Dennis Tuuri

# Reformation Covenant Church Sermon Transcript

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 5, beginning at verse 11.

Of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you’ve become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated receives blessing from God.

But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward his name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that each one of you shows the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We delight in it. And we delight, Father, in its great message of comfort to us as dearly beloved, those who are spoken to rather directly as those who demonstrate the accompaniment of salvation in our lives. We thank you also that your word brings forth a necessary response from us each Lord’s day and we thank you for the warnings that are contained in this text.

Help us Lord God to press on this morning to maturity. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I almost gave this talk an unfortunate title. As I was preparing the outline last night, I thought maybe the title should be “Maturity: Learn or Burn.” This captures a little bit of the warning here and I don’t want to miss that warning in the context of today’s sermon. But I think that what we see here is the necessity of Christian maturity and various characteristics given to it, so I thought that might be a little more respectful and useful of a title.

It’s in the providence of God. We’re here today on the day that in our country fathers are celebrated. Today is not as much a commendation to fathers as it is an exhortation to them to be mature and grown up in their dealings with their families, their work and their neighborhood and community. And we as the author of the epistle of Hebrews says we are also confident that the men of this church exhibit these qualities and this commendation is mixed in with the exhortation found in today’s text.

R.J. Rushdoony wrote a wonderful book years ago called *Revolt Against Maturity*, and you know, the word of God is always sure as he taught us and it’s always relevant. That is particularly true of today’s text in terms of our culture. And we have had items in the news both locally and nationally in the last few weeks that show us how this revolt against maturity is at play in our culture. We have the Neverland Ranch and the inability of the man who occupies that domicile to discern good and evil because of his commitment to perpetual immaturity.

We have the popularity of Peter Pan and the movie about Neverland found there and this exultation of youth—not childlikeness which the scriptures commend to us but childishness—and our culture is, I think correctly in the words of Rushdoony, in revolt against maturity that can be seen particularly in the context of our churches as well. And one other thing about revolt against maturity: we’ll see today that the point of maturity is to get to the point where you can discern good and evil.

And we are currently in the context of a state legislature, and many other states have the same problem. And now Italy is going to be voting on this issue of same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. And we are in the process of increasing numbers of civil magistrates calling good evil and evil good. And this is a sign of radical immaturity biblically speaking—a revolt against maturity. So we want to move to maturity.

We see this revolt against maturity in the context of the church. You know, we have these cute little pictures and I like them as much as anybody else—where little boys are in an adult hat and coat and little girls in a mature dress, and little kids play-acting like adults. And that’s kind of cute, but it’s not cute if the whole culture is doing that. It seems like what we have is an immature culture dressing itself in robes of maturity as they try to do work or exercise civil care, and yet their children are pretending at maturity, and yet we have foolish childish decisions being made because of that.

The contrary is true as well. Dr. beginning at the house of God: in the house of God we kind of have the opposite image. We have grown men and women all too often coming into churches and pretending like they’re five, six, seven years old. You know, there is a chorus in the Psalms. We don’t want to malign choruses. You know, there’s one of the psalms that has a refrain that repeats throughout it. That’s okay. Repetition is good. Simplicity is good. But when so many of the churches today, that’s all you do in worship—you don’t sing mature songs. You see these little childlike ditties. It seems like so many worship services are sort of pictured in the same way—it’s kind of the reverse. It’s like grown men and women coming into the Lord’s assembly and putting on clothes of immaturity way too tight and they look ridiculous in them, and their worship is pretending to be little childrenish in their worship. And this is where this immaturity I think stems from.

So it’s an important text of scripture for us. I wanted to talk a little bit about structure and context. We just had this wonderful set of talks at family camp from a man who has helped us with structure. If I was to write you a letter—let’s say I was in prison and I was to write you a letter, or maybe make it Rosemary Lawrence and she’s in prison and she’s going to write a letter, and she’s been trained in excellent writing skills and the way this stuff works and maybe Greek rhetorical structures—even not making it myself, who doesn’t know anything about this stuff, you know—I write you a letter and there’s a salutation, there’s a conclusion, there’s some paragraphs in the letter, and every paragraph has a little indentation so you know when things sort of shift, and if I’m kind of careful, you know, I’ve got a sentence at the beginning that’s sort of maybe introduced at the end of the last paragraph. There’s a structure to it, and it would be ridiculous for you to pretend that those periods, exclamation points, question marks, paragraph markers were not in there.

“Well, let’s not read it that way. Let’s just read it straight through and I’ll figure out for myself what this phrase he says means.” You see, well, it’s as ridiculous to ignore the structure of God’s word, and its particular the way the text flows, what are the markers that he’s built into it, and think we can understand it. What we end up doing is pulling things out of that context and grabbing ahold of it based upon some emotional response we have to it, or something. I don’t know. But maturity understands the way a child would write a letter to you and how they’ve formatted it—takes into account the structure. You can’t know the content of anything really that’s written without knowing a bit of its structure. What is the guy trying to communicate in the way he’s written it? And you really—if I was in prison and I made references, you know, to locked doors or something, you’d know I was immediately thinking of locked doors in the context of my prison cells. It really helps to understanding a piece of writing to know the context of it as well, right?

So we’re not asking you when we talk about understanding a little bit of the structure of a text to know something that’s sort of extra to the meaning—the basic meaning of the text. We’re talking about stuff without which you can’t know the basic meaning of the text. Okay? You have to know a little bit about how a text is structured.

So that’s what we’ve tried to do here at RCC—be a little mature about the way we approach scripture. Instead of taking out a phrase or a sentence apart from its context and imposing meaning, we try to draw the meaning up. I know a little bit of the structure and the context. That’s really true here.

Now, I’m going to be on vacation the next two weeks. Chris W. is a little worried today because he saw that he’s preaching next week’s sermon, when in reality it’s Doug H. is supposed to teach next week. I made that mistake. Don’t talk to anyone about the announcements, Chris. You can relax. It’s still two weeks away. Doug will be filling in for me next week. And when I come back, I’ll talk in the same text and talk about the apostasy portion of it. I’ll touch on it today, but I want to spend some time on it. So I got several more weeks to figure that out.

But I think that in terms of that and in terms of an understanding of this particular portion of Hebrews, it’s quite important—a little bit about the structure, which we’ll talk about in a minute—but also know the context.

And what’s going on, of course, is you got an epistle written to people who are being tempted to go back to Judaism without Christ at a particular time when in just a couple of years later, if they’re up there at the temple worshiping or sacrificing and have left Christ to that extent, they’re going to get surrounded by Romans, killed, and bad, horrible Edomites are going to come in, slit their throats, and gut them, and their blood’s going to run in the streets. That’s really important to remember as you read some of this warning stuff.

The text today talks about, you know, people who would crucify Christ again. It ends with the note of being burnt. Well, that’s what’s going to happen to Jerusalem. And it’s important to keep that in mind. All this Old Testament stuff—wanting that without Christ. We’ve talked about this before, but that’s the immediate context. And then there’s particular warnings to that audience that don’t really apply in its first place to us. It has implications for us. Application. But really you have to understand these things in terms of the particular context of what’s happening.

And so that by way of introduction to this particular text. So let’s talk just a little bit about the structure again, and I’ve got on the handouts today the overall structure of the book. And those of you that have been here for a while remember there’s seven sections, and we can kind of think of those in relationship to the seven days of creation. It kind of fits that pattern, if not explicitly by the intent of the author. It helps us to remember the flow of Hebrews. Helps us to remember the way God works typically. And I’ve given you the links between the sections as we go through this book.

There are these links from section to section. So the first section, the introduction in verse four ended with a link talking about angels and Christ having a more excellent name than they. So this it’s an introduction. It’s a technical Greek rhetorical device used that they would have understood at the time to tell us what the next section will be about. And Jesus—then he has this better name than angels, Son of God and Son of Man.

And then at the end of section two, there was this link to the third section: that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest and things pertaining to God. And so again, that was the conclusion of the second section, introduced the third section. We’re done with that now. Now Jesus is this faithful and merciful—reverses the order in the presentation from the introductory linkage sentence—but that’s what it was.

And then last time we preached on this on Hebrews we saw this link in verses 9 and 10 of chapter 5, just before the middle section: “Having been perfected he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, called by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” And that concluded that third section but introduced the central section of the book—the description of Jesus Christ as the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, transition back to the archetype priest who preceded Levitical priest. So we’re kind of back to that. There’s a distinction between Melchizedek and Aaron that we’ll talk about as we get in this middle center section.

But Jesus, the great subject of chapters 5 through 10, is Jesus the high priest of God, the high priest of good things to come. And that’s the very center of the book, as we’re positing it—that Jesus comes as the high priest of good things to come. He points them to the future being tempted to fall back to the past. He points them to the good things to come—and to come right quickly in the context of the original recipients of this sermon because the good things would accompany the destruction of Jerusalem, the removal of the Roman Empire, the Christianization of the world, etc. Those are the good things that are coming if they hang in there.

So now we’re at this central section of the book, and today’s text is the introduction to this section. And you know, we’ve seen this before in the epistle already. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. And therefore, you better listen very carefully. So there are these exhortations sprinkled in the midst of these sections. And here the section begins with a like exhortation.

Now technical term: there’s an *inclusio* in this text. What does that mean? Well, an *inclusio* is a technical term. There’s a word at the beginning and end that are that includes what’s in between it. And we saw this earlier in the epistle of Hebrews. A word would be used only here in the whole New Testament to block off a section of text, the beginning and end. Well, that’s what this word—sluggishness—is here.

You know, these things are going to be hard to present. They’re hard in and of themselves. When he says, you know, in this first verse that we’re going to move on now, we have much to say and hard to explain—of whom? Not Melchizedek. Of Jesus. It’s the reference is back to Jesus’s high priest. We got a lot to say about that. That’s the majority of the book in the middle. And it’s hard to explain.

This particular word in the Greek means a thing that’s hard to explain because of the subject matter itself. The nature of souls, the heavenly planets and their orbits—these are hard to explain. See, so the text itself, you know, he doesn’t withdraw from preaching hard stuff, but he gives them a warning. The materials going to get tough here in the middle. Been simple up to now, but it’s hard to explain it. It’s even hard to teach it to you. It’s particularly hard.

Secondly, not just because of the subject matter, but you have become dull of hearing, sluggish. You can’t get it together. You see, and that’s the same word. And the only other place in the New Testament where it’s used is at the end of the text—that they’re exhorted not to be sluggish, but to be imitators of those who with faith and patience, you know, accomplish, you know, inherit the promises.

So this gives us again the structure. We’re supposed to look at this as a unit here. There are markers to us to see it as a unit. And once we do that, the kind of thing kind of makes sense. I’ve laid it out in five little pieces for you here.

He begins by telling you it’s going to be hard. In verses 12 to 14, he says, “You’ve got problems. Your maturity [is] challenged as a group of people at this point in time.” That’s going to be hard particularly for you because you’re maturity challenged.

And then in verses 1 to 3 of chapter 6, still we’re going to press on to talk about this stuff.

Verses 4 to 8: remember, as we speak to you about this, that there’s a great danger if you don’t press on and learn this stuff and mature in Christ. There’s this warning—learn or burn.

And then finally, he says, but we’re concerned, convinced of better things than you, things that accompany salvation. He expresses optimism based on their past evidences of salvation. And they’re urged again not to be sluggish.

So, you know, like at the beginning and end—it’s going to be hard, but we’re going to press forward. The middle, we’re going to press forward. And around that—you’re immature and you got to be careful. If you don’t press forward to maturity because the judgment of God comes upon people that aren’t mature.

So there is this kind of burn or burn idea to the flow of the text. If all you want to do is return to childishness in terms of relationship to the oracles of God, the scriptures, you’re going to end up in judgment to God. You’re going to go back to the foundational principles laid out in Old Testament pictures of what the faith is all about. We want to build on that. It’s not that we’re going to leave aside, in the sense of putting away, the foundation, but we’re going to leave that in place and build on it—doctrine of Christ. And if you don’t, if you reject Christ, you’re going to go back and you’re going to burn.

So there’s this exhortation, and all this serves as introduction to material about Jesus that’s going to come forward.

Now we’re going to spend most of our time on the second section dealing with maturity itself. And as I said, in three weeks we’ll talk about the apostasy section in more detail.

So here in the first section, you know, it’s again in the providence of God and it’s an appropriate verse for you today. I’m going to speak about stuff that are a little difficult to explain, and you today are of hearing. You have family camp fatigue. Those of you that went to camp, so you’re kind of sluggish this morning and maybe had a little more coffee than normal trying to wake up. Well, you know, it didn’t stop the writer of the sermon to the Hebrews that they were sluggish. It’s not going to stop me this morning. Going to press on to the content of this stuff.

You know, see these bookends of you know—you’re sluggish, but wake yourself up now. Use that to—okay, pinch yourself, move around a little bit if you got to. But you’re a little sluggish.

This particular word, sluggish, means sort of, you know, asleep a little bit, atrophied from lack of use, that sort of stuff. Torpid in understanding, slow moving in mind, dull of hearing, witlessly forgetful. It can be used with numb limbs—the Greek word of an animal which is ill. His limbs aren’t getting circulation. He’s become sluggish. It can be used of a person who has an imperceptive nature of a stone—you’re as sluggish as a stone, you know.

So that’s what he’s telling them here—is that they become that way. Now, you know, he’s going to give them mature stuff and they’ve already learned a bunch. They’ve learned enough to become teachers. But now, because of their ethical problems, they’ve become sluggish. So he grabs ahold of their understanding and says, “Now, we’re going to press forward in spite of this.”

And then the second section is the one I want to spend most of the time on.

By this time, you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again. Now, in the text, as I put it on your handout, I’ve tried to by bolding, underlining, italicizing, etc., show a little bit of a movement here. He says at the beginning, you should be teachers. So he’s not saying they haven’t been taught. They have, and they’ve learned a lot. He’s being a little ironic in this section. You’re acting as if you were babes. But you know, you’ve learned a lot. You should be teachers.

And then at the end, he describes who those full age teachers should be. It’s those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. So begins and end there—this little section with the definition of maturity and being teachers.

But you have—you need to have someone teach you. Again, you’re not of full age. You’re a babe. In other words, babes need somebody to teach them. And what they’re going to be taught again, what babes are taught, are the first principles of the oracles of God, matching up with the word of righteousness. They’re unskilled in the word of righteousness.

What do you teach a child? You teach them ABCs. If you’re going to teach them the elementary, the first principles of geometry, you teach them points, lines, rays, segments—the beginning little thing that’ll produce the ability to become mature. With English, it’s ABC. So you never—you don’t leave those aside in terms of junking them. That’s what you build on, and that’s what he’s saying here.

But they need to be taught the first principles of the oracles of God and the word of righteousness. So the teaching of God’s word lining up to the word of righteousness, righteousness application of that word. And so what they need, what children need to move to maturity, is instruction in the basic truths of the scriptures. Now here it has a specific application to Old Testament types and shadows, but the basic idea is sound.

And then it says they need milk, not solid food. Everyone who partakes only of milk, yada yada. So at the middle of the thing is the solid food. And he’s actually going to teach him solid food. He’s going to move on from those principles, but he’s kind of shaming him a little bit. He’s using a rhetorical device that kind of, you know, being ironic somewhat. You act like your babies. I know you’re not. I’m going to press forward. He says in the very next section to give you the solid food.

But there are some—there are some truths at work here that I don’t want to just pass over. I want to talk a little bit about some lessons of maturity—that the characteristics. We see this necessity of maturity, learn or burn. And we see some characteristics of maturity given to us here that I want to just touch on briefly.

First of all, there’s a relationship between maturity and teaching. All are to be teachers. Now, not in the technical sense, but the idea of this word—again the word here that’s used to translate a teacher—you know, there were kind of two classes of people. There were the initiates who are learning stuff, then there were the ones that were mature. It’s a technical word meaning somebody that’s grasped a subject. So he’s come to kind of a knowledge of the basic truths of geometry. May not teach geometry formally, but he will teach it informally, and he has a grasp of the knowledge.

All Christians—this is not addressed just to pastors, okay? All Christians are to press toward maturity, a grasp of the whole of the revelation of who Jesus is so that they can—that’s kind of a matter of course in their lives—be apt to teach. You know, we’ve looked at the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3. They’re all qualifications of all men. Who’s not supposed to be not addicted to wine? Who’s not supposed to have his family together? And the one characteristic we say that is only for officers is this—apt to teach. Well, not really true. You know, this text says that all teachers, all Christians, men and women should be apt to teach, able, equipped, have a grasp of the knowledge and imparting the knowledge to others. You know, transmit this stuff to faithful men who will transmit it to other faithful men in a discipleship process. Certainly in the context of the home, but in a general sense.

So there’s this relationship to maturity and teaching—all are to become teachers in its general sense. Okay.

Secondly, there’s a relationship of maturity and being under instruction of God’s word. Teachers and teaching are necessary. Teaching is geared at where they are, moving from the known to the unknown, as Dr. Dorsey reminded us again in his lectures. See, if you’re not at the ability where you got a grasp enough to be able to teach others, then you’re supposed to be taught. And so you’re supposed to put yourself in the path of instruction to the end that you become a teacher. If you’re not at that stage in formally teaching, then you’re going to need somebody to teach you again.

So maturity is the goal. Grasp the subject. The way you get there is putting yourself in the context of other men and women who are teaching you—teaching by example and by word.

Third, so there’s a process at play here. Third, there’s a relationship between maturity and the Bible. As we said, we kind of see this parallelism—the oracles of God, the word of righteousness. How do we—what do we—where’s the content of the stuff we need to learn? Well, it’s in the word of God. To reach Christian maturity, you have an absolute requirement to understand the Bible. And so you’re supposed to go to Sunday school classes. You’re supposed to go to Bible study. Get yourself not sluggish when the sermon is preached. Look at the scriptures on your own. Read good books about the Bible. All that is implied here—that you’re not going to get to maturity without a knowledge of the word of God.

So this relationship to the word—obvious stuff but very important. So many adults in the church today, they don’t need—oh just simple gospel, you know, and not a lot of doctrine and all that stuff. No, this text tells us that maturity means getting instruction in the ABCs of the scriptures, getting to know them and getting a comprehensive grasp so that you can communicate them to others, to others.

So there’s this, we could say—although it’s not really this—we could say there’s an intellectual component to this instruction, the content of God’s word.

And fourth, there’s a relationship between maturity and community. Not obvious, but if you look at the text, the one who is unskilled in the word of righteousness—he is a babe. That’s in the singular. He’s a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age. Belongs to those who are. Plurals is used here. Okay.

So there’s a relationship in the very way the grammar is written here. Immaturity is the one who is in isolation. Okay. And maturity happens in the context of community. The babe is isolated. The ones who are not babes, who are mature, are treated as a group or a unit. And so there’s this—is telling us, and we’ll see it reiterated as we get to another section of this text—but what it’s telling us is that maturity does not happen in isolation. And if you live your life in essential isolation from Christian community, the church, then you’re never going to reach maturity. Okay?

So you need to know the scripture. You need to be in the context of community to mature, to grow in the Christian faith, to have a grasp of the truth of God.

Now the fifth element here that’s very important is that the end result of this is government. Government—that this little section concludes by giving us a definition of those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

Now the general thrust here can be seen as you got to mature in faith. You got to become a mature Christian person. Fathers, you know, you’re at the end of a year of celebration of your fatherhood and you’re looking forward to the next year of your fatherhood, right? You’re going to look forward to being, you know, honored by your kids a year from today. And what you want to do is on the basis of this text, dedicate yourself to personal maturity and characteristics and how you live your Christian life—to become a mature Christian man.

There’s an old poem, and probably members of my family will say “ugh” when they start to hear me recite it, but I’ve always liked it. The New Year’s poem by Edgar Guest, but we can use as the beginning of this celebration of fatherhood:

*This I would like to be—*
*Just a bit fairer, just a bit better, and just a bit squarer.*
*Not quite so ready to censure and blame,*
*Quicker to help every man in the game.*
*Not quite so eager man’s failings to see.*
*Lord, make a regular man out of me.*

*This I would like to be—*
*Braver and bolder, just a bit wiser because I am older,*
*Just a bit kinder to those I may meet,*
*Just a bit manlier, taking defeat.*
*This for the new year, my wish and my plea:*
*Lord, make a regular man out of me.*

*This I would like to be—*
*Just a bit finer, more of a smile and less of a whiner.*
*Just a bit quicker to stretch out my hand,*
*Helping another who’s struggling to stand.*
*This is my prayer for the near to be:*
*Lord, make a regular man out of me.*

*This I would like to be—*
*Just a bit truer, less of the wisher, more of the doer,*
*Broader and bigger, more willing to give,*
*Living and help my neighbor to live.*
*This for the new year, my prayer and my plea:*
*Lord, make a regular man out of me.*

Well, this text urges us both men and women to become regular mature men and women through application and instruction.

But then finally, as it reaches its kind of conclusion here, we go from this general maturity and characteristics of the adult Christian life, and we see that those who are mature have not just studied the word of God—that’s important—but they have by reason of use exercised their senses. So there’s this ethical component to Christian maturity and knowledge. Knowledge is not simply intellectual. It has a content to it. But knowledge for the Christian is based upon ethical submission to God and community. It’s through the repeated use of taking the foundational principles, applying them to situations. By that reason of use, we exercise our senses to discern good and evil.

So knowledge for the Christian has an intellectual and an ethical component. You can’t have one without the other. And it has a particular goal or end in mind. What’s the goal? To know right and wrong, right? Well, that’s one of the goals. That’s what the regular man is—to know that it’s right to smile and it’s wrong to whine. But that’s not what this verse means.

When we read in the scriptures, “discerning good and evil,” it doesn’t mean knowing right from wrong. What it means is the ability to rule, make judicial decisions in difficult times. This is the phrase, of course, that goes back to the Garden of Eden—the tree of rule and the tree of life. Adam wants to be able to rule, to discern, to judge, and evaluate difficult causes, but he’s impatient and grabs at it for himself. He’s like, you know, here in Oregon we had an initiative several years back to let 18-year-olds become state representatives and senators. Well, see, that’s what Adam did. He was like a teenager, a new baby, whatever it is—immature—but he was tempted to be able to rule immediately and take the fruit of rule and authority.

Now, we know that’s what we’re supposed to go for because that’s what the text tells us. It says back there when we read about discerning good and evil in the garden that it’s not a bad thing. It’s supposed to be something we are supposed to attain to in maturity. That’s what Christian maturity is.

And then if we look at the Bible, we find out that Solomon—even though he was a great guy, old older guy and all this sort of stuff—he asked specifically for wisdom from God. We know about that. But the rest of the verse says that he asked for wisdom that he might be able to discern good and evil, that he might be able to make wise judgments relative to what’s right and what’s wrong. You see, a ruling function. And that text, that narrative, after Solomon prays, he gets it. And then the immediate application is a hard case. Two women come, they both claim that the baby is theirs. See, that’s what ruling is. It’s not knowing the simple truths of the law, what’s right and what’s wrong, that stealing is bad and diligence is good. That’s where it begins. That’s the foundational principles. But maturity means knowing how to apply that in difficult matters, difficult cases.

You see, what this text does is reinforce our core values as a church. We want to understand the word of God. We want to know the law of God. And we want to press beyond that to maturity and be able to rule in the context of our families, the church, and the state—to discern good and evil, to know how to rule.

The old woman in David’s life comes up to him and says, “Like the angel of the Lord, you’re able to discern good and evil.” We’re to bring God’s evaluations, wisdom, and judgment to our culture. So maturity has the characteristic—the way it’s achieved here—but the end is given to us that we’re to be a dominion people.

Now, the sin of mankind is to grab at that too quickly, to want to rule too quickly, right? And what God says though is that the correct response to that is not to not have anything to do with it, but to move toward it with patience, through the exercise of our senses, through judging matters according to God’s word, that we might become wise and rule.

We have an emphasis upon the word of God, the oracles of God, the word of righteousness—what’s righteous and what’s wicked. The law of God tells us, and we had emphasis in our in our church and increasing churches across the country that we are to play a ruling position, and our men should inhabit, you know, ruling authorities in the city, the county and the state. It’s the job of the church to produce mature Christian men to discern good and evil in the context of civil magistracy.

And what do we have for the failure of the church to teach the word of God? The failure of the church to take seriously the law of God. We have a church that is foolish, immature, and walks into the courts of power and authority—if they get there—as little children dressed up in those adult clothes we talked about earlier. Comic sight, but not so comic. Because now in Oregon, what have we done? We have said that something that is evil is good. Homosexuality, same-sex relationships, permanent or not, are wrong. And the people that are tempted into them should be told in no uncertain terms by the civil magistrate it is evil. They should be warned off it. But instead, the magistrate is calling what is evil good.

And for years here in Oregon, they’re letting same-sex couples adopt children. They’re calling evil good. Woe to such a land, the Old Testament tells us. And on the contrary, wise municipalities and counties and states—and our states now trying to make it so that they’re going to call what’s good evil.

And you’re a landowner. You’ve got a house. You’ve got a business. And you don’t want to hire an ethical rebel to God—who is a person involved in the sin of homosexuality. You know that you’re tempted to the same sins. You know that sexual sin is common to mankind. It’s the end result of increased sexual sin. That’s why in our church, we oppose both adultery and homosexuality as a requirement of membership.

But the point is, you have a proper discrimination. You’re at least mature enough to know that you don’t want your house rented out potentially to, you know, a homosexual or lesbian, and you don’t want to hire such a person that’s in such ethical rebellion to God. That’s a good thing. In the Bible, discernment, we could call it discrimination—a godly sense of discrimination—is a positive truth that’s commended to us.

And the civil magistrate in the city of Bend, and now they’re attempting to do this statewide, is trying to call that good, the ability to discern good and evil and discriminate in a right way in terms of the actions of reprobates. They’re calling that evil. It is a sin. According to the civil magistrate in the city of Bend and increasing judicial districts, it’s a sin to discern good and evil and apply that in your actions.

So we’ve got again—the blame lays at the doorstep of the church failing to press maturity, the means of maturity—an understanding of God’s word—drawing back from the whole counsel of God because Sunday morning people are a little weary and we just want the simple gospel and just tell us, you know, the basic stuff. The church has pulled back from the harder, more difficult elements of scripture. They haven’t bothered with the context. They haven’t bothered with the structure, pulling a verse or two out of context, and that’s the message.

Unlike the man that gives this sermon, the preacher of Hebrews, they sure—because the subject matter is difficult and because the hearers are a little tired—God says we’re to press forward. And when we do that and we embrace God’s laws, the elemental principles, then we train up mature people to inhabit authority and power in the context of the land. And then we have those godly rulers who rule for the person of Jesus Christ.

So maturity is a requirement of all Christians. It’s found by understanding first your immaturity, submitting to instruction that has both the content of God and application involved in it, discerning the senses. And it is to the end that you might teach others and that you might rule in the context of your family, the church, your community, and ultimately in the context of the civil state. That’s maturity.

Now let’s just touch briefly on the rest of the text.

The third section: “Therefore, leaving in place…” We might say the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ. Let us go to its desired end—to perfection. Not perfection in the sense of no nothing wrong, but perfection in the sense of the purpose of this—which is this maturity. He’s just talked about ruling ability in the context of whatever sphere—we’re going to move toward that.

And then he says what these foundational elementary principles are that he’s building on—not leaving aside, discarding, but leaving in place—these things. And as we mentioned earlier there: the repentance from dead works, faith toward God. There’s a progression here: baptism, laying on of hands, the unction for living one’s life. The end result is that we might attain to the resurrection of the dead, and then eternal judgment.

The last element in that flow of material here. There’s a progression being described for us. I think there’s a progression being described, and it ends with judgment. And so now we’re going to get some real big warning. And he’s kind of letting us know that because as we press forward, it’s in the basic foundation—has already told us that there’s a judgment coming and that’s what we’re moving toward.

You know, Bob Dylan has some wonderful songs—a lot of biblical imagery in them that most people aren’t, don’t pick up. There’s a song called “Shelter from the Storm,” that’s a reference back to Isaiah 32:1–2: “Behold, a king will reign righteously. Princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm. Like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. Shelter from the storm.”

In that song, Dylan wrote this:

*Well, the deputy walks on hard nails.*
*The preacher rides a mount.*
*Nothing really matters much.*
*It’s doom alone that counts.*
*And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a feudal horn.*
*Come in, she said. I’ll give you shelter from the storm.*

What does he mean? “Nothing really matters much. It’s doom alone that counts.” Well, doom is the old-fashioned word. Didn’t just mean the bad side of judgment. It was positive and negative. It just meant that there’s a there’s a doomsday coming. You know, I think it was King Alfred or one of the early English kings’s book of dooms—judgments, positive and negative. And we have to recognize in this call to maturity in this text that we’re being reminded that a foundational principle is that Dylan’s right from one perspective: “Nothing really matters much. It’s doom alone that counts”—the judgment.

And what he’s going to tell them is that in your failure to press on a maturity, you’re getting dangerously close to the day of doom being doomed—the way we think of it in modern terms—the day of darkness for us and not of light. The undertaker, in your case, will not be blowing a feudal horn. He will blow the horn that summons you to eternal death. If you reject Jesus Christ, who gives us—as the King of Kings—shelter from the storm.

So he reminds us—in the foundational principles he’s urged us to maturity—and he reminds us again that he’s going to press forward, and the foundational documents here tells us that maturity is toward the end of surviving in the context of the eternal judgment.

And then finally in verse 3: “And this we will do if God permits.” So maturity is underlain by the grace of God. It’s not our abilities. He prays for God’s grace to bring them continuing to mature toward the goal of a positive judgment on the day of doom. We’re going to press on. He says, and we’ll talk more about this—these couple of sections—in a couple of weeks. But let’s look briefly at the concluding two sections.

Verse 4 of chapter 6: “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, have tasted the good word of God, the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame.”

Now, as you prepare to hear my sermon on this in 3 weeks, meditate on that. In my meditations, it seems like we’re being talked to here about the first crucifixion of Christ by his covenant-breaking people. That’s the ultimate reference. We’ll talk about this in detail in three weeks.

The Jews verse 7 tells us the same thing: “For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated receives blessing. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.”

The vineyard in illustration is going on here, right? There’s a garden, a vineyard. Jesus used this in his time—that his covenant people had become those who had the vineyard. God has supplied absolutely everything they need. Absolutely everything. It’s not his fault that they grow instead of good things, briars and thorns. The curse come back here. And then the end result of that is that judgment is coming. The burning of Jerusalem will occur in AD 70.

So there’s this tremendous warning. Maturation is not optional in the Christian life. If you want a text to urge you to increase Bible study, to starting a study you can teach others, to get you finally on track coming to Sunday school here to get you ready and prepared for the sermon by knowing what we’re preaching about, and diligently trying to prepare at—the good night’s sleep—all that stuff. If you need a clarion call to urge you towards maturation, it is found right here.

Be careful, Christian. We’ll talk about the interpretation of it in three weeks, but the application is obvious. Be careful. You think you can just sort of stay along at the baby level of Christianity. This sermon warns you. And I warn you today, and I warn myself, that if we think that can just slide us by to judgment day, we’re dead wrong. We’re dead wrong. We’re on the very precipice of this judgment that’s promised to those who don’t continue pressing forward in maturity to Jesus Christ.

Tremendous warning given if they don’t move forward. And then of course there is this statement of comfort that concludes the text in verse 9: “But beloved, dear brothers, he reminds them that the gospel preached to them, the gospel preached to you is not neutral news. I’m not saying before you today, now you got to choose which one you’re going to serve, and some of you going to be blessed and some going to be cursed. It’s not what I’m saying. You’re all beloved in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And just as the author of this sermon is confident of better things concerning you, them—so I am confident and express the confidence of God toward you and Jesus Christ that he has brought you here today as those who are maturing, who will avoid the danger of now falling away from where he has brought you to. These are things—the better things that accompany salvation.

Though we speak in this manner, God is not unjust. Now look at this. Now this is the conclusion of this little exhortation of maturity. He’s not unjust to forget your work and labor of love. There is diligence required which you have shown toward his name—in that you have studied his scriptures and been able to outline the book of Hebrews. No, your work, your diligence to the end that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.

His basis of confidence was the acts of Christian service to one another. As we said earlier, we’re told twice now that maturation of the Christian faith is not a matter of intellectual content. It is—has that element—but it’s found in the application in the daily affairs of life, training our senses. And it’s found penultimately here at the end in service to the body of Jesus Christ.

We’ve called you to serve those outside of the body, to show benevolence to the broader community. That’s not what this is saying. This is saying the basis of his confidence was a knowledge of their service to one another, to the saints of the visible church of Jesus Christ. That’s where benevolence begins. Charity begins at home. Paul exhorts us to show charity to those outside of the church, but particularly to those of the household of faith.

How confident are you this morning? Can you say, “Yeah, my service to God is exemplified in my service to his people gives me a sure confidence as well that I’m going to escape the judgment.” You see, are you pressing toward maturity by applying what you know in ministry and service to other believers in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Now again, I can be as confident as this preacher. I saw camp, and I heard David Dorsey tell me not once but twice what a glorious group of people you’re around because there’s so much delegation. It’s another way of saying the same thing, right? Delegations. So many people at camp are doing so much work ministering to each other over and over again. I saw.

You’re unusual this way, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God for it. It’s the grace of God, not your diligence ultimately, but he’s given you that diligence to serve and to minister. Continue to do it. Continue. He says, not just that you have done it, but you continue to minister.

We desire that each one of you—Okay. So he’s not talking to just a few people in the church who are doing the work of the church. Each and every one. Maturation is the subject for each and every person here, and it’s linked to a knowledge of scripture tied to the service to the body of Christ and particularly in the context of the visible saints.

Easy to love somebody you don’t know. Harder to love the person next to you in the pew. Easy to go serve in the soup lines in downtown Portland anonymously somewhat—harder to minister to the guy next to you that you know has faults, sins, and foils. Right? But that’s the test here. That’s the mechanism and the test of maturation for each and every one of you.

“Show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that you do not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Love, faith, and hope. I’ve bolded them here, I think, or italicized. I’ve done something in the text to show you those. A love that serves the body of Jesus Christ, a hope that is linked to diligence in the present, knowing the promise of reward in the future, in a faith that produces patience through the imitation of one another.

And he’ll give us some great men here to imitate in a little bit. The father of patience, Abraham. And again, this ties back to ruling. We get there through patience. So he gives us faith, hope, and love—confidence based upon their service to the Christian community, an exhortation to remain diligent in that service and in their maturation as opposed to giving way to the sluggishness that he warned him about at the beginning of this, and a diligence found in the path of imitation of the characteristics of those who are showing the person and work of Jesus Christ both in the historical setting of the scriptures but also one to others in the context of the church of Jesus Christ.

God brings us together. He says, “Great job, dads. Do better this next year. Continue to press on to maturity.” And the end result of that is the rule of the Christian community in families, in households, in the church certainly, and in the civil state. And you get there through taking these wondrous gifts of faith, hope, and love, and applying them diligently and patiently in serving one another, in pressing toward maturity in Jesus Christ.

In that way, let’s thank God for his good gifts to us.

Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that indeed you have graciously given us an understanding of the principles of the scriptures found in the person and work of Jesus. Thank you, Lord God, for faith, hope, and love—your gifts to us every Lord’s day. Help us, Father, in that love to commit ourselves afresh to serving each other in the context of the church of Jesus Christ, particularly in her local manifestations. Help us, Father, to recognize the day of doom, of judgments that we look forward to and look forward to with hope through the person of Jesus. And as a result of that future hope, help us to be diligent in the present. And we thank you, Lord God, that we can patiently serve you because indeed you’ve called us in faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Help us, Father, to apply ourselves to Christian maturity.

Thank you for these wondrous gifts, all of which are available through the ministration of Jesus Christ to us. In his name we pray. Amen.