Hebrews: Let Us Go On to Maturity

Ministry Associate Calvin Chu preaches from Hebrews 5:11-6:3. Discussion points: Spiritual correction could be uncomfortable but it is lifesaving; we correct someone out of love, not self-righteousness; spiritual maturity is the goal for all followers of Christ.

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  Scripture reader: [Hebrews 5:11-6:3] About this, we have much to say, and it is 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 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.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: Morning. So it's good to be able to worship with you this morning, honestly, it's great to Experience the new year and to be able to, to pray and to sing songs and praise our God together. It's really, really amazing. I think it's funny because, as we just read, the today's passage is about spiritual immaturity. I'm like, oh great, this is actually like my wheelhouse here, so I'm really, really good at that. so I'm really excited to be able to, to, to preach on this because it's lots of, and we'll see lots, lots of wealth of, experience to share from.

  Have you ever had one of those moments where like you. Like you, you're in this moment and you like stop and you think to yourself like, OK, like I, I really need to grow up. Like I really need to be better than this. Like one of those moments where like the reality of where you are in that moment are just like, oh yeah, like. I'm not exactly where I should be at this moment. I've got, like, like I said, I've got plenty of those moments in my life, but one of them in particular is like, like etched in my memory, at the time, I will tell you, I, on paper, I looked like very mature. I was at seminary, right? So I'm like in graduate school, right? I, I'd graduated college a few years already and I've been working for a little bit, and I'm like, OK, I have this clear calling from the Lord to go prepare myself to shepherd God's people, right?

  So like all of these things like on paper, I should be mature. And then the season 6 premiere of The Office came out. And in the cold open, if you're not familiar with the show The Office, that has like these little like cold opens where it's like not really about the rest of the story, it's just a silly little little thing that the characters do. In this cold open, and if you watch The Office, then you may know it, if you don't, then it's OK, it's on YouTube. I did look at it and watch it again. they, they, Michael, Dwight and Andy are like jumping around the Dunder Mifflin offices yelling parkour, parkour, and they're like jumping. Like in boxes and they're jumping like over desks and, and all this, and they're like filming each other on the little handy cams, it's like hilarious. And like they're doing things that like it should really not happen in real life, which naturally my mind goes, hey, we should do this in real life.

  And so like a few of me and like some of my floormates that lived on campus up in Hamilton. And I'm like hopping around and we're getting ready to go to the store, yeah, but we're like kind of walking down the hallway we're like hardcore parkour, we're like jumping over stuff and I have this brilliant idea. I see like a, you know, like a, like a wall, like the, the corner. I'm like, oh, like hardcore parkour would try to run around the corner because that's what hardcore parkour would do. And so we're like walking down the see the corner I'm like parkour parkour, and I run and I'm like put my foot here cause I'm thinking like I am like a parkour expert because I've watched this parkour's like old at this point. It's like, it's like back now, but back then it was like, oh this is dated.

  Anyway, so like I went and I put my foot and the moment that my foot breaks through the drywall. My mind, and as like my body falls to the ground, I go, you know, I should probably be better than this. I should probably be further along. In fact, I literally said that to my friends, and they were just like, they, they were just like, no, it's not that serious, but like in my mind I really had this like, this, this like wave of self-reflection instantly hits me, and I go, yeah, probably, probably you know, a little bit further along here. And the reason I bring that other than I think it's, it's, it's like funny for like if I was, if it's like a TV show, hilarious, right, obviously. But like in real life there's like the, oh yeah, man, I, I need to, I need to kind of, again, my mind's like I need to grow up, is what I thought. I'm not gonna lie, it was, it was, it was, in hindsight, it's hilarious. I think it's very, very funny, and this is in the grand scheme of all things, it's not the worst bit of immaturity that one can experience and do.

  But I do think that being immature is, is kind of how it's very normal, right? Like we expect little kids to be a certain way, right? But it's really that, like when, when, when little kids or, or younger people do like silly things, it's because they don't know any better, right? That's a part of growing up, that's like totally natural, totally normal. But eventually you reach a point where immaturity is not like funny anymore. It's sort of like, oh, that's a sign of something. There's, there's something here where you are not where exactly you should be, and then maybe as you reach that level of expected maturity, that you should maybe be moving to something more significant, right?

  And, and really that's where the, the beginning of this passage goes to, right? And this passage, the author is looking at these believers and talking. To these believers who've been following Jesus for long enough, and, and, and he, he, he or she, again, we don't know who, who the author is, the author is saying, Giving this whole background about Jesus in comparison to Melchizedek, and it brings us to our passage today. It's literally an aside, the author wants to continue going, giving deeper theological insights so that they can understand better and, and live it out, but just because the author's like so held back by this, they have to give this whole section in the middle of this comparison of Jesus and Melchizedek, which is a deep theological, you know, concept which. I'm not gonna try to tackle and, and I feel like Fletcher's talked about it for a couple of weeks now and I, I think he's gonna do it. If, if not, then someone else, pray for them, cause it's, it's, it's an interesting thing.

  But I, I want us to really think about, this concept, and I'm gonna pray for us one more time, but I, in the passage, I think we see a, a few things and, and I'll list it out just so that we can kind of track along here. I think we're gonna see the importance of a firm corrective, firm corrective word. And then I think we're gonna see the danger of spiritual immaturity, and then I think we're gonna see the result of spiritual maturity. Like what happens when we move beyond immaturity into maturity. And so, let me pray for us just really quickly, one more time, and then, we're gonna dive into this passage.

  Let's pray. Father God, I'm sure many times you look at us, and you look at the silly things that we get ourselves into, and there are times, yeah, where maybe you chuckle, you think like we look at a little kid getting into something and you go, oh yeah, you're, you're, you're not there yet. I got this passage is any indication, there are moments where we are doing things that we should probably have already learned at this point. And God, I know that that can feel heavy, that can feel like a, a condemnation, that can feel like an attack. But God, help us to look through this passage to understand your role in this, our role in this, and, and what we can expect for those who move from milk to solid food. And so we thank you that you are here with us, and you move amongst us, and you've been bringing us to this moment to hear your word. So help us hear her word, hear your word well, and pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

  OK, so again, the context is that as we've been following along, the author is giving this theological breakdown of Melchizedek and Jesus, and in this, in the middle of it, we get to verse 11, which says, about this we have much to say about Jesus and Melchizedek. And it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. Right, it's like it's like they're saying something, and they're like, oh this is so good, and they're like, oh wait, no, I, I can't go on because honestly, you wouldn't get it. You don't, you don't understand it. You've become dull of hearing, and the word dull of hearing is actually better translated lazy, right? Or, or, or like careless, or, or sluggish, right? And and so there's actually an, there's, there's an attribution of responsibility. Now you, you have, you've become dull of hearing, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second.

  And then the, the author continues, for though by 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. Right? And this isn't, this isn't the author like heaping on and being cruel and being mean. This is truly pastoral love that like refuses to let their sheep go on the wrong way. It's like I, I, there is so much good for you here to you to understand this, but I, because you don't understand it, I need you to get right. I need you to understand this. And so the author is making it clear that the readers of this letter are not where they're supposed to be, and because the author loves them. Their spiritual misalignment does not go unquestioned. It's addressed directly. And honestly, difficult things are said.

  This is not something that feels very comfortable, probably to the, the author here in the same way that it probably doesn't feel comfortable for many of us if we're thinking maybe there's a, a name, a face that's coming into our mind of someone we like, we feel like we need to tell them that they're not living right, that they're not doing the right thing, and we go, I don't know, I don't, maybe 2027 is the year we're gonna have that conversation. And I think that's honestly probably the right attitude, right? I, I don't think if, if we have this, this desire to like call the flaws in every single brother and sister that we at our CGs are in service, that's probably a different sermon for like a different day. but there, we shouldn't have this incredible like eagerness to sort of do this.

  But I think regardless of how hesitant we may feel, I think a firm corrective word. It's almost always useful. Right, again, done out of love, not out of cruelty, not out of, you know, self-righteousness.

  Here's an illustration. And this is why I think it's actually very useful. A, a, a firm corrective word can be useful every single time. raising two boys, I have two sons, they're, they're littler, well, you know, relatively speaking, but raising two boys means that the bathroom is always an adventure. if you have two boys, you were raised with brothers, and you may know what I mean, it's usually a mess. and one of the, the formative experiences of, of, of raising two sons is teaching them to use a urinal. you're Calvin, this seems unhinged. Like, where are you going? Just hang on, and, and, because like when, when little boys are learning to use the bathroom, like they, again, maybe your children are different, or maybe you were raised differently, but mine tend to wait till like the last minute when they're little, they're, they're older, much more mature now, but when they were little they would run to the bathroom just, just like pants, underwear down, they're just like. Like there's just like it's like a game for them, right?

  And so usually that, that ends up being very, very messy and like, so dropping trou, pants, and underwear to straight to the ground is like fine at home. Like that's whatever you get very used to that in, in a, in a boy home, maybe a girl home. I don't know, I can't can't, that's not my experience, but certainly with boys that's very normal, and then maybe it's like if you're in public, maybe like the, the, the enclosed toilet is fine for that. But when the enclosed toilet is not available, but your kid is doing the, I really need to go daddy, feeling, and you, you look at the, the, the urinal, you go. OK, this is where we're gonna, we're, this is when we're gonna do it. And, and. Kid's gonna go Just completely exposed on the backside and go to the bathroom. And if you walked into the bathroom, and most people who sit there, they go, oh, it's fine, it's a little kid, like, well it's not a big deal, like, we understand, they're learning, like that's appropriate for where they're at.

  But now imagine if you will. A grown man in a bathroom, like at a urinal, on their phone, checking ESPN or Twitter or whatever they're looking at, trou dropped completely, bare bottom exposed, and you're, there's like this. You, if you walked in and you'd just be like, nope, like I'm out of here, especially if you don't know them, but if you do know them, you just still back away. You're just like, no, this is, I don't, I, I don't know you like that. I don't want to know you like that. But you'd probably like say something. You're probably like, dude. Like, I don't think this is what you should be doing, like, what are you thinking? Like this feels a little inappropriate for you, like, and if you don't feel comfortable, maybe like, hey, listen, listen. I need help with our dear brother. Well, what is it, it sounds really serious. I went into the bathroom and like their pants were all the way around their ankles and they, and it's just like, OK, yeah, we should, we should really think of a way to like say something to our friend here.

  The reason I say this, it's a very silly, I understand this, it's a very silly example. But like it's, it's actually a really good picture of when we let our brothers and sisters continue in error. Imagine if you see it and you just let it go, you're like, that's not my concern. That's not that I'm just, I'm just gonna see, I'm gonna look around whenever they in the, the pews on service, and I'm gonna make sure that I'm not going to the bathroom until they come sitting back down. Right? But that's what it's like. We said, you know, it, it's, it, I don't, I don't, that's not my problem. I don't wanna, I don't wanna deal with that. It feels too uncomfortable to talk about. Hm But living in community with fellow believers should welcome an openness to speak and hear a firm corrective word. Would that be embarrassing? Would that be an uncomfortable conversation to have? Absolutely. But would it be useful? Would it correct our dear friend? Absolutely.

  And for the community around this person, the brothers and sisters who surround the person who is in error or is not where they should be. The us as brothers and sisters around them, are the spiritual siblings surrounding them. Should feel a sense of responsibility to say something. Again, not out of self-righteousness, not out of cruelty, but out of love. We need to say something when we see our spiritual siblings down a path we don't think is where God wants them to be. And it's not comfortable. I said that, and I get it. And it, it honestly, I don't think we should be too eager to do it. But then if it, the natural inclination is for that to feel uncomfortable, well, how do we become a little bit more comfortable with doing?

  We're gonna pick up a couple of passages outside of this passage, but I think it's illuminating here. Ephesians 4:15 tells us that we should speak the truth and love to one another, which means on the other side of that is that we must also welcome hearing these truths. It shouldn't just be one-sided conversations where we're calling things out. There should be an openness to hear the correction from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Matthew 7:5 famously tells us to take the logs out of our, our eyes before pointing out the specks in the eyes of our spiritual siblings. I think that's really, really helpful. Before we begin to contra criticize or critique or correct our brothers and sisters of Christ, we must do the personal self-assessment first. Where am I in my spirituality? Where am I in my holiness? Where am I in connection with God? is there something that's blinding me that I need to handle first before I call out my brother or sister?

  It's not something that should happen lightly, but it should happen. Because if and when we don't live in this way, at least two things happen. First, it's gonna be just brief here, and then the second one is gonna be the second point we have here. The first thing is, we rob ourselves of relational depth. A commentator I came across that when people submerge their true feelings in order to preserve harmony, they undermine the integrity of a relationship. They buy peace on the surface, but underneath there are hurt feelings, troubling questions and hidden hostilities just waiting to erupt. It's a costly price to pay for cheap peace, and it inevitably leads to inauthentic relationships.

  Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not what Christ died for. Jesus did not suffer on the cross so we could have fake relationships. Those were well within our grasp, apart from redemption. It's a lot more to say here, but again, it's probably not for this sermon. And here's the 2nd thing. We're gonna focus here on our 2nd point. When we live in a way where we buy peace on the surface. We stunt our spiritual growth. We may even let sin grow and spread. Because this is what the author here is addressing. In what, what I'm calling self-inflicted spiritual immaturity. I'm gonna read verses 11 through 13 1 more time here.

  Verse 11. About this we have much to say, and it is 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 basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk. Not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the world of righteousness, since he is a child. From this passage, we can understand this concept of self-inflicted spiritual immaturity as. Not like failing to learn new theological truths, as if we're collecting Pokemon cards of theology, right? It's really a refusal to live out the truths we already know. Right?

  Verse 13, the word unskilled is probably better translated as inexperienced or lacking the experience to do something. Right, and in this case, it's, it's someone who did not have the experience of hearing God's word and applying it to their lives. Again, this is not a lack of head knowledge that they didn't study all the systematic theology that's out there. That's not what this is about, but this is unapplied truths resulting in misaligned and sinful living. They already received the milk, and again, it says that we need to, oh you need to again go back to milk. I need to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. It's like you already heard it. You should know it by now, but you don't. So let's go back to the beginning. Right?

  So it's again, it's not more head knowledge, it's unapplied head knowledge, unapplied theology, unapplied teaching. And I, I call it self-inflicted because in verse 11 we see it says, since you have become dull of hearing, right, since you have become lazy or sluggish or careless, right, they basically it's saying this is self-inflicted. You did this to yourself. You have become, you have put yourself in the state of laziness, of sluggishness, of carelessness, of not caring. The signals of regression. So we, we invested in you, we taught you, and you put yourself, you didn't apply it, and you put yourself in this state of being dull of hearing.

  The author so desperately wants the readers to break out of the state because there is a lot here, there's a lot at stake. I think that there's like a, a natural complacency when it comes to spiritual growth. Like. It's like not a, it feels like it's not a big deal if I don't spiritually grow. Like like spiritual maturity like feels like, you know, oh sorry, spiritual immaturity feels like neutral. Like yeah, I believe in Jesus. I prayed a prayer once, I'm good, right? Like I don't need like the the discipleship or spiritual maturity is like for those who wanna get like their graduate level Christianity. Right? It's like I, I want, they want like the, the, the spiritual PhD. It's like nah, that it's not me, I'm good. I, I'm happy where I'm at here. If I just get through the, the, the finish line, I'm content. You know, but, but it, it, this is not an OK option for Christ followers to continually feed off milk alone.

  And, and so, it really made me think of something I learned really, really recently,. I grew up, I'm Chinese, so I grew up, you know, we ate a lot of rice, and, and 11 of my chores growing up was, when I got home from school, I had to put the rice on, and whenever I put the rice on, I noticed that there's a, there's like either there's two lights, and there's like the cooking light, and then there's the keep warm. Light if you, if you have a rice cooker, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, it's cool. I'm happy to show you. You can Google it or whatever. And I thought the keep warm option was like, oh, that's like very convenient because I get home around like 3 and I cook it and it's done like I don't know, 3:40, 4 o'clock or whatever, how long it took. And then it could just stay warm, so we don't have to microwave it when, when dinner time comes around like 5:30, 6 or whatever, whatever, whenever we're eating. And I thought that's really convenient, great. Not until very recently did I learn that the keep warm function was actually not just a convenience,.

  Actually, I, rice actually naturally contains like bacteria spores. I don't know if you knew this. And so when it's cooked, actually the, the spores can, do not die. Like, the reason you cook meat to a certain temperature is because the FDA says at this temperature, all germs, all bacteria, whatever in it will be dead. But in rice that doesn't actually happen. There is this very, very fine line of space of temperature of rice that happens where those spores are not as active. But if you let it cool at room temperature, those bacteria, please don't turn, I don't wanna turn you off to rice forever,. But, but I would hopefully turn you off from, from letting it cool to room temperature.

  But when you let it cool to room temperature, those, that bacteria, those spores grow and grow and grow, and so if you let it sit out after dinner. Like, at a cool temperature, and then you go, put a cap on it, put it in the, the, the, the, the, the fridge, you think you're safe. You think you're safe. It's actually, you eat it and actually if you look at rice, food poisoning, it comes at the top of many lists. It's just most people don't realize that if, if you let it cool to a certain temperature, those bacteria continue to grow. Yeah, this is, this is really why I'm up here this morning. I'm, I'm an FDA plant to tell you all to, to make sure you heat the rice, adequately. And so again, you can't reheat it cause if you reheat it, the, the heat does not do anything for this bacteria. So if you feel like, oh, this is nice and like warm and hot, nope. It's dangerous. and I didn't know this until very, very, like very recently,.

  And so, you know, the problem isn't that the rice was bad to begin with, right? The problem is that it was never handled the way it was meant to be handled. Does that make sense? Like it wasn't eaten, it just sat there. It wasn't consumed. It wasn't taken to the body. It wasn't applied for nutrition. Into us And over time, what should have been consumed the right way was left alone, unable to nourish us and and possibly become harmful. And this is a picture of what this passage is warning us about. God's word is, is good, it's life-giving. Learning theology, understanding the scriptures, it's good. We want to do that. But when we hear truth. And we don't act on it. When we hear theology, when we hear sermons, when we read Bible studies, when we read books, when we listen to podcasts about the Christian life, and we go, mmm, OK, that's good.

  It's like you cook it and you hit the cancel on the keep warm button. Maybe you won't get sick, maybe you'll be OK when you eat it in a couple of hours or tomorrow. Or maybe you're gonna eat it, and you're gonna be on the toilet. Experiencing something that you just don't understand. The rice was warm. And so Truth doesn't just stay neutral. Right? When we hear these things, it just, it isn't neutral. Actually, it can lose its effect and then dilute it over time. A, a, a theological concept, not properly understood and applied, can be incredibly dangerous.

  And I, I, I don't have to go very far to help us think of ideas of how that is applied. Whether in our own lives. Or in, in, in the, the world, in our country, it's looking at the churches that make the news. And so, the, the, the author saying you've become dull of hearing is not because God has stopped speaking, but because truth has been repeatedly heard and never lived. The truth has just been sitting unconsumed. For too long.

  And so, hopefully, friends, brothers and sisters of Christ, we are feeling the sense of where we want to grow. Spiritual immaturity is not an OK option for followers of Christ. We should want to move from spiritual immaturity to spiritual maturity, to move to growth. Because remaining spiritually immature actually blocks a deeper understanding of God. Actually dampens his voice, and, and, it, it kind of, dulls our understanding of Him, His will, and what he's doing in the world and in our lives.

  Verse 11, again, we have to go back to this. This is about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain because you have become dull of hearing. And so spiritual maturity is a goal, is the goal for all followers of Christ. It might not look the same for everyone. The timing of it may be different, the experience of it may be different, but it is what we should be aiming for. So, I'm, again, I wanna be clear, I'm not saying understanding more Bible trivia. But it's applying the things that you hear. Into your life And I think That when we go through life, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit more in this, this last point here.

  When things happen in our lives and it feels unfair or unjust or incongruent with the idea of a God who is good and all powerful. Then I think if we've been dulled in our hearing for a long time. Maybe we're struggling. Because, not because God is unjust, not because God is unloving, but because We're not hearing him. And what he's trying to do, and what he's trying to show us about who he is and who we are in relation to him. And this, yes, inevitably leads some people to walk away from their faith. But I also think it leads to for people to live a lukewarm faith. You know, going to church becomes a social activity or a cultural thing. And we walk in these walls and we raise our hands and we raise our voices. And like, like Fletcher was saying, we, we, you know, there, there are experiences where people just, just have the appearance of following Jesus. And then we walk out those walls, and it's business as usual.

  And so you know, like, and we'll talk more about this, but you know, I, maybe we're struggling. Because we're remaining spiritually mature. Cause I think that for spiritual maturity, the verse 14 really helps us understand what it means to be mature. Verse 14 says, but solid food is for the mature. Sorry, excuse me, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So having spiritual maturity means having the skills and being equipped with them to face life. Discerning how to make the right choices to move forward, a commentator I said said this people who are ready for quote solid food are people who are skilled in the word of God's justice, people who have had their spiritual, intellectual and emotional faculties trained by experience and practice to tell good from evil.

  And so I, I think that unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it, to really understand where we are in terms of our spiritual maturity. It can happen when things are easy. It can. It can be, it can be easy to be kind when people are kind, right? It can be a lot easier to be generous when we get a big bonus, when we have an abundance, right? It, it can be, easier to like. You know, not be, be tempted to. Be overly controlled when everything is going our way. But I think in those, in good times, there is its own struggle, absolutely.

  But I think that spiritual maturity really is tested in the crucible. I think spiritual maturity is living in accordance to God's will when things are challenging, when things are difficult. And I just wanna say grief and struggle are not automatic signs of immaturity. just let me be clear, that if, if you are having a hard time with something in life, does that mean like, this is not me hitting you with, you know, uh, the, the cane of, of, you know, discipline, being like, you, you need to stop being spiritually mature. No, I think that there is a time and a place for those things. But I think deeper theological understanding and applied theology. Should expedite this process. Should make it a little bit easier to do so. Right, so, so I think that when we live in this way.

  It really makes me think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. You can see this image of Christ knowing that his end is coming and it is as we read his prayer, it says. Father, if this, if you can let this cup pass, let it pass. Right, so there, it's very clearly. He's in the struggle. I mean, you read it, you can see how much he's suffering there. He says, Father, please, like, if this is possible for this to go, please take it away. But he goes, but not my will, but yours. And if there's someone who's incredibly spiritually mature, I think Jesus checks that box off. And that's not to say that we can live it perfectly like Jesus, and I'm not saying that he's our role model, but in a way we can see with this model for us. And so when we suffer, when we go through difficulty, not having all the answers, not understanding, not being able to control our situation. And we pray and we ask God, God, please take this away. I do not like this. I do not want this. Father, please. But we go God, not my will. But yours.

  That is Christ-likeness embodied. He suffered injustice. Sometimes we may suffer injustice, but sometimes it's a, a, it's an injustice that we cause on ourselves. You know, he struggled for us. And yes, maybe our struggle is the responsibility of someone else. But just as likely we're struggling because of us, because of something that we do, because of the decisions that we made, because the actions that we took. In I hope that we can do that. And, and, and we're gonna talk about hope in, in a bit. But I think that that's the starting point for spiritual maturity. Is asking ourselves, where are we? How have we responded to the difficulties that we're facing? Do we like look for like answers? Yes, that's good. But do we start to, to blame? Do we start to point fingers, whether at other people or whether at God? Cause you live long enough, you're gonna go through something. You're gonna go through some difficulty. In yourself, in your family, in your work.

  But as you acquire that spiritual maturity, there's another thing that points to spiritual maturity here. When we see it in verse 12. For though by this time, you ought to be teachers. Baked into spiritual maturity is an outward focus. That we acquire what we need. We, we have a deeper understanding of God for our own lives so that we can just keep it to ourselves, but so that we can go and share it with other people. Share it with the next generation of believers, whether it's the next generation age-wise or the next generation of those who don't know Jesus yet. And so this is not a call to go ring the doorbell of every single one of your neighbors in your apartment building. I mean, that's what that's what the spirit's moving you to, then, then. More power to you.

  But it really starts with you understanding where are you with God? How do you understand what he is doing? Do you have a deeper insight into where he is leading you? And it's not gonna be perfect, but with the amount of maturity that you've gained, are you sharing that maturity with the people in your CG? Are you, are you signing up to, to go be a part of COA Kids and sharing your deeper theological insights to them? Are you going and telling your coworkers, your neighbors who are maybe open to hearing or maybe not so open to hearing, but you're building those bridges to hear these deeper understanding of who God is and what he's doing in your life.

  And so I hope, I hope you guys grasp what spiritual maturity looks like. But if you unders if we understand that, and we're we're kind of tracking along here. I think the natural question is, well then how do we gain spiritual maturity, right? This sounds good, Calvin. Like, maybe you're like, sign me up. What's, what's the, what's the program? What's the book I can buy? I, I'm not selling a book. I'm not selling video. I'm not, again, FDA sent me, you know what I mean? Like not, not, not Lifeway or whatever. How do we gain spiritual maturity? I think we should see this in, in 6:1 here. It says, therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. And so let us leave the elementary doctrine it's not like, look, you understood basic level like theology, and then now we need to like move on.

  Again, it's, it's about applied theology. Understanding what you need to understand, what God is putting before you, not letting it go from one ear to the other, but actually living it out. Messages you hear from Fletcher and from those who are, are sharing God's word here. Again, podcasts, wherever you're consuming content that hopefully guides you. But then it says to move on to the next thing.

  And this is so fun. I hadn't thought about this in, in a long time. it's like this. In college, it was the PlayStation 2 days, so listen here, young whippersnappers,. I remember one of my friends bought a, the PlayStation magazine, and back in the day, before downloadable content, they would give out demo discs. Basically, through this magazine, you'd have a like a small PlayStation 2 disc, and we put it in, and there was one playable demo on it and it was this game called Sly Cooper. You're all too young to know this game, that's cool. I remember, but so but the thing about the demo disc is they are, you only get like one or two levels. It's not the full game, right? But like we had never played anything really like it, we, and so me and my floor. We like played it like on repeat and we like we first I kind of struggled with it and then like we we we we started playing a little bit better and we got a little bit better and we all got really good to the point where we started tracking times, who had the fastest Sly Cooper run, and so we would track it and we would kind of see and we just play it over and over and over. We knew where all the coins were, we knew where all the power ups were, we knew it back and forward, right?

  And, and, At the end of the demo, right, it, it gives you like, it's like kind of fades to black and has this like almost a little trail of like, look what are the cool things you can do when you buy the full game, cause that's the point of the demos that gets you excited about the game, so you're gonna spend money and buy it. But I will tell you that my friends and I, though collectively we probably could have afforded it. We did not buy Sly Cooper. At all. We just kept playing this one demo disc over and over and over again, and I tell you, listen, if you don't know what it is, it's on YouTube, oh my gosh, it was Memerberries, no no no no no, no, it was fantastic, just remembering all of that.

  And when we cling to our spiritual immaturity, it's like that. We're good at the one thing, you know. Again, I'm not trying to judge people's like prayer lives or spiritual lives, but it's like, it's like. The prayers that we pray, the things that we know about God. are what Like little kids would know. And then again, that's the, if, if that's where you're at in terms of your maturity, that's fine, that is totally appropriate. Let me be 100% clear there. But if you've been walking with Christ long enough, And your theology is still. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Then maybe we should be opening up our ears. Undulling our hearing, to hear. The next level. And not just keep playing the same level over and over and over and over again and feeling like we are good at following Jesus when we're just playing a demo disc and robbing ourselves of a deeper understanding, a deeper satisfaction of what God has for us. Because of our refusal to move forward. A refusal to seek spiritual maturity.

  God is calling us not just to intellectually understand foundational doctrines. And there are here, here in the passage and I didn't want to get into all that. But he does lay this, it's not just understanding these things, but to incorporate them into our lives, and then move on to the next things that God is opening our eyes to, and nudging us towards, and pushing us towards. This passage passage really calls us to grow up. So we can see Jesus more clearly. You know, again, spiritual maturity does not mean that we stop believing in Jesus. It means deepening our relationship with Him. Spiritual maturity means understanding him more, rather than we keep replaying the same truths and the same ideas.

  When spiritual maturity recognizes that Christ is inviting us into a fuller understanding of him, a fuller, deeper relationship with him, and understanding of his work, his will. And so, friends. Is God calling you to practice trusting him, obeying him, discerning your life situation, the decisions that you have to make. And so maybe some of you are in this space now. Where the suffering doesn't make sense. Maybe the situation that you're in is God, why, why is this? God, if I obey you, I'm gonna lose. If I follow how you are, I'm gonna have to let go of power. I'm gonna have to let go of control, I'm gonna have to let go of my reputation, I'm gonna have to let go of all of these things. And maybe he's not.

  But if God is there, and God is calling you to let go. And to invite him to drive your life and not you, and your desire for things, for people, for, for whatever. Then I, I think that God is calling you to a more mature, more grown up, more no exposed backside at a urinal type of faith. And, and, and a couple more thoughts, and then I'm gonna end here.

  Verse 3, I love what verse 3 says cause it really ends with this kind of like a quiet hope, it's in a, in a verse that could be really thrown away. It says, in this we do. If God permits. All of this could be taken from you need to be harder on yourself, you need to be more disciplined, you need to download an app, you need to, whatever. And, and, and if that's useful for you, then, then great, good. But I love this because at the end of the day. It tells us that God is the one in control. We live in submission to him, but we do the understanding that God wants his people to grow. He wants you to grow, he wants me to grow. He wants us to mature. And he wants us to understand our growth doesn't rest on our strength alone.

  When Christ died on the cross, it wasn't just a ticket to heaven. It wasn't just a, thank you Jesus, I get to be with you and not face eternal damnation. It's a new restored self, a new restored understanding, an identity in him. And so with that new identity with the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can actually live in this way. You know, because Christ did not die just to forgive us, he died to transform us, to restore us, and yes, it is in in shadows and glimpses now, but a day is coming because of that, where we will experience that fully. But until that day comes, brothers and sisters in Christ, may you welcome spiritual maturity in all the forms that takes.

  But no, you are not alone. Yes, you have us. Yes, you find, go. February comes, hop into a CG please. Find brothers and sisters who can support you in it, who you can talk to them about the things that you're wrestling with. To be the person that we, we pulled the logs out and pulled the point the specs out lovingly. But most importantly, even if we were stranded on a remote island by ourselves, we are still not alone. Because Christ's work, death on the cross, resurrection. Wins us a new humanity, a new self. So let's pray as we get ready to close our service.

  Father God, I'm just so grateful that you can take the spiritually immature and give space for us. Help us to remind us that there's an appropriate level of understanding of, of you that grows. And God, if that's where we are, if we're new to the faith or we're just trying to understand who Jesus is, or maybe we're trying to understand who you are in this moment now, God, then then then God please may your spirit relieve us of, of, of self-inflicted guilt that's not from the Holy Spirit. But God, if, if there are some of us who are feeling guilt, then it's not because of us, but it's because your Holy Spirit is, is poking holes in our understanding, and poking holes in the idols in our lives, God, then would we learn to embrace that? Because God, maybe you're calling us to a deeper, more mature understanding and a relationship with you. So if that is us, God, be there with us, guide us, empower us. Through the blood of Christ, and it's in his name that we pray, Amen.