Pressing On: Embracing Spiritual Maturity in Christ

"let's continue our study in Hebrews return to chapter six and we saw here that the burden of the writer to this letter writer of this letter is to lead Christians beyond the milk level the solid food level beyond foundation the superstructure beyond the nursery class to higher education in our earthly life none of us want to be baby none of us want to stop our education with the nursery class and none of us will want to have a building with only the foundation why is it then that in the Christian life so many believers seem to be satisfied with just drinking milk laying a foundation and living in the nursery class of their life" [00:00:15]

"and we saw in our last study what the nursery class is resentence faith water baptism baptism in the Holy Spirit spiritual gifts of healing the hope of the future of Resurrection and eternal judgment in heaven or hell don't you realize that most believers are occupied with all these things and if you have these things and you go to someplace and you preach the gospel the gospel your fridge will only be these things how you can lay a foundation and you bring people to birth that means you're bringing them to being born again and then never let them grow they are babies forever and ever and ever and you have a church full of babies whether they have 50 years old or two years old children" [00:01:28]

"this is the problem with multitudes in Christendom today maybe one posture who's the jerk sometimes he's also a baby and this is not the Christianity in the New Testament let us press on to perfection and if he is if you yourself have never gone beyond the nursery clock how can you meet other people beyond the nursery class you just still drinking milk how can you need other people to drink more than milk so this is the challenge that comes to us there is adoption that leaves that determines how we lay a foundation and there's a doctrine that leads to perfection and if you are only gripped with one and we think that is everything we will go everywhere producing babies" [00:02:23]

"and we may think well the important thing is just to get them out of hell and take them to heaven if that was the only important thing that would never be an exhortation in the Bible like we read in Hebrews 61 saying let us press on the perfection it would have said let us go and produce more babies now it says you should be mature every believer should grow to maturity not just bring more and more people to the level of baby food and it's because so many believers are babies that so many churches are full of quarrels and court cases and Fighting's and leaders fighting with each other and the leaders fall into a paltry and running out for money and so many things like this because they're all babies the leaders are babies" [00:03:11]

"babies love insight when we grow up to maturity we don't fight that's one group that we have grown up to maturity we don't covet positions of honor in the church if you covet positions of honor in the turn to our baby and you see the amount of babyhood there is among leadership in Christendom today seeking empty honor from each other for silly little things and we see the state of Christendom aesthetics testimony to the world and if you're concerned about that you will seek to press on the maturity or so and seek to lead every convert to maturity you'll never be satisfied with laying a foundation we want to complete the structure" [00:04:03]

"some of you if you go somewhere and you preach the gospel and a few people are gathered together you want to build a a meeting hall how many of you will be happy with just laying the foundation of the meeting hall and say okay we've got a place for meteor we bought a plot of land we've laid a foundation and there's a floor here in little matters there's no room a wall and we get wet in the rain and we sit in the Sun but we've got a floor I've never seen anybody have the exact anywhere anyway but you know many times I think of people who have only made a foundation and then they teach a lot of things in those meetings is like a man who hasn't built a house he's only laid a foundation and he decides to move in" [00:04:47]

"he brought his furniture and his beds and sofas and dining table and the kitchen had presented everything and he set it up in this house there are no laws no rules nothing is desponding this is the condition of a lot of churches that the Lord of teaching and knowledge and this that we added all the knowledge is like the furniture in a house which is only got a foundation and there are a lot of problems of course there's a lot of problems if you want to solve those problems teach people first of all press on to perfection yourself and lead others to perfection my brothers and sisters that is the onset that was the burden of the man who wrote this letter let us press on to perfection" [00:05:40]

"and he goes on to speak about the danger of not pressing on to perfection see if you lays its foundation like that for a long time it's virtually any way the foundation itself will be destroyed after a while that's the great danger now earthly solid foundations we may say they last for a long time but spiritual foundation if you don't build a superstructure on it if you don't press on to perfection even the foundation will be eroded and after some time they would have lost their salvation they they lost their baptism in the Holy Spirit they'd have lost their faith they lost their resentence little lost everything there's nothing left that's the danger" [00:06:26]

"and we see that again and again and again everywhere of people who just make people convert and don't leave them on have a lot of problems in those churches and the churches where people are urged to press on to perfection that are less and less and less problem because we're dealing with mature people that's the answer and he speaks about the problems that come and he don't press on to perfection in verse 4 onwards chapter 6 verse or in the case of those who once been enlightened now read these words carefully like I said we can come to scripture with a preconceived idea of what Scripture should say and that is the best way to remain ignorant of what the Bible says" [00:07:09]

"if you want to know what the Bible says when you come to the Bible get rid of all your ideas and all the theology you heard and study and say Lord open my eyes maybe what I studied is all wrong please this is written for simple people this is not her group of scholars this is written for fishermen this is written for babies God has hidden these things from the clever and intelligence come like a baby and you'll understand it very easily what are the words used here these are all words to describe a person who is born again first of all enlightened that means it is darkness in the darkness of his art the light of God has come he's a born-again person" [00:08:05]

"second he has tasted the heavenly gift the gift which God gave of his son he has received a son he's tasted Jesus third he has been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit if he's not just a superficial Christian he's received the Holy Spirit for he has tasted the good word of god he is responding to God's Word number five he has tasted the powers of the age to come that means he's also tasted something of supernatural power in his life he has tasted something of the miraculous he has faced this supernatural answers to prayer in impossible situations he has prayed and God has produced an answer to that prayer he has tasted answers to prayer this is a really born again person" [00:09:02]

"all these my things characterize the born-again person I believe that healing in our body comes under the category of tasting the powers of the age to come in that future age I will have a resurrection body perfectly healthy without sickness I can't have that body today but I can have a cake it's like some new biscuit manufacturing company sends you one biscuit as a taste of the quality of biscuits we are producing a little sample and healing is a little sample one business and get the full packet one day when Christ comes again I believe we can taste it when we are sick this is what I pray when I'm sick I say Lord I wanted taste in this body of that resurrection power which will one day transform my whole body into the likeness of Jesus body" [00:09:49]