Growing up
good to be together this morning – there will be opportunity for questions at the end.
Introduction:
this week I had the pleasure of going to my daughters’ school sports awards. There were two particularly excellent things about it – the first was that both daughters got an award. This was not especially a surprise, since the only people there were the people receiving awards, but it certainly did make for a greater level of peace in the house than if only one of them was sportingly honoured. But the second thing that stood out about the event were the performances by the rhythmic and artistic gym groups. Really just kids, but the level of precision co-ordination, ligamentine flexibility and sheer energy were just fabulous – they jumped and rolled and sprang about the floor as though gravity didn’t have quite the same effect on them as it did on me. The word that came to mind was spritely, which I looked up and it worked quite well: ‘full of spirit and vitality’.
I think I was particularly taken by the spriteliness of the girls at least in part because of the way in which my own not especially spritely body has been performing of late. I am convinced that there is some kind of black hole concentration of gravity that follows me around, I’m sure it’s more like 10.8 or even 11.8 metres per second squared where I am. Some days I can hardly get myself out of bed in the morning, let alone off the floor. My neck has been creaking and cracking and crunching in a most disturbing manner and I wonder whether the time has come to take on a far more distinguished look by wearing glasses, which might have the added side benefit of enabling me to see and read better. The word spritely, full of spirit and vitality, is not one that has been applied to my body fora couple of decades now, a more accurate word would perhaps be sluggish, which the dictionary defines as ‘averse to activity or exertion’.
now I say this not to evoke your sympathy nor your disdain, but because I suspect that we all know about this sort of experience to one degree or another. It may be that your bodily sluggishnesses are only temporary, after an especially late party say, rather than the more permanent sort like mine, but being spritely or sluggish of body is something that applies to us all, even if only in the memory.
the Hebrews to whom this ancient pastor is writing were becoming sluggish, not physically but spiritually. That’s where this section ends up, with an appeal by the author to his readers to show the same diligence as they used to, so as to realise the full assurance of hope to the very end, so that they won’t become sluggish. And it’s where he begins as well, although the translation doesn’t help us here, v. 11:
11 About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull [lit. sluggish, same word] in understanding.
here is every year 9 school teacher’s mantra – this course is hard to explain, not actually because the material is that complicated, but because you guys are not concentrating, you have become sluggish of hearing, you’ve got slugs in your ears. The Hebrews were becoming averse to spiritual activity or exertion, and so their loving pastor exercises his love by delivering to them a withering rebuke. Listen to it again, 5.12:
1. The texture of sluggishness
12 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; 13 for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
our author is not backwards in coming forwards about how far short of where they should be his readers actually are – they ought to be teachers, mature, competent, capable, giving out to others what they have taken in. But on the contrary, they are themselves in need of someone to teach them, and in fact to teach them the basics, milk like babies drink, not solid food which is the diet of adults. This is the texture of their sluggishness – haven’t got it yet.
but notice what they haven’t got – for being knowledgeable is not the end point, it is not the goal; it is the food, the milk or solids which feed a person. And the point is that what you can handle intellectually is a function of how mature you are spiritually, and not the other way round. It’s so important to get this. We often think that how mature you are spiritually is a function of what you can handle intellectually or theologically – that people who can talk a great game, use big theological words, who read more books than speak words of encouragement, they are the mature ones and you can tell because of what they know. But what we learn here is the exactly the opposite of that – what you can handle theologically is a function of how mature you are spiritually, and the mature are described as those whose lives have the deep wisdom of experience, or as our pastor puts it, those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good and evil. It’s beautiful, the word for trained here is literally gymnasium – this is what spiritual maturity is, spiritual spriteliness, it’s when you’ve been to the gymnasium of life, you’ve been around and seen how things are, and your faculties are honed to a razor sharpness to distinguish good and evil, you know from personal encounter what’s right and wrong, which are God pleasing ways and which are God-dishonouring ways, and you’re bearing fruit for God in your life.
so this is a deeply practical understanding of Christian maturity – but at the same time, it’s not anti-intellectual, as though somehow knowledge is irrelevant. On the contrary, knowledge is precisely what the mature crave, the solid food that feeds and nourishes them – but the 2 go together, intellectual feeding of practical spiritual maturity. And what’s more, you can see why – experience without theology will just take us wherever our experience has taken us, which might be positive and valuable, or might be profoundly diheartening; but theology without experience simply puffs up people, as the Apostle Paul puts it, make people full of hot air and bloated with words.
it’s worth thinking whether you tend to be imbalanced here, and if so on which side? I’m not sure whether being overly intellectual is better or worse than being anti-intellectual, but our author is not that interested in either – he is all for solid theological food, and so should we be, but he knows that only those whose spiritual maturity has been tested in the furnace of real life will not be damaged by that knowledge.
I suspect this is something of a poke in the eye to the readers, perhaps a bit rhetorically over the top, deliberately shaming them by overstating how immature they are. He actually thinks better of them, which is why he says they should be doing better, 6.1:
1 Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God, 2 instruction about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And we will do this, if God permits.
now, this seems to us a strange encouragement for all sorts of reasons, and it’s not helped by two translation issues in v. 1. When our pastor urges us to go on towards perfection, the word he uses is actually the same word for maturity in the previous verse, teleos – it can be translated perfection, but its base meaning is more like completeness or maturity. In other words, having just described what maturity is, having your faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil, he now says, get on with it. But there’s another translation issue right away – what we read as leaving behind, actually means something more like standing on, or building up from. He’s not saying leave behind the basic teaching about Christ in the sense of moving on to something more important; rather, the point is leave it behind in the sense of not needing to be taught the same thing again and again, but build your life on it, actually put it into practice.
mind you, being clear on that doesn’t help enormously with the things he actually lists as the basic teachings about Christ – repentance from sin and faith towards God is fair enough, and likewise the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, but what’s with instructions about baptisms and the laying on of hands? Actually, these items are not as foreign as you might think – baptism is still the way that someone becomes a Christian, and in fact we will be having a double baptism next week in the evening congregation, and laying on of hands is just another way of talking about how someone becomes a minister, that is they are set aside by the leadership of the church for a particular ministry task, which again is what we do regularly here. And the point our author is making is that these are the foundations of the life in Christ and his church – repentance and faith enacted in baptism, a life of service, and the last things, resurrection and judgment – now get on and live them out like adult Christians. And you need to keep going forward, since if you’re not gong forward, then like riding a bike, there’s every chance that you’re going backwards, and that’s not pretty at all; listen again to the severe warning that our pastor gives, v. 4:
2. The end point of sluggisheness
4 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt.
this is one of those really confronting passages. It says something that we don’t want to hear, and in fact may well know people who seem to have contradicted what it says, which then leads to all sorts of twisting and turning to make it work. And so we’re going to slow down and make sure we get what it says – 4 points:
The first thing is that we are talking about real Christians here. These are people who are described in the most lavish of terms as people who know and have experienced the life and grace and power of the living God – they have been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, shared the Holy Spirit, tasted the powers of the age to come. These are real Christians. In the past they have repented, because the passage speaks about them being restored to that repentance. One thing you can’t do with this is to say these were people who were only play acting at being Christians.
Second, notice what the passage is not saying. It’s not actually saying that real Christians can fall away. Because the Bible elsewhere says that once Jesus has got hold of you he will never let you go, some want to make this passage fit with those by saying that these are not real Christians. But we’ve seen that won’t work, and what’s more, it doesn’t need to, since that’s not actually quite the point. It just says ‘if’, if they fall away.
Third, notice how seriously our author takes this – if they go ahead with what they are mulling on, they will be recrucifying Christ and holding him up to contempt. This is powerful language, as emotionally intrusive as you can get for a Christian, designed to shock and appall. Remember what the Hebrews were contemplating, leaving the church, dumping Jesus and going over to Judaism, in the name of which is was that just a few years previously had come the plot to have Jesus crucified in the first place. To side against Jesus and with Judaism, then, is nothing short of siding with those who crucified him, in effect recrucfying him themselves, as though it was the right thing to do in the first place.
So fourth, what do we learn here? The point he is making is very simple. If a person is a real Christian, and they fall away, then it is impossible to restore them again to repentance. If they can so harden their hearts as to recrucify Christ, if they can so turn their backs on Jesus after they have had so much blessing through him and from him, then there’s no way back for them, because they will never turn back. What could possibly induce them to come back – they have had everything, and they have thrown it all in. Notice that he doesn’t say that it is impossible for God to forgive them. That’s not where the impossibility lies; no, the impossibility lies in the people rather than God, it’s impossible for them to be restored to repentance, precisely because they have had everything, there’s nothing left that could woo them back.
• can see that this is the meaning of the passage by the illustration the author gives, v. 7
7 Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and on the verge of being cursed; its end is to be burned over.
first are the mature, what our pastor is urging his readers to become, those who are watered and produce a crop useful to its owners, fruitful and productive, But at the other end of the spectrum are those who have received the same blessings, rain falling on it repeatedly, plenty of sustenance, tasted of the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, they have had all that, and still all they can produce are thorns and thistles, then what more can be done for them? What could make a difference in the future? What is left to be done? They have had everything they could ask for!
recently spoke to a woman who for various reasons had decided that she wanted out of her marriage, even though she had not gotten anywhere near the end of the line in terms of trying to find a way forward, and was perfectly clear on the fact that she was breaking her covenant with her husband and her vows before God. When I asked her whether she felt the significance of those things, she simply said, ‘Well I’ll just get divorced and let it settle down and then I’l ask for forgiveness and God will will forgive me. It’s as simple as that.’ Except it’s not as simple as that, it’s nowhere near as simple as that – not because some things are too naughty for God to forgive. No, it’s not as simple as that because when you sin like that, when you know the mind and will of God and simply shut yourself off from it, then something of your soul dies, you get soul sclrerosis, a dreadful hardening of the spiritual arteries, and you don’t function as well. The spiritual reality is that you don’t just do sin, your sinning does something to you, it strangles your capacity to repent. And you do that often enough, or severely enough, you do that in a way that actually cuts off all oxygen to the soul, and of course it will become impossible to restore you again to repentance, you won’t be capable of repenting, since you will have shriveled your soul entirely.
which is why our pastor is so fierce with his readers. There is nothing more dangerous than hardening your heart, nothing more spiritually lethal than turning their back, and so he warns them with every fiber of his being. But he is a good pastor, and he knows that more flies are caught with honey than with vinegar, and so he comes at them from the other side of the equation, v. 9:
3. The opposite of sluggishness
Heb. 6:9 Even though we speak in this way, beloved, we are confident of better things in your case, things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we want each one of you to show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope to the very end, 12 so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
in a challenging passage, this is perhaps the most challenging thought of all. We’re not used to thinking of God in this way, that he notices the things we do in his service, the love we show in his service for the saints, he does not overlook them because to do so would be unjust, he keeps a record of rights. In the case of the Hebrews, we learn later that their love for one another was expressed in sharing their possessions when others were in need, visiting one another in prison when they were being harassed, opening their houses and hearts in hospitality. These are the ways of love, and a thousand others, and God sees what you do. And our author says, don’t throw that away, don’t make that count for nothing, now when things are getting really tough, show the same diligence to the very end. Don’t become sluggish, but through faith and patience inherit the promises.
• Well, let’s pause there and see if there are any questions.
Conclusion:
Let’s draw the threads together. Ask yourself the question: ‘how spiritually spritely am I? How well honed by the gymnasium of life are my spiritual reflexes, trained to distinguish good and evil and live that out? How evident is the work of love, the assurance of hope, the pattern of faith and patience in your life? Be encouraged this morning, god see it, he knows it, he values it, and he does not overlook it, he doesn’t take it for granted as though it were nothing. It is something to him.
Or perhaps you are becoming sluggish, perhaps even wrestling with an area of sin in your life and thinking that you might just stop bothering, it seems too hard, you’re just thinking of giving up on the work of the Spirit in your life convicting you of some section of your character or conduct that is not in line with the ways and will of Christ. Perhaps it is a relationship that’s going to take you away from Jesus; a reluctance to invest time and energy and resources in the progress of the gospel and the growth of the church, a prayerlessness that is the expression of a heart hardening towards God, . Don’t do it, know dear sister, dear brother, that when you sin, it’s not just that you do a sin, sin does something to you, it hardens you, and the spiritual blessings of God falling repeatedly on your life are for fruitfulness. But even though I speak of things in this way, in your case there’s every reason to be confident of better things.
so perhaps you know of someone who is contemplating something like this, who is moving away from Jesus. Let me tell you how to spot it. It always starts by being less regular, less passionate, less integrated with church. And the reason is not too hard to get – it’s much easier to live with Jesus when it’s just you and him, and he’s in heaven, and it’s all nice and abstract then, very little concrete reality. The thing that Christian brothers and sisters do is make it all very up close and personal, very immediate, sometimes very demanding and difficult. And so the way to start leaving Jesus is to start leaving the church. And I’m asking do you know someone like that – it’s not a small thing, it’s a small start to a very big thing, the very biggest. Be for them what our pastor is for us, one who cares enough to call people back from sluggishness.
• let’s pray
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