Grow Up!
Hebrews 5:11-6:3 ·May 4, 2025· Joel Passmore
Part of: Hebrews, Toward an Enduring Faith
Pastor Joel Passmore continues a sermon series on the Book of Hebrews by reminding us that spiritual maturity is what all Christians must pursue in order to endure.
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The Lord is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. How many people here know that? How many people know that the Lord is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love?
I like hearing people's stories about when they were a kid. I'll tell you a little bit about mine. Just little snippets here and there. When I was in middle school and high school, I got in trouble a lot. But you may not, I don't know. Well, come tell me. Come tell me whether you expected to hear me say that or not. I'm curious. But I wasn't the kid that skipped school. I wasn't the kid who was smoking in the boys' room. I wasn't the kid who cheated on tests.
But I was the kid who was disruptive a lot. Joking around in class. Cutting up with my friends. You know, being sarcastic with teachers. And getting called out by my teachers. For some reason, they always seemed to call my name. Even when it was a group of us. Joel, I would hear. And why me? It's always a little embarrassing to hear your name called out in class. No matter how many times it's happened to you. It happened to me a lot. What was worse, though, was when the teacher would say, see me after class.
Yeah, that was worse. But I knew how those conversations went. I knew, frankly, I knew how to manage those conversations. To get out of whatever was going to come my way. But one time, I got a curveball. The conversation was totally different than I thought it was going to be from the teacher. The teacher went beyond whatever happened that day in class. She wanted to talk about the big picture. She wanted to talk about, listen, this is what I've seen from you over the course of this year.
This is what I've seen from you with the way you relate to me and to other teachers. This is what I've seen from you in your grades. And I was, I can't manage this conversation.
In a nutshell, she said, Joel, what's going on with you? It's like you're not even trying. You, you're way better than this. But something's going on.
That was humbling. But I needed to hear it. And it wasn't the last time that I heard something like that. Somebody not just wanted to talk about one thing, but about the arc that they saw in me. And to call me out of it. To say, what is going on with you? This is not a good direction. You're not even trying. You're not engaged. That's what's going on in today's passage. I told you as we started our Hebrew sermon series that there were warning passages in Hebrews and that they had a little bit extra salt.
Unlike the other New Testament letters. The first three are the strongest warnings and the third one is probably the strongest of them all. The people who got this letter got called out about their spiritual immaturity. About their spiritual immaturity.
And the danger that it posed. This was done in love. It was done for their good. They needed someone wise. Someone godly to be honest with them. This is what I see going on with you. And I'm going to call it like it is. I'm going to make you feel the seriousness of what I see. And now we get to read it.
Not just as bystanders, but as people who need it too. Okay? Now it's not written to us, but it is written to us. You know the difference there, right? You're not the original recipients of Hebrews. He's talking about people's lives. You know, when you read a Paul say, I exhort so and so and so and so to get along. Right? Well, there were particular people. There was a particular disagreement there. There's a situation happening in Hebrews. The job for us is to come alongside the Holy Spirit.
As the Holy Spirit says, you know what? You're here is the place in your life where you're like these Hebrews. Where you need to hear this as well. So we're bystanders, but we're not just bystanders. We are recipients of the word of God right now in 2025. In the situation that you're in. So let's continue. Our sermon series is toward an enduring faith. We need to receive this word eagerly to get the help we need to endure. This is Hebrews chapter 5 through chapter 6 verse 3.
God's holy and authoritative word. Let's receive it and hear it as God's speaking to us today. About this we have much to say. And it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again. The basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk. Not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. Since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature.
For those who have their powers of discernment. Trained by constant practice. To distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ. And go on to maturity. Not laying again a foundation. Of repentance from dead works. And of faith toward God. And of instruction about washings. The laying on of hands. The resurrection of the dead. And eternal judgment. And this we will do. If God permits.
Pray with me. Lord, your word is living and active. By your spirit it goes out. And it searches us. Finds the places where we need to be humbled. And contrite. And repent. And it finds the places where we need to look again. And see you at work. To trust you. To rejoice. For the fruit that you're bearing. Lord, lead us now. As your word goes forth with power. Lord, we need to be mature people spiritually. And that's your work. And we have a role in it.
So lead us now, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Probably no one's noticed. But these three warning passages, I've titled the sermon, two words with an exclamation point. And today, grow up.
Grow up. Spiritual maturity is what all Christians must pursue in order to endure. Spiritual maturity is what all Christians must pursue in order to endure. As we sit in these confrontational passages, the Holy Spirit has specific and personal work that he aims to do in each one of us. It may be conviction that we need to change. It may be confirmation that we need to keep going. Or it may be both.
No matter what he has for each one of us today, let's receive it. And let's remember where does our help come from? Our help comes from the Lord. Right? Maker of heaven and earth. He's gracious and he's merciful. Abounding in steadfast love. We can receive the incisive work of the Holy Spirit to put his finger on the place where we need to listen, pay attention, and to change. And in this case, to grow up. We can trust him. So let's trust him together.
So this is what the author of Hebrews brings to them. They are acting childish. Do you ever realize that the mid-sentence that the person you're talking to is not even listening to you?
I'm going to file that one away. She's talking about the girls, I think. Okay, so that's what happens here. That's what happens here. He's been ramping up his teaching. And he's just mentioned Melchizedek and how Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He's getting into the weeds here. He's getting into the important stuff. He's talking about things that really matter. Jesus' priesthood and his intercession for his people and all the work that Jesus does as priest for them.
And then he just stops mid-thought and he writes, About this we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. So this whole next section is just a complete digression from what he's been on. Because he's like, okay, hold on. We need to talk about something.
Dull means sluggish or lazy. The NIV translates this as you no longer try to understand. And that is a good way to put it. This is not about their intelligence. It's about their attitude.
They're not even trying anymore. To understand the basics and to apply them. He says, by this time you ought to be teachers. These are not people new to the Christian faith. Or else he wouldn't have said that. They've been walking with Jesus for a while. They've been in the community of faith for a while. You should be teachers by now. They've learned enough that they should be able to explain it to other people. But instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles.
Now listen, they don't really need someone to explain to them the basic principles. That's the whole point here. If they did, he would be teaching them the basic principles. Right? The problem is they're acting like they need the basic principles explained again. They're acting like children. Spiritual children. It's like a high school student saying, I can't write this essay. I need to go over the alphabet again. Which one are the vowels? Can you explain that to me?
If you could just explain it to me, then maybe I could write that essay. Or, I can't do my algebra homework. What number comes after two? Is it four or seven? Gosh, it's just so hard. Can you write out the numbers for me again? Man, maybe if you'd explain it to me one more time, I can do my algebra homework.
Listen, sometimes saying, I don't know, is just someone not trying to understand. I had a teacher that it, man, it made him hot when he would be going around the room asking questions. And he would ask someone a question and they would say, I don't know. He would just lay into them. He would rather someone think through it and give a wrong answer than just say, I don't know. Because he knows that I don't know is, I'm not even trying to interact with your question.
It's immaturity. So then the writer of Hebrews points this out with some sarcasm. Did you know that there's sarcasm in the Bible? 2 Corinthians has some sarcasm too. You need milk. Not solid food. Remember, they don't really need milk. Okay? If you've been following Hebrews with us, think back to chapters 1-5. Does anyone here really think that that doctrine is simple like milk? Anybody? I don't. He's not been giving them milk. After he finishes this lecture to them, he's going to go back to giving them some more solid food.
He knows that they, it's not that they need milk. They're acting like they need milk. He's goading them. He's prodding them. He's trying to make them see their immaturity. He's like a personal trainer, but not the gentle kind that's like, oh, one minute on the treadmill and you're done. Okay, that was great. Maybe we'll go for a minute and a half next week. But the preacher in Hebrews is like the personal trainer that gets you going and that's like, come on, is that the best you've got?
My five-year-old could bench more than you. I mean, that's almost what he's saying. What are you, a baby? I mean, that's, that's not very far off from what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
The kind of trainer that pushes you knows that you're capable of more and in order to be healthy, you cannot settle for where you are. You can't settle for where you are. You've got to keep going. And so the personal trainer gets in your face. It's like, you're not done yet. Come on, give me five more. And then after that five, give me five more. That kind of personal trainer pushes you. Anybody here done physical therapy? I mean, that's what physical therapists do, right?
They know if you're going to use that shoulder again, use that arm again, use that joint again, you have got to be pushed. He is pushing them. The core problem is this. They are unskilled in the word of righteousness. That means they are flabby. They are out of shape in practicing what they believe. They're getting weak, undiscerning, unable, unwilling to tell good from evil. And in a hostile world with lies and idols all around, that is dangerous.
They are not going to last long. And neither will you. For their own spiritual survival, they have got to mature. And so do you. So do I. So do all of us.
Jesus commended a childlike faith, a simple trust in Him, a willingness to come to Him in need. But friends, there is a big difference between a childlike faith and a childish faith.
Huge difference. The people that he's writing to have the latter. They've had the instruction. They've had the opportunity to put it into practice. And we're going to learn later in Hebrews 10, at one time they were putting it into practice. But something has happened and they've put it all on the shelf. They're not trying anymore. They're stagnating. They're acting like they don't know which way is up, what's true and what's false. They have regressed.
They're acting like they don't even know the fundamentals of the faith. So, what are these fundamentals? What are these basic principles? Well, the preacher lists them in verses 1 through 2. So that was, the problem was that they're acting childish. And now he goes on to talk about the things, look, these are the things that you need to have on lockdown.
Because we need to move forward from them. And I want to explain them to you. The elementary doctrine is in verses 1 and 2 and it's listed in three pairs. Okay? Three pairs. The first pair is repentance from dead works and faith towards God. This is where new life begins. This is how the Christian life starts. Repentance recognizes that there's no life to be found in our own works. Each day of our lives, we do what God says not to do and we fail to do what He says that we should do.
That's the first problem. The second problem is that even our good deeds, apart from Him, they come from selfish motivations and a prideful heart. We do good things so that other people will like us. Or so that we'll have a good reputation. Or because we think that if we get a long enough list, we can hold that up to God and say, now I demand that you reward me. Now I want you to accept me. Even our good deeds need to be repented of. Dead works. Repenting of dead works.
To repent is to believe that you are dead in your sins. And to turn away from them. And you can't turn away from one thing without turning towards another thing. And that other thing, that other person, is God to whom we turn in faith.
Listen, not just recognizing that He is there. Yeah, yeah, God is there. But a wholehearted trust. Okay? It's like the difference between me taking this chair and saying, yeah, this chair could support my weight. I believe that it could support my weight. That's not trust. That's not faith. That's just an intellectual agreement. This is trust. Sitting down in it. Putting all my weight on it. I'm trusting this chair in a way that I did not before I sat down.
That is faith. Not just knowing that He's there, but entrusting yourself to Him. Turning away from your sins. This is how we're forgiven. If you've been wondering how it is that you can be reconciled to God, this is it. Repentance and faith. That's how the new life begins. That's how you are brought into a real, reconciled, safe relationship with the one that you can now call Father because you have been spiritually adopted. Now the first pair is about the beginning and the last pair is about the conclusion.
The conclusion of the Christian life. The resurrection of the dead. And eternal judgment. It is fundamental to know what happens after death. We will not be reincarnated. We will not be absorbed into some universal life force. We will not be in total blackness. We will not be bodily, be bodiless spirits. We will be resurrected like our Savior. When we see Him, we will be made like Him. Like our Savior was before us. And after the resurrection comes a judgment for the life that we lived on earth.
There will be a reckoning. Good and evil will be evaluated in our life. The choices that we made. But most importantly, is Jesus your Savior by repentance and faith?
There is a judge that you will stand in front of. Yes, that is fundamental to know. These are elementary doctrines because knowing that there's a future home and a future accountability, it shapes how we live right now.
So the first pair is about the beginning. The last pair is about the end. And so it's no surprise that the middle pair is about the in-between. About living as a Christian. He says washings and the laying on of hands. Now based on the Greek word washings, it likely refers to ritual cleansings, like in the Old Testament. Laying on of hands happens when someone is commissioned for a task or for a role. When I read washings, I think of God saying, be holy as I am holy.
When I read laying on of hands, it reminds me of Jesus saying, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Do you see what this middle pair is all about? It is all about how Christians are cleansed, set apart from the world for God's purposes by the Spirit. It is our set apartness. The fact that there is a calling on your life. You cannot truly be joined to Christ and then be like, la-di-da, I'm going to live however I want to now.
You have come under him. He calls the shots. That's the whole deal. I'm not the king of my own world anymore. You're the king. I go where you send me. I say what you want me to say. I leave behind the things that are not becoming of people that belong to you. I'm different now. Anyone in Christ is a new creation. That's what this middle part is about.
So these three pairs are a summary of the Christian life. The beginning, the middle, and the end. The start of new life in him, the conclusion of it where it's all going and what happens in between. They are the elementary doctrines of Christ. They are important. They are so, so important. Listen. Listen to me. If you aren't a Christian today, these elementary doctrines are where you need to start.
Go through them point by point and ask yourself how you feel about them. Do you agree? Are you willing to come under the Lord? His authority. Are you willing to repent? He does not wish you harm. He has come so that you may have life and have life to the full. He doesn't sanctify you.
He does not put a yoke on you, friends, to wear you down and wear you out. He wants to take the heavy yoke of your dead works off of you. And put a yoke on you that's lighter. It is so good to be a disciple of Christ. It's so good.
I want you to think about this coming judgment and not be afraid of it. I want you to live a life like that. Because that is a different life. That's a better life. I want you to have a holy purpose in your life as your Father Himself tells you, you're mine now. These gifts that you've been using in all these other ways, I've got some great things for those. And by kingdom, every longing of your heart is fulfilled through Him and in Him. So if you're not a Christian today, please, you've got to look at these elementary doctrines.
If there's one that you don't understand, ask questions. If there's one or more that you don't agree with, talk about them with somebody. I'm urging you, consider the call of Christ today.
But as important as they are, now I'm talking to all the rest of you, all the rest of you who are Christians, as important as they are, those elementary doctrines are not the entirety of all that a Christian should try to understand. They're not the entirety. You need to go further. If you are going to endure in faith, you need to go further.
We are called to go on to maturity. The preacher here gives four marks. Four marks of spiritual maturity. Four ways to pursue spiritual maturity. I'm going to go through these to close out the sermon today. The first one is this. Build on the foundation. One confusing thing about this passage for me is how he says, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. I read that and I'm thinking, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought we were never supposed to depart from the gospel.
Isn't that right? And that is right. Here's the way to understand this. The Greek word translated leave does not mean abandon or discard. It means leave it standing. Let it remain. Let it be. That's why he goes on to say not laying again a foundation. Look, if he meant to abandon the foundation, they could never build anything, right? He means leave it alone. Stop messing with it. Stop tearing it up again and laying a new one and then tearing it up and being like, is it really good enough?
No, let's work on it again. No, you're never going to occupy a house if you keep on messing with the foundation. You have to leave it and build on it. But it doesn't mean abandon it.
What they've been doing has been tinkering with it. Questioning it over and over and over. They've been revisiting the foundational truths over and over. Re-evaluating them. Questioning them. Are these things really solid? Maybe they're not strong enough. Okay, yeah, yeah, they are. They are. No, wait, maybe they're not. Maybe they're not true. That's not mature Christian living. In some church services and revivals and conferences and things like that, they'll oftentimes have a time at the end of a talk where you can respond to the Gospel.
And they'll say, if you've never responded to the Gospel, I want to invite you to do it and now's your chance. Come up front and we'll pray with you. And they'll say, or if you want to rededicate your life to Christ, then come up front. That's the typical thing. Professions and rededications. I'm not against that practice, by the way. But I know people that basically every time they're at an event like that, they walk up and they rededicate their life to Christ.
And at some point, they need to ask themselves, what am I doing in between these rededications that make it so I have to rededicate myself every single time this is offered? Right? Isn't that a good question?
Because Christian maturity, I don't think, is, oh, every single time that they say that, yes, I'm convicted, I've got to rededicate my life to Christ. What was going on yesterday? Think about what was happening last week. Every day should be a rededication, right? It should be a constant, ongoing thing. Maturity means leaving the foundation alone and building on it. Rather than investigating the Gospel, focus on applying it to more and more parts of your life.
Here's some examples. You say, okay, my works are dead. I'm convinced of that. I have repented of my dead works and I'm continuing to. So how do I obey God's commands and bear fruit without it becoming something that I boast in like a dead work? That's building on the foundation. Or, I've been washed and I've been set apart by the Spirit. That's true. I'm no longer questioning that. What is God calling me to leave behind? What needs to go in my life?
What needs to change in my thinking? Who am I called to serve? That's building on the foundation. or the resurrection, the judgment, they're true. So how can I grow in living in peace today on the foundation that my future is secure?
That's how you build on the foundation. You take the elementary doctrines and you say, Lord, teach me how my life should be, how I should think and act and live because these things are true. Help me to grow. Help me manage my money in light of the Gospel. You won't ever get to that point of asking about, Lord, how should I manage my money if you're not even convinced that He will provide for you because you belong to Him. Right?
Here's the second one. Explain the basics to others. When the preacher says, by this time you ought to be teachers, he's pointing out a truism. You only know something as well as you can explain it.
And if you don't really know it, how can you believe it and how can you apply it? Every week when I introduce the Lord's Supper, I address people in the room who aren't Christians. I tell them, don't come to this, come to Jesus. And then I say, if you don't know how to do that, come talk to me or anyone you see here. We would love to help you receive salvation and new life in Jesus. That's actually in the bulletin too.
If you aren't do you want to be, please talk to our pastor, staff, or a member. We're glad you're here and we would love to introduce you to Jesus. Now, listen, I know that when I say talk to anyone here, I'm sure that some of you think, boy, I hope they don't ask me. I wouldn't know what to say.
I know that you feel that way. Some of you probably feel that way because I felt that way too in my life. Well, listen, first of all, you can probably do it better than you think. First of all. And second of all, if you really feel unprepared, you need to take that seriously. If you don't feel like you can competently explain the gospel to someone and how they can respond to Jesus, you need to take that seriously.
How can you have enduring faith if you can't explain the gospel to someone? How can you preach it to yourself if you can't explain it to somebody else? And you're going to need to preach it to yourself.
Nothing tests your understanding like trying to explain things to others. It reveals the weak points, it gets you thinking, it helps the truth come alive, and it gets you excited about it. When Nikki and I went to Church Planter Assessment, which our denomination Mission to North America does an assessment for potential church planters, and it's several days long, it's quite extensive, but one of the things they do is they do, they talk to you about evangelism, and they talk to you about, well, just everything about that subject, and they have you do a role play where one of the leaders of the assessment is like, okay, pretend I'm a non-Christian, go.
And I really, really enjoyed that. It had been, honestly, it had been too long since I was like, since I did that, since I, okay, let me just explain the gospel, answer your questions, encourage you to respond to the gospel. And I finished, and they were like, so how did that feel? And I was like, I'm excited. That was exciting talking to, just imagining that you were a non-believer and that you were asking about Jesus, that was exciting. I want to do that more.
And it helped me realize, I got a little confused about this part, I need to go back and think about that again. Listen, find a friend or your spouse or your son or daughter just in the car ride, what's stopping you from doing that? What's stopping you from saying, you know what, hey, right now, pretend I'm a non-Christian that's asking about Jesus and the gospel. Present the gospel to me. It might go fine, you might stumble over your words, what do you have to lose?
I promise you that it will be thought-provoking and it will get you more excited than you were before the conversation about the living truth of the gospel and its power to impact people and to change lives. Why not role-play with each other? Especially if you're one of the people who I talked about who is like, I hope they don't come talk to me.
To take things even further, why don't you consider joining our children's discipleship team. There's a lot, you don't have to invent the material, we have the material to give you. You can teach them, you study it, you teach them, you will grow in your understanding. Show of hands, anybody who's on that team, have you grown in your understanding somehow? Yes, okay. You grow as you teach.
Explain it to others, go on to maturity, join the children's discipleship team. The third thing is this, digest deeper biblical truth. Liquid diets are always temporary, okay? Either you're trying to lose weight, or you're recovering from surgery, or you're an infant. Liquid diets are temporary. Healthy people eat more complex food, and healthy Christians digest more complex truths of the word of God.
Now, there's an early church father named Jerome from the 4th or 5th century. I forgot to make a slide for this, but just listen as I read this to you. He says this, the scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom. They're both. The scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom.
I remember swimming in the summertime as a kid and looking over at the deep end and wanting so much to go over to the deep end. But my parents wouldn't let me until I passed my swim test. But once I did, they said, have at it. And then I was diving and putting on my goggles and getting things off the bottom.
Friends, don't stay in the shallow end. Don't stay in the shallow end. Let's go out further. The deep end takes more work, but it's fun. It's life-giving. Don't be afraid to examine biblical topics that are complex and ideas that are nuanced.
Here's the last one. Practice discernment. Life comes at you fast. Every day, you hear messages and truth claims. You face temptations. You make decisions. You can't constantly be phoning a friend for all the decisions you have to make, all the time. It's not possible. You can't be constantly picking up the phone to call someone or even googling the answer. You need to be ready to discern these things according to God's word and God's wisdom to distinguish good from evil.
You've got to be ready. This is a crucial skill for Christian living and it is possible, powerful, but it only comes when these powers are trained, he says in the passage, trained by constant practice.
We can go on to maturity and we should and indeed we must. And this we will do if God permits. This reminds us that we have a role to play, but it is ultimately him that brings us to maturity. It's God's work. But I'll tell you the truth, we have assurance that maturity is what he wants for us. Maturity is what the Spirit does working in us. Maturity is where we're headed. Join up with the Spirit as he is growing you to maturity.