How do you distinguish between being childish and childlike? I think we all know the distinction between being childish and childlike. Childlike is somebody who's brand new, and you don't have to be a certain age to be childlike. I think it's one of the most encouraging things that I see is when a young believer comes to faith, and they're just trying to figure out what is and isn't okay.

So every once in a while we'll have somebody who's brand new to their faith, will be asking very fundamental questions. Is it okay for me to sit here? Can I go upstairs? People ask questions like that. What kind of Bible should I get? How should I pray? And it's very childlike because they're beginning in their walk with God, and they're asking these questions because they're trying to figure out what does it mean to be a follower of Christ.

Childishness is when someone who should have matured beyond that, and they're acting the same way that they've acted maybe 10, 15 years ago, and nothing has changed. And so they're not acting their age. That's what we call childishness. Childlikeness is cute. Childishness is annoying. You know, years back when my knees were better, I tried to go to LA Fitness and work out and play basketball, and I remember about 10 years ago, I started going because my knees started feeling better.

And so I started going, and every morning from Monday through Friday, there would be a group of guys probably about my age, and they're all businessmen, so they didn't have a 95 job, so they were able to hang out for about an hour or two, and we started playing basketball.

Initially, it was awkward when they found out that I was a pastor, and so we always go through that awkward stage like, you know, am I going to get judged if I say something wrong? And so we passed that period, and we spent enough time together where we literally started to become friends.

And so we started joking around with one another, and they started feeling comfortable enough with me where they just started being themselves. But one of the things that I noticed was, one, these guys are all athletic, so it was clear that they were jocks when they were younger, and you could tell on the basketball court they were pretty athletic even at that age.

But another thing that I saw was they were living their glory days on the basketball court, and so we couldn't play basketball for more than 15 minutes straight because every time a young pretty girl would walk upstairs, they would sit there and gawk at that girl and talking about, you know, like when they were younger, they used to do this and they used to do that.

And again, I felt comfortable enough to just mock them. You know, none of those girls are interested in you. You know, you're wasting your time. You don't know yourself. And so I would have to kind of bring them back, and we would play basketball for a while, and every 15 minutes, they would go back.

And I realized that these guys were all big men on campus when they were younger. They were the athletic jocks, maybe the quarterback of their team, and they were living their glory days, you know, and they were on the court, and every chance that they got, they would talk about, you know, how they played basketball or how they played football when they were younger and how they used to date so many girls.

And, you know, again, it's annoying, right? That's what I mean by childishness, that they should have matured beyond that by now, but they're always looking back and saying, "Man, when I was younger, when I was in high school, when I was in college." The sad thing is many Christians know exactly what I'm talking about.

When we talk about our spiritual maturity, it always goes back to, "Man, when I was in college, you know, when I used to be a part of this campus meeting, when I used to lead this, when I used to do that," and always looking back because those were the glory days.

But then ever since we left college, there was no growth, and you're exactly where you were when you graduated, whether it was five years ago, ten years ago, or twenty years ago, so whenever we talk about spiritual maturity, you always think about, like, the glory days back then, when I used to do this, when I used to do that.

Imagine, imagine if the rest of your life, not just your spiritual part, but your understanding of finances, how you talked, what you valued, what you wore, how you behaved. If you didn't mature any of that after you graduated college, what kind of adult would you be? Probably very childish, right?

At least from an adult's perspective. See, the author of Hebrews has been writing to the recipients because they would not move beyond their fundamentals, and he's been warning them to not to drift, and continue to drift, and then miss, and possibly become apostate because of it. See, what happens in our walk with God is we begin to think, if we're not careful, and it is a reflection of our theology, to think that once we're justified, we have a free ticket to get to heaven, so it's good if we mature.

If we're disciplined, and if we're serious about our faith, which some people are in the church, but we're perfectly fine just being where we were 10, 15, 20 years ago because we're justified. And so all we are looking for and hearing for constantly when we come to church is reaffirmation over and over and over of, "You're fine.

Don't worry about it. Things are good. One saved, always saved." And we perk up when we hear those things because it justifies where we are. But the author of Hebrews is challenging them to move forward, to press on. Apostle Paul, as he is sitting in prison in Philippians 3, 12-14, this is a man who is possibly facing the death penalty.

And he's sitting there in prison, writing to the church outside. He says, "Now that I have already, not that I already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." He says he's not living as if he's already made it.

He says, "Because I haven't achieved it yet," he says, "I press on." Verse 13, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for which the prize of upward call of God in Christ Jesus." He's sitting in prison.

He's at the tail end of his ministry, possibly about to die, and he says, "I'm pressing on. I'm straining toward the goal." Even the apostle, to the day that he dies, was straining toward God. The problem that we have in our generation with our Christianity is the moment we are justified, we act and live as if we've already arrived.

And we're here. And the striving stops. And the pressing on is something that we remember from the past. And we just kind of coast. You know what's interesting here in chapter 6, verse 1, when he says, "Therefore, leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, let us press on." The word "press on" here is different than the word Paul uses in Philippians chapter 3.

The word in Philippians chapter 3, "to press on," basically just means to reach forward. That's all that means. To go ahead. But the word for "press on" here is a lot more nuanced than that word. The word has the idea of bearing up under pressure. So when he says, "to press on," what he means by that is not simply to go forward, but to continue forward under the pressure.

And the reason why he uses that word is because of the context of the recipients of the letter. They were beginning to drift because of the pressure. They've been Christians for a while now. Not 50, 60 years, possibly 10 to 15 to 20 years, which many of us in this room probably have been.

They've been under the pressure. The Bible describes in chapter 10 that they were gung-ho Christians at one point. They were people who had their possessions confiscated. They had friends who were dragged into prison. And at that time, in the beginning, they were celebrating with them, and they were growing and being challenged.

But after about 10, 15, 20 years have passed, the pressure began to get to them. And instead of persevering and straining toward, they began to settle. And as a result of that, they started to drift. When we understand our salvation as simply a past tense, and it just happened.

I've been baptized. I'm justified. So therefore, the rest of my life, I could coast. It'd be good if I strained, but I could coast, and I'm still safe. Well, the Bible describes our salvation as past, present, and future. In 1 Corinthians 1.18, it says, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing," present tense, "but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." It says it again in 2 Corinthians 2.15, "For we are a fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing." Now, the theologians have identified three parts of our salvation, justification, sanctification, and glorification.

But the mistake that we make is to think that these are three separate parts of our salvation. They're not. Justification, sanctification, and glorification is a description of the same salvation. You cannot have justification without sanctification. You will not have glorification without sanctification or justification. It is just three different ways to describe how the Bible describes salvation.

It is used in past, present, and future. So, when Paul says, "For those who are being saved," we are not just being saved from going to hell. We are being saved from an empty way of life. We are being saved from being under the judgment of sin. We're being saved from death.

So, it is not simply, "Oh, I got saved from, and so when I die, I'm not going to go to hell." Or a whole way of life. The Bible says the God of this age is who? Satan. So, we are being saved from the control and the power that sin has on mankind.

So, this desire to be somebody, this pursuit of fame and recognition, of finances, all of this is under the umbrella of satanic power. So, when we are justified, we are freed. But our sanctification is the process of freeing us from that bondage. So, that's why when Apostle Paul says that, "I haven't obtained it," he's not saying that he's not saved.

He's not saying this process of salvation, being freed from the bondage and influence of sin, he hasn't gone to completion yet. And that's why he says, "I am pressing on, and I am straining toward the goal." I think the best way for us to understand that is, if somebody is drowning in a storm in the middle of the ocean, and pretty much, I mean, there's no hope for you, and all of a sudden, a boat comes, right?

The coast guard comes, and he pulls you out of the water, and now you're not in the water, but you're in the boat, but you're not safe yet. Because you're still in the storm. But you're in the lifeboat that is in the process of saving you. So, you can say that you are saved, but you are being saved.

Because you're in the boat, justification, and sanctification is taking you to shore, to safety. And that's how the Bible describes our salvation. So, when we only see our salvation as justification, we don't have a complete picture of how the Bible describes salvation. And that's exactly what he's trying to say.

What he's trying to tell us is, if you hold on to a decision that was made, or an experience that you had in the past, you do not understand the full gamut of our salvation. He says, "Before we cling to Christ, we must leave behind the elementary teachings about the Christ." The word for "leave," aphiemi, isn't simply to leave as in like, "You know, I was in one place, and now I'm going to leave to somewhere else." Aphiemi has the idea of forsaking, to put away, to disregard, to put off.

This word aphiemi is akin to the same idea in Genesis chapter 2, 24. When two people get married, we say, "You must leave and cleave." Yesterday, it seems like there was more than five or six different weddings. At least, that's what it seemed like on Facebook. It seemed like half the church was at somebody's wedding yesterday.

Every time you have a wedding, usually in a traditional Christian wedding, you have the candle lighting ceremony. In that ceremony, in the middle of the service, the bride and the groom will come, and they will take the two lights representing each family, and they would light one candle, and they would blow out the other two, symbolizing that they are leaving and cleaving to each other.

That's the idea when he says, "Let us leave behind the elementary teachings of the Christ." In order for us to press on toward Christ, there must be a moving forward. And that was the problem with this church, that they were clinging on to these things, these six foundational things that he mentions here in the next verse.

And because they wouldn't leave it behind, they could not move forward to cling to Christ. The reason why they were not anchored to Christ is because they were anchored to their old life. They weren't just willy-nilly. They weren't anchored to nothing. What they were anchored to wouldn't allow them to come to Christ.

And that's why he's saying, "Your drifting is because you will not grow up." And that's why he calls them infants in the previous passage, that you are acting like a child. You're being childish, where by now you should have been teachers. You had the instructions given to you. You were exposed to everything that everyone else was exposed to, and yet you are not moving on.

The six things that he mentions here, he says they are foundations or elementary principles. And that's exactly how the Bible describes the Old Covenant. Foundational. Anybody who's ever done any kind of building, or you know anything about building, you know that you have to build a foundation before you build it up.

Or else it's shaky. You're building on sand. And based upon how big the building this is going to be, you know how deep the foundation is going to be. So if you're just building a one-story, you know, one-story maybe shack outside, it may be no more than two to three feet deep.

But if you have a two-story house, it may go deeper than that. If you're building a skyscraper, the foundation alone will maybe be three or four feet deep, four stories deep. And so you know by the foundation what is being built on the top. Well, the whole Old Covenant was foundation building.

And it was deep. It was thousands of years of foundation building so that when Christ came, they could build. And so what he's saying is, God has laid this foundation, but this foundation is not to build the foundation. The foundation is to build toward Christ. And that's what he is saying.

We need to get to Melchizedek. We need to begin to build so that we can see a clearer picture of who he is. But you will not move beyond the foundation. There's a book by James Dobson on how to raise strong-willed children. So if some of you have strong-willed children, you should go read that book.

Basically in that book, he has a story of this one child. He refused to eat solids. He was already five years old and never ate solids. He would only drink milk. So early on, obviously, oh, he drinks milk well. But after he turns one, it's like, okay, he should be eating solids by now.

Two years pass by, he's like, is this okay? A third year goes by, this can't be right. Fourth year, they're fighting with him, and they keep losing because they're afraid he's going to starve to death. So by the time they get to the fifth year, they decided we need to take him to the doctor because there's no way he's going to be able to survive on milk alone.

So he tells a story about how he takes him to the hospital and tells the story, and the doctor says, oh, he won't eat solids. He's like, yeah, I mean, I try to feed him, but he refuses, and I'm afraid that if we don't give him milk, he's going to starve to death.

And so the doctor said, okay, I have an idea. And so he said, get all the IVs and all this ready, and basically tells the child, if you don't eat solids, you're not getting anything. And if we feel like he's going to starve to death, we'll give him IVs, so don't worry about it.

He's not going to die, but he's not going to drink milk. So he tells a story about how he sat there, and just within a few hours, something that he would not eat for five years, all of a sudden he started chewing. So he was fine all this time.

It was just the parents were just kind of like so afraid that he's going to starve to death, and this child knew this, and he was taking advantage of that. That's what the author is saying. It's time for us to move on. It's time for us to move on into maturity.

And maturity isn't simply just, hey, let's just do some hard things. He says, let's move on to maturity so that we can understand the deep things of Christ. And he's going to do that when we get to chapter 7 and on. But before he does that, he tells them, this is why some of you are going to be lost.

Now, what he is trying to do, we need to be very, very careful, because if we see Christ as simply the vehicle and not the destination, it is enough when we only have a little of Christ, as long as it fulfills what I desire, 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.

But that's not how the Bible describes our relationship with Christ. Our whole purpose of our salvation is to get to Christ. He is our destination. That's why Jesus doesn't say, I give life. He says, I am the life. He doesn't just say, I show you the way. He says, I am the way.

He doesn't just talk about him talking the truth. He says, I am the truth. And those are the all seven "I am" statements in the book of John, trying to remind the nation of Israel, you want me to give you food, but I am the bread. You ask for water, but I am the living water.

The reason why people are satisfied with a minimum amount of Christ is because they only see him as the vehicle and not the destination. And that's exactly what Paul is trying to say, that we need to go all the way to Christ. 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.

But they would not move beyond the fundamentals. It was a shadow. The old covenant was given as a shadow to point to Christ, but they kept on focusing on the shadow. Why did they do that? What was the motivation behind it? And why did they remain as infants? Well, Donald Hagner, who writes a commentary on the book of Hebrews, and I think he says it well.

He says, it is striking that six items that are mentioned here all find parallel in Judaism. This may suggest that the readers were attempting somehow to remain with Judaism by emphasizing items that are in common between Judaism and Christianity. They may have been trying to survive with a minimal Christianity in order to avoid alienating their Jewish friends and relatives.

Those six things that are mentioned are common Old Testament turf where they could have camped most comfortably without having to make a stand. Did you get that? He said the whole reason why they would not move beyond that is because the pressure that they were getting from the Jewish community, their family and friends, their cousins, their relatives, maybe their parents.

They were trying to figure out how can they remain friendly with the Jewish community and still be a Christian. So everything that is mentioned here, these six different items, are Old Testament covenant. That does not necessarily contradict Christianity, but only a foundation to point them toward Christ. So as long as they held on to some of this, and then held on to the minimum of Christ, they were thinking that they can stay in this middle ground.

When the scripture makes it absolutely crystal clear, when it says if you want to come after me, let him deny himself and pick up his cross. This is their way of following Christ without the cross. This is their way of retaining their life while they are proclaiming that they are followers of Jesus Christ.

And so on the surface, they are doing what they were supposed to do. They are coming to church, they are doing all of this stuff, but they never fully understand Christ. Their affection for Christ never grows. And so they are always looking back in their glory days, when they had nothing to lose back in college or in high school.

But they are always caving under the pressure. And so they have become spiritual infants. That's what he was challenging them to move beyond. The sixth thing, I'm not going to go into detail of these things because all of it represents the Old Covenant. He says, "A repentance from dead works." The reason why the Jewish community, the Judaizers, couldn't let go of this is because their confidence came from obeying the law.

And so they weren't willing to let that go. Because they worked so hard to build up their status, their spiritual status. And Christ comes and says, "All of that leads to greater condemnation." But to let go of that means everything that they built up. Like, "I've got to forsake all of that and start over." Imagine if Apostle Paul, he was at the top.

This is where all the Jews wanted to go. He was possibly sitting as a senator of Israel among the Jews. His disciple was the top scholar of that time. He's a Roman citizen. So any Jew would look at Apostle Paul and say, "That's what I want." He already had what everybody wanted.

And yet Paul says, "In light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, all of that became rubbish." There's a reason why the Judaizers couldn't let that go, because that was part of their status. He says, "It's time for us to move beyond repentance from dead works, from faith toward God." I'm like, "Faith toward God?

Move beyond faith toward God?" Well, obviously he's not talking about our genuine faith that leads us to Christ. He's talking about this superficial faith of the old covenant, of faith in their own works, faith in the washings, to move beyond that. What seems to be real, in the end, is not.

I found this song, and I don't know if it's a country song. Basically, it's a song about getting over a breakup. And I thought it was interesting because the title of the song is "Just Enough Jesus." "Yeah, the little you left me, it won't get me far, cure my condition or unbreak my heart.

But I can get through the night, and that's all that I need. Heck, I'm doing just fine here in good company. Because I've got just enough to Jones to drive me to drinking, just enough whiskey to keep me from thinking. I got to the bottom, I got to the truth, I found just enough Jesus to get over you.

Yeah, I got to the bottom, I got to the truth, oh, I found just enough Jesus to get over you." The danger of apostasy, you don't just wake up one day just on fire for God and say, "You know what? I don't believe this anymore." It's slowly, gradually just succumbing to the pressure, and it begins to erode our faith.

And we hold on to the minimum that we need to say that we are Christian. What is the minimum doctrine that I need to profess? What is the minimum that I need to do? And we hold on to this superficial understanding, superficial affections for Christ without having to feel like I've abandoned my faith, not realizing that those are the foundations that lead to apostasy.

I remember years ago, I used to go to this church, and I have a friend who was a youth pastor. Again, this is many, many years ago. And he would ask me to come and speak at their retreat every summer. And the same group of kids, about 30 of them, high school students.

And at the end of the retreat, the youth pastor would always ask me, "Can you give an altar call?" And so, you know, we don't do altar calls at our church, but they practice it, and so I said, "Okay, I'll do that," and I would give an altar call.

And I remember the first year I was there, half of the students came up, and we were so related. They became a Christian. We would pray for them, and I would be encouraged. Next year I would come, and I would give the message, and after that, on the last day, he'd ask me to give an altar call, and they would come.

Initially, I was like, "Oh, wow, they're coming to Christ." And then I'd look at their faces, like, "It's the same guys from last year." Right? So what's going on at this church? So I would leave, and then I said, "Hmm, okay, that's great." They recommitted their lives to Christ.

Third year I would come, and then third year I would see the same students, and give an altar call. The same kids come up on the third year, and clearly something's going wrong. So after that, I talked to the youth pastor, "What's going on?" He said, "Every year they would make a commitment, and a couple weeks into it, they would begin to fall out, and they would begin to backslide.

And so every year, when they come back to the retreat, they would go over this routine over and over again." And in the fourth year I went, same thing. I gave an altar call, same kids, exact same kids were coming up. And it just happened, after that, the youth pastor got tired of it.

And he's like, "Don't come up. Don't come up. You don't come up. You don't come up. And you don't come up." And then after this, took us to the Harvest Crusade. And so we were all there together. So I took our youth group kids, and he brought his youth group kids, and Greg Laurie gave an invitation, and the same kids got up.

And my friend stood up, turned around, and was like, "Don't move. Don't move. Don't go down." And I remember how comical that scene was, because everybody around was watching what he was doing. They said, "What is that man doing? They want Jesus, but he's not letting them." And they're like, "Pastor, we want to go down." I was like, "No!" Because they would not move beyond.

And the reason why is because they would make profession, but as soon as they would make profession, that's it. There was no follow. They would not move beyond maturity. So every year, over and over again, they would repeat the same cycle. Because of their superficial faith, superficial understanding, and superficial commitment.

He said, "Let us move on to instructions about washings." Some of your translation says "baptism," but the correct translation is "washing," because it is in the plural, and it is clearly not referring to baptism. He's talking about the Jewish washings. And the reason why they were clinging to this is because washing was what they did to feel clean.

So as long as they washed, as long as they went through this ritual cleansing, they felt clean. Ezekiel 36-25 says, "When the new covenant comes, when the Messiah comes," He said, "then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols." Again, in Titus 3-5, "He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit." Constantly laying the foundation of this instructions about washing is no different than somebody who commits a heinous sin, and in order to deal with his guilt, he takes a long shower.

And he's trying to scrub that guilt off of him and use soap. And he said, "And nothing has changed." So he turns on the bath water. And he says, "I soak myself." And you're in the bath water, and you're trying to cleanse this guilt off, but no matter how long you stay in the water, it never comes off.

Because that sin is not something you can wash off from external cleansing. And again, we don't struggle with that, but we struggle with the same concept. Whenever we have communion, there's always somebody who says, "I'm not worthy because I struggled with purity this week. I didn't do my quiet time.

I didn't memorize verses." So suddenly, we convince ourselves that I need to earn my way into the presence of God. And the whole purpose of the communion is to remind us that the only way to God is by His blood. And to come to the communion table to deserve it is the exact opposite of what the communion table represents.

You cannot wash yourself of your sin. Only by faith and repentance and receiving the blood of Christ can we be cleansed. And so that's why he's saying, "Let us move beyond this self-righteousness to trying to pay off our sins here by being good here." He says, "Let us move beyond this elementary understanding and of laying of hands." Resurrection from the dead, eternal judgment.

Now I'm going to move beyond for the sake of this time, but this eternal judgment in 1 John 4, 18. He's talking about the law brought a warning that if you break the law, you shall surely die. And the old covenant was meant to bring fear. The old covenant was to teach them that a holy God cannot be approached by sinful men.

These people were constantly living under this fear because they never moved beyond that. But the point of that was to find relief in Christ and Christ alone. But because they never went fully to Christ, they're constantly living in fear of judgment. In 1 John 4, 18, it says, "There is no fear in love.

But perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." Romans 8, 1. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Now don't get me wrong. The Bible is not saying that if you are justified, no matter how you live, no matter what you do, it doesn't matter.

The whole sermon was about how we need to understand our salvation holistically. Justification, sanctification, and glorification. But when he's talking about fear, he's talking about an individual who is striving after God, but he's not perfect. And he keeps stumbling. He keeps struggling, just like Peter, just like all the disciples.

That no matter how strongly intended, no matter how strong-willed they were, they could not. He said, "Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak." He's not talking about an individual who is superficially saying, "Oh, I believe in Jesus, and I can do whatever I want." He's not talking about that.

He's talking about an individual who is striving, yet he does not move beyond the fundamentals, that we have been freed, that our assurance of salvation is secure. Let us move beyond the foundation and the shadow, and to come all the way to Christ. Not to simply see him as a vehicle, but the destination itself.

And that's what he means. I want to get to Melchizedek, because Melchizedek is going to explain to us that Jesus' unique role as the king priest. But before he gets there, he's like, "You need to pay attention, and if the Lord is willing, we will do so." And at some point, we are going to get to chapter 7.

We're going to be here a few more weeks. But in the end, this is all preparation for what's coming. Remember why they were drifting. They were drifting because of the pressure. They were great. When Paul wrote the prison epistle to Philippians, there was great joy. In fact, it says, "Because of his imprisonment, many of the brothers were preaching the gospel with more boldness." But by the time he writes 2 Timothy, the pressure has gone to a lot of people.

Even his close companions were beginning to abandon their faith and go back home. And so this pressure wasn't just affecting the recipients of Hebrews, but the whole Christendom. The first 10 years, it was great, but after 20, after 30 years, and then they began to see every one of their leaders, one by one, being plucked and literally being crucified and beheaded, people began to ask, "Well, all the glory and all this shine and honor, whatever it was that they were seeking, began to fade.

And the hardship and the reality of following Christ and picking up the cross began to sink in, just like many of us. You know, this idealistic view of Christianity when you first came to faith has faded for many of us. I'm going to turn this world upside down for Jesus.

It's faded for many of us. We have a hard time even controlling our own thoughts. Let alone turning the world upside down for Jesus Christ, we can't even turn our own selves. Can't control our own flesh. So this idealistic view of what we're going to be for the kingdom of God has faded.

And as a result of that, we've just given up. Not realizing that idealism, much of that was our flesh. Christ came because we could not. He gave us eternal life because we couldn't earn it. We couldn't scrub hard enough to get the sin off. And that's why Christ came.

And that's why salvation is free. And that's why he says to come. We don't enter the throne of grace with confidence because of our ability. It's because of what he has done. You know, years back, years back, back in the '80s, there was this fear going around the United States and probably around the world that if the trend continued, Christianity was not going to exist in the next 50 years.

And so some of you, a few of you may remember, a few of you may remember back then, but back at that time, there was a mass exodus. And the mass exodus were those people who were in their 40s and 50s now. And it says somewhere around 85% of the young adults after they graduated college were dropping out of church.

And this was not unique to any particular denomination. The Southern Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, they were all showing these numbers. And they were saying that if this trend continues, we're going to be exactly where Europe is. Hyper-liberal, empty churches, large grand buildings, but empty, which is where they are now.

But all of a sudden, we start hearing these stories about something happening in Willow Creek in Chicago. And there's this one particular church that's actually, you know, like he's reversing the trend. And all these thousands, tens of thousands of young people are coming to church. Some of you guys know who I'm talking about.

A man named Bill Hybels wrote a book called "Rediscovering the Church." And I remember reading that book, and in that book, he describes how his church started and what his philosophy was. He was a junior high school pastor of a group of maybe about 100 students. And he had a staff of maybe about eight that he worked with.

And so he decided that he was going to do a different kind of ministry. Instead of preaching, that he's going to do skits. And instead of just singing, so the whole thing is going to be interactive. Just like you would run VBS with younger children. He said, "Why not do it with the junior high school kids?" And it was wildly successful.

He went from maybe 70, 80 students to hundreds. And at one point, he said he had over 800 junior high school students coming. And it was wildly successful. And in the peak of that success, he thought to himself, "Why can't we do this for the adults?" So he took that same staff that he had, and he decided to plant the church to do the same thing.

People who are being bored and they're tired and they're leaving the church, the young adults. What can we do to grab them so that they can stay at church? So they started doing the exact same thing that they learned from VBS, that they applied to junior high school, and they started doing it with the adults.

And it was wildly successful. Tens of thousands of people started coming to church. By the time he wrote that book, it was a mega church already. Not only his church, because he was the one bucking the trend. It became nationally famous, and internationally, they began to apply the same method.

Why don't we take all the fuddy-duddy stuff that's not nailed down in Scripture, and make it as palatable as possible to as many people as possible, so that they can come? And so after about 30 plus years of that, now that you don't hear the term "seeker-friendly" anymore, whether it's market-driven or whatever names that it has changed, but the idea is the same.

How do we get people who are not interested in Christ to be interested in the church? And that's where the downfall of the church is, if you're not careful. If you're not interested in Christ, you should not be interested in the church, because this is the body of Christ.

The whole purpose of why you and I are gathered together is not to fill this room with as many people as possible. You know how large Jesus' disciples would have been if he stopped rebuking them? If he stopped drawing lines? If he stopped saying, "You're not coming to me because you want me, you want the bread that I gave you." And he started drawing lines.

You know how large that crowd would have been. I mean, even with him rebuking, there were thousands of him everywhere he went. He would have had hundreds of them, maybe millions of people. Why not? But what he wanted wasn't a multitude. He wanted disciples. And that's why he told his disciples before he left, "Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them, and then with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Not some, not most, but all that I have commanded you.

So the call of the church is not simply to gather people. The call of the church is to proclaim Christ and bring people to maturity. If we've been living our lives looking at our glory days, how I was back then when I was younger, it's time for us to move on.

It's time for us to commit to maturity. To not be infants, not be satisfied for where we were. I pray that Psalm 63 would be our prayer. "O God, you are my God, I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." I pray that that would be our prayers today.

Let me examine our hearts. What are you thirsting for? Let's be honest with ourselves. What are you thirsty for? What are you hungry for? If you do not come all the way to Christ, you will never know what Jesus meant when he said, "I have come to give life and to give this life abundantly." If all you are doing is tasting him and then moving to the world, those are the foundations that lead to apostasy.

So as the author of Hebrews is challenging us, let's move on. Let's move on to maturity. Let's begin to dig the deep things of Christ so that as we continue to gaze upon the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that our life may be a reasonable response to him.

Let's pray.