Immaturity to maturity (Hebrews 5:11-6:3)

7/19/2010 CMC Sunday message

My youngest girl started to take the baby steps; I think in about a month, she will be walking; very soon, we will be chasing after her running away from us.  But, before she can confidently walk, there will be a lot of practice of walking while holding daddy’s and mommy’s hands as well as her older sister’s hands.  I also fully expect that she will fall down more than she has ever done now that she is learning to walk. The wobbly, unbalanced, overly dramatic movements of her body, her wide and awkward gait for better balance, they are all part her learning curve towards maturity in walking. When she gets into her groove, you see fire in her eyes. She won’t settle for crawling; she starts to squeal as though trying to communicate to us to come down to her level and to hold her hands so she can practice walking. It is really funny how she doesn’t get tired of keep trying the same thing over and over again. It really is beautiful thing to watch a child mature.

As Christians, growing, maturing process needs to be a natural part of what it means to be Christians. It ought to evoke a sense of beauty and awe as we watch each other take the steps and run towards growth.

But, unfortunately, for too long, our growth has been stunted. We had been on a spiritual autopilot mode, doing the same thing without much purpose, without getting our hearts, our passion involved, simply living off of yesterday’s spiritual growth, just getting by…

But, God has jolted us out of the autopilot mode for the last year. He has brought the perfect storm to our church and we had to disengage the autopilot mode.

I would compare what we have gone through as a church for the last year as what happened in the movie, The Incredible. Do you remember how Elastigirl had to disengage the autopilot because her plane carrying her children Dash and Violet was about to be shot down by the missiles?  Do you remember the mayhem, the panic?

Not too long ago, the family’s objective was to blend into the rest of the world. They have gone underground. Elastigirl was just a mom trying desperately to hold her family together, Dash was a little boy who just wanted to run as fast he could, Violet was a shy and insecure girl, and Mr. Incredible was miserable, bored out of his mind, constantly day dreaming of what he could be doing. But, their vanilla flavor life as usual came apart when Mr. Incredible answered the call to the life of adventure.

There are quite the similarities between us and the story line. They were jolted out of the comfortable, anonymous, risk free, bland vanilla flavor life into the life of adventure. They were without soul, without passion, but the crises awakened them to the life of mission, the life with purpose.

We no longer have the comfortable suburban church building to hold our services. Now, it takes much more sweat and time just to setup to meet together, but only to take down everything. We no longer can lean on our parents’ generation to take care of us. We cannot any longer hide behind the pretension that everything is okay; no, we have to deal with our fear and fog factors head on. We are out of our comfort zone; we are now in an uncharted and risky territory. But, what we have now that we didn’t have before is that we are on adventure together, we are on a mission together. We lost our passion and soul, but now we see something, perhaps dimly, but still we see our hearts, our souls engaging. God is awakening us to the life of adventure.

That’s what we see in Hebrews 5 and 6. The writer was trying to awaken the Christians out of the immaturity into the maturity, risk free life to the life of adventure to fulfill God’s mission.

Hebrews 5:11-14 explains their immaturity, their stunted growth. Verse 11 says they were slow to learn. It means they became dull and unresponsive to the word of God. It means they had neglected to hear from God’s word and they had stopped believing in his word. They stopped dreaming their lives in God’s promise, in what God can do through them.

And, because they stopped dreaming the life of adventure with God, they saw no leaders emerging out of them; no one was burdened with God’s mission; no one was burdened to teach others to commit to God’s mission; and, because their hearts were not into the mission of God, they were spiritually insensitive and dull; they were unable to choose truly good life instead, life was all about them. Because their souls were not awakened to the mission of God, they could only think of what’s in it for them.

Babies requiring milk requires high maintenance. They are helpless unless someone else feeds them, changes their dirty diapers, and helps them to even sleep. New Christians are like babies that take milk. But, it becomes a weird thing when the grownups still suck down a Sippy cup with milk in it and act like helpless babies needing constant help and attention; instead, maturity should drive them to rigorous training to become contributing members of their society.

Hebrews 6:1-3 continues the same theme, but now focuses on maturity. Maturity means leaving the elementary teachings about Christ and go onto maturity. What were the elementary teachings about Christ? It involved repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of the hands, resurrection, eternal judgment. I don’t think the writer is saying these are no longer important matters for Christians and they don’t need them any more in their lives.

A commentator explains it like this. As a child we learn alphabet and phonics. But, it is not enough for a child to know how to recite alphabets and know their sounds. The knowledge of alphabets and phonics become the building block to the next level of growth. It opens the door for a child to read simple children’s books, but soon a child will be able to read C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series, be able to read the Bible.^[i]

The basic fundamental knowledge and beliefs of Christianity need to produce in us the life of righteousness, the life of vigorous training to discern good from evil, the life of diligence instead of laziness according to Hebrews 6:11-12.

Movement from immaturity to maturity is about moving away from seeking what’s in it for you to what’s in it for God and for others; it is about moving away from your own mission to God’s mission; it is about moving away from what you want to see in your life to what God wants to see in your life and through your life. Immaturity to maturity is about moving away from simply possessing Jesus Christ, claiming him for ourselves to sharing Jesus, proclaiming Jesus.

Have we become people who suck up the knowledge about Jesus Christ, but never bother sharing Christ with anyone? William Fay has phrase for such phenomenon in his book Sharing Jesus without Fear. He calls it spiritual constipation.

• The number one solution to immaturity is put sharing Jesus with non-believers as your top priority; as long as you put sharing Jesus as an option, you will remain a immature Christian who never take any kind of risk for Jesus, who cannot handle being rejection for him, who will continue to deny Jesus with your silence about him.
• Embracing the call to maturity also means you and I share Jesus with each other. We need to live out his gospel, his good news with each other. Jesus said that the world will know that he has sent us by the way we love one another in his love. I got some soul searching to do and you have some soul searching to do in regard to the state of our relationships. We’ve got to step up our effort to love and care for each other.

Sharing Jesus with non-believers, sharing Jesus with each other is what maturity looks like. Is there such thing as a healthy Christian who doesn’t share Jesus Christ? Is there such thing as a successful Christian who doesn’t obey the mandate to share Jesus? Can you be a mature Christian if you read the Bible, if you pray, if you come to church, if you go to life groups/small groups, but you don’t share Jesus?  No, without actively sharing Jesus with others, it is only an illusion to think that we can become healthy, growing, maturing Christian. 

Here is a story about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village. They walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, "Were any great person born in this village?" The old man replied, "Nope, only babies."

We were all born as babies requiring milk, but we are not babies any more, are we? We had to learn alphabets, but we can read great books now, can’t we? For years, having spent a lot of time listening to sermons, reading the Bible, praying, and somehow, have we convinced ourselves we are spiritual healthy? But, are we really healthy? Or, have we simply reduced Jesus as our little savior who exits to make us happy, make us feel good about ourselves? Can we be healthy and mature Christians if we don’t share with others about Jesus our Savior, who went to the cross to be killed in order to give himself for us and for the world?

What practical steps can you take towards maturity?  How can you grow in sharing Jesus with others. 

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^[i] Adeyemo, T. (2006). Africa Bible commentary (1523). Nairobi, Kenya; Grand Rapids, MI.: WordAlive Publishers; Zondervan.