HEBREWS: “A Greater Maturity (Hebrews 5:11 - 6:3)" | 10/1/23
Hebrews 5:11 - 6:3 | 10/1/23 | Will DuVal
Bo, our 10-month old, has been learning to FEED himself recently. And when your 10-month old is learning to feed himself, YOU learn to expect some MESSES. Still cute, though, isn’t he?
What WOULDN’T be cute, is if MY face looked like that, when I got done eating. Or Ellery’s face, our 7-year old, lounging in the background…
What is cute and funny and PRAISE-worthy - we all clap for Boey when he gets even SOME of the food into his little mouth, even if HALF of it ends up on his face or in his lap… Bo just took his first step last week, and we all CHEERED for him! - but what is PRAISE-worthy at 10-months should be just EXPECTED by 10 YEARS of age. Imagine, if after watching Bo, ELLERY said, “Oh YEAH, well watch THIS…”, and she took TEN steps, and said, “Where’s MY applause?!” We’d say, “Sweetie, we KNOW you can walk. We EXPECT you to walk; you are more MATURE.”
This morning, in the last few verses of ch5 and the first few of ch6, the author of Hebrews is going to exhort his congregation, to whom he has been writing this letter, to GROW UP! You want a good two-word summary of this entire sermon this morning - there it is: “GROW UP!” And perhaps we should add a third word to clarify: “SPIRITUALLY”. “Y’all need to grow up spiritually”, he says.
But since YOU all, here at West Hills (most of you, anyway), are NOT spiritual infants, I know you won’t be CONTENT with that 3-word summary; I hope you’ve come this morning HUNGRY to FEAST on the MEAT of God’s word. Because God has prepared for us a bountiful SEVEN-course meal, in just these 7 short verses; they are SOrich and meaty. And if YOU AND I desire to grow up spiritually this morning - if we don’t want to BE a bunch of adolescents still struggling to eat a meal without smearing FOOD all over our faces (spiritually speaking)... if we want to ENJOY this “greater maturity” of faith that Jesus is offering us this morning - then we’ve gotta consume our SPIRITUAL food; Jesus said, “‘Man doesn’t live on bread alone,but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”; this is our SPIRITUALbread. And the bread’s just the APPETIZER; SEVENcourses to savor this morning…
-
Scripture: Would you STAND…Hebrews 5:11-6:3:
And as you’re standing and turning there in your Bibles, let me REMIND you of the CONTEXT of these verses: last week, the author of Hebrews began to praise Jesus as our “Greater High Priest”, a theme he will RETURN to at the END of ch6, and all of ch7. But HERE, at the end of ch5, he hits PAUSE for just a moment, right after he’s introduced the OT figure MELCHIZEDEK, in v10 - Jesus is “a high priest after the order of Melchizedek”, he points out - but before he can go on and make his point about HOW / IN WHAT WAY Jesus is like Melchizedek, the author stops and realizes: “Wait a minute: I’m not even sure my congregation knows who Melchizedek WAS! I’m not confident enough in their spiritual maturity - their knowledge of the OT Scriptures (Genesis 14, Psalm 110…) - that I can even expect them to GRASP this analogy I’m trying to make here. So the author pauses to say THIS - and friends: GOD - Scripture’s CO-author is saying this, to US this morning; this is HIS word:
“11 About this [Jesus’ Melchizedek-like priesthood] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 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, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 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.
6:1 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, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.”
[This is the word of God… SEATED…]
This pastor is frustrated with his church’s LACK of spiritual growth, their arrested development. So he criticizes them on SEVEN counts, which WE are going to reframe more positively, as 7 means of GROWTH.
So how do we mature spiritually?
Well, first of all, #1 - we must TAKE INSTRUCTION (5:11)
He diagnosis their biggest problem of ALL right off the bat, in v11, when he says “I’d love to tell y’all MORE about Melchizedek’s foreshadowing of Jesus, but it’s too HARD to get these complex truths ACROSS to you, because ‘you have become dull of hearing’”.
It’s the same criticism JESUS made of his rejecters in Matthew 13:
“this people's heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed” (v14)
He’s talking about our SPIRITUAL faculties. We GROW by learning. But how do we LEARN? Through sensory experience, the 5 senses - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting - that’s how our body sends signals to our brain to help us process and make sense of the world around us. The same is true of us SPIRITUALLY: to mature, to LEARN, we need to:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good” -Psalm 34:8
We need hearts that have been “TOUCHED by God” -1 Sam 10:26.
We ought to SMELL like the “aroma of Christ” -2 Cor 2:15
But most pertinent to Hebrews 5:11 here, we’ve got to LISTEN, spiritually!
Prov 1 urges us: “Let the wise hear and increase in learning… Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head” (vv5, 8-9)
The single most important trait in a CHILD, in a STUDENT, in a CONGREGANT… how about in a PASTOR, a TEACHER, a PARENT - regardless of WHICH side of the desk, the pulpit, the kitchen counter you’re sitting on, we ALL need to listen and learn and grow! - and the single most important QUALITY in a learner, a “grower”, is “SHARPNESS of hearing”. It is the ability to take instruction… TEACHABILITY. If you can be TAUGHT, if you are able to LISTEN and learn, take instruction, then no matter HOW slow or sinful or immature you might be today, there’s always hope for you, for tomorrow. But the minute we STOP listening, become DULL of hearing, we plateau; we have peaked; no more growth.
Be honest: when Pastor Thad was preaching last week, and he got to his final point, 40 or so minutes in, and then he hit you with Jesus’ “high priest[hood] after the order of Melchizedek”, one of TWO things happened to you: either your ears perked up - “Melchize-WHO? Who is that again? Wait, I think I remember him…” and you started flipping back in your Bible, and you sat UP in your chair, you pulled OUT your pen to take notes… either your ears perked UP… OR… your eyes glazed OVER.
Many of you here have been Christians for a LONG time - when you open your Bible in the morning for your daily quiet time, do you still expect to HEAR from God? A fresh word? Or do you just expect to be reminded of things you heard from Him YEARS ago… old manna?
Brothers and sisters, let us TAKE CARE, lest we become DULL of hearing.
And how do we SHARPEN our spiritual hearing? I’ll try and offer you one very practical application point with each of these 7 growth tips:
I think the BEST, maybe the ONLY way, to sharpen our hearing is through PRAYER. By asking the LORD to do what only HE can do, and open our ears to hear from Him. To give us the DESIRE to hear from Him. These immature Christians to whom Hebrews was written didn’t WANT to hear about Melchizedek. We can imagine him writing this letter, this SERMON, to be read aloud to his little church back in Rome, and by ch5 here, 15 minutes into the public reading of the letter, many in the congregation’s EYES were starting to glaze over… they heard “Melchizedek” and they were SNORING.
We’re 15 min in; how y’all doing? Do you WANT to hear more? If I went long today and you missed the Rams kick-off at noon - will you want to hear from God more than you want to watch football?
We need to PRAY and ask God to give us the LONGING and the ABILITY to listen and take instruction.
How important is HEARING? Romans 10 says that “everyone who calls on the Lord - in FAITH - will be saved” from their sin (v13), and the only way that WE can call out to God for forgiveness is if WE have first HEARD HIS call to us: “so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (v17). Father: open our spiritual EARS to hear, from YOU.
#2 - To grow spiritually, we need to TEACH (5:12a)
Some of you were feeling pretty good after point #1. You’ve got all THREE of your study Bibles open in front of you, while you follow along in the interlinear GREEK text on your phone; you’ve got BOTH your ESV journals out, cuz you can’t even FIT all your notes in just one of them… NO ONE takes instruction like you!
But now we come to v12 and read: “by this time you ought to be teachers”.
And you must acknowledge: if you were TRULY mature, spiritually, you would excel NOT ONLY at RECEIVING instruction, but at GIVING it as well. You OUGHT to teach. That is the clear, consistent COMMAND all throughout the NT for every follower of Jesus:
What were Jesus’ final instructions for us, before he ascended back into heaven? We ought to have them memorized by now: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [and… WHAT??] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (vv19-20)
Go… disciple… baptize… and TEACH!
Col 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom”
Titus 2: “Older women… are to teach… younger women” (vv3-5), older men: teach the younger men.
Eph 6:4 “Fathers: bring up your children in the… instruction of the Lord.”
Romans 15:14 - may we be “filled with all knowledge, able to instruct one another.”
Passage after passage, exhorting us to TEACH. You say, “Well I don’t have the spiritual GIFT of teaching…” - SO; I don’t have the gift of administration, but that’s no excuse for me to just BLOW people off for meetings, cuz I forgot to put it on my calendar: “Whoops! Oh well, guess you can’t blame me - not my gift; blame GOD…”
I don’t have the spiritual gift of EVANGELISM, but I still pray for and look for opportunities to share the gospel, because Jesus TOLD me to. And because others need to HEAR it, whether I think I’m good at sharing it or NOT. And because I LOVE Jesus, and I want to SHARE him with others. Warren Wiersbe points out that (816) “One of the hardest lessons that children must learn is SHARING.” Brothers and sisters: is it possible that the reason we’re not better at teaching others is that we are spiritual CHILDREN, who haven’t yet learned the JOY of sharing our faith with others?
They need to be TAUGHT, whether we think we’re good at the TEACHING or not. The only way to get any better, by the way, is to PRACTICE. And if you ARE one of those folks who enjoys BEING taught, guess what: you learn TWICE as much when you’re the one TEACHING! I bet I get twice as much out of my sermons as you do, just because of all the prep work that has to go into it.
The next time I’m helping Ally out with recruiting for kids min and I approach you, don’t you tell me, “I’m not a good teacher,” cuz I’M gonna reply: “Great! Well, the Bible COMMANDS you to teach, and kids min is a great place to get PRACTICE and improve!”
Don’t TELL me, “I’m not that knowledgeable,” cuz I’M gonna reply: “Great! You’re gonna learn TWICE as much by teaching the KIDS! You’ll learn TWICE as much from teaching them as you will from listening to ME on Sunday…” (plus, you’ll probably be better at teaching it down at their LEVEL, if you’re still a spiritual infant!)
There is NO good excuse not to teach. You’ve probably heard the analogy before, but if you’re NOT teaching, you’re like the Dead Sea: all input, no output. Water comes IN, from the Jordan River, but then it just SITS there, with nowhere to go. And it stagnates, and DIES. It’s called the “Dead Sea” for a reason - it can’t sustain LIFE. And neither can YOU, if you’re not pouring OUT, into others.
#3 - To mature spiritually, we need to THIRST & HUNGER (5:12b)
Think about the physical analogy again: to GROW we’ve got to eat and drink, but if we’re gonna be MOTIVATED to eat and drink, we’ve got to hunger and thirst. Or rather, thirst THEN hunger. And the order is important to the author’s argument, here in v12; he says: “you ought to be teachers, [but INSTEAD] you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the teachings of God. You need milk, not solid food”.
Is it BAD to need milk? [*responses*] Not if you’re a BABY. In fact, the apostle PETER employs this same metaphor in 1 Peter 2, and he actually encourages his congregation: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (vv2-3).
But here in Hebrews 5, the author REBUKES them for “needing milk, not solid food”, and PAUL does the same with the CORINTHIAN church in 1 Cor 3: “I [had to] address you… as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.” What’s the difference?
Well, the difference is the DRINKER. Milk is wonderful - we ought to CRAVE it… when we’re spiritual INFANTS. Peter was writing to baby Christians. Hebrews was written to spiritual ADOLESCENTS who should have been WEANED by now.
There are few things more beautiful in life than watching your brand new baby feed at his mother’s breast. There is something so pure, so natural, intimate about it. But I remember seeing this bizarre interview on TV a few years back now about the oldest known child still breastfeeding - 10 years old. Now listen: I know we have a few crunchy moms here at West Hills - La Leche League or whatever - I’m just gonna tell you: if you are still trying to use our to breastfeed your TEN year old, we’re gonna have to have a VERY uncomfortable conversation.
Milk is natural, beautiful, crave-able, for a spiritual baby. But it is weird and sad and downright UNHEALTHY for an adolescent - without solid FOOD, you’re not gonna get all the nutrients you need to continue to grow properly.
Now, I recognize that I’m speaking to a somewhat mixed crowd this morning (although we certainly skew more “mature believer” here at West Hills). But we DO have a FEW spiritual infants here - and praise God! It is healthy for a church to have folks at all different stages of spiritual growth; I pray He sends us MORE baby Christians… more NON-Christians who we get the JOY of seeing come to saving faith in Christ, right here at this church; what a BLESSING! But for those of you who HAVE, once again, you need to PRAY, and ask the Lord to give you a sincere THIRST for his MILK - for “the basic principles of the teachings of God” (although it bears mentioning that usually when you’re an infant, the thirst comes more NATURALLY. Most babies don’t need too much encouragement to CRY OUT… OFTEN… for milk. And I bet when YOU first came to faith, you ate up Scripture as fast as you could CONSUME it - you were ravenous!)
But if we’re not careful, somewhere along the way, we can lose our appetite. Just as we grow dull of HEARING, warning #1, we can grow dull of TASTING.
Polly’s grandfather is in his 90s. And I guess your taste buds start to die out as you age, but I think the BIGGER problem, in Dad-daddy’s case, is that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he’s eaten nothing but 5-star, country club fare all his life. And it has completely RUINED him. They’ll take us out to the fanciest restaurant in town, and he’ll order a $60 steak, and when I ask him how it is, his answer is always the same:
[*GRUMBLES*] “Ehhh”.
17 years I’ve known the man now - countless family dinners - never ONCE have I heard him say something nice about a meal. He’s completely RUINED. He’s Bored.
So how do we keep our spiritual appetite sharp? Well, I might reiterate the takeaway from point #1 - to PRAY - but I’ll add to it: “try new foods”.
Maybe the reason these adolescent Hebrew believers have become bored - “dull of hearing” - is because they are SETTLING for the same old meal over and over and over again: milk, milk, milk. It’s time to BRANCH OUT. Stretch your spiritual PALATE.
One of the worst things about preaching is that I don’t get to teach Sunday school classes anymore. Cuz I’ve got an idea for a whole SERIES of classes I would LOVE to teach, called “Christianity 201: Stuff You Should Know (But Probably Don’t)” [I already made a title graphic for it and everything!] - and I’d do a whole course on “Church History”… I’d do a whole ‘nother course on “Evangelism in a Post-Christian Age”, I’d do another course on “Second-Tier Doctrinal Distinctives”, that aren’t necessarily GOSPEL issues that divide the saved from the unsaved, Heaven and Hell issues, but are nevertheless important enough to attend different CHURCHES over: paedobaptism vs. credobaptism, complementarianism vs egalitarianism, cessationism vs. continuationism…
Some of you are thinking: “That sounds AWESOME! You should just do a SERMON series on it instead!” But I’m not GOING to, because #1) I’m an expository preacher - I’ve got more IMPORTANT things to address on Sundays, namely: GOD’S WORD, directly, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. But #2) That would rob a couple of YOU of the opportunity, to make good on application point #2 above… to TEACH! I’m waiting for one of YOU to step up and teach that course sequence!
Some of you are HUNGRY for that course. Others were just CONFUSED: “Paedo-WHAT?” “Cessatio-WHO??” If you’re a baby Christian - you’ve been a believer less than a year or two - that’s not the class for you. You still need Christianity 101: Gospel Essentials. Brad Young is actually teaching that class AS WE SPEAK, downstairs! Go check it out.
But if you’ve been a Christian for MORE than a year or two, and you ought to be WEANED by now, and yet you’re still not even familiar with some of those important, second-tier doctrinal distinctives that DEFINE our church, you need to stretch your spiritual palate.
Listen: Jesus commended a child-LIKE faith, not a child-ISH faith (Phillips, 177). You know the difference? A child-LIKE faith admits one’s utter need for the heavenly Father, and CLINGS to Him when life gets tough. A child-ISH faith is simply indifferent to spiritual things. No taste buds for them. No spiritual GUT yet, to digest solid spiritual food.
And our society is FILLED with childish nominal Christians today. The 2022 Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey found that a shocking (or perhaps, sadly, NOT so shocking anymore) number of self-professing “evangelicals” have “a profound misunderstanding” of the basic tenets of the Christian faith:
Almost three out of four (73 percent) agree with the claim that Jesus was “...created by God.”
More than half (58 percent) believe that God accepts the worship of all religions, including… Judaism and Islam.
More than half (56 percent) agree that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.
More than half (55 percent) believe the Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.
More than half (55 percent) agree that “everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”
More than half (53 percent) disagree with the claim that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.
Almost half (46 percent) say that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” (Joe Carter, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/state-theology-2022/)
Brothers and sisters: THOSE are FIRST-tier doctrines! Those are GOSPEL, Heaven-and-Hell type of issues! And yet, so-called “evangelicals”, people who CLAIMED on the survey that “the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe” - they claimed that, and then turn around around espouse Arianism, and universalism, and humanism, and church passivism… because they don’t actually know what the Bible SAYS!
And they don’t know what it says, cuz they aren’t READING it. And they aren’t READING it, cuz they aren’t HUNGRY for it.
May it not be so at West Hills; may we be a church who lives NOT on bread alone, but on EVERY word that comes from the Father.
May we be a church who “who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for THEN”, Jesus said, we will be “BLESSED” and “satisfied.”
May we be a church who declares with the psalmist: “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so… My soul thirsts for you, for the living God” (42:1-2).
That’s the carrot - the carrot is: “God is AMAZING! Let’s long for a deeper relationship with Him.”
The STICK is - Satan is real too, and he wants to DEVOUR you. Elijah, our 3 ½ year old, is a terrible eater. But I think I’ve found a trick, that seems to be working here in the past couple weeks; I say: “Elijah, you better eat and grow big and strong, cuz look at BOEY” (the 10-month old…); I say, “Look how much BOEY is eating!” (and he does, Bo’s a vacuum); I say, “If you don’t eat, Bo’s gonna grow BIGGER than you - what if he turns out MEAN?! He’ll be pushing YOU around.”
Well, that always gets him - he says, “No - I’M the big brother!” and he takes a big bite.
If you don’t wanna get pushed around by Satan (yes, I know: bad analogy; my baby is NOT Satan; he’s a wonderful child; but you get my point): you better eat and GROW UP!
#4 - To mature spiritually, we need to Be TESTED (5:13)
V13 says, “everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.”
That word “unskilled” literally means “untested”. In other words, it’s one thing to SAY that the Bible - the “word of righteousness” - is your “highest authority for what you believe”, to CLAIM that you “live your life by the book”, but the only way to know for SURE - that your faith the real deal - is when it’s TESTED. ANYONE can CLAIM to be a believer; talk is cheap. But will you STILL believe when the doctor calls with the test results you were dreading? When the pastor, the church, the Christian you always looked up to, when they really let you down? Will you still believe when your family member is tragically KILLED?
God’s “word of righteousness” reminds us that “[we] have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of our faith—more precious than gold that perishes when it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:6-7). In other words, God TESTS us in “the furnace of affliction”, in order to “REFINE” our faith, Isaiah 48:10 says, to PURIFY us, to melt away any residual unbelief, so we are FORCED to rely SOLELY on Him, to make it out the other side. We talked about this at length 3 weeks ago, in “The Greater TEST” sermon, so I refer you back to that message, for sake of time. But I do want to quickly make 2 other brief observations on this point:
First, we need to know that if we wait until we NEED a mature, sturdy faith to try and BUILD it, it could be too late. Ephesians 4 exhorts us: “[let us] all attain to… mature manhood,[e] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (vv13-14). If you wait until the storms come, and COME THEY WILL - from the world, the flesh, and the devil - if you wait until the waves are capsizing over your boat, to recognize - “You need a bigger boat” - it’s too late. NOW is the time to grow, so you are prepared when the storms come.
But second, I just want to recognize that if we’re talking about growing into maturity here - the listening, the teaching, the FEEDING on God’s word: that’s all the FUN part. Being TESTED in God’s FURNACE of AFFLICTION: that’s like LEG DAY. Everyone who has ever trained physically knows what I’m talking about. When I joined the HS football team freshman year - 6’1”, 135 lbs. soaking wet - the coach told me: “Will, we gotta put some WEIGHT on you - your homework is to eat as MUCH as you can.” THAT was the fun part: Dominos and Oreos for breakfast, lunch and dinner; coach’s orders.
The NOT-NEARLY-as-fun part were the workouts, especially, the dreaded LEG day. But those spiritual workouts, those TESTS, are SO important, aren’t they? Nothing GROWS us more, than suffering. We don’t LIKE it, but we really do NEED it.
God’s word of righteousness reminds us: “Count it all joy… when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jam 1:2-4). God’s aim is not our comfort, but rather our conformity to the likeness of CHRIST, and nothing makes us more like Jesus than SUFFERING.
So your application for point #4 actually just segue ways us right into point #5; if we need to grow our faith BEFORE the storms of life come, then we must recognize that…
#5 - In order to grow, we must TRAIN (5:14)
V14: we need our “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Sure, we need a healthy appetite (point #3), but we ALSO need a discerning palate. David Guzik points out: “a baby will put almost anything in its mouth… They lack the discernment to tell food from not food” - and as the father of a 10-month old, I can corroborate that.
Let’s don’t be spiritual BABIES! Are we consuming stuff, Church, as Christians, that has NO BUSINESS being in our mouths in the first place? The music we consume, the shows we stream, the social media, the websites, the news, the gossip, the friendships - here’s a good rule of thumb: “Would you CONSUME it if JESUS were sitting there beside you?” Can you discern whether or not Jesus would happily watch, listen, discuss, CONSUME it right alongside you? If so, then it’s GOOD. Edifying. Useful for BUILDING your faith. If NOT, we must TRAIN ourselves to renounce sin.
1 Tim 4:7-8 exhorts us to “train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
#6 - To continue growing, we need to TRUSS (6:1-2)
To “Truss” is “to support with TRUSSES, i.e., structural frames”. In other words, to REINFORCE. (I couldn’t ruin my nice alliteration on point #6…)
The author continues his argument into ch6 now: “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity”. Warren Wiersbe says (817): “[This verse] literally reads, “Having left the ABCs of the doctrine about Christ…” → Elijah is learning his ABCs right now. We were all sitting around the dinner table the other night, quizzing him… He’s still confusing his letters every so often… Once again, just imagine if ELLERY was still struggling with that same quiz. Now, it’s not that we LEAVE BEHIND the ABCs - Ellery won’t gonna get very far in her Language Learning class without those ABCs! But she no longer needs to keep REVIEWING them. She’s moved on BEYOND them. That’s what the word “leave” - aphiémi - really means here in v1: not “leave behind” but “move beyond”. And I DO like the word “truss” here for point #6, because the metaphor he shifts to NOW, instead of food and bodily growth, is an architectural one. He says: “let us… not lay again a FOUNDATION.” The GOSPEL, the “elementary doctrine of Christ” - the most basic, FOUNDATIONAL truths of Christianity, need to firmly ESTABLISHED in our lives - we need to get these nailed down; we’re no longer going back and forth, debating, “Does God REALLY exist?”, “Am I REALLY a sinner?”, “Did Jesus REALLY die and rise again?” - No! He says, we need to LAY the foundation, and then not “leave it behind”, but rather, move on BEYOND it… build on TOP of it… REINFORCE it, with those second-tier, important albeit not absolutely core, gospel truth doctrines.
But first, he LISTS the core, “elementary doctrines of Christ” for us in vv1 & 2. So let’s run through them SUPER quickly, because again, I trust for MOST of you, this should be REVIEW; I preach the gospel EVERY SUNDAY here at West Hills; I shouldn’t NEED to lay the foundation again (although I would say along with Paul in Philippians 3:1 - “To [preach] the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you”; our hearts are prone to wander - we NEED to be reminded of the gospel every week, don’t we?). So what IS it?
6 basic tenets of faith he lists here. This is his CATECHESIS of sorts. And note the the PROGRESSION of these doctrines, how each one builds upon the last:
Repentance: first step is to turn from sin, and from your own attempts to JUSTIFY yourself with your “dead works”. Isaiah 64:6 says “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Dead works.
Faith: salvation comes ONLY by faith (Eph 2:8) - “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe [FAITH! TRUST!] in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Washings: Kent Hughes explains (156) “This Hebrew church employed the customary Jewish cleansing rites… to teach the deeper, ultimate significance of Christian BAPTISM”. So after turning from sin and trusting in Jesus, step #3 is you “GO PUBLIC” with your faith through the ordinance of BAPTISM.
Laying on of hands: symbolizes the Holy Spirit’s empowering and the Church’s commissioning of a believer for a life now of OBEDIENCE to Christ and loving service to others.
The Resurrection of the Dead: those who finish the race will receive their reward! That is our hope, in life and death: that we are UNITED with Christ in his death, and therefore we will be RAISED with Christ to new life in Heaven as well. And finally…
Judgment: those who FALL AWAY are reminded and warned of the reality of everlasting punishment for those WITHOUT faith.
You’ll notice 3 couplets here: repentance + faith = SALVATION (the attainment of eternal life)... baptism + commissioning = SANCTIFICATION (the earthly enjoyment of eternal life)... and resurrection + judgment speak of our GLORIFICATION (the heavenly consummation of our fullness of eternal life)
Friends: these are CORE, gospel truths. And we NEVER move on PASSED them. But we ARE called to build ONTO them. To truss, to buttress, to support and REINFORCE them, and thus, to build and grow and reinforce our FAITH in the God they speak of and point us to.
Finally, #7 - Yes, we take instruction…
Yes, we ought to TEACH…
Yes, we thirst and hunger…
We INVITE suffering, the testing of our faith…
We TRAIN and we TRUSS…
But at the end of the day, to grow in Christ, we must TRUST Him (6:3).
He ends in v3, with this simple reminder: “And [ALL] this we will do [ONLY] if God permits.”
Paul can plant, Apollos can water… I can teach, you can thirst and hunger… but the ONLY way we grow, at the end of the day, is if GOD gives the growth.
”Unless the Lord builds the house, those who BUILD it labor in vain”
Jesus has got to be not only our FOUNDATION, but the MASTER ARCHITECT as well. Our BUILDER. May we build our faith on him, and may HE build a sturdy faith in us, today.