2007 Book of Hebrews Series – “We’ve Come A Long Way” [OR: “Don’t Stop Now”]”
Hebrews 5:11-14
Sermon preached at Curwensville Presbyterian Church – April 1, 2007 [Palm Sunday]

Prayer Introduction: In many ways our Scripture passage this morning is the epitome of my call to ministry. It is my greatest joy to take the eternal truths of God’s Word and help God’s people to understand them. You make my joy complete when God, by the work of His Holy Spirit bearing witness to His Holy Word, grabs hold of your heart and changes your life.

            This passage is intensely personal for me. This passage is the reason why I am a pastor in this denomination and in this church. This passage is why I am your pastor.

            And so, while this passage speaks volumes to me and about me, it speaks – by the same Spirit – to you and about you.

            Come this July, I will have served as your pastor for 7 years. “We’ve Come A Long Way” in 7 years. Your response to this passage, this morning, will determine how far we might go in the next 7 years…We pray now for the preacher in the pulpit. He is not worthy, but by your grace he is able. And so it is through Jesus Christ that we pray – Amen!

READ Hebrews 5:11-14

Introduction: I grew up in this denomination – the mainline Presbyterian Church. I have watched its steady decline. While biblically sound, evangelical churches have grown, the mainline Presbyterian Church is half the size it was 40 years ago.

            At my home church, those who were spiritually mature have left, because they were being spiritually starved. My call to ministry came in the midst of that. I saw people who loved Jesus and loved their church, and desperately wanted to be fed with solid spiritual food. I wished they wouldn’t leave, but they were hungry and there was no one to feed them.

            And so God called me, gifted me, and equipped me to go into churches where people were loved by Jesus, but were starving, and feed them the bread of life.

I. CPC – Explaining & Hearing

Curwensville, Pennsylvania was not on my map; but God called me here, because there were hungry people here and there would be hungry people that God would bring here. There was much to teach, and you were eager to learn.

            We began to add Bible Studies. We added a Sunday School class, and we added the Sunday Evening Study, where we went through the Bible in 36 weeks – the elementary truths of God’s Word. And many of you said, “I’ve learned more in the past 36 weeks than my whole life combined.” I was glad, but also sad that you had been starved for so long.

            That Lent we added some Bible Studies – the Men’s Tuesday morning Bible Study has continued to meet since then. Two women’s Bible Studies offered two different formats. Way Cool Wednesday continued to grow and grow. And this past year we added a Wednesday morning Worship & Study – especially designed for those who work weekends.

            But, as sometimes happens, our enthusiasm for learning can diminish. That is what was happening when this letter to the Hebrews was written. And so the author, while introducing the topic of Jesus Christ as the eternal high priest says, in verse 11, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.”

            They weren’t always slow to learn. In fact, they had come such a long way, but something had happened and they had begun to be slow to learn. What happened?

            The phrase, “slow to learn” is more literally translated in other versions as “dull of hearing.” People had become dull of hearing. And their pastor – the author of this letter – says that things are getting hard to explain BECAUSE they have become hard of hearing.

            It isn’t that what he wants to tell them is hard to explain in and of itself. The problem is that they had lost their enthusiasm for listening. They had lost their passion for learning. They had become lazy (as the word is translated in 6:12).

            This kind of thing happens. Spiritual growth takes spiritual work. Understanding and applying God’s Word does not come naturally. Prayer doesn’t come naturally. Worship does not come naturally. In fact, the opposite is true. Spiritual growth is not natural, it is supernatural – it is spiritual and thus takes spiritual effort. Spiritual laziness is a tool of the devil.

            And so we should expect to see, in any church, that spiritual laziness will spring up from time to time. Worship attendance and Bible Study participation will tail off for a season. The devil makes us lazy. Do we not hear people say, “Sunday is my day to sleep in”?

            No. It is not. Sunday is the Lord’s Day. It is the day to get up and get with God’s people.

            Do we not hear people say, “I am so busy with school, work, the kid’s activities, my parents – I just don’t have the time and/or energy for Worship, Bible Study, serving with the church”?

            The devil loves to make the worship and life of the church move to the bottom of our priority list, so that we have no time – and especially no energy – for it.

            “I’m not getting anything out of worship” some say. “Well, what are you putting into it?” The problem isn’t the sermon or the worship service. The problem is that we get dull of hearing from time to time.

            Maybe because our priorities have taken our energy away – so we need to shift priorities.

            Maybe because our entertainment culture has caused us to treat worship as another piece of entertainment, where we sit passive waiting to be entertained – so we need to shift from being passive in worship to being active.

            Think back to the times when you were dull of hearing, because the sermons and worship services were just plain dull. Shortly after I arrived a poem was written and put into The Chimes newsletter – “Nobody Sleeps in Our Church Anymore.”

            I have listened to a lot of dull sermons. Not dull in style, but dull in content. If God’s Word is truly being preached, there is nothing dull about it; because God’s Holy Spirit is alive and active – but we must remain eager to hear him.

            The former star basketball player (turned Senator), Bill Bradley, once said, “Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.” In sports, there is an inner drive to reach the top; but once you’ve been there it is hard to stay there.

            In churches, there is an inner drive – especially when a new pastor comes to town (it is sometimes called the honeymoon period). And you rise to a certain level of success, but then everyone needs to dig a little deeper – and work a little harder – to stay focused, eager to keep growing.

In sports, when success is sustained, it is called a dynasty. In the church, when success is sustained, it is called spiritual maturity.

II. CPC – Teaching & Learning

Verse 12 is one of the most convicting verses in all of Scripture – especially for the person who has gone to church all their life. “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!”

            You all ought to be teachers by now. You have learned so much. Do you realize how much you have learned?

            When I first arrived many of you didn’t know how to find a book, chapter and verse in the Bible – and now you can find virtually any passage within a few seconds (Minor Prophets are still a little tricky).

            When I first came many of you never read your Bibles. You maybe owned a King James Bible that collected dust on the shelf. Many of you read All the Way Thru in 2002.

            You ought to be teachers – and in fact, many of you have become teachers. You have started teaching Sunday School, or helping at Way Cool Wednesday. You have taught at Vacation Bible School. Our Elders are actually helping to lead worship.

            “Teaching” isn’t limited to the classroom or the pulpit. The chief place of teaching is in the homes. Parents teaching children. Spouses exhorting one another. Older women instructing the younger women. Men sharpening men as iron sharpens iron.

You ought to be teachers – we don’t just come for personal edification, and to put God’s truth into practice in our own lives, but also to share it with others. We are taught in order to teach – family, friends, neighbors, each other, other nations. We come to be discipled that we might go and make disciples.

Our Elders are now doing elder-training to grow in their abilities to lead and to teach – just finishing the book Instruments in the Redeemers Hands: People in Need of Change, Helping People in Need of Change.

            We’ve come a long way. Don’t stop now. And that is what this passage is really about in its larger context. Chapters 3 and 4 showed us how the Israelites had come so far through the wilderness, but then many fell away.

The writer is saying to these Hebrew Christians, you’ve come so far – don’t stop now, like the Israelites in the wilderness did. Press on. Continue on to spiritual maturity. Through Christ we can continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of his redeeming love.

III. CPC – Drinking & Eating

Verses 13 and 14 exhort us to move beyond milk to solid food. I love steak. A big thick juicy piece of medium-cooked steak. Porterhouse, Prime Rib, T-Bone, Flank, Filet – I like them all. Babies get milk. I get steak.

Now, to be sure, you still need to drink milk. You drink milk with dinner; but milk isn’t dinner. The milk of basic gospel truths refreshes; but milk tastes better with a meal and a meal tastes better with milk. It’s not either/or, but both/and. Drink milk. By all means, drink milk; but drink milk with a meal of solid food.

I’ve never liked milk, by itself. But I like it with a meal. Some tell me it’s because I didn’t grow up with REAL milk – but with that white water you buy at grocery stores. Dairy farmers (like the Ross & Henry families) are appalled that people even call that stuff milk.

The author of Hebrews is not saying milk is bad, he is simply calling on his listeners to move beyond mere milk. Seek maturity.

            And many of you are now doing that. We are almost all the way through the first round of discipleship classes. We are chewing on the solid food of the Prophets (Sunday School and Men’s Bible Study). We are chewing on the solid food of personal devotions (Sunday Evening and Wednesday Morning).

            We’ve come a long way, don’t stop now – keep chewing.

            Notice that this solid food, this spiritual maturity, is not just doctrinal, but practical. You are trained to “distinguish good and evil” in practice. You live obediently. Remember, these verses come In the immediate context of Jesus as high priest, in the order of Melchizedek. This is a call for us to learn obedience from the one who learned obedience on the cross for our sakes. We are to rejoice in suffering as God’s means to lead us to obedience.

            Maturity of faith means living it. Walk the talk. Don’t just say you believe, live it. Worship. Serve. Teach. Lead. Take initiative. Dull hearing is the opposite of this.

Christian maturity goes against laziness. Christian maturity doesn’t wait for someone to get them riled up, we get going ourselves – by the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us.

            The Holy Spirit hasn’t left you. God hasn’t forsaken you. We just dull ourselves to him. Step up. Call on the Holy Spirit of God to prompt you to maturity. Pray for maturity, obedience, suffering.

            Maturity means you know how to make the right choice, and you do.

            Steak is harder to chew than milk, but is so worth it. Spiritual maturity is harder to chew than elementary truths, but is so worth it.

In George Guthrie’s commentary on this passage he writes – “Many a pastor has been called before the church board to be told he is being too negative in his preaching; that people won’t come to the church if he continues to give them such a hard time…But godly confrontation grounded in biblical principles goes with the territory…In a healthy church and in authentic relationships within the church, confrontation is inevitable. The pain and awkwardness accompanying such loving confrontation are not easy for anyone to experience. But ‘no-talk’ rules, if allowed to prevail, will lead to spiritual demise, turning a community of faith into a mere crowd held together by formalities.”

            On three different occasions the Session has said, “Dan, we are hearing that you are being too negative in your preaching.” It isn’t negativity; it is a call to spiritual maturity. It is an invitation to an obedience, a righteousness, that you have never before experienced.

            We have come so far. Don’t stop now! Don’t regress now! Let us run with perseverance!

In 7 years we have seen Way Cool Wednesday go from a dozen kids to a couple of hundred who have participated – most of whom are completely unchurched. They are hearing the good news of the gospel [God, sin, Christ, response].

            No one brought a Bible to church a few years back – and now so many of you do. Our Elders are now able to get up and lead part of the worship service.

            We have come so far. Don’t stop now!

            62 new members have been added in the past 7 years [only 3 by letter of transfer] – these are new professions. 17 baptisms [7 adults!]

            In 7 years you have ordained 13 new Elders; 11 new Deacons – who have VOLUNTEERED. Remember when you used to beg people to serve. The Nominating Committee just prays now.

            Don’t stop now!

            In 2000 – we received less then $70,000 in offerings. Last year we received over $106,000. Do you remember when you used to have all those special offerings? And now we’re supporting missionaries, and making a difference in our own community.

            Do you remember when you felt like all you did was search for a new pastor? I’m not going anywhere, unless you don’t go anywhere.

If you’re not growing you’re dying. If you’re not moving forward you’re moving backward. If you’re coasting, you’re going downhill. Run the race. Keep moving.

            Don’t stop now! Continue on to spiritual maturity!

MAY THE TRUTH SET YOU FREE – AMEN!