back to index2019-09-15 Leaving and Cleaving in Christ
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How do you distinguish between being childish and childlike? 00:00:04.000 |
I think we all know the distinction between being childish and childlike. 00:00:08.000 |
Childlike is somebody who's brand new, and you don't have to be a certain age to be childlike. 00:00:15.000 |
I think it's one of the most encouraging things that I see is when a young believer comes to faith, 00:00:20.000 |
and they're just trying to figure out what is and isn't okay. 00:00:24.000 |
So every once in a while we'll have somebody who's brand new to their faith, 00:00:39.000 |
And it's very childlike because they're beginning in their walk with God, 00:00:42.000 |
and they're asking these questions because they're trying to figure out what does it mean to be a follower of Christ. 00:00:46.000 |
Childishness is when someone who should have matured beyond that, 00:00:51.000 |
and they're acting the same way that they've acted maybe 10, 15 years ago, 00:01:08.000 |
You know, years back when my knees were better, 00:01:12.000 |
I tried to go to LA Fitness and work out and play basketball, 00:01:17.000 |
I started going because my knees started feeling better. 00:01:20.000 |
And so I started going, and every morning from Monday through Friday, 00:01:23.000 |
there would be a group of guys probably about my age, 00:01:27.000 |
and they're all businessmen, so they didn't have a 95 job, 00:01:30.000 |
so they were able to hang out for about an hour or two, 00:01:34.000 |
Initially, it was awkward when they found out that I was a pastor, 00:01:37.000 |
and so we always go through that awkward stage like, you know, 00:01:40.000 |
am I going to get judged if I say something wrong? 00:01:42.000 |
And so we passed that period, and we spent enough time together where we literally started to become friends. 00:01:49.000 |
And so we started joking around with one another, 00:01:51.000 |
and they started feeling comfortable enough with me where they just started being themselves. 00:01:57.000 |
But one of the things that I noticed was, one, these guys are all athletic, 00:02:00.000 |
so it was clear that they were jocks when they were younger, 00:02:03.000 |
and you could tell on the basketball court they were pretty athletic even at that age. 00:02:08.000 |
But another thing that I saw was they were living their glory days on the basketball court, 00:02:14.000 |
and so we couldn't play basketball for more than 15 minutes straight 00:02:17.000 |
because every time a young pretty girl would walk upstairs, 00:02:20.000 |
they would sit there and gawk at that girl and talking about, you know, 00:02:24.000 |
like when they were younger, they used to do this and they used to do that. 00:02:27.000 |
And again, I felt comfortable enough to just mock them. 00:02:31.000 |
You know, none of those girls are interested in you. 00:02:38.000 |
And so I would have to kind of bring them back, and we would play basketball for a while, 00:02:44.000 |
And I realized that these guys were all big men on campus when they were younger. 00:02:49.000 |
They were the athletic jocks, maybe the quarterback of their team, 00:02:54.000 |
and they were living their glory days, you know, and they were on the court, 00:02:58.000 |
and every chance that they got, they would talk about, you know, how they played basketball 00:03:03.000 |
or how they played football when they were younger and how they used to date so many girls. 00:03:11.000 |
That's what I mean by childishness, that they should have matured beyond that by now, 00:03:15.000 |
but they're always looking back and saying, "Man, when I was younger, when I was in high school, 00:03:23.000 |
The sad thing is many Christians know exactly what I'm talking about. 00:03:28.000 |
When we talk about our spiritual maturity, it always goes back to, "Man, when I was in college, 00:03:34.000 |
you know, when I used to be a part of this campus meeting, when I used to lead this, 00:03:37.000 |
when I used to do that," and always looking back because those were the glory days. 00:03:42.000 |
But then ever since we left college, there was no growth, 00:03:47.000 |
and you're exactly where you were when you graduated, whether it was five years ago, ten years ago, 00:03:51.000 |
or twenty years ago, so whenever we talk about spiritual maturity, you always think about, like, 00:03:55.000 |
the glory days back then, when I used to do this, when I used to do that. 00:04:00.000 |
Imagine, imagine if the rest of your life, not just your spiritual part, 00:04:07.000 |
but your understanding of finances, how you talked, what you valued, what you wore, how you behaved. 00:04:14.000 |
If you didn't mature any of that after you graduated college, what kind of adult would you be? 00:04:21.000 |
Probably very childish, right? At least from an adult's perspective. 00:04:27.000 |
See, the author of Hebrews has been writing to the recipients because they would not move beyond 00:04:36.000 |
their fundamentals, and he's been warning them to not to drift, and continue to drift, 00:04:42.000 |
and then miss, and possibly become apostate because of it. 00:04:47.000 |
See, what happens in our walk with God is we begin to think, if we're not careful, 00:04:54.000 |
and it is a reflection of our theology, to think that once we're justified, 00:04:59.000 |
we have a free ticket to get to heaven, so it's good if we mature. 00:05:04.000 |
If we're disciplined, and if we're serious about our faith, which some people are in the church, 00:05:10.000 |
but we're perfectly fine just being where we were 10, 15, 20 years ago because we're justified. 00:05:18.000 |
And so all we are looking for and hearing for constantly when we come to church 00:05:23.000 |
is reaffirmation over and over and over of, "You're fine. Don't worry about it. 00:05:31.000 |
And we perk up when we hear those things because it justifies where we are. 00:05:36.000 |
But the author of Hebrews is challenging them to move forward, to press on. 00:05:40.000 |
Apostle Paul, as he is sitting in prison in Philippians 3, 12-14, 00:05:45.000 |
this is a man who is possibly facing the death penalty. 00:05:49.000 |
And he's sitting there in prison, writing to the church outside. 00:05:53.000 |
He says, "Now that I have already, not that I already obtained it or have already become perfect, 00:05:58.000 |
but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." 00:06:05.000 |
He says he's not living as if he's already made it. 00:06:09.000 |
He says, "Because I haven't achieved it yet," he says, "I press on." 00:06:14.000 |
Verse 13, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. 00:06:17.000 |
But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 00:06:21.000 |
I press on toward the goal for which the prize of upward call of God in Christ Jesus." 00:06:27.000 |
He's sitting in prison. He's at the tail end of his ministry, possibly about to die, 00:06:32.000 |
and he says, "I'm pressing on. I'm straining toward the goal." 00:06:36.000 |
Even the apostle, to the day that he dies, was straining toward God. 00:06:44.000 |
The problem that we have in our generation with our Christianity is the moment we are justified, 00:06:56.000 |
And the pressing on is something that we remember from the past. 00:07:03.000 |
You know what's interesting here in chapter 6, verse 1, when he says, 00:07:07.000 |
"Therefore, leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, let us press on." 00:07:12.000 |
The word "press on" here is different than the word Paul uses in Philippians chapter 3. 00:07:16.000 |
The word in Philippians chapter 3, "to press on," basically just means to reach forward. 00:07:23.000 |
But the word for "press on" here is a lot more nuanced than that word. 00:07:27.000 |
The word has the idea of bearing up under pressure. 00:07:32.000 |
So when he says, "to press on," what he means by that is not simply to go forward, 00:07:41.000 |
And the reason why he uses that word is because of the context of the recipients of the letter. 00:07:46.000 |
They were beginning to drift because of the pressure. 00:07:53.000 |
Not 50, 60 years, possibly 10 to 15 to 20 years, which many of us in this room probably have been. 00:08:04.000 |
The Bible describes in chapter 10 that they were gung-ho Christians at one point. 00:08:09.000 |
They were people who had their possessions confiscated. 00:08:14.000 |
They had friends who were dragged into prison. 00:08:16.000 |
And at that time, in the beginning, they were celebrating with them, and they were growing and being challenged. 00:08:22.000 |
But after about 10, 15, 20 years have passed, the pressure began to get to them. 00:08:29.000 |
And instead of persevering and straining toward, they began to settle. 00:08:34.000 |
And as a result of that, they started to drift. 00:08:38.000 |
When we understand our salvation as simply a past tense, and it just happened. 00:08:47.000 |
So therefore, the rest of my life, I could coast. 00:08:50.000 |
It'd be good if I strained, but I could coast, and I'm still safe. 00:08:55.000 |
Well, the Bible describes our salvation as past, present, and future. 00:08:59.000 |
In 1 Corinthians 1.18, it says, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing," present tense, 00:09:05.000 |
"but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." 00:09:11.000 |
"For we are a fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing." 00:09:17.000 |
Now, the theologians have identified three parts of our salvation, 00:09:22.000 |
justification, sanctification, and glorification. 00:09:25.000 |
But the mistake that we make is to think that these are three separate parts of our salvation. 00:09:32.000 |
Justification, sanctification, and glorification is a description of the same salvation. 00:09:36.000 |
You cannot have justification without sanctification. 00:09:39.000 |
You will not have glorification without sanctification or justification. 00:09:43.000 |
It is just three different ways to describe how the Bible describes salvation. 00:09:53.000 |
So, when Paul says, "For those who are being saved," 00:09:57.000 |
we are not just being saved from going to hell. 00:10:02.000 |
We are being saved from an empty way of life. 00:10:06.000 |
We are being saved from being under the judgment of sin. 00:10:15.000 |
So, it is not simply, "Oh, I got saved from, and so when I die, I'm not going to go to hell." 00:10:23.000 |
The Bible says the God of this age is who? Satan. 00:10:27.000 |
So, we are being saved from the control and the power that sin has on mankind. 00:10:34.000 |
So, this desire to be somebody, this pursuit of fame and recognition, of finances, 00:10:41.000 |
all of this is under the umbrella of satanic power. 00:10:50.000 |
But our sanctification is the process of freeing us from that bondage. 00:10:55.000 |
So, that's why when Apostle Paul says that, "I haven't obtained it," 00:11:02.000 |
He's not saying this process of salvation, being freed from the bondage and influence of sin, 00:11:10.000 |
And that's why he says, "I am pressing on, and I am straining toward the goal." 00:11:15.000 |
I think the best way for us to understand that is, 00:11:18.000 |
if somebody is drowning in a storm in the middle of the ocean, 00:11:23.000 |
and pretty much, I mean, there's no hope for you, 00:11:30.000 |
The coast guard comes, and he pulls you out of the water, 00:11:34.000 |
and now you're not in the water, but you're in the boat, but you're not safe yet. 00:11:40.000 |
But you're in the lifeboat that is in the process of saving you. 00:11:44.000 |
So, you can say that you are saved, but you are being saved. 00:11:48.000 |
Because you're in the boat, justification, and sanctification is taking you to shore, to safety. 00:11:55.000 |
And that's how the Bible describes our salvation. 00:11:58.000 |
So, when we only see our salvation as justification, 00:12:02.000 |
we don't have a complete picture of how the Bible describes salvation. 00:12:09.000 |
What he's trying to tell us is, if you hold on to a decision that was made, 00:12:16.000 |
you do not understand the full gamut of our salvation. 00:12:24.000 |
we must leave behind the elementary teachings about the Christ." 00:12:29.000 |
The word for "leave," aphiemi, isn't simply to leave as in like, 00:12:32.000 |
"You know, I was in one place, and now I'm going to leave to somewhere else." 00:12:35.000 |
Aphiemi has the idea of forsaking, to put away, to disregard, to put off. 00:12:41.000 |
This word aphiemi is akin to the same idea in Genesis chapter 2, 24. 00:12:47.000 |
When two people get married, we say, "You must leave and cleave." 00:12:52.000 |
Yesterday, it seems like there was more than five or six different weddings. 00:12:56.000 |
At least, that's what it seemed like on Facebook. 00:12:58.000 |
It seemed like half the church was at somebody's wedding yesterday. 00:13:01.000 |
Every time you have a wedding, usually in a traditional Christian wedding, 00:13:07.000 |
In that ceremony, in the middle of the service, 00:13:12.000 |
and they will take the two lights representing each family, 00:13:14.000 |
and they would light one candle, and they would blow out the other two, 00:13:18.000 |
symbolizing that they are leaving and cleaving to each other. 00:13:23.000 |
That's the idea when he says, "Let us leave behind the elementary teachings of the Christ." 00:13:29.000 |
In order for us to press on toward Christ, there must be a moving forward. 00:13:40.000 |
these six foundational things that he mentions here in the next verse. 00:13:46.000 |
they could not move forward to cling to Christ. 00:13:49.000 |
The reason why they were not anchored to Christ 00:13:52.000 |
is because they were anchored to their old life. 00:13:56.000 |
They weren't just willy-nilly. They weren't anchored to nothing. 00:13:59.000 |
What they were anchored to wouldn't allow them to come to Christ. 00:14:03.000 |
And that's why he's saying, "Your drifting is because you will not grow up." 00:14:08.000 |
And that's why he calls them infants in the previous passage, 00:14:13.000 |
You're being childish, where by now you should have been teachers. 00:14:20.000 |
You were exposed to everything that everyone else was exposed to, 00:14:26.000 |
The six things that he mentions here, he says they are foundations or elementary principles. 00:14:33.000 |
And that's exactly how the Bible describes the Old Covenant. 00:14:40.000 |
Anybody who's ever done any kind of building, or you know anything about building, 00:14:44.000 |
you know that you have to build a foundation before you build it up. 00:14:50.000 |
And based upon how big the building this is going to be, 00:14:53.000 |
you know how deep the foundation is going to be. 00:14:55.000 |
So if you're just building a one-story, you know, one-story maybe shack outside, 00:15:00.000 |
it may be no more than two to three feet deep. 00:15:03.000 |
But if you have a two-story house, it may go deeper than that. 00:15:06.000 |
If you're building a skyscraper, the foundation alone 00:15:09.000 |
will maybe be three or four feet deep, four stories deep. 00:15:14.000 |
And so you know by the foundation what is being built on the top. 00:15:18.000 |
Well, the whole Old Covenant was foundation building. 00:15:22.000 |
And it was deep. It was thousands of years of foundation building 00:15:29.000 |
And so what he's saying is, God has laid this foundation, 00:15:33.000 |
but this foundation is not to build the foundation. 00:15:42.000 |
We need to begin to build so that we can see a clearer picture of who he is. 00:15:52.000 |
There's a book by James Dobson on how to raise strong-willed children. 00:16:02.000 |
So if some of you have strong-willed children, you should go read that book. 00:16:08.000 |
Basically in that book, he has a story of this one child. 00:16:14.000 |
He was already five years old and never ate solids. 00:16:19.000 |
So early on, obviously, oh, he drinks milk well. 00:16:22.000 |
But after he turns one, it's like, okay, he should be eating solids by now. 00:16:31.000 |
Fourth year, they're fighting with him, and they keep losing because they're afraid he's going to starve to death. 00:16:37.000 |
So by the time they get to the fifth year, they decided we need to take him to the doctor 00:16:41.000 |
because there's no way he's going to be able to survive on milk alone. 00:16:44.000 |
So he tells a story about how he takes him to the hospital and tells the story, 00:16:47.000 |
and the doctor says, oh, he won't eat solids. 00:16:50.000 |
He's like, yeah, I mean, I try to feed him, but he refuses, 00:16:54.000 |
and I'm afraid that if we don't give him milk, he's going to starve to death. 00:16:57.000 |
And so the doctor said, okay, I have an idea. 00:17:01.000 |
And so he said, get all the IVs and all this ready, 00:17:05.000 |
and basically tells the child, if you don't eat solids, you're not getting anything. 00:17:09.000 |
And if we feel like he's going to starve to death, we'll give him IVs, so don't worry about it. 00:17:13.000 |
He's not going to die, but he's not going to drink milk. 00:17:16.000 |
So he tells a story about how he sat there, and just within a few hours, 00:17:20.000 |
something that he would not eat for five years, all of a sudden he started chewing. 00:17:27.000 |
It was just the parents were just kind of like so afraid that he's going to starve to death, 00:17:31.000 |
and this child knew this, and he was taking advantage of that. 00:17:34.000 |
That's what the author is saying. It's time for us to move on. 00:17:41.000 |
And maturity isn't simply just, hey, let's just do some hard things. 00:17:45.000 |
He says, let's move on to maturity so that we can understand the deep things of Christ. 00:17:51.000 |
And he's going to do that when we get to chapter 7 and on. 00:17:55.000 |
But before he does that, he tells them, this is why some of you are going to be lost. 00:18:02.000 |
Now, what he is trying to do, we need to be very, very careful, 00:18:08.000 |
because if we see Christ as simply the vehicle and not the destination, 00:18:15.000 |
it is enough when we only have a little of Christ, as long as it fulfills what I desire, 00:18:20.000 |
as long as I am healthy, as long as I am eating, as long as there's no crisis in my life, that's enough. 00:18:27.000 |
But that's not how the Bible describes our relationship with Christ. 00:18:31.000 |
Our whole purpose of our salvation is to get to Christ. He is our destination. 00:18:37.000 |
That's why Jesus doesn't say, I give life. He says, I am the life. 00:18:41.000 |
He doesn't just say, I show you the way. He says, I am the way. 00:18:45.000 |
He doesn't just talk about him talking the truth. He says, I am the truth. 00:18:51.000 |
And those are the all seven "I am" statements in the book of John, trying to remind the nation of Israel, 00:18:56.000 |
you want me to give you food, but I am the bread. 00:18:59.000 |
You ask for water, but I am the living water. 00:19:03.000 |
The reason why people are satisfied with a minimum amount of Christ 00:19:09.000 |
is because they only see him as the vehicle and not the destination. 00:19:14.000 |
And that's exactly what Paul is trying to say, that we need to go all the way to Christ. 00:19:18.000 |
Not simply to make a decision and say, you know what, now I know Christ because I raise my hand and I do some things. 00:19:25.000 |
But they would not move beyond the fundamentals. 00:19:29.000 |
It was a shadow. The old covenant was given as a shadow to point to Christ, 00:19:37.000 |
Why did they do that? What was the motivation behind it? And why did they remain as infants? 00:19:42.000 |
Well, Donald Hagner, who writes a commentary on the book of Hebrews, and I think he says it well. 00:19:48.000 |
He says, it is striking that six items that are mentioned here all find parallel in Judaism. 00:19:55.000 |
This may suggest that the readers were attempting somehow to remain with Judaism 00:19:59.000 |
by emphasizing items that are in common between Judaism and Christianity. 00:20:03.000 |
They may have been trying to survive with a minimal Christianity 00:20:07.000 |
in order to avoid alienating their Jewish friends and relatives. 00:20:11.000 |
Those six things that are mentioned are common Old Testament turf 00:20:14.000 |
where they could have camped most comfortably without having to make a stand. 00:20:22.000 |
He said the whole reason why they would not move beyond that is because 00:20:25.000 |
the pressure that they were getting from the Jewish community, their family and friends, 00:20:29.000 |
their cousins, their relatives, maybe their parents. 00:20:32.000 |
They were trying to figure out how can they remain friendly with the Jewish community and still be a Christian. 00:20:39.000 |
So everything that is mentioned here, these six different items, are Old Testament covenant. 00:20:45.000 |
That does not necessarily contradict Christianity, but only a foundation to point them toward Christ. 00:20:51.000 |
So as long as they held on to some of this, and then held on to the minimum of Christ, 00:20:56.000 |
they were thinking that they can stay in this middle ground. 00:21:00.000 |
When the scripture makes it absolutely crystal clear, 00:21:04.000 |
when it says if you want to come after me, let him deny himself and pick up his cross. 00:21:09.000 |
This is their way of following Christ without the cross. 00:21:13.000 |
This is their way of retaining their life while they are proclaiming that they are followers of Jesus Christ. 00:21:21.000 |
And so on the surface, they are doing what they were supposed to do. 00:21:24.000 |
They are coming to church, they are doing all of this stuff, but they never fully understand Christ. 00:21:33.000 |
And so they are always looking back in their glory days, when they had nothing to lose back in college or in high school. 00:21:39.000 |
But they are always caving under the pressure. 00:21:48.000 |
That's what he was challenging them to move beyond. 00:21:52.000 |
The sixth thing, I'm not going to go into detail of these things because all of it represents the Old Covenant. 00:22:00.000 |
The reason why the Jewish community, the Judaizers, couldn't let go of this is because their confidence came from obeying the law. 00:22:11.000 |
Because they worked so hard to build up their status, their spiritual status. 00:22:15.000 |
And Christ comes and says, "All of that leads to greater condemnation." 00:22:20.000 |
But to let go of that means everything that they built up. 00:22:24.000 |
Like, "I've got to forsake all of that and start over." 00:22:35.000 |
He was possibly sitting as a senator of Israel among the Jews. 00:22:41.000 |
His disciple was the top scholar of that time. 00:22:47.000 |
So any Jew would look at Apostle Paul and say, "That's what I want." 00:22:54.000 |
And yet Paul says, "In light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, all of that became rubbish." 00:23:01.000 |
There's a reason why the Judaizers couldn't let that go, because that was part of their status. 00:23:06.000 |
He says, "It's time for us to move beyond repentance from dead works, from faith toward God." 00:23:14.000 |
I'm like, "Faith toward God? Move beyond faith toward God?" 00:23:17.000 |
Well, obviously he's not talking about our genuine faith that leads us to Christ. 00:23:21.000 |
He's talking about this superficial faith of the old covenant, of faith in their own works, 00:23:35.000 |
I found this song, and I don't know if it's a country song. 00:23:38.000 |
Basically, it's a song about getting over a breakup. 00:23:43.000 |
And I thought it was interesting because the title of the song is "Just Enough Jesus." 00:23:47.000 |
"Yeah, the little you left me, it won't get me far, cure my condition or unbreak my heart. 00:23:53.000 |
But I can get through the night, and that's all that I need. 00:23:58.000 |
Heck, I'm doing just fine here in good company. 00:24:04.000 |
Because I've got just enough to Jones to drive me to drinking, 00:24:08.000 |
just enough whiskey to keep me from thinking. 00:24:11.000 |
I got to the bottom, I got to the truth, I found just enough Jesus to get over you. 00:24:16.000 |
Yeah, I got to the bottom, I got to the truth, oh, I found just enough Jesus to get over you." 00:24:24.000 |
The danger of apostasy, you don't just wake up one day just on fire for God and say, 00:24:29.000 |
"You know what? I don't believe this anymore." 00:24:32.000 |
It's slowly, gradually just succumbing to the pressure, and it begins to erode our faith. 00:24:38.000 |
And we hold on to the minimum that we need to say that we are Christian. 00:24:42.000 |
What is the minimum doctrine that I need to profess? 00:24:47.000 |
And we hold on to this superficial understanding, superficial affections for Christ 00:24:52.000 |
without having to feel like I've abandoned my faith, 00:24:57.000 |
not realizing that those are the foundations that lead to apostasy. 00:25:02.000 |
I remember years ago, I used to go to this church, and I have a friend who was a youth pastor. 00:25:10.000 |
And he would ask me to come and speak at their retreat every summer. 00:25:13.000 |
And the same group of kids, about 30 of them, high school students. 00:25:16.000 |
And at the end of the retreat, the youth pastor would always ask me, "Can you give an altar call?" 00:25:21.000 |
And so, you know, we don't do altar calls at our church, but they practice it, 00:25:25.000 |
and so I said, "Okay, I'll do that," and I would give an altar call. 00:25:27.000 |
And I remember the first year I was there, half of the students came up, and we were so related. 00:25:32.000 |
They became a Christian. We would pray for them, and I would be encouraged. 00:25:36.000 |
Next year I would come, and I would give the message, 00:25:39.000 |
and after that, on the last day, he'd ask me to give an altar call, and they would come. 00:25:43.000 |
Initially, I was like, "Oh, wow, they're coming to Christ." 00:25:46.000 |
And then I'd look at their faces, like, "It's the same guys from last year." 00:25:52.000 |
So I would leave, and then I said, "Hmm, okay, that's great." 00:25:58.000 |
Third year I would come, and then third year I would see the same students, and give an altar call. 00:26:02.000 |
The same kids come up on the third year, and clearly something's going wrong. 00:26:07.000 |
So after that, I talked to the youth pastor, "What's going on?" 00:26:09.000 |
He said, "Every year they would make a commitment, and a couple weeks into it, 00:26:13.000 |
they would begin to fall out, and they would begin to backslide. 00:26:17.000 |
And so every year, when they come back to the retreat, they would go over this routine over and over again." 00:26:24.000 |
I gave an altar call, same kids, exact same kids were coming up. 00:26:28.000 |
And it just happened, after that, the youth pastor got tired of it. 00:26:32.000 |
And he's like, "Don't come up. Don't come up. 00:26:34.000 |
You don't come up. You don't come up. And you don't come up." 00:26:37.000 |
And then after this, took us to the Harvest Crusade. 00:26:43.000 |
So I took our youth group kids, and he brought his youth group kids, 00:26:46.000 |
and Greg Laurie gave an invitation, and the same kids got up. 00:26:50.000 |
And my friend stood up, turned around, and was like, "Don't move. Don't move. 00:26:56.000 |
And I remember how comical that scene was, because everybody around was watching what he was doing. 00:27:01.000 |
They said, "What is that man doing? They want Jesus, but he's not letting them." 00:27:06.000 |
And they're like, "Pastor, we want to go down." 00:27:13.000 |
And the reason why is because they would make profession, 00:27:17.000 |
but as soon as they would make profession, that's it. 00:27:20.000 |
There was no follow. They would not move beyond maturity. 00:27:22.000 |
So every year, over and over again, they would repeat the same cycle. 00:27:28.000 |
Because of their superficial faith, superficial understanding, and superficial commitment. 00:27:33.000 |
He said, "Let us move on to instructions about washings." 00:27:37.000 |
Some of your translation says "baptism," but the correct translation is "washing," 00:27:41.000 |
because it is in the plural, and it is clearly not referring to baptism. 00:27:47.000 |
And the reason why they were clinging to this is because washing was what they did to feel clean. 00:27:54.000 |
So as long as they washed, as long as they went through this ritual cleansing, they felt clean. 00:27:59.000 |
Ezekiel 36-25 says, "When the new covenant comes, when the Messiah comes," 00:28:05.000 |
He said, "then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. 00:28:08.000 |
I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols." 00:28:13.000 |
Again, in Titus 3-5, "He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, 00:28:17.000 |
but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit." 00:28:24.000 |
Constantly laying the foundation of this instructions about washing is no different than somebody who commits a heinous sin, 00:28:30.000 |
and in order to deal with his guilt, he takes a long shower. 00:28:36.000 |
And he's trying to scrub that guilt off of him and use soap. 00:28:46.000 |
And you're in the bath water, and you're trying to cleanse this guilt off, 00:28:49.000 |
but no matter how long you stay in the water, it never comes off. 00:28:54.000 |
Because that sin is not something you can wash off from external cleansing. 00:28:59.000 |
And again, we don't struggle with that, but we struggle with the same concept. 00:29:04.000 |
Whenever we have communion, there's always somebody who says, "I'm not worthy because I struggled with purity this week. 00:29:11.000 |
I didn't do my quiet time. I didn't memorize verses." 00:29:14.000 |
So suddenly, we convince ourselves that I need to earn my way into the presence of God. 00:29:20.000 |
And the whole purpose of the communion is to remind us that the only way to God is by His blood. 00:29:27.000 |
And to come to the communion table to deserve it is the exact opposite of what the communion table represents. 00:29:38.000 |
Only by faith and repentance and receiving the blood of Christ can we be cleansed. 00:29:43.000 |
And so that's why he's saying, "Let us move beyond this self-righteousness 00:29:48.000 |
to trying to pay off our sins here by being good here." 00:29:52.000 |
He says, "Let us move beyond this elementary understanding and of laying of hands." 00:29:57.000 |
Resurrection from the dead, eternal judgment. 00:30:00.000 |
Now I'm going to move beyond for the sake of this time, but this eternal judgment in 1 John 4, 18. 00:30:05.000 |
He's talking about the law brought a warning that if you break the law, you shall surely die. 00:30:13.000 |
And the old covenant was meant to bring fear. 00:30:17.000 |
The old covenant was to teach them that a holy God cannot be approached by sinful men. 00:30:23.000 |
These people were constantly living under this fear because they never moved beyond that. 00:30:27.000 |
But the point of that was to find relief in Christ and Christ alone. 00:30:31.000 |
But because they never went fully to Christ, they're constantly living in fear of judgment. 00:30:37.000 |
In 1 John 4, 18, it says, "There is no fear in love. 00:30:41.000 |
But perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." 00:30:49.000 |
"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 00:30:55.000 |
The Bible is not saying that if you are justified, no matter how you live, 00:31:01.000 |
The whole sermon was about how we need to understand our salvation holistically. 00:31:05.000 |
Justification, sanctification, and glorification. 00:31:08.000 |
But when he's talking about fear, he's talking about an individual who is striving after God, but he's not perfect. 00:31:16.000 |
He keeps struggling, just like Peter, just like all the disciples. 00:31:20.000 |
That no matter how strongly intended, no matter how strong-willed they were, they could not. 00:31:26.000 |
He said, "Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak." 00:31:30.000 |
He's not talking about an individual who is superficially saying, "Oh, I believe in Jesus, and I can do whatever I want." 00:31:37.000 |
He's talking about an individual who is striving, yet he does not move beyond the fundamentals, 00:31:42.000 |
that we have been freed, that our assurance of salvation is secure. 00:31:47.000 |
Let us move beyond the foundation and the shadow, and to come all the way to Christ. 00:31:55.000 |
Not to simply see him as a vehicle, but the destination itself. 00:32:02.000 |
I want to get to Melchizedek, because Melchizedek is going to explain to us that Jesus' unique role as the king priest. 00:32:12.000 |
But before he gets there, he's like, "You need to pay attention, and if the Lord is willing, we will do so." 00:32:18.000 |
And at some point, we are going to get to chapter 7. 00:32:23.000 |
But in the end, this is all preparation for what's coming. 00:32:35.000 |
When Paul wrote the prison epistle to Philippians, there was great joy. 00:32:39.000 |
In fact, it says, "Because of his imprisonment, many of the brothers were preaching the gospel with more boldness." 00:32:46.000 |
But by the time he writes 2 Timothy, the pressure has gone to a lot of people. 00:32:51.000 |
Even his close companions were beginning to abandon their faith and go back home. 00:32:56.000 |
And so this pressure wasn't just affecting the recipients of Hebrews, but the whole Christendom. 00:33:02.000 |
The first 10 years, it was great, but after 20, after 30 years, 00:33:06.000 |
and then they began to see every one of their leaders, one by one, being plucked and literally being crucified and beheaded, 00:33:13.000 |
people began to ask, "Well, all the glory and all this shine and honor, 00:33:17.000 |
whatever it was that they were seeking, began to fade. 00:33:22.000 |
And the hardship and the reality of following Christ and picking up the cross began to sink in, just like many of us. 00:33:32.000 |
You know, this idealistic view of Christianity when you first came to faith has faded for many of us. 00:33:38.000 |
I'm going to turn this world upside down for Jesus. 00:33:43.000 |
We have a hard time even controlling our own thoughts. 00:33:47.000 |
Let alone turning the world upside down for Jesus Christ, we can't even turn our own selves. 00:33:54.000 |
So this idealistic view of what we're going to be for the kingdom of God has faded. 00:33:59.000 |
And as a result of that, we've just given up. 00:34:04.000 |
Not realizing that idealism, much of that was our flesh. 00:34:15.000 |
He gave us eternal life because we couldn't earn it. 00:34:18.000 |
We couldn't scrub hard enough to get the sin off. 00:34:28.000 |
We don't enter the throne of grace with confidence because of our ability. 00:34:35.000 |
You know, years back, years back, back in the '80s, there was this fear going around the United States 00:34:44.000 |
and probably around the world that if the trend continued, Christianity was not going to exist in the next 50 years. 00:34:51.000 |
And so some of you, a few of you may remember, a few of you may remember back then, 00:34:56.000 |
but back at that time, there was a mass exodus. 00:34:58.000 |
And the mass exodus were those people who were in their 40s and 50s now. 00:35:02.000 |
And it says somewhere around 85% of the young adults after they graduated college were dropping out of church. 00:35:09.000 |
And this was not unique to any particular denomination. 00:35:11.000 |
The Southern Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, they were all showing these numbers. 00:35:16.000 |
And they were saying that if this trend continues, we're going to be exactly where Europe is. 00:35:21.000 |
Hyper-liberal, empty churches, large grand buildings, but empty, which is where they are now. 00:35:27.000 |
But all of a sudden, we start hearing these stories about something happening in Willow Creek in Chicago. 00:35:33.000 |
And there's this one particular church that's actually, you know, like he's reversing the trend. 00:35:38.000 |
And all these thousands, tens of thousands of young people are coming to church. 00:35:45.000 |
A man named Bill Hybels wrote a book called "Rediscovering the Church." 00:35:50.000 |
And I remember reading that book, and in that book, he describes how his church started and what his philosophy was. 00:35:56.000 |
He was a junior high school pastor of a group of maybe about 100 students. 00:36:02.000 |
And he had a staff of maybe about eight that he worked with. 00:36:05.000 |
And so he decided that he was going to do a different kind of ministry. 00:36:10.000 |
Instead of preaching, that he's going to do skits. 00:36:13.000 |
And instead of just singing, so the whole thing is going to be interactive. 00:36:17.000 |
Just like you would run VBS with younger children. 00:36:19.000 |
He said, "Why not do it with the junior high school kids?" 00:36:21.000 |
And it was wildly successful. He went from maybe 70, 80 students to hundreds. 00:36:29.000 |
And at one point, he said he had over 800 junior high school students coming. 00:36:34.000 |
And in the peak of that success, he thought to himself, "Why can't we do this for the adults?" 00:36:39.000 |
So he took that same staff that he had, and he decided to plant the church to do the same thing. 00:36:47.000 |
People who are being bored and they're tired and they're leaving the church, the young adults. 00:36:52.000 |
What can we do to grab them so that they can stay at church? 00:36:55.000 |
So they started doing the exact same thing that they learned from VBS, 00:36:58.000 |
that they applied to junior high school, and they started doing it with the adults. 00:37:05.000 |
Tens of thousands of people started coming to church. 00:37:08.000 |
By the time he wrote that book, it was a mega church already. 00:37:11.000 |
Not only his church, because he was the one bucking the trend. 00:37:17.000 |
It became nationally famous, and internationally, they began to apply the same method. 00:37:23.000 |
Why don't we take all the fuddy-duddy stuff that's not nailed down in Scripture, 00:37:27.000 |
and make it as palatable as possible to as many people as possible, so that they can come? 00:37:34.000 |
And so after about 30 plus years of that, now that you don't hear the term "seeker-friendly" anymore, 00:37:41.000 |
whether it's market-driven or whatever names that it has changed, but the idea is the same. 00:37:46.000 |
How do we get people who are not interested in Christ to be interested in the church? 00:37:53.000 |
And that's where the downfall of the church is, if you're not careful. 00:37:58.000 |
If you're not interested in Christ, you should not be interested in the church, 00:38:07.000 |
The whole purpose of why you and I are gathered together is not to fill this room with as many people as possible. 00:38:14.000 |
You know how large Jesus' disciples would have been if he stopped rebuking them? 00:38:22.000 |
If he stopped saying, "You're not coming to me because you want me, you want the bread that I gave you." 00:38:29.000 |
You know how large that crowd would have been. 00:38:31.000 |
I mean, even with him rebuking, there were thousands of him everywhere he went. 00:38:35.000 |
He would have had hundreds of them, maybe millions of people. Why not? 00:38:40.000 |
But what he wanted wasn't a multitude. He wanted disciples. 00:38:44.000 |
And that's why he told his disciples before he left, "Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, 00:38:50.000 |
baptizing them, and then with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 00:38:53.000 |
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." 00:38:57.000 |
Not some, not most, but all that I have commanded you. 00:39:01.000 |
So the call of the church is not simply to gather people. 00:39:04.000 |
The call of the church is to proclaim Christ and bring people to maturity. 00:39:09.000 |
If we've been living our lives looking at our glory days, 00:39:22.000 |
To not be infants, not be satisfied for where we were. 00:39:30.000 |
"O God, you are my God, I shall seek you earnestly. 00:39:33.000 |
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, 00:39:36.000 |
in a dry and weary land where there is no water." 00:39:44.000 |
Let me examine our hearts. What are you thirsting for? 00:39:50.000 |
What are you thirsty for? What are you hungry for? 00:39:56.000 |
you will never know what Jesus meant when he said, 00:39:59.000 |
"I have come to give life and to give this life abundantly." 00:40:03.000 |
If all you are doing is tasting him and then moving to the world, 00:40:08.000 |
those are the foundations that lead to apostasy. 00:40:12.000 |
So as the author of Hebrews is challenging us, let's move on. 00:40:16.000 |
Let's move on to maturity. Let's begin to dig the deep things of Christ 00:40:19.000 |
so that as we continue to gaze upon the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 00:40:23.000 |
that our life may be a reasonable response to him.