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"Moving
On to Maturity" January
26, 2003
The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower We begin with a question--a pair of questions:
If I were to go and sit in the kitchen, how long would it take for me to
become a good cook? Or if I would go and sit in the garage, how long would it
take for me to become a car? Well,
you know, sitting there and how long you've been sitting there really has very
little to do with whether change of a certain sort is taking place.
In this morning's Scripture, we're going to look at a passage from the
letter to the Hebrews that very much has to do with change that ought to have
been taking place, but actually our author is a little bit harsh in his letter
as he's saying, "You know what?
The transformation that should have been going on just has not."
And so listen to these words. This
is Hebrews chapter 5, beginning with verse 11: About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you
have become dull in understanding. For
though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you
again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on
milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been
trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic
teaching about Christ, not laying again the foundation . . . Let's go on to perfection, but it's not moral perfection involved.
It's not being perfectly righteous that is being talked about here.
It's going on to maturity, going on to completion, going on to allow the
faith that is in us in an elementary way to sort of move out and become
complete, making us spiritually mature. This
is a passage challenging us not to remain content with an elementary kind of a
faith, with a beginning kind of a faith, but instead, to always be seeking ways
to go on to become more fully who God wants us to be.
There is a sense in which faith--faith in God--desires to grow up,
desires to become more fully what it has in potential.
And from our passage you can see it's not necessarily an automatic thing.
It's not something that we can simply sort of rest in the assumption that
it's going to take place. It won't
be a matter of simply coming to church whenever.
You know: "How many
weeks do I have to come to church in order to become a spiritually mature
Christian?" Well, it may not
happen simply by coming and sitting. And
so our author is telling us that there are important things that can be
explained to those who are mature, but not to those who are--now, you know, um,
John and I don't like it when the Bible uses words like this but--"dull in
understanding." You know, "I'm
sorry. You ought to be able to
receive more, but [the author is telling his audience] you're dull in
understanding and so the things that could be explained to you can't be
explained. You don't have the
receiving mechanism yet, the maturity it would take in order to receive those
things." It talks about the
pure milk of the introductory teaching of the gospel.
And pure milk is a wonderful thing for a baby Christian.
If you are a baby Christian, you want to receive those things that will
nurture you in a way that is accessible to you, in a way that you can
understand. But then he goes on and
says there's also solid food, and there's this spiritual equivalent of solid
food, that it takes a mature believer to understand. And he says, verse 14: Solid food is for the mature, for those whose
faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. It's being trained by practice.
It's being involved. It's
living out your faith. It's
investing yourself. It's committing
yourself. And I certainly don't
want to discourage you from coming to worship every Sunday and just sitting
right in that pew. That would be a
good thing. However, growing up
into spiritual maturity takes more than that.
It requires that things in you arise through training by practice, that
there is a wisdom, that there is a sensibility, that there is an appreciation of
how things apply that really only comes as people are trained by practice.
I want to commend to you--and it begins this Thursday night--I want
to commend to you the Alpha program on this very basis.
I'm a big, big fan of Alpha. Not
only because I think it's a wonderful way to introduce the gospel to people who
have never heard it. It's
definitely that. But the thing that
I like about Alpha better than that is the leadership training opportunities
that it provides for people. Because
the Alpha system is one where we can take a person off of the street who has
never heard a thing about what the Bible teaches, has never heard a thing about
Jesus, and by having them come as a guest to the Alpha program (and hopefully
have a saving encounter with Jesus Christ that first time through), but then the
system is set up to allow that brand new, baby Christian to sign up in a minimal
leadership position for the next Alpha program and to hear a second
time--hopefully now hearing at a slightly deeper level--those introductory
teachings that they heard before, when they were first making a commitment.
It's a terrific, graded program where people are encouraged to come
back and take a slightly more responsible position so that in time we may have
someone who, a few Alphas ago did not know anything about Christianity, in time
now that person can become the leader of a small discussion group and thereafter
become an organizer of Alpha, a teacher of some of the lessons.
In Holy Trinity Brompton, which is the church where this program
originated (it's a Christian church in the London, England area).
If you're familiar with this, people have come in off the street and been
introduced to Jesus Christ and become Christians and then returned in ever so
slightly more responsible positions and finally been commissioned to go off and
begin Alpha in a foreign country, taking this program that was the way they
became Christians and introducing it in an entirely new geographical area.
And that's how Alpha came to America and now we we are able to benefit
from it. I delight in that aspect
of this because of the spiritual maturity complement that is really a part of
the whole Alpha thing. Presbyterians used to be known as an outfit that would promote
spiritual maturity, that would see that members are sort of grown up into wiser
and wiser appreciations of more and more of God's truth. We used to be the
denomination that was sort of known for the spiritual maturity in our members.
And, as a matter of fact, if you look at the people in positions of
university teaching in the area of religion, or Christianity, or New Testament,
or Old Testament, there are more Presbyterians with Ph.D.s teaching in those
areas than any other denomination. That
used to be a good thing . . . Now,
if the churches have sort of failed to raise up people who are wise in the
things that the Bible asks us to be wise about, then extensive influence is not
necessarily any longer a good thing. Do
you understand what I'm saying? If we continue to raise up spiritually mature believers and then
are doing a good job of seeing that people move out into the world and are
living out their faith in positions of power and authority and responsibility,
that's a very, very good thing. But,
folks, if we're failing to say to
people, "There's the milk of God's Word, but there are the more advanced
things of God's Word and your faith ought to make you hungry for the solid food
which, as you hunger for that, God will be transforming you inside and making
you less and less just simply a beginner Christian and more and more a
spiritually mature Christian. If
that's what you're about, then yes, absolutely we want representatives of our
faith out in the world influencing things.
The Bible makes clear that it's not an automatic process.
It's not a matter of, "I'm going to sit in the kitchen and it's
going to make me a better cook." Or
"I'm going to sit in the garage and it's going to turn me into a
Ferrari." No, no, there's more than that.
There is the "those whose faculties [here it is] have been trained
by practice to distinguish good from evil." We know that when we're involved, we know that when we're
committed, we know that when we're putting our faith in practice, and as we do
those things, we learn increasingly how to distinguish subtle differences from
worse to better. And in this day and age, all the world needs mature believers
like that. Let's pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word which is our light in darkness.
And we thank you for the challenge from your Word that tells us that it's
a wonderful thing to be a babe in Christ and to receive the beginning,
transforming truths. But having
received those, Lord, that it's not a wonderful thing to remain immature in the
faith. Lord, we ask that you would
cause us to be hungry for the things that make us wise unto maturity.
And it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen. The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on January 26, 2003.] |
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