Embracing Personal Responsibility in Spiritual Growth

I'm not supposed to be stuck, ceased, disconnected, lifeless. I was made for more than this—not to stay, but to be restored by the one who designed me, refined and renewed as he does his work, and then to be driven by a force alive and connected to those around me, working for something greater, propelling each other forward in motion, living rust-free and keeping speed to be part of something bigger as I live out my purpose. I was made for this. I was made to grow.

All right, amen. Good morning! I am glad you're here. Listen, when I say I'm glad you're here, we really mean that. We are glad that you are here. You could have been anywhere else, worshiping with anybody else, but you decided to be here, and we really take that as an honor.

If you have your Bible, we're going to be in Hebrews chapter 5 this morning—Hebrews chapter 5, moving along in there. We're going to be in Hebrews 5:11 and then the first few verses of chapter 6.

What I thought this morning's message would be titled is "The Deep End." Does anybody like to be in the deep end? Depending on what deep end and what the deep end is, right? I remember growing up, going to camps. I don't remember how many camps I've been to in my life, but I remember being like an RA at camps or children's camps. I was a real little guy—I know that's hard to believe, but I was a real tiny person. I remember we would go to the pool, and you go to the pool and find one that's still there, a little bit different, a little bit bigger now.

If you wanted to swim in the deep end, if you wanted to go off the slide or you wanted to go off the diving board, you had to take a swim test. Does anybody remember the swim testing at camp? Right? At this particular camp, whenever you wanted to take the swim test, everybody all lined up at the same time. It didn't matter who it was; everybody was there. You all lined up on the edge of the deep end, and all you had to do, all you had to do, was jump in and swim to the other side. If you made it to the other side, you got a wristband, right? You got to wear that wristband or that badge of honor the entire week because that was like where the cool kids swam—in the deep end. I wanted to be one of the cool kids. No, I'm just kidding; I've never been called that in my life. But anyway, that's where I wanted to be.

I wasn't the best swimmer in the world, but I knew enough not to die. So I said, "I'm gonna do it." We lined up, and they blew the whistle, and everybody jumps in. I jump in, and I stay under probably longer than everybody else there. At this moment, I think I'm fixing to be with Jesus. But anyways, I make it to the top, and I'm like, "Okay." I make it to the top, and everybody else is already done because the deep end is like from here to there; it's not a long pool. I began to swim—or I hesitate to even call it swimming. I doggy paddled. Any doggy paddlers in the room? Right? I doggy paddled, and I was dying. You know, I was literally dying. I was gonna die. The lifeguard thought I was gonna die. I think I remember vaguely them asking me, "Are you okay?" as I was halfway through.

Finally, I reached over to the edge of the pool, and I grabbed the other end. Guess what? That's where life was found. It was found because then I got a bracelet. It didn't matter how fast I got there; it didn't matter how slow I got there. It just mattered that I got there. I had made it to the other side. Even if I didn't get in the deep end the rest of the week, listen, I had the bracelet to say that this is where I have been. This is what I have accomplished.

That's what I want to talk to you guys about this morning—not your swimming ability, but more or less, where are you in the Lord? Are you growing in your walk with the Lord? Are you maturing in your walk with the Lord? I want you to go with me and exercise with me this morning—not physical exercise, but I want you to exercise this thing with me this morning. I want you to be the judge.

Now, I know when I say, "Hey, I want you to be the judge," most of you guys are going like, "I got that; I can be the judge. I am very good at judging people." Don't raise your hand because I'll judge you, right? So we really—I'm not talking about judging this morning. What I'm talking about is judging yourself, right? To really look at your own life, to evaluate yourself.

Have you ever seen that video? It's kind of older now, but it's of the little girl. She's in the back seat, and she's trying to buckle her car seat by herself. She's probably like four years old, three or four years old, and she's trying to buckle it up herself. Maybe she's a little older than that; I don't know. She's trying to find her dad, who's really sweet and really kindly from the front seat going, "Hey, would you like me to help you? Would you like me to help you?" She says no a few times, and then he's like, "You really, I can help you." She looks at him, and I'm talking with the cutest but most stern face there is, right? She says, "Worry about yourself. Worry about yourself."

That's what I'm asking you to do this morning. I'm asking you to worry about yourself. Look at yourself. Examine your own life. I want you to look at your own life to see if you are growing as a Christian, if you are moving in the right direction. I'm not saying we're there this morning, but I'm saying, are you moving in the right direction? Are you on the right side of the cool? Are you making strides to be spiritually mature, to grow in Christ Jesus?

Because in the Bible, we're actually called to test ourselves to see if we are growing. Now, at our house, we have a little thing on our wall. It's a ruler, and we measure the kids every once in a while just to see how much they've grown. We can go back and look and say, "Okay, he was this tall here, and now he's this tall now," right? We can look at that and go, "Okay, you broke."

Now, if I had a kid, and they were three or four or five years old, and now they were 16 years old, and they didn't grow anytime between five years old and 16 years old, there's probably going to be an issue there, right? I'm short; I don't have the best genes, but I ain't that short. Amen? So there's probably an issue there. If you can examine your life and you can look at your life and say, "I've been in Christ Jesus this long, and I'm still at the very beginning," there might be a problem with your maturity level. There might be a problem with how you're living this life that God has called you to live.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5, he says, "Examine yourselves." Everybody say, "Examine." We are really good at existing, but I'm asking you to examine this morning. He says to see if your faith is genuine. How do you know your faith is genuine? He says, "Test yourselves." Does anybody like tests? No, nobody likes tests. He says you got to test yourself because then he says, "Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you. If not, you have failed the test of genuine faith."

How do you know that Jesus Christ is among you? How do you know that Jesus is inside of you? How do you know that you have a relationship with Jesus? Because there's going to be growth. There is no way not to have growth if you are truly in Christ Jesus. You cannot be the same on day one as you are on day 365. It's impossible. There's going to be some type of growth.

So if you examine yourself and you look at yourself and you test yourself and you're not seeing any growth at all, there are some questions that you have to have with the Lord this morning. Because you can come to church all you want to. You can go to Sunday school all you want to. You can read all the books that you want to. You can memorize all the songs that you want to. You can do all the spiritual things that you want to do, but if there is no growth in your life, all you have are hobbies.

Does anybody agree with me this morning? Let me just tell you, a relationship with the Lord is not a hobby; it is a privilege. It is a walking, moving, ever-changing, growing thing, and it is alive. So you need to say, "Do I have a hobby, or do I have a relationship with the Lord?" Because if I truly have a relationship with the Lord, guess what's going to happen? I can measure you here. I can look at you here, and then come a couple of years, I should be able to see some growth in there.

Now, I know that we regress, right? I know sometimes whenever you are older, you get smaller. Does anybody lose some height in your age? Does anybody get to be high in your age? Does anybody gain any girth in your age? Right? You don't grow up anymore; we grow out. Anybody? Yeah. So there's going to be some growth if you're really walking with the Lord.

I talk about this this morning, number one, because this is where our text is going, but it's also because there's so much confusion about spiritual growth in the world today. Like, what is spiritual growth? What does this mean? How do you know if you are growing? And if you're growing, how do you keep on growing? These are some of the questions that I think the writer really kind of hits on the head in this week's text.

Last week, if you were here, we started talking about how Jesus was the great high priest. He was the best high priest, and that's a big deal in Judaism. It's a big deal for Jesus to be the high priest because the high priest was the man, right? He's saying Jesus is better than the high priest to these folks, and they would understand what that meant. You understand how big of a statement that was.

He began to talk about that, and he finished it up a little bit, but then he kind of abruptly stops in this conversation with them, and he says, "Hey, hold on just a second. You aren't ready for what I'm about to tell you."

Has anybody ever been there? Somebody came to you and they said, "Hey, sit down because I got something to tell you." Usually, that's not good news. Usually, it's something that you are not ready to hear.

So they say, "Hey, brace yourself because I'm about to tell you something that you're not ready to hear." This is what the writer essentially is telling these people: "You aren't ready to hear what I'm about to tell you."

Let me tell you why you're not ready to hear what I'm about to say. It's because you aren't spiritually mature enough to understand what I'm trying to tell you. Then he goes into a discourse about how they're not spiritually mature, what spiritual maturity is, and what it looks like to be spiritually mature.

It's really important what he says, and what he emphasizes here is that the writer holds these people personally responsible for their own spiritual growth. I'm going to say that one more time because I think it's something that we have to grasp, something that we have to stand on.

Again, I'm not in here preaching like I got it all together, and I'm not even here to beat you up. I'm in here to grow with you. Amen? We're all growing. If you're not growing, there's something wrong. I'm here to encourage you.

But he says specifically, "Hey, your growth, your spiritual maturity, your spiritual growth is your personal responsibility." Your personal responsibility.

Every literate person, never say, "Your responsibility." Yeah, it's your personal responsibility. It's not my personal responsibility, but it's yours. That's one of the keys here: that your spiritual growth is your personal responsibility.

Let's jump into the text this morning—chapter 5 in Hebrews, verses 11 through 14. This is what he said:

"Of whom we have much to say and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

Now, let me just say this morning, this is one of the verses that most preachers, if you're in this text, begin to kind of drool a little bit because you're like, "Oh, there's so many things that we could say about that."

There's something in here for everybody, and it's a struggle that a lot of people of the faith have, which is growing in the Lord. But this morning, if we're going to ever make it out of the shallow and into the deep, and if we're ever going to grow and keep on growing, the first thing that we have to understand is, number one, spiritual maturity is walking in wisdom.

Walking in wisdom. It's not walking in selfishness; it's not walking in stupidity; it's walking in wisdom. It's making good decisions. Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and goes, "You know what? I cannot wait to make some really bad decisions today." Right?

If you've ever said that, you've said it jokingly, hopefully. But that's not typically how we set out to accomplish things in our day. Like, "I can't wait to make some bad decisions. I can't wait to speed down the highway. I can't wait to be late for school. I can't wait not to do this work." I can't, right? Nobody ever says that.

But walking in wisdom means that you have to understand that it is an intentional thing. It's not something that happens by accident. You are not wise by accident.

We talked about our Sunday school class this morning: just age does not equate to wisdom, does it? I mean, how many of you guys have met some older folks that aren't very smart? Like twice if you're sitting next to them, right? And how many older folks mess up younger folks that are great wise, right? It has nothing to do with age; it's an intentional thing, right?

It's something that you have to do. It's something that you have to be good at. Just like I had to jump into the deep end and swim and doggy paddle to the other side, listen, maturity and wisdom are things that you have to learn how to walk in.

Now, I say all that to tell you this and remind you that in Hebrews so far, there are six warnings that he gives to the listeners here. Remember, these listeners are Jews who are in the Roman Empire at this time, and they're going through persecution. A lot of bad things have happened to them; their families have abandoned them. This life is really hard for these believers, and it's been going on for a long time.

This morning, here is in particular to them, and it's the danger of becoming dull of hearing and not growing to maturity. Does anybody here have a hard time hearing? For those in the back, does anybody have a hard time hearing? Right? A lot of y'all listen; some of y'all just now turned to hear some lilies a little bit, right?

We—and spiritually, it's the same thing. That's what he's trying to tell these believers. Sometimes we are hard of hearing. Sometimes he speaks to us and shows us and gives us the wise thing to do to make the right decision, to go in the right path, but we still do what we want to do. We heard it; we just didn't put it into practice.

This is what I talk about intentionality. This is a danger, right? It's a danger of staying on milk when there's a steak on the grill. Does anybody agree with me? Has anybody ever gone on Sunday lunch and you're going, "Hey, I got some steaks on the grill, but I think I'm just gonna settle for a glass of milk"?

Anybody? No, right? You want what? Steak! Bring me the meat! This is what the writer's saying: you should be on the meat. It's time to come to a time in your life when you're a baby. What do you do? You drink milk; you drink formula. Why? Because you have to have the nutrients. You have to have the things that get into your body, and they enable you to grow stronger, right? Make your bones stronger, make you taller—all the good stuff that milk is supposed to do.

I don't know; I'm lactose intolerant, so this is what you got, right?

Anyways, he's saying, "Listen, by this time, you should put this sippy cup down. You should put this bottle down, and you should be devouring steak." But the problem is, is you're not really listening. The problem is he actually says that you're lazy in your listening.

So here's what you need to know about these Jewish believers that he is writing about, okay? He's addressing many of them who have not been saved, not been in a relationship with the Lord for any week, for two weeks, or three weeks, or four weeks. They're not new Christians. Some of them have been Christians for 30 years. They've been Christians for a long, long time—decades of being a Christian—and they're still needing training in the basics.

They're still having to go back to say, "Hey, put the steak aside for a minute, and I'm just gonna need a glass of milk. I need to go back to the basics." Now, they've never grown beyond that.

Now, there are a few things I want you to know that are extremely important in this text and even in our context today. First, the writer holds these believers personally responsible for their own spiritual growth.

I'll say that again this morning because it wasn't the church's fault; it wasn't their parents' fault; it wasn't their kids' fault; it wasn't their employer's fault; it wasn't their schedule's fault; it wasn't anybody's fault that they weren't growing except for their own. It was their responsibility. Their spiritual growth is their responsibility.

I say that he's saying it to them, but I'm saying it to us as well. It is not our job to make you spiritually grow. I cannot, as a matter of fact, this is the possibility for me to make you spiritually grow. I can't do it. I guess it is undoable. Nobody can do it for you. It's something that has to be done in your own life.

Now, I don't hear this very often, but whenever someone says something, "Hey, Pastor, listen, I don't really feel like I'm getting fed." Now, the first thing that comes to your mind is that sounds very spiritual, but it's not spiritual at all. Actually, it's very immature.

There are a couple of things that I will say to that if you ever come to me and say that. I'm going to give you the answers right now so that you can have them. You don't even have to tell me that; you just kind of deal with it yourself.

The first thing I'm going to say to you is, "Understand, you should know how to feed yourself by now." Right? You should know how to feed yourself by now. That's the first thing I'm going to say to you.

The second thing I'm going to say to you is that my job and my goal as a pastor is not to make you full. My job as a pastor is not to come in here, you know how I used to do your kids, if you still do, I don't know, and they won't eat until you take the peas and you put them on a little spoon, and you're like, "Sugar, sugar, records coming into the station," or you do the plane, whatever version of it you do, and you do that so that they'll eat. They'll think it's funny, right?

That's not my job. That's not my calling as a pastor—to make you full. What I am here to do is to provoke you to want to make you even hungrier for God and his word. So hungry, as a matter of fact, that you will read and you'll stay and you'll learn on your own as well, and you'll bring your Bible, which is a crazy thought in church that you would bring your Bibles. Not only bring your Bible, but you would mark that baby up. You would get in there; you would take notes in the margin; you could be highlighting things. You'd have to get you a journal to write all the things that God was showing you, all the things that he was teaching you, and all the things that you were putting into practice in your life and seeing the fruit of the Holy Spirit on display in your life.

This is why we're here. This is why we come to church—to be equipped to do the work of the church. Some of the work of the church is you how to grow. You've got to be hungry yourself. You've got to feed yourself because if we're not here one day, listen, it's on you. You've got to learn how to feed yourself. Amen?

Nobody has a 30-something-year-old kid, and you're still feeding them. Nobody's—you’re not spoon-feeding 30-year-olds, are you? No, because that would be silly. So if you've been a Christian for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, however many years, listen, it's your responsibility to feed yourself. Amen?

So that's that. Okay, got that out of the way. It's your personal responsibility. This is what I'm saying; this is what the writer is saying.

So what do we do? How do we grow? Let me just tell you what mature people do, how they grow, especially in the context of church. In corporate worship, you come together; we sing some songs; we worship together. We open God's word, and we learn together.

So what do we do with that? Understand, first thing, if you're going to walk in wisdom, if you're going to come in here, you're going to have the right mindset. If you want to grow, you've got to have the right mindset. You've got to have the right heart to say.

Here's what I mean by that: so often we come into this building, and we're waiting for things that pertain to us. Does anybody like, "You got to talk about something that has something to do with me"? You got to talk about a subject that I'm interested in. You got to talk about a subject that really tickles my fancy and really makes me break up. You really got to—and this one, I'm the same way.

But this is what mature people do when they come into the church: they listen even when the message isn't for them. Let me say that one more time: they listen even when the message isn't for them because they might be listening for somebody else.

Look at your neighbor and say, "Oh yeah, they might be listening for somebody else."

What I'm saying to you may not apply to you directly today or tomorrow; it might in the future, but right now, maybe it doesn't apply to you. That doesn't mean that you should not be taking it in. That does not mean it really not having something to say to you. It may be saying something to you so you can say something to somebody else.

Does anybody agree with me? That's wisdom, right? That's maturity. What I'm hearing is not by accident. What I'm hearing is God has ordained me to hear this because just maybe, just maybe, someone's gonna need to hear what I have to say.

Here's the point: not everything that is for you is about you. That's why we always say one of the things I say the most from the pulpit is this thing is not about you. It's not about us. We're his vessels. We are here to do his work.

Not everything that is for you is about you, right? Not every message is about your situation. But if you'll be quick to listen—anybody quick to listen? Is there anybody? Are we much better being quick to speak? I think we're on the other side, but really quick to speak, really slow to listen.

This is what he's talking about to these believers: you've been coming really lazy in your hearing. You're not hearing what I'm saying. But if we will be quick to listen, even when it's not something necessarily we think that applies to us, you'll get out in a real-life world situation with somebody who needs to hear what you heard, and so you are the messenger this morning.

It may not pertain to your situation or your circumstance, but you are the messenger that's going to receive, and you're going to take it and give it to somebody else because they might need it. You might be the only person they can tell you about it, but you can't do that unless you're mature enough to listen for somebody else.

This is what he's saying. This is one of the—so let me just kind of rubber reach the road here. So if you're single in here this morning and you're hearing a message about marriage, listen, you know that's for someone else, right? It's not for you, so it's for someone else.

Maybe you're going to be able to give some couples some marriage advice even though you're single, right? It may be hard for them to listen to you, but listen, it's the God's word. It'll do what it always sets out to do, which is to change lives.

If you're a senior adult in the room and you're hearing a message that's geared towards young people, it may not necessarily be for you, but it may be that you could hear it and that you're going to share it with another young person down the road. Are you with me this morning?

This is maturity. This is what it means to really grow. This is what it means to be in the deep end—that it's not really just all about me. People need to hear what I heard. This is the point that the writer is making in verse 13 when he says that they're becoming dull of hearing.

When he says it's dull of hearing, literally he's saying lazy in hearing. Does anybody have selective hearing? We talked about that because last week, right? We hear things, but we select whether we're gonna actually hear things. We know what you said, but depending on how we're going to do anything with what you said.

That's where these people were. They were lazy in their hearing. They've been hearing these messages; they've been hearing these teachings from the apostles. They hear these things, but they weren't interested in the message because they weren't necessarily about them. They weren't about topics that they weren't interested in.

What I love about this passage, what I love about the passage is in contrast to being lazy, the writer says that maturity is those who use or practice by habits have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. That means that they are wise in their decisions. They are wise in their decisions.

Again, you can be 70 and not be wise in your decisions. You can be 13 and be wise in your decisions or vice versa, anywhere in the middle. We have to be wise with our decisions and how do we get there? How do we do that?

Number one, we have to be on guard because sometimes we can get lazy. Sometimes we can get selective, and we can only hear what we want to hear or tune out for the things that we don't really think pertain to us. But again, maturity says it's not about me; it may be for somebody else that God's going to use me.

I'm going to be equipped now because I've been here; I've heard that. I'm equipped now to tell somebody else about the good news of Jesus Christ. This is where these people are lacking.

James kind of describes it like this in chapter 3, verse 13. He says, "Who is wise and understanding among you?" He says, "Let them show it by their good life." And then he says, "If you don't know what a good life is, let me clarify: as by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom."

That word "good" there is very, very important. It's "kalos" in Greek, which refers to something being good because it's beautiful. Everybody look at your wife and say "kalos." Yeah, that means beautiful, by the way. You're welcome. You're welcome. That's a marriage conversation just in a nutshell right there, right?

"Kalos"—she's beautiful. It's beautiful, right? Because it's something good because it's beautiful. The gentle point here is that wisdom makes your life beautiful.

Now, let me explain, okay? Why? Because it puts everything in order, right? Everything is working together, and you're making choices that honor God and bring greater blessing into your life. When your life is bringing honor to Christ, when you are walking in wisdom, things are going to be beautiful. You're going to see it even in the tough stuff. You're still going to see the beauty of God because you're walking in that wisdom.

The writer of Hebrews is telling them that they have neglected all that through their lazy hearing and their lack of spiritual growth. Now it gets into chapter 6, and chapter 6 is one of the heaviest theological chapters in all of the Bible—not just in Hebrews, but all of the Bible.

In the first three verses, we're going to tackle it because the next few verses have a whole nature themselves. But he's really going to press in on this. He's going to give you a reason to maybe why you're not growing spiritually, and he's going to really—if you are in Christ, he's going to really prod you to be doing some things, and he's going to say some very, very important things.

So doctor here with me. Look at verse chapter 6, the first three verses. This is what they say:

"Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits."

Spiritual maturity is walking in wisdom. Number two this morning: spiritual maturity is beyond the foundational. It's beyond the foundational.

Because here's the thing: if I would have never jumped into the deep end, I would have never been able to make it to the other side of the deep end. I would have never known if I could actually make it to the other side or if I was going to die if I jumped straight in. I didn't know, but if I would have never done it, I would have never got past the foundation of the edge of that pool and gone through to the other side. I would have missed so much.

There is on the middle end, on the other side. So you're going to see here that he talks about, "Hey, by this time, you ought to be doing some things. By this time, you should be doing—you should be teachers. You should be off the milk, but you should be teaching these things to other people. You should be sharing these things with other people."

Then it goes into what these things are, and he explains them just a little bit. Understand, again, the writer is calling these six things the elementary principles. Elementary tells us one thing: that these aren't deep things. They may sound like big theological words, but they're not really deep things. They're not. They're elementary things. These are the foundations; these are the basics.

Now, what are they? In Jewish fashion, they're presented in what they're called couplets or groups of two, and they're all practices and ideas that were embedded in Jewish theology, meaning these kids have learned it their entire life. They have been through some training. They've been through this. They should know these things. They should, as a matter of fact, know them so well that they should be able to teach them to other people.

But again, they're not doing these things because they have become lazy in their hearing. Let's just talk about these things.

The first things he talks about are repentance from dead works and faith toward God. Now, these were issues of conversion here, okay? That is how God saved you, and he invited you into his family. Repentance—we all know the word repentance. If you don't know, listen, repentance means to turn. It means you turn from your sin, but you have to turn to something, which is Christ.

It means to turn. In their case, they were relying on their religious activities to save them. Well, actually, they began to rely on their religious activities to save them, but they should have been relying on Jesus' activities on the cross to save them. Amen?

But again, he's saying, "I have to go back and teach you these things again—things that you should be sharing with other folks, things that you should be teaching other people—but you have become lazy in your hearing. You've become the person who just likes to splash around in the shallow end and make a lot of waves but never really grow."

He says you should be teaching these things, but you're not. They're important because then he talks about faith toward God, and that means that you embrace Jesus' sacrifice for you as the means by which we are forgiven and made right with God. It's not by being a good person; it's not by being a religious person, but it's by embracing Jesus with your life.

Is anybody with me this morning? Is anybody embracing Jesus? Is anybody in a relationship with Jesus? Is anybody walking with Jesus this morning?

Then he says you should know these things and not just know them here, but know them here, but also be sharing these things with other folks and teaching people about these things. Acting godly and living rightly are the results of knowing and being forgiven by God. They're not the prerequisites of being loved by God.

These Jewish believers had a problem. They kept trying to go back to their own mind. They kept trying to go back to their own traditions, their own ways, and their own religion instead of really resting in who they were in Christ Jesus.

He has to go over repentance from these dead works and actually with faith toward God means some of these people have professed to be believers for years and years and years and years.

He's saying something's wrong; there's a disconnect because if you're really in Christ, there's going to be some growth in your walk. Then he talks about the doctrine of baptisms and the laying on of hands.

Now remember, he's talking to former Jews once again, so everything he mentions is going to be rooted in Judaism, okay? I know this is a teaching part, so just bear with me this morning.

When he talks about baptism, understand baptisms originally referred to ceremonial washings by those entering into the temple. Or if you were a Gentile who was converting to Judaism, you had to go through this ceremonial washing or what we call baptism now.

Baptism became part of Christianity and Christian ceremony when John the Baptist and his disciples actually started baptizing those who were deciding to follow Jesus, and even Jesus was baptized as well.

Let me just kind of, by the way, I think most of us understand baptism. If you don't, I'd love to answer any questions that you might have. But baptism is what separates the fans of Jesus from the followers of Jesus. It's the one that separates the people who are in the stands from the ones who are out playing the game.

Is anybody with me this morning? It's obedience. If you are a believer, the first act of spiritual maturity is to say, "You know what? I need to follow through in obedience."

Believers' baptism is to identify with Christ's death, his burial, and his resurrection through that water and stand before this congregation and say, "This, I'm not ashamed. I'm part of the family of God. This is the new me. This is what it's all about."

It separates the fans from the followers. You have to ask yourself this morning: are you a fan or are you a follower? Because fans still sit in the stands; followers follow through in baptism.

These are the, again, these are the basics that he's telling these people that they should have already been teaching other people by this time, but we still find them lacking in their basic knowledge and still drinking milk when there's steak on the grill.

Can I challenge you in something this morning? Maybe the direction you're looking for from God is on the other side of your obedience to God. Maybe you should be baptized. If you are in Christ, you've truly given your life to Jesus, then you should be following through in believers' baptism.

That is not next week, not the week after; immediately, you should be following through in believers' baptism. I'd love to talk to you about that today. We'll talk a little bit about that later on.

But then he starts talking about laying on of hands, and I know when we hear that, we get kind of crazy because we watch a lot of TV, right? People throwing people around with their head on the forehead and knocking back 16 feet and making crowds fall down—all that crazy. That's not what we're talking about.

Understand, that's not the biblical context of laying on hands. When he talks about laying on hands, it means we're praying for those who are called into ministry. We're praying for the sick, but it's really about inviting the idea of inviting God's presence or anointing into these people's lives, into their situation.

It also implied what was called the transfer of guilt, and this will take it all the way back to the Old Testament here. It's when you laid your hands on the sacrifices that were made for your sins at the temple. Your sin and your guilt and your shame were transferred symbolically from your hands to that animal that they didn't sacrifice so that you could have forgiveness for your sin.

But let me tell you the good news this morning: Jesus is the fulfillment of that, right? He is the final sacrifice. He's the sacrifice that you don't have to have any more sacrifices for because he comes over it all. His blood covers an abundance of sin—all sin. His blood is where life is found because this word forgiveness is found again.

These are basics; they should understand these things, but they don't. He's telling them it's because you've grown lazy in your hearing. You've made it about you instead of really growing and pressing into what God has called you to do.

Then he talks about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. Listen, these are the ideas—the resurrection was an idea there, but it was pretty vague in the Old Testament, and Christianity kind of really expounded on the idea. You know that Jesus actually did it and modeled it for us what the resurrection looks like, right?

After his body in the resurrection, he got something really good. He got a new body. Does anybody look forward to a new body? Like, does anybody ever been on a diet and gave up on the diet like two weeks later? In my movie, right? And you're like, "I'm happy with the way I live."

We're not really happy about the way we look, but we know one day we are going to be very happy with the way we live. This is what we're talking about, right? We're going to have a body that's built different. We're gonna have a body that's built for eternity.

As opposed to bad electricity, I don't know what's going on, right? We're gonna have a glorified body. We're gonna have a body that's built for heaven. Right now, we're in a body that's built for Earth.

Does anybody's body fall apart? Yeah, come on, right? Does anybody—again, I say it all the time—when you get up in the middle of the night to go to the restroom, and it just sounds like someone's eating a bowl of Rice Krispies treats, right? Or my recipe just like snack, crackle, pop—all these things, right? Everything's clicking; everything's snapping, right? That's an earthly body.

One day, you're not gonna have to deal with an earthly body. One day, listen, you're gonna have a spiritual body. You're gonna have a heavenly body. You're gonna have a body that's built for eternity. Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 42-44. He says, "So will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness—anybody got things? I got this check, Wheaton, this check, right? It is raised in power. It's sown a natural body—earthly body, right? But it's raised into a spiritual body."

These are the things; these are the basics. Then he talks about eternal judgment, where I can spend a whole lot of time, but eternal judgment, you have to understand this morning, is a reality of Christian theology. It is not made up; it is not there to scare you into doing something. Jesus taught more about hell than he talked about heaven. He talked more about hell than he talked about most things because it was an important topic.

Here's the one thing that you need to know about hell this morning: hell is a very real place. It is not a metaphor buried in the Bible, right? It is a real place for the enemy and for his demons. One day, if you leave this earth separated from the Lord, not in a relationship with the Lord, this is the place that you will spend eternity. That's the realness of it. That's what the Bible says—not my opinion; it's what the word of God says.

He's saying, "You know these things, people. You know these things. You've heard these things so much so that you should be teaching these things, but you're not."

So many of us in this room, we could say "ouch," not "amen," because we know these things. We've heard these things, but we're not teaching these things.

You ever wonder why sometimes the church struggles to find teachers? Everybody talks about, "Well, it's not really my calling." I understand calling, but I also understand cowards. Amen? I also understand that we can be lazy in hearing. We can be lazy in really getting into what God has called us to do.

We could be happy in the shallows in the pool when God has called us into the deep end of the pool. Understand, spiritual maturity isn't just knowing this stuff, not knowing these facts, but it's about being able to present these truths in a gentle and respectful way to those who don't know these things.

This is where the church of then lacks, and I think it's also a lot of real church of now. Philosophers, we know these things. It's not for a lack of education, but it's for a lack of putting things into practice and moving beyond the foundations to actually walk in the wisdom that God gives us in his word.

Because when you really press into your walk with God, you're transformed there, right? There's a death there that only comes through that maturity.

This morning, this warning is for us as well. Jonathan could come with us in the heaven invitation this morning. As they're coming, I want you to just begin to think about this. This warning is not just for these Jewish believers, but it's also for us as well.

We cannot allow ourselves to become dull of hearing. Again, it's a warning because so often we get comfortable with things. We get comfortable with the way things are. We get comfortable coming to church and sitting here, hearing three songs and a sermon, and then leaving.

He says there's more to it than that. There's more to it than that. We've got to go deeper than that. But you know these things, but you're just not putting these things into practice.

Or you don't really know the Christ. You know the facts, but you don't know Jesus behind that fact. You're getting a little bit next week, but we can't allow ourselves to become dull of hearing.

You know our sign up front? I heard one of my favorite preachers always say it like this. He always tells his people that the sign out front didn't say "Baby Girl Baptist Church." No, it's in First Baptist Church. It's not "Baby Baptist Church."

We can't be babies anymore. We can't be people who are just content on the milk. God has something bigger, and God has something that's going to grow you more and push you further in your walk with the Lord.

Sometimes these messages are right to us, or sometimes he gives it to us to carry to somebody else. This is where maturity takes us.

This morning, from Hebrews, is a warning that we all need to hear. What I'm doing this morning is I'm inviting you to hear it, number one, and number two, to heed it—to let God clean out your spiritual ears.

Does anybody need some spiritual ear cleaning this morning? Because we hear so many messages; we hear so many things. But understand, God hasn't called us to stay the same. He's called us to change through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If that's not happening, we have to ask ourselves, "Why is that not happening?" It could be different reasons, but this morning, John and I are going to sing on their brain just a second.

Here's the invitation: maybe, just maybe, this morning you need to come to this altar and say, "God, I have let a lot of things come in and go out, but I have not retained a lot of things in my heart. I've made church; I've made my spiritual life about a lot of things, but I haven't made it about what it should be about."

Maybe you need to give that to the Lord this morning. Or maybe you're here today, and you would say, "You know what? I hear what you're talking about. I hear this about this Jesus and what he did on the cross, and I want to know that."

I'd love to tell you how you can know that Jesus before you leave this place this morning. Or maybe you're here this morning, and again, you are safe; things are going great. You're growing in your walk with the Lord. You'll say, "You know what? I want to put my membership right here at First Baptist Church and get busy serving right beside these other folks."

Whatever God has called you to do this morning, I'm going to pray, and Jonathan will begin to sing, and you guys just do what God has called you to do.

The Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for this church that you have drawn together. We thank you for it. It's my prayer that we'll hear it this morning. We'll hear your voice; we'll see where you're leading, God, and we'll get up and we'll follow.

We'll move in that direction, God. We'll know where you send us. We'll do what you say, even if it's uncomfortable, even if we've stayed put for a long time in the shallows. God, maybe today is our journey to the deep end, and we go up and we jump in, and we just let you take care of the rest of them.

God, do what only you can do this morning. Save those people who need saved. God, bring repentance to those who do independence. God, do what you need to do. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.