Hebrews 5:11-6:8
April 19, 2020 {sermon 8 | Jesus > Everything}
Spiritual infants are dull of hearing. Are you ever concerned you might have become dull of hearing, when it comes to hearing messages concerning Jesus? But how would you know if you were in fact, dull of hearing? Well what it says here in this passage, if you’ve been a follower of Jesus long enough to be a teacher and you’re not - you might be a redneck – no jk - but you might be dull of hearing.
You might say, “But I don’t have the gift of teaching!” It doesn’t say you need the gift of teaching to be a teacher. Opportunities to teach arise on most days if we’re willing to see and seize them. It does say, at some point we all should be teachers (in some capacity). So what could does this mean for you?
Are you dull of hearing if “you have come to need milk and not solid food?” It’s easier to drink milk and not ask difficult questions and go with the flow. It’s even easier to not answer tough questions. Start a diet of solid food. Get accustomed to the word of righteousness. Ask what is right, what is best, what is true, what is prudent.
Are you dull of hearing if you don’t really care whether we’re seen as mature or not?
“Let us press on to maturity…” what does that look like for you? For each of us, maturing means something slightly different because we’re all at slightly different places in our spiritual lives.
The synonym for “the word of righteousness” is solid food. All babies eat pretty much the same and only thing – milk and yucky green stuff. But as we mature, our tastes broaden (at least they’re supposed to) and we try different things and are satisfied by differing solid foods because while we all are made in the image of God, we are not all equal, and we are not all gifted the same, and we are not all called to do the same things. So we must learn what that “word of righteousness” is for us that we so very much need to grow up.
Are you dull of hearing if you’ve become a dabbler? The consequences are dire. And the irony is that dabblers usually blame someone else for not supporting them enough or giving them what they needed.
The truth is, we have all we need to mature. All we need to grow in righteousness is very accessible to us. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we are ever close to being cursed.
Are you dull of hearing if you have trouble discerning between good and evil? Now more than ever we need our senses trained to discern good and evil. And how do we do this? Practice.
We’re talkin’ practice. Our senses trained. Our intellect sharpened. Our ability to think and respond, trained to perceive good and evil. And is it just for our own personal satisfaction that we train so as to be able to discern? No.
If we see good or evil and say nothing, shame on us.
See good and encourage it! See evil and take the air out of it.
Don't become dull of hearing. I will never cease to remind the church of this prayer of Paul for the Philippians (1:9,10). Pray that our love would abound still more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that we approve the things that are excellent…”
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