice. You and I will never

reach the point that we no longer need to look

to God's word. We will never get to the point

that we know all that we need to know about one

of the books or any of the books. about one of

the doctrines or any of the doctrines. We will

always need to know more, to understand more,

and the reality is we can through the constant

practice of applying God's word to our lives.

It's one of the greatest things that I believe

we've done with our life groups. Taking the sermon

as a context for our meeting together and then

talking about how we can apply what we heard

Sunday morning to our lives. Let me tell you,

that's what we ought to always be doing. How

can we apply what we have heard, what God has

shown us to our lives? And that's the way to

overcome spiritual apathy. That's the cure for

it. Constant practice, and in so doing, we are

able, again, to become skilled in the word of

righteousness. We are able to distinguish good

from evil. So just as James reminds us, we must

not only be hearers of the word, but doers of

the word, right? We hear the word of God and

now we are to put the word of God to work in

our lives. This is the way James says it in chapter

one, verses 23 through 25. He says, for anyone

who is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's

like a man who looks intently at his natural

face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and

he goes away and at once he forgets what he's

like. In other words, the word of God speaks

to our condition, where we are, where we need

to be. But when we're not looking in the word

of God, at least not looking at it regularly,

we forget. But we need to be the one who looks

into the perfect law of God, the law of liberty,

and perseveres. Being no hearer who forgets,

but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his

doing. So the cure for spiritual apathy is engagement

in the word of God and constant practice in discerning

good. from evil. Don't remain spiritually apathetic.

You don't have to. Get back on the road. Pull

that car back into drive. and move forward. That's

what we're looking at. That's what he encourages

here in chapter six, those first three verses.

Spiritual advancement. That's what we wanna be

doing. There's no neutral in the Christian life.

You're either moving forward or you're falling

behind. He says, therefore let us leave the elementary

doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Go

on to maturity. Again, it's a decision we need

to make. I'm gonna grow up. And again, these

words imply effort. It demands effort on your

part if you're gonna grow up, if you're gonna

go on to maturity, if you're gonna advance to

become a spiritually mature adult. So let me

just ask you the question. Are you making an

effort? Are you doing the Word of God or just

hearing the Word of God? Have you become one

who constantly practices, discerning good from

evil, that's where we should be. So, let's leave

the elementary doctrine of Christ. And again,

that doesn't mean that we forget those things.

It just means that we move on from them. Many

people can't tell you any more about their relationship

with God than their salvation experience. Let

me tell you, your salvation experience was the

beginning of your walk with the Lord. You should

be moving on from that. We'll never forget that.

It's that moment that we came to know Christ

as Savior and Lord that puts us on the road.

But now we need to move on. We need to move on

down the road where we don't abandon those elementary

principles of the gospel, but we build upon them.

We grow up from there. And look what he says,

not laying again a foundation of repentance and

from dead works. faith toward God, instructions

about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection

of the dead, and eternal judgment. We move on

from that. We don't lay that foundation again.

Now we're gonna build upon that foundation. In

other words, the foundation has been laid. And

he gives us, just real quickly, I'll talk about

these issues that are listed for us here. It's

really three sets of two, three pairs of... spiritual

doctrine or issues. Repentance from dead works

and faith toward God. Again, repentance and faith.

Those are basic and elementary teachings of the

gospel, right? When we come to Christ, we repent.

We turn from our sin and we believe upon the

name of Jesus. Repentance and faith. And let

me just say this. The writer is telling his readers

that these were things that were first Written

in the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant,

these principles were there as well. You don't

have to read far in the Old Testament to find

out that God's people were to repent of their

sin. They were to turn from their sin and return

to Him. Faith was an important issue under the

Old Covenant. The scripture says Abraham believed

God and it was credited to him or accounted to

him as righteousness. So this first... couplet,

repentance from dead works and faith toward God.

That's talking about the beginning of salvation,

turning from our sin and repentance, turning

to Christ in belief for salvation. And then instructions

and washings and laying on of hands, maybe not

as clear as we would like it to be. But these

two are Old Testament concepts that are expanded

in the New Testament. And basically for our purposes

here today, These things are talking about our

entrance into and then our ability to participate

within the body of Christ. In Jesus, we are clothed

in his righteousness. We are made fit for service

to God. The laying on of hands there was something

that was done under the old covenant when one

was being sent out for some service. And the

implication there was that what was being done

was that the Holy Spirit was being imparted to

these people. And of course, the Holy Spirit

isn't just imparted to us. The Holy Spirit comes

to indwell us. Why do I know that you can go

on to spiritual maturity? Because you have the

Holy Spirit of God in you that will enable you.

to do that. So this couplet talking about that,

our entrance into the body of Christ and then

the enabling power of the Spirit of God within

us that will generate our power and service to

the Lord. And then resurrection from the dead

and eternal judgment. Again, Old Testament concepts

that are expanded upon in the New Testament.

Fundamental issues that the New Testament clarifies.

I guess if we wanna talk about that first couplet,

repentance from dead works and faith toward God,

if we're talking about justification there, and

then if we're talking about instructions and

washing the laying on of hands, we could be talking

about our sanctification. Well, this last couplet

talks about our glorification, resurrection from

the dead and the eternal judgment. We're all

looking forward to that, right? To the return

of Christ. We know that in Jesus, because he

has been raised, we will be raised. We know that

what awaits us in eternity is a new heaven and

a new earth where we're gonna live in our resurrected

body for all time with our brothers and sisters

in Christ. It's gonna be a wonderful thing. These

are the elementary principles, the ABCs of the

scripture, which we should have a firm grasp

of in our lives as Christians and that we should

build upon. That's what the writer of Hebrews

is saying. These fundamental doctrines. should

be firmly grasped by everyone who claims the

name of Christ, and then we should be advancing

in our knowledge and understanding of scripture

from there. And of course, I love the last verse

that we're looking at, verse three, and this

we will do if God permits. Do you think God wants

you to move on into maturity as a Christian?

Absolutely, he does. Do you think he's gonna

help you to do that? Well, absolutely, he does.

As a matter of fact, we've already said he indwells

us through the person of the Holy Spirit who

does what? who guides us into all truth. So a

Christian, there's no reason, no valid excuse

to remain a spiritual infant. You have the Spirit

of God within you who will guide you into all

truth. So there's the choice this morning, spiritual

apathy or spiritual advancement. Of course, my

prayer for you and for myself is that we will

choose spiritual advancement, that we will go

on with Jesus, that we will grow from this point

forward, that each and every day of our lives

and right on through this life and into eternity,

we will continue to grow in our understanding

of God's word, of what God says about himself,

what he says about us. That's a decision that

you have to make. Don't become dull of hearing.

Don't neglect the nourishment of the Word of

God that's right here in front of you, but engage

with the scriptures each and every day.