Destination Maturity!!!!!!!!!!
Here is Pooh Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.4
As someone once put it, if you have time to get it wrong you have time to get it right. Although Pooh Bear cannot do anything but be pulled downstairs on his head, we can make small changes. Although these changes may seem insignificant at first, it is the constant implimentation of small changes that often usher in the miraculous changes.
The results may not be statistically significant, but they may mean that we see fewer bruises.
Hebrews chapter 6 has been one of the most discussed passages of the bible in scripture.
Sometimes in our christian walk we may feel we are bumping our heads down the stairs - there has got to be a better way!!!
hebrews chapter 6 points towards a better way of getting up and down the stairs of life.
With this in mind I want to ask a question this morning of this scripture.
The question is what does it have to teach us that will help us to live
Closer to Christ?
What is in it that will motivate us to reconfigure our christian lives in such a way that we don’t bang our heads on the stairs?
Of course the reason that Pooh bear banged his head on the stairs was, that he was carried down the stairs by Christopher Robin who was an infant - in the words of the previous chapter he was still on milk not on solid foods - again speaking in picture terms.
There are three moments in this chapter that want to encourage us to move forward in our Christian lives.
This morning I want to look at these three great moments and to ask - What is it that God would have us know? And then, What would God have us do about it in our lives?
HEB 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ The therefore of Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 1 relates to the passage before it which said:- HEB 5:11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews six goes on to say HEB 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
I have been involved in building a number of small buildings in my time. Anyone who has seen my workmanship would call it adequate but not great. My son who normally works for a builder would be less kind. But one thing I have learned is that you have to get the foundations right. Certain basic things have to be done before you can move on to the framing and structure of the building itself.
In the childrens book called Alice in Wonderland there is a scene I would like to read to you in the second chapter entitled The Queens Croquet - Ground.
A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!’
`I couldn’t help it,’ said Five, in a sulky tone; `Seven jogged my elbow.’
On which Seven looked up and said, `That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!’
`You’d better not talk!’ said Five. `I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!’
`What for?’ said the one who had spoken first.
`That’s none of your business, Two!’ said Seven.
`Yes, it is his business!’ said Five, `and I’ll tell him--it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.’
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all the unjust things--’ when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
`Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are painting those roses?’
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to--’ At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out `The Queen! The Queen!’ and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.
The problem for these gardeners is that they hadn’t got the basics right. Instead of getting on with what they were meant to do as the Queen’s gardeners they were painting the white roses red to cover up the fact that they hadn’t got the foundations of the garden planted correctly.
As Christians we are instructed to leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. The only way that we can do this is to make sure that we have got it right in the first place. If the gardeners in the little story get on with gardening but leave the roses that are meant to be red, white.Then when the Queen comes along she won’t look at what they are doing and commend them for it - instead she will question the right to be gardeners because the roses are the wrong colour.
Of course the Queen is likely to call out, " off with their heads."
This all sounds a bit fanciful until you realise that this too is a problem in the Christian church.
Why is it that so many Christian leaders get into serious trouble? Because they do not get the foundations right - they should be moving onto maturity, and attempt to, but gradually there emerges a difficulty that is evident to everyone who knows the person. This thing or that emerges as a major fault and it is an incorrect foundational truth in their lives. I haven’t checked out the technical details of this but imagine a ship coming from Australia to New Zealand and making a five degree error in it’s calculations. The result would be it ending up in Antarctica and the frozen south rather than landing in God’s own. The leaning tower of Pisa is a picture of what happens when the foundations aren’t right and note that a mistake made all those years ago still affects things today. Why is it that so many christian’s do not lay a great foundation? Surely it has a lot to do with what a man called Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes as cheap grace. "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves........the preaching of forgiveness without requiring forgiveness, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship...........
"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock..........
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. " You see painting roses will not do. There are things in our lives which need uprooted and replaced - changes which need to be made that are incredibly radical.
Our passage begins by saying Therefore leave the elementary teachings about Christ. Shortly Heather and I are going to Queensland - but we can’t leave until we have sorted out our travel details etc - If we want to grow and indeed live as Christian disciples then there are some basics that we need to get right but also keep right.
Having warned the Hebrews very carefully about getting their foundations right and warning about the dangers of not doing this the author moves on to encourage believers:-
HEB 6:9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.
The central word to this section of Hebrews has to be encouragement.
This word is built on the shoulders of what could be a serious warning or discouragement
Where we just read:- HEB 6:4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
This serious warning has been the cause of much discussion in the Christian community for many years. But Hebrews chapter 6 having made the point moves onto more positive matters.
The central theme of Hebrews chapter 6 is often lost because of the distraction of important side matters. But there is momentum here. Heb 6 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
These people have practically worked out their faith. They have demonstrated the love they have for Christ by helping God’s people and continuing to care for them in an ongoing way.
Sometimes you may feel that you did something for God and no body noticed.
Sometimes you might feel that, in a particular area of your ministry - nobody notices.
But God notices.What is more when you do something for folk who are God’s people it is significant.
Jesus once said:-
MK 9:39 "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.
God wants the people who bear his name to reflect his character.
If we want to be sure of our salvation we need to reflect God’s character.
Friends we live in a society that is crying out for God’s people to reflect his character. There has never been a better time for the light of Christ to shine - because the candle shines brightest in the dark.
It is amazing what God can do with a heart - inspired by the twin visions of the cross of Jesus Christ and the vision of tending the wounds of an aching world.
You don’t need to be great to do this stuff.
There was once a bartender and busboy at the Bell Inn in Gloucester.
His father died when he was 2 years old, and his mother’s remarriage was not a success. He grew up full of mischief. He drank, he swore and he stole.
This bartender and busboy became a Christian - and by the age of twenty one as an ordinand he had stepped into the pulpit of St Mary de Crypt on June 27 1736 - 33 years later he was dead.
This man once said - "God forbid, that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them, Believe me, I’ m willing to go to prison and to death for you, but I am not willing to go to heaven without you."
(In 1737, when only a twenty-two year old Oxford graduate, George Whitefield’s voice startled England like a trumpet blast. Attacked by clergy, press and mob alike, Whitefield nevertheless became the most popular and influential preacher of the age. At a time when London had a population of less than 700,000, he could hold spellbound 20,000 people at a time at Moorfields and Kennington Common. For thirty four years his voice resounded throughout England and America. A firm Calvinist in creed yet unrivalled as an aggressive evangelist; slim in person yet storming in preaching as if he were a giant; a clergyman of the Church of England yet crossing the Atlantic thirteen times and becoming the ’apostle of the England empire’; a favorite preacher of coal miners and London roughnecks yet an equal favorite of peers and scholars; weak and broken in body yet preaching his last sermon’until the candle which he held in his hand burned away and went out in its socket’; the name of George Whitefield scarce knows a parallel."The most extraordinary man of our times",declared Lord Bolingbroke. "Often as I have read his life", wrote C. H. Spurgeon,"I am conscious of distinct quickening whenever I turn to it. He lived. Other men seemed to be only half-alive; but Whitefield was all life, fire, wing , force.My own model, if I may have such a thing in due subordination to my Lord, is George Whitefield; but with unequal footsteps must I follow in his glorious track."
In his new book, "Five Great Evangelists", John Armstrong writes,"One of the most remarkable evangelists that ever lived, George Whitefield (pronounced Whitfield), impacted the eighteenth century religious scene with such effect that the mark he left still profoundly influences evangelical Christianity...Certainly no English-speaking evangelist has ever preached the gospel with more effect and determination than George Whitefield. Whatever history concludes regarding other great evangelists the amazing life of George Whitefield demonstrates that he belongs with the greatest evangelists of all time. Undoubtedly, he was a massively effective popular preacher. He moved the masses as no-one before him and hardly anyone since. His life is filled with instruction for Christians today." This thorough going Calvinist of whom no school or theology or church bears his name sparked America’s Great Awakening. George Whitefield also in fact the founder of the movement called Methodism and the man whom Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, called his role model. Whitefield’s deep passion for the Gospel and strong doctrinal preaching of the alien righteousness of Christ revealed from faith to faith (Rom 1:17) stirred the hearts of thousands across colonial America. The Church would do well to re-familiarize itself with the life, work and theology of this great man of God. The following articles, stories and sermons are provided with the hope they will help to do just that. Mark A. Noll in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mindwrites, "In many ways, the defining figure in the history of Ameican eangelicalism is the eighteenth-century revivalist George Whitefield. As shown in the splendid recent biography by Harry Stout, Whitefield’s style - popular preaching aimed at emotional response - has continued to shape American evangelicalism long after Whitefield’s specific theology (he was a Calvinist), his denominational origins (he was an Anglican), and his rank (he was a clergyman) are long forgotten. Daniel Pals has well summarized Whitefield’s career: ’The very thing that...accounts for his success [was] a deeply populist frame of mind. Almost every one of Whitefield sermons is marked by a fundamentally democratic determination to simplify the essentials of religion in a way that gives them the widest possible mass appeals.’ As it was in the days of Whitefield, so it has been in the two centuries since. The most visible evangelicals, with the broadest popular influence, have been public speakers whose influence rested on their ability to communicate a simple message to a broad audience.")
Whitfield beautifully summed up the first two points of this sermon in a little incident as he preached from the balcony of the Philadelphia Courthouse, to the thousands gathered on Market and Second streets.
"Father Abraham," He cried, "Whom have you in Heaven? Any Episcopalians?"
"No."
"Any Presbyterians?"
"No"
"Have you any Methodists?"
"No no no!"
"Whom have you there?"
"We don’t know those names here! All who are here are Christians - believers in Christ - men who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of His Testimony."
"Oh, is this the case? Then God help me, God help us all, to forget party names, and to become Christians in deed and in truth."
That is what those points are in Hebrews Chapter 6 - in Deed and in truth. We need to be Christians in Truth get the foundations right.
And we need to be Christians in Deed - our lives should back up the truth.
I met a man the other day who had turned his back firmly on Christ and on his family.
His life denied what he knew in his heart.
What struck me most when I met him was not so much his reduced circumstances.
But what struck me was his eyes - there was a deadness - where once his eyes had sparkled and danced there was now a lifeless stare bereft of - Christ himself and it was a gaze into death itself - such is the contrast between the one who follow s Christ and keeps on following and the one who deviates from the path that Christ would have him follow.
Add to this one other point.
HEB 6:13 When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised
19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure
We need to add to our truth and our deeds
Practising - Patience and Hope.
This passage talks about our hope entering the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. The Hebrews understood what this meant - this meant entering the very presence of God - that is what Jesus has given us an absolute assurance of blessing.
If we are well founded in our faith and in our deeds then there will be fruit.
Some will see it instantly others may wait a long time but blessing will come.
Don’t forget some will not see the blessing in their own lifetime but they will see it.
RO 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
If you are walking in truth and not delusion if you are acting out of love for God then there will be fruit but you may not see it in your own lifetime but you will see it.
There was a guy called William Carey.
Carey was born in a small thatched cottage in Paulerspury, a typical Northamptonshire village in England, August 17, 1761, of a weaver’s family. When about eighteen he left the Church of England to "follow Christ" and to "... At first he joined the Congregational church at Hackleton where he was an apprentice shoemaker. It was there he married in 1781. And it was in Hackleton he began making five-mile walks to Olney in his quest for more spiritual truth. Olney was a stronghold of the Particular Baptists, the group that Carey cast his lot with after his baptism, October 5, 1783. Two years later he moved to Moulton to become a schoolmaster -- and a year later he became pastor of the small Baptist congregation there.
The more he read and studied, the more convinced he was "the peoples of the world need Christ." He read, he made notes, he made a great leather globe of the world and, one day, in the quietness of his cobbler’s shop -- not in some enthusiastic missionary conference -- Carey heard the call: "If it be the duty of all men to believe the Gospel ... then it be the duty of those who are entrusted with the Gospel to endeavor to make it known among all nations." And Carey sobbed out, "Here am I; send me!"
To surrender was one thing -- to get to the field was quite another problem. There were no missionary societies and there was no real missionary interest. When Carey propounded this subject for discussion at a ministers’ meeting, "Whether the command given to the apostles to teach all nations was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent," Dr. Ryland shouted, "Young man, sit down: when God pleases to covert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine." Andrew Fuller added his feelings as resembling the unbelieving captain of Israel, who said, "If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be!"
But Carey persisted. he later said of his ministry, "I can plod!" And he was a man who "always resolutely determined never to give up on any point or particle of anything on which his mind was set until he had arrived at a clear knowledge of his subject."
Thus Carey wrote his famed Enquiry Into the Obligations of the Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen. In this masterpiece on missions Carey answered arguments, surveyed the history of missions from apostolic times, surveyed the entire known world as to countries, size, population and religions, and dealt with the practical application of how to reach the world for Christ!
And he prayed. And he pled. And he plodded. And he persisted. And he preached -- especially his epoch-producing message, "EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD. ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD."
It was in 1793 that Carey went to India. At first his wife was reluctant to go -- so Carey set off to go nevertheless, but after two returns from the docks to persuade her again, Dorothy and his children accompanied him.
When he died at 73 (1834), he had seen the Scriptures translated and printed into forty languages, he had been a college professor, and had founded a college at Serampore. He had seen India open its doors to missionaries, he had seen the edict passed prohibiting sati (burning widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands), and he had seen converts for Christ.
On his deathbed Carey called out to a missionary friend, "Dr. Duff! You have been speaking about Dr. Carey; when I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey -- speak about Dr. Carey’s God." That charge was symbolic of Carey, considered by many to be a "unique figure, towering above both contemporaries and successors" in the ministry of missions.
Here is Pooh Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.4
As someone once put it, if you have time to get it wrong you have time to get it right.
Check that your foundations are right.
Understand that God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
Practising - Patience and Hope
jgullick@xtra.co.nz
