Sunday Morning Service 10:30AM - Hebrews 5:11-14 - Be Mature Pt. 1 - Beware of Immaturity - Pastor R

All right, good morning, church family. Really glad you're here. It's good to see everybody. Glad you guys can make it out. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started.

Father, we come before you this morning. We thank you for allowing us to be in your house this morning, Lord God. We just want to come sit and be in your presence for a little while. Lord, we ask your blessing upon this time. Move by the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord God. Move mightily this morning in our lives. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen. We worship the God who was. We worship the God who is. We worship the God who evermore will be. He opened the prison doors. My God, he opened. Then he rose up from that grave.

We are forgiven.

Let us go.

You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like.

It's a better world. You deserve it. Your blood was me. It's a better world. Thank you for that precious blood that you spilled. That you willingly poured out on the cross for us, Lord. We give you praise and we give you thanks. In the book of Genesis, it speaks about the very first murder that took place. The Cain and Abel story. It says that when Cain spilled out his blood on the ground,

it says that his blood cried out. Cried out to God. In that moment, the blood that was spilled out spoke of judgment. You fast forward a few thousand years, Jesus is hanging on the cross. And he's willingly put himself there and he's pouring out his blood for us. And that blood speak no longer necessarily speaks of judgment, but it speaks of forgiveness for grace and mercy.

It's literally speaking a better word. And so when we sing that, when we sing that chorus, we're singing about, a better word. That that blood pours out and speaks for us. Amen. Peace that outlasts darkness. And hope that's in the blood. There's future grace that's mine today. And Jesus Christ has won. So I can face tomorrow. For tomorrow's in your hands. We thank you for,

for the battle that we know that sometimes we're losing the battle or we know there is victory.

Yes. Look, I let that be our prayer this morning. Lord, teach us to abide in you, to remain in what you bring our way. Lord, just to draw our source of strength, our source of life, our encouragement, a piece from you. We're going to never fail.

I've been failed. In the moment that I wake up,

we never give up. There's nothing wrong with me. I know that. It never failed.

There's nothing wrong with me. Amen. So we just keep you. We just keep you. We just keep you. We just keep you. We just give you praise. We give you thanks. We give you glory. We give you honor for who you are, for how good the life that you give us. To sing of your goodness. Of your grace and your mercy, Lord, God was to sing of your faithfulness. And to give you glory and return that praise to you work.

Or we just thank you so much for who you are. You come back. You come back. for what you've done, for what you're doing in our lives, Lord. And as Pastor Ryan comes this morning, I pray that you would move mightily by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord God, we invite you this morning to come and do something awesome in this place. Do something awesome in our lives.

Lord, remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh so that we may receive that word. We love you, Lord. We praise you and we thank you and all God's people said, amen. Let's take some time and greet one another.

Good morning. You can begin to locate your seats. Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. As always, on the left-hand side are the things that go on throughout the week, so find yourself a spot to get plugged into. Some things in the middle section to pay attention to. There is two spots left, at least there was first service, for the Guatemala trip. Again, we need you signed up

by May 31st. May 3rd, that's next Sunday. So if you're interested in that, all the info is right there. You can get a hold of Jana. Vacation Bible School, is coming up, and so my lovely wife is going to come make an announcement.

...VBS back, so that's very exciting. Mark your calendars. It's June 10th through the 12th from 6 to 8.30 p.m. We'll do a full VBS each night, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That's a little different from what we normally do. We normally have a party with parents last night. We're going to do a full VBS to fit it all in. So it's for kids ages four to fifth grade.

Registration will be out soon. It's not ready yet. So right now, just mark your calendars. And if you want to volunteer to help with VBS, we're going to need a lot of help. So you can see me after the service. I'll be standing in the foyer area with sign up forms. And I think that's it. Thank you.

Also, there's a work day, May the 7th, the 6th from 1 to 3 p.m. That's a Wednesday. So if you're able to make it for that to help us out a little bit, that would be great too. And then also there is, after the service today, there's going to be a Sunday school meet and greet. Now, let me explain how this is going to work. At the very end of the service, we're going to bring all the kids back in

so that your kids can come find you. And then after we sing the last song, your kids will then drag you, I mean, take you down to their classroom and you can meet their teacher. You can ask questions, all that kind of stuff. All that kind of fun stuff and see where their classroom is. And so that's all going to be after the service. Also, out in the lobby, there is a table set up

and we're selling some t-shirts for a little fundraiser. They say reaching in and reaching out, which is kind of our motto here at Calvary Chapel. So all that info is out there in the lobby as well. And then two things that are not in your bulletin that I want to make sure that you know are going on just to keep everybody aware. As you can tell, we are expanding the parking lot.

That all happened a little faster. than we thought that it was going to be. If you parked on the part that just got gravel on it, we'll help pull you out later because that's pretty soft over there. So hopefully nobody got too far into where we just put the gravel down. But again, I'm sure there's guys with large four-wheel drive trucks here that would be happy to help you out.

But soon that gravel will be extended all the way over to where the big pile of dirt is. And that's both to provide more parking as well as prepare for hopefully the future when we build a new sanctuary. So that's going on out there. Also, sometime this summer after VBS, because I love my wife and I don't want her to hate me, we are going to be remodeling the kitchen.

We're going to wait until after VBS so that we don't get in the middle of all that. But new cabinets, new appliances, all that kind of stuff to kind of upgrade things in the kitchen back there. So those are kind of the two big things that are coming up that I want to make sure that you were aware of. So, and then I need to have Jared come up and make a quick announcement about Falls Creek Camp.

All right. First up, first of all, I just want to say thank you to everybody who came out to Pizza Ranch a couple of weeks ago. We did it. We did amazing. We raised about $1,500 to help towards the cost of Falls Creek. So praise God. Yeah, absolutely. A couple of quick things. Falls Creek is coming up pretty quick. It is going to be the last full week of June,

just so June 22nd through the 27th. We'll come back on that Saturday morning. There is a parent packet. Out on the table there, out there where you get your bulletin. So I need you parents, if you're sending a student to Falls Creek, grab one of those for each of your students. There'll be some paperwork that you need to fill out, you know, medical release forms,

just some basic information that the camp needs about your student. And I need that returned to me as soon as possible, along with $100 deposit. So technically, I think I set the due date for the deposit this Wednesday. There's a grace period. So as soon as you can. Okay, so that way I can start getting the students registered and start getting things finalized there.

So very good for our responsive reading this morning. We are going to be in Psalm 146. Look at the New American Standard. If you need a copy, there should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 146, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word.

I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with Pastor Jared in the even versus Psalm 146. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. I will praise the Lord while I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not trust in princes and mortal man in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. And that very day, his thoughts perish.

How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever. Who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry, the Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord protects the strangers. He supports the fatherless and the widow, but he thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. And so, Father, we do declare your praises today. We did so through song. And, Lord, I pray that as we do so through your word, that you would speak to our hearts as you see fit.

Father, that you would prepare our hearts for whatever it is that your spirit wants to do this morning, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. If you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 5. Hebrews, chapter 5. Well, we've been out of the book of Hebrews for a little over a month now, between... between our series on the resurrection,

as well as me being gone last weekend at FCA conference. So I thought what I'd do before we get into the study for today is just spend a few minutes kind of rebuilding the context for where we are in the book of Hebrews, kind of what we've been talking about. Remember, the book of Hebrews was written to Hebrew Christians who were suffering a great deal of persecution at this point in time. These Hebrew Christians, because of the persecution that they were suffering, because of the difficulty of what it was to walk with Jesus, were being tempted to fall away.

And that falling away meant one of a couple of things. For some of them, falling away meant going back into a system of law, a system of works, where they felt comfortable again within that Jewish society. But then for some of them, the falling away meant actually literally falling away from the faith, saying this whole thing is too hard, this whole thing is too difficult, I don't want to keep following Jesus because it's going to cost me my life. And so the book of Hebrews was written to exhort these believers and to encourage them to get back to the heart of Jesus.

To get back to the heart of their faith. Because the heart of their faith was not some declaration that they made, it was in a person, and that person was Jesus Christ. And so what he's done, what the writer to the Hebrews has done, is he has rebuilt, if you will, the authority of Jesus Christ for these believers. It started off in chapter 1 as he told us about Jesus the one and only, that he declared that Jesus is the creator of life, that he is the sustainer of life, that he is the ultimate savior, and that he is ultimately God himself.

And then he began to tell us everything that Jesus was better than, that Jesus is so much better than the angelic realm, which was a temptation for people to worship at that point in time, that Jesus is better than Moses, even though Moses was the one that gave them the law, even though Moses was ultimately the one who was the picture of the law, and probably one of the greatest men that the nation of Israel had seen, Jesus was still better than Moses. And even more than that, Jesus was a superior high priest. He was superior to the high priesthood of Aaron, because he was an ultimate high priest. He was a high priest who was appointed by God.

He's a high priest who is gentle with humanity, and he is the high priest that is the eternal source of salvation. In the midst of those things, he also gave us several different warnings. He warned us to beware of drifting. As he told us that Jesus was better than the angels, he said, beware of drifting away from the faith, drifting away from your security in Christ Jesus.

And then he warned against unbelief. He said, beware of unbelief and be diligent, to enter into the rest that God has given to us. And now this morning, we come to the third warning that he gives. And the third warning that he gives, I put a positive spin on it. I've simply referred to it as, be mature. So for the next three weeks, that aspect of being mature is what we're going to look at.

And specifically this morning, he's going to give us a warning about, beware of immaturity in our lives. Now, there was a subject that was brought up earlier in chapter 5, and that's what sort of precipitated this conversation on maturity. He said that, Jesus is a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And I bet many of these Jewish believers had the same look on their face that you all had a few weeks ago when I brought up Melchizedek.

And it's the look that says, I'm sorry, who's that again? Because they were unaware, not only of the physical reality of Melchizedek, but the spiritual reality of who this man was, and the priesthood that he presented. And so before he goes into chapter 7, where he explains the, priesthood of Melchizedek, he exhorts them to be mature. So we start in verse 11 of chapter 5, and it says this, Concerning him, meaning Melchizedek, 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 have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. And you've come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

And so as he warns us about immaturity, there's three things he's going to tell us as far as this warning is concerned. The first thing he says is, you have become dull of hearing. You have become dull of hearing. He says, concerning him, again Melchizedek, we have much to say, and it is hard to explain. I think we need to realize something about the depth of not only biblical knowledge, but spiritual knowledge.

That's that there is much to say, and sometimes it is hard to explain. I think we have to realize that while the Bible, while spirituality is simple enough for a five-year-old to accept it, it's deep enough that we will never plumb the depths of it. That's one of the things that makes God's word and who he is so miraculous and so amazing in our lives. Ultimately, it's what makes God worshipable to us.

He is beyond our understanding. He is beyond our finding out. And yet he made himself knowable to us through Jesus. And so we will never fully plumb the depths of who Jesus is. As a matter of fact, before Jesus went to the cross, as he was telling his disciples in the upper room about the fact that he was going to send the presence of the Holy Spirit, he said, there's a lot of things that I would like to teach you,

but you can't accept them. You can't hear them right now. So when he, the Spirit of Truth, arrives, he will lead you into all truth and he will testify of me. Why? Because there's much to say and it's difficult to explain. So it's okay that those things are hard for us. It's okay that those things are a lot to take in, but we should not use that as an excuse for ignorance.

He says, I have much to say and it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. That word dull means slothful or sluggish. It carries the idea with it of a laziness or an apathy. Literally, in the Amplified Bible it says, because you have become disinclined to listen. And unfortunately, this is a problem with much of what I would call the Western culture church today,

is that we have become very dull of hearing. We've become very slothful. We've become very lazy. We've become very apathetic in our knowledge of God. And the reason why is because it requires a certain amount of struggle and it's a little bit difficult to do. Have you ever tried to really deal with your emotions on something and you're like, man, I don't even want to deal with that situation right now,

so I'm just going to push that away. Because that's going to require a lot of work. That's going to require a lot of time. It's going to require a lot of thought. And I would rather just cruise on with my life and not pay attention to anything else. So I'm just going to push that away for right now. Meanwhile, it's still there and it still needs dealt with,

but you've never taken the time or the energy to deal with it. Well, that's what he's talking about when he talks about being dull of hearing. It requires a lot of us to dig into spirituality. It requires a lot of us to dig into a knowledge of God. And what God has for us. And we have to decide we're going to put in the work that we are going to put in the effort to receive what the Lord has for us.

I always know when I see this slothfulness begin to set into my life because the way that I process things is I process things by writing them out. I mean, I process mainly by talking, but I can't just stand and talk all the time because otherwise people look at you like you're weird. Trust me, it's happened before because I'll start talking things out and people are going, who are you talking to? I'm like, nobody.

That's when people start looking at you weird. So I've learned to look at you weird. I've learned to write. So I write things out. And so when I read the Bible and I'm getting into what God has for me, I stop and after I've underlined some things, I start writing. And the reason why I do that is because it forces my mind to stop. It forces everything in me to slow down

and to truly process the things that I've been reading so that I can truly take in what God has for me. And I always notice when I'm slothful in that, when I'm dull of hearing because I don't want to take the time to do that. I read, I go, that was really good. I close my Bible, I move on with my life. Was it good that I read it? Absolutely. Did I process it?

Absolutely not. Because that was going to require a lot of energy on my part. It was going to require a lot of time on my part to truly process what God had for me in that moment. And unfortunately, that's most of the Western culture church today. Nobody wants to take time to process the things that God has for us. Unfortunately, ears that cannot receive spiritual truth

come from a heart that cannot receive spiritual truth. Dull hearing comes from a dull heart. And this is usually the way that it works. God begins to speak to you about something in your life. Perhaps an area of sin in your life. Maybe an area where you need to learn to trust God in your life. Perhaps a fear that He wants you to overcome. Whatever it is, He begins to speak to you about an area in your life

but you don't want to deal with that area either because it's your favorite pet sin or because trusting God is going to require you to get outside of your comfort zone and nobody likes to get outside of their comfort zone. And so you take time to trust God. So you tell God, I'm not going to deal with that right now. And pretty soon God says, I can't talk to you about anything else until we deal with that.

And so your heart becomes dull to everything else that God has to tell you because you have refused obedience in this one area of your life. And until you deal with that, you can go no farther with God. You have become dull of hearing. This is what's going on with these Hebrew believers and I fear it's what goes on in much of the church today. Is it God speaks to us?

Is it God speaks to us about something? God convicts us of sin, convicts us of unbelief, convicts us of an area where we're not trusting God and rather than stepping outside of our comfort zone to deal with that, we say, I'll deal with that later. Until you get the letter from God that says, until you deal with this, we cannot move on in your life. You have become dull of hearing.

I also want to point something out. I'm going to read this verse to you again because there's a word I want you to specifically catch here. It says, concerning Him we have much to say and it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. I think that word is important, that word become, because it carries with it the idea of a process. The becoming is a process, right?

And it's interesting because in all of the warnings that the writer to the Hebrews has given to us, none of them happen all at once. Drifting doesn't happen all at once. Failing to enter into God's rest doesn't happen all at once. And becoming dull of hearing doesn't happen all at once. It's a process in your life. And I bet, as a matter of fact, I can almost guarantee

that if you sense a dullness in your heart and in your hearing, you can probably go back to a time when it began. And it took you a long time to get where you are now. But listen, you don't have to stay there. You don't have to stay in this place where you have this dullness of heart and dullness of hearing. It's now time to go back and do the first works. It's time to go back and deal with what God wanted you to deal with

so that you can move on in your relationship. With the Lord. Because God does not show us where we are wrong without also showing us how we can be right. He says, number one, you have become dull of hearing. Number two, he says, you still need the basics. Notice what it says in verse 12. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you

the elementary principles of the oracle, the principles of God. He says, by this time you ought to be teachers. And what he means by that is, you ought to be teachers because of the time that you have spent under good instruction. You have spent too much time under good instruction for you to not, by this point in time, be teachers. For you, at this point in time,

to not be able to explain to other people the truth. Now, you need to understand something. Not everybody has the gift of teaching, and that's okay. Not everybody is going to be in a position that I'm in right now, not everybody is going to be a small group leader, but everybody should be able to communicate the truth of the Word of God. Everybody should be able to communicate

what you are learning from God. I don't know if you've ever asked yourself this question, but ask yourself this question now. If someone were to ask me, how do you communicate the gospel, what would you tell them? Are you able to stand in front of somebody and clearly articulate the gospel of Jesus Christ, or would you sit there and go, oh, it's really good, and it is, but you should be able to communicate that?

I have another question for you. Are you able to communicate what God is speaking to you in your life right now from His Word? One of my favorite things to do, and I especially have always loved doing this with kids, but there's also a great men's study I used to be a part of where we did this. I love to hear what people are learning from God's Word. I love to sit down with people and say,

I don't care what you're reading, I just want you to share with me what you're learning. What's God been teaching out of Scripture? And it's fascinating that, three people can read the exact same chapter, and they'll be spoken about three different things from that exact same chapter. It's all biblical truth. It's all straight out of the Word, and I agree with all of it.

But God ministers to us each one in a different way. But what a joy to be able to articulate that truth to somebody else. If I was to ask you, what are some of the basic tenets of Christianity? What separates being a Christian from every other thing in the world, from every other religion that's out there? Can you articulate that? Can you articulate what's different

about biblical Christianity than all of the other religions of the world? Listen, if you can't do that, you have an area of immaturity in your life. This does not make you a bad Christian, it makes you an immature Christian, and it's an area where you need to grow in, and God wants to grow you in this. Because by this time, some of you ought to be teachers.

But you still need to be reminded of the elementary principles. He says, by this time, some of you ought to be able to communicate these things to everybody else, but instead you need the elementary principles of the oracles of God. That word elementary in the Greek literally means the ABCs. That's the idea behind that word, is that you still need the ABCs of Christianity.

Now listen, if you're here this morning, and you're a brand new believer in Jesus Christ, man, like you've only walked with Jesus one, two years, I expect you to need the ABCs. I wholeheartedly expect that. And if that's where you are, I love that you're here, and I love that you're learning the ABCs. The challenge that I have as a pastor is to be able to present the truth of God's Word in such a way that the people that need the ABCs are getting the ABCs, and the people that don't get some meat at the same time.

That's my challenge as a pastor. So if you're brand new, I love that you still are learning the very basic principles of the Word of God. But if you're here, and you've been coming here for 20 years now, at some point in time, I expect you to not need that anymore. I expect you to be able to be the one who, when the person sitting next to you says, I don't know what he's talking about right there, to be able to explain it to them.

Because you've learned it for yourself. The problem we have in the Western culture church is no one can do that. Very few people can do that. Because we are a mile wide and an inch deep. We're great at posting our verses on social media. We're terrible at knowing the context of them in real life, right? I just read an amazing Babylon Bee about this the other day.

If you don't ever read the Babylon Bee, please, it's hilarious and I love it. It's a satire website, it's kind of like The Onion, only the Christian version of it. And it was like, do you need encouragement in your life? Here are seven verses that will bring some encouragement in your life. My favorite one was Matthew 5, verse 44, which I don't think exists.

Matthew 5, verse 44, it says, this is my favorite verse, taken out of context, that I love to post on my social media. That was the verse! And I love that! But that's what our culture, I can picture somebody right now copying that. That's my favorite one too. Post it. Right? Why? Because you still need behavior. You still need the ABCs. You still need the basics of Christianity.

I've grown up with a family that was involved in education. I'm now married to an educator. And I was involved in education some myself. And I've learned some things. And that's that there's milestones that kids should be hitting. Right? There are certain educational milestones that kids should hit. And when my wife and I first got married, she taught first grade and kindergarten.

And she taught me a lot about all of these educational milestones. More than I ever wanted to know in my entire life. But I know a lot about it now. And she taught me a lot about it. And what I learned was, if a kid's not hitting those milestones, they begin to ask the question, why? Why is this taking place? Why is there a deficit? Because we have to solve this problem.

Well, if you are in a place in your walk with Jesus Christ where those deficits exist for you, you've been walking with Jesus for a very long time, and you still need the ABCs, we need to ask why. We need to ask, what is creating that deficit? Because we need to deal with the immaturity because Jesus wants you to be mature in your faith. He says, some of you should be teachers by now, but you still need the basics.

And then He goes on to tell us a third thing. He says, you need milk and not solid food. Again, look at verse 12. He says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary 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 not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

Solid food is for the mature. He who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil. He says, you have a problem. You need milk and not solid food. Now listen, for a baby, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with milk, right? That's what they need. That's what they need to grow thereby. But eventually, you want that child to grow up

and learn to eat some food. As a sidebar, can I just say, I've raised two very beautiful girls, and they love steak, right? There is nothing that makes a father more proud than to grill a steak to where the temperature comes out just right and to have them go, please, sir, may I have another. That is just, it's amazing. My youngest daughter does not like to eat food

unless it's steak. And I'm like, dear God, child, that's a lot of steak. And she's like, it's so good. I'm like, I've done something right. And you feel the exact same way as a spiritual parent. When a person comes back and they want more steak, you go, oh, we've done something right. They want solid food. Listen, we never outgrow our desire for milk. As a matter of fact, in 1 Peter it says,

as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word. But we should also grow into a desire for the solid food that God has for us. And he describes these two different things. One of them is a spiritual infant. The other is the mature. Let me read it to you again. It says, for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

What does he mean by the milk? Well, what he's talking about is the basic understanding of Jesus and his work here on earth. The ABCs of Scripture, right? He says, you have come to a place where you only want milk. You have come to a place where you only want milk. And milk is only for those who are an infant. Well, I read several different commentators on this

and I made a list of some of the things that they say that constitute one who is a milk drinker as opposed to a mead eater. Number one, milk drinkers are hearers of the word. They are not doers of the word. Milk drinkers are hearers of the word. They are not doers of the word. In other words, you love to hear what God's word has to say. You perhaps enjoy a good sermon, a good podcast,

maybe even a great Christian song. But it never translates into any change in your life. You become like that man that James describes in the epistle of James when he says, those who are hearers of the word and not doers of the word are those who look into the mirror and immediately walk away and forget what they've looked like. I always use the example of this.

When I still had hair on top of my head, it was in the thinning process. It was becoming a bald head, okay? So when I was in the becoming process of balding, I would wake up in the morning and I would look in the mirror and I'd go, wow, that's really sad, because I had these two runways right here, a little bit of hair right in the middle. Perhaps the hair was the runway and these were the beaches.

I don't know, however you want to put it. Anyway, and I would look and I would go, wow, we've got to do something about that, right? Because it looked really bad. My hair was going all kinds of different directions, none of it really wanting to stay on top of my head. So I looked in the mirror and I said, we have to do something about it. Now, can you imagine at that point in time,

I look and go, we have to do something about this, and then I walk away and don't do anything about it. That would make me a moron, right? Because at that point in time, I have chosen to look stupid with knowledge, right? And so eventually I hit a point where I'm like, hey, let's shave that thing, because nothing good is going on on top of your head. And that's what I've been doing ever since.

Why? Because I looked in the mirror and I saw the problem and I dealt with the problem. And many of us look into the mirror of God's Word and it reveals a bad hair day or sin in your life and you walk away and do nothing about it and you have chosen to look stupid on purpose because it's with knowledge. Milk drinkers are hearers of the Word. They are not doers of the Word.

Number two, milk drinkers cannot take in the weightier matters of the Word. These are the people that can't get past Jesus loves you. Yeah. Well, what did you learn today? Well, Jesus loves you. Okay, but isn't there something a little bit deeper that you learned? I mean, I understand at the base of all of it is that fantastic truth of Jesus loves you. But what's He speaking to you about?

What's God doing in your life? And then never get into the weightier matters of sanctification, of potential glorification, of justification and what that looks like and prophetic words that God has spoken in the past about things that are to come. You never get into the deep things. You live your entire life in Psalms. And listen, I love the book of Psalms.

But get into the doctrinal books too. You're not prepared for the weightier matters of the Word of God. Listen, we are told to be childlike in our faith, not childish in our faith. And eventually, you need to start dealing with the deeper weightier issues of Scripture. Number three, milk drinkers are tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Milk drinkers are tossed about

by every wind of doctrine. In other words, every new podcast that comes out has now thrown you a completely different direction. I have been walking with Jesus for a real long time now and I have watched so many fads come and go. I've watched new books come into Christian bookstores. I don't even know if anybody goes to a Christian bookstore or if you just read about it online now.

But I've watched so many new books come into Christian bookstores. I have seen us go through the prayer of Jabez. I have seen I kissed dating goodbye. I've seen I gave dating a chance. Those were literally right next to each other in a bookstore one time. And I thought it was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm like, well, okay, whatever. That's probably a really good trough section.

I've seen us do contemplative prayer. I've seen us do Enneagrams, which, by the way, you should stop doing Enneagrams. I've seen us give in to, you know, the new way that you diet that's going to make you closer to Jesus. I've seen all of the new things that Jen Hatmaker comes out with, which, by the way, if you're reading anything by Jen Hatmaker, throw it away.

I've seen all of these things come out. And everybody gets tossed every which direction every time a new thing comes out. And I'm like, at the center of it all, isn't it just kind of Jesus? Aren't we supposed to get back to the weightier matters of the Word and not all of these ideas that every new person has that comes along? But even more than that, milk drinkers get tossed

about by their emotions. One minute you're doing great because your emotions are great. You woke up feeling great this morning. The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. You had an emotional time. You were devotional with Jesus. And you're pretty sure you are on top of the world. You are the saint everyone's been waiting for. And then tomorrow happens. And tomorrow, the sun's not shining.

The birds aren't chirping. Your devotional wasn't emotional. It was the book of Leviticus. And you read about leprosy. And you don't feel like loving Jesus at all today. As a matter of fact, you're not even sure you're safe today. That's a milk drinker because you're tossed about constantly by your emotions. And then the last thing is that milk drinkers are inexperienced in the word.

Inexperienced in the word. Listen, I love being able to take somebody that's never been in this word before, and they're like, I'm like, okay, look up this verse. And you're like, I don't know how to find that. I love to show them how to find it, especially if they're brand new believers. Right, like every now and then, listen, I know I'm not supposed to make eye contact with y'all,

but sometimes I see a person sit next to somebody that they brought to church and they help them find their spot in church. That does my heart so much good. Like, hey, you want to be there, and I don't care that your friend had to help you find it. You're learning how to navigate the word. You're learning to be experienced in the word. That makes my heart as happy as anything.

I'll slow down if I need to to make sure you can find your spot in the word. But the problem is you can't remain inexperienced in the word. And that's what milk drinkers are. They're inexperienced in the word. They've been walking with Jesus for 10 or 15 years, and they still don't know where the book of Hezekiah is, right? Plot twist, the book of Hezekiah doesn't exist.

You're inexperienced in what this word has to say and how to navigate it and what it means. That's what milk drinkers are. You never outgrow your need for milk, but it should not be where you stop. Instead, he says this. He says, however, solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. He says solid food.

So what's the solid food? Well, if the milk is the basic ABCs of Jesus and what he did here on earth, solid food starts dealing with eternal spiritual realities. The eternal spiritual realities that we are to live in, not just here, but that will carry us into eternity. The weightier matters of the word of God. He says that sort of thing, the solid food, that's for the mature.

And he describes the mature a handful of ways. Number one, he says they have their senses trained. They have their senses trained. That word trained is fascinating in the Greek because it literally means gymnasium. The idea is to exercise in a gym, right? All the bros just looked up. They're like, what? The gym's in the Bible? You bet it is. We're supposed to exercise ourselves like that.

Now, I love to go to the gym, as long as I don't injure myself while I'm there. I love to go to the gym, but I didn't always love to go to the gym. It took a little time to get back into it, especially now that I'm a little bit older. When I got to start running again about a month ago after I injured myself, because you know, well, anyway. When I got to start running again,

I was like, wow, this is so much harder than it should be right now. Right? Like taking a month and a half off when you're 45 is way different than taking a month and a half off when you're 25. And the first time I went around, I was like, well, this is the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life. But I know it's good for me, and I know I should do it.

And that's kind of the way the gym is, right? First time you go to the gym, you're like, I know it's good for me. I know I should do it. I bought this membership. I bought this sweet new clothes. I've got the fit rolling, so let's do this thing. But you show up to the gym. You don't know anybody there. You don't know how all the machines work. Somebody gives you an idea of some things that you should do,

and they're harder than they ever should have been. This odd moisture starts pouring out of your body. And pretty soon, all of your muscles just feel like jello. And the next day you wake up, and you're as sore as anything. You're like, I don't ever want to go back to that place again. Right? It hurt me. It made me sweat. I didn't know anybody. I was uncomfortable,

because I didn't know how to use any of the machines. But you made a commitment, and you did it. So you keep going. Well, after about a month of going to the gym, you know people in the gym. You know how the machines work. You have a little bit of an idea of what's going on. And now when you walk away with your muscles feeling like jello, you're like, that's okay,

because I know what it's going to do for me. Because I love the feeling of what I just did, because I know it was so good for my body, and it felt so good, even though it was hard. That's kind of like exercising yourself towards godliness. That's sort of like getting into the Word. When you first start to get into God's Word, you're like, I don't know what any of these words mean.

I don't recognize anybody in here. And quite frankly, it makes me feel very uncomfortable, because it's pointing out a lot of things that I don't want it to point out in my life. And I don't know that I ever want to go back to that place again. But you made a commitment, so you go back. And what they say is, 21 days straight is what builds a habit. And so if after 21 days,

spending God's Word, you find that what you actually start doing is craving it. You actually start craving getting back into God's Word. I share this with first service. I'm such a nerd. Okay? So when I go on vacation, there's two things I make sure that go with me. The coffee that I really like to drink, because I'm a coffee snob, and my Bible. Right? I always make sure those things are with me.

And always on the first night of vacation, I can't wait to go to bed, because I can't wait to get up in the morning to drink the coffee that I get to drink, that I like to drink, and to read my Bible, knowing that no one else is going to mess with me. I just get to have unadulterated time in God's Word, and I get to soak it all up as much as I possibly can. And I love that. Why?

Because my senses have been trained. Because I went through all of the hard times of going, I don't know what it says. I don't understand anything in here. It just keeps telling me I need Jesus. Right? I went through all that, and now I love it. As a pastor, you speak a lot. And I have the opportunity to speak a lot of different places quite a bit. And, every now and then,

I was telling my wife this the other night, every now and then I get tired. Speaking will wear you out. And, every now and then I think, okay, I just got to make it through, and then it's going to be good. And I always love it when I'm up here. But, every now and then I'm a little bit worn out before I head up here to speak, or wherever I am to speak. But I told my wife,

I said, if I ever get weary in the work, if I ever get weary in the preparation, that's when I'll know I shouldn't do this anymore. Because there's zero about the preparation that wears me out. It's actually my favorite thing in the world to do. I love to sit down with God's Word and a notebook and a pen and just start learning what God has for me. J. Vernon McGee always said,

I'm a very selfish Bible teacher. I teach God's Word because I want Him to teach me first. Because what I share with you is what God taught me. And so I'm going to selfishly keep teaching God's Word because I want Him to keep revealing truth to me. And that's the way I am too. I'm kind of selfish about it because I love to get into God's Word because He teaches me first.

And then I get to tell you what He told me. And you get to soak it in as well. He says they have their senses trained. And what are their senses trained to do? Their senses are trained to discern good and evil. That word discern means to judge or to distinguish. Again, this is one of the reasons I know that there's an incredible amount of immaturity in the Western culture church.

Because I feel like the Western culture church does not know how to discern good and evil. They don't know how to discern between what is sinful and what is not. Which is why they get drunk on a Saturday night and praise Jesus on a Sunday morning. Listen, if you fell into sin, show up here anyway. If you're living in sin, deal with it. You have to learn to discern good and evil.

And we don't live in a culture that knows how to do that right now. Because with the same mouth that you praise God, you also curse your brother. And we don't know how to distinguish good and evil. Why? Because our senses are not trained to be able to do so. And so we have to learn to distinguish. And even more than that, as believers in Jesus Christ, part of maturity is also learning

to discern between that which is good and that which is best. Because there are some things in life that are good, perhaps even benign, but they're not what's best. And as you mature in the Lord, you go, yes, I could do that because I have the liberty to do that. But it's not what I'm going to do because that's what's best for my life. It's going to still hold me back

if I do this. So I'm going to take this path because that's what's going to lead me to Jesus. And they have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Why? Because of practice. Because of practice. Let me read it to you again. Solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Over the last year and a half-ish,

I've had the opportunity to start working with college athletes. And that's been a new experience for me. And one of the things that always amazes me about college athletes is they never stop practicing. Like, sometimes it's awe-inspiring that I'm like, you never, there's just like no time off. They'll take a short stint, but other than that, they're always practicing.

Why? Because they need to keep their skills sharp. Because they're playing on a different level than the rest of us are. The pros are the same way, only to an even greater degree. They're always practicing. Well, what does it look like for us to always be practicing? Well, for us to always be practicing, the first thing it means is that you need time spent in God's Word.

You need time spent in God's Word. And listen, the time spent in God's Word needs to be profitable. You want me to tell you how to make your time in God's Word profitable? You want me to tell you how to study God's Word? I'll give you three basic principles for the study of God's Word. These are the same ones I always give, so if you've written them down before,

that's fine. You can go to sleep for a minute. These are the three things you know if you're gonna study God's Word. Number one, first step of studying God's Word is observation. Observation. That means what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna simply read what God's Word has to say. And I'm gonna read it over and over again, and I'm gonna handle it as much as I possibly can.

Because as I read it, I'm taking note of everything that it has to tell me. I'm taking note of what it says about God. I'm taking note of what it says about people. I'm taking note of who the people are, of what the context is. I'm looking at all of those things, and I'm just reading it as much as I can so that there's, so that there's no mystery to it. I just know what this Word has to say.

That's how I start off every Bible study, is I sit down with my Bible and a notebook and a pen, and I write down everything. I write down everything that I notice about God's Word. And I do this in my devotional life, too. The second thing, and listen, that is probably 70% of Bible study, is observation. Okay? The next 10%, I would call interpretation. That's where I'm going to determine

why it says what it says. Like, what does that mean? And there's two or three things I'm going to use to interpret God's Word. First of all, I'm going to use other Bible translations, because all the different translations word it in a different way and kind of help me gain the understanding of what it says. The second thing I'm going to use is word studies.

I'm going to look up what the word means in the Greek or in the Hebrew, and I'm going to get a little bit of an idea of what that word means. And then the third thing that I'm going to use is I'm going to use a commentary. I'm going to see what some other wise spiritual individual has to say about this. And I'm going to interpret what God's Word has to say.

So after I have observed it and after I have interpreted it, now comes the ever important part. I'm going to apply it. Because if I have proper observation and I have proper interpretation, then I will have proper application. In other words, I'm going to ask the question, what do I need to obey? And I'm going to positively write out, today I'm going to obey this.

It may be some truth that I need to believe with my whole heart instead of believing what my flesh has to say. It may be some fear that I need to put behind me and believe what God has to say about it. It may be a sin in my life that I need to stop doing. It may be a step in my life that I need to take that I need to start doing. But I'm going to positively choose

and I'm going to write out what I'm going to obey out of what I just read in God's Word. You see, that's practicing. So that you can discern good and evil. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to spend time in God's Word. The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure I spend my time with the Lord. Ryan, didn't you just say that? No, I said spend time

in God's Word. That's two different things. You can do them both at the same time. But you can't spend time in God's Word without spending time with the Lord. You need to make sure that the Lord is invited into every part, every moment of your life. I have people come to me and ask this sometimes. They say, so I am not reading my Bible every second of the day

because I have a job. So how do I spend time with the Lord all day? They say, you have to invite Him into every moment of your life. Your work time is time spent with the Lord. Yes, you've got to focus on what you're doing. But you invite Him into that. You invite Him into that by asking Him to give you wisdom as you're doing your job. When I worked construction

and some task would be given to me that was like really, I'm like, okay, I don't know how to do that because I'm not really a math guy. We're not friends. And so you know what construction is a lot of? Wait for it. Math, right? So I'm like, Lord, I don't know how this works since I can't figure out this angle or whatever. Can you please just show me how this works?

And by golly, He did it every single time. And it's amazing how if you invite God into every part of your life, pretty soon your entire day is spent with the Lord. So number one, you're going to spend time with God's Word. Number two, you're going to spend time with the Lord. But number three, you're going to start living out God's Word. You're going to live it out.

You're going to look for opportunities to live it out in your everyday life. If you do that, you will practice what God's Word has to say. And you will begin to grow in maturity. You will begin to grow in that maturity in Jesus Christ because you are practicing to become mature. Well, as we wrap this thing up, and I really hope that the ushers are about to go

get the kids to bring them up here because we've got about five minutes left. That was a little bonus for you guys for me to tell you how much time we've got left and hopefully a word for you guys for the ushers listening on the TV out there to know to go get the kids. I haven't seen anybody move yet, so that was just a word for you guys right now. Well, as we wrap this thing up, I want to share something with you.

This is out of Warren Wiersbe's commentary. Warren Wiersbe told this story. He said, I once heard a preacher say, most Christians are betweeners. I said, what do you mean by that? He said, they are between Egypt and Canaan. They are out of the place of danger but not in the place of rest and inheritance. They are between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, saved by the blood

but not yet enjoying newness of resurrection life. For you, you're a betweener. You see, immaturity causes us to live between the fact that I know that I'm born again but I'm still not really resting in who I am in Christ. And so I asked myself a question. What do we do with this? What do we do with this message? Because I was asking myself this question this morning.

Lord, what do I do with all this information? So I wrote down three things. Three things I'm going to close with. Number one, we need to recognize the areas of immaturity in our lives. We need to recognize the areas of immaturity in our lives. Is it that you're dull of hearing? Is it that you still need the basics? Is it that you're a milk drinker and not a food eater?

What is it? What are those areas in your life that you need to recognize? What are the areas of immaturity in our lives? And I'm sure that there's an incredible amount of immaturity. Listen, you may have to invite God in on this and say, Lord, I need you to reveal the areas of immaturity in our lives because we can get blind spots and we can miss those things

and God is so faithful to point those things out in our lives because He wants I'm going to recommend a book to you, and it's called just that. It's by Matt Chandler. It's called Creature of the Word. And it's all about what we just talked about, how to become mature as a believer in Jesus Christ through putting God's Word into every part of our life. But that's what we have to learn to do.

We have to learn to be a creature of God's Word. And then number three, we need to learn to be a doer of God's Word and not a hearer only. A doer of God's Word and not a hearer only. If we will begin to put those things into practice, we will see maturity created in our lives, and we will no longer be tossed about, not only by our emotions, but by every wind of doctrine.

Amen? Okay, they got my message. So if you could watch for your kids as they come in, as the worship team comes up here.

These are very tiny people, so you have to watch very closely.

One more class on its way.

Is that everyone? I think that is a yes. All right, now, if you'd all stand with me.

Father, we come before you, and I thank you that you have blessed us with another Sunday to be at church together. Lord, I thank you that you have blessed us with some time in your Word and some good worship. Lord, I thank you for all these tiny kids that just came walking in here and the blessing that they are to this church. Father, I pray that as we go out from here, that you would move in our hearts as you see fit by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Lord, that you would just bless our week, and Lord, keep us close to you. We just pray these things, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Be blessed. Christ alone, all faith, this Christ is true. Lord God, we just thank you for another day. We thank you for your Word.

To spiritual maturity, Lord. From spiritual infancy into spiritual maturity, Lord God. Move mightily in our lives by the power of your Spirit and by the power of your Word. We love you, Lord, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.