Spiritual Maturity

00:02 If you would, turn in your copies of the Scriptures to the book of Hebrews, chapter 5. Begin reading this morning at verse 11 through chapter 6, verse 3. Of whom we have much to say and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 00:23 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first 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 unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, 00:44 that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 01:04 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. I'd like to ask you a question this morning for your own evaluation, self-evaluation, and your relationship with the Lord and your spiritual development. 01:24 Where are you at in your journey of spiritual maturity? Where do you find yourself? Now, a number of years ago, we did interviews with our church family. This is maybe 15, 16 years ago. Did some interviews with the church family and asked them to evaluate their spiritual life in four categories. 01:45 Do you find yourself, number one, on an entry-level category where you're just beginning to understand and experience and walk in the Christian life? 01:57 Or do you find yourself on a more of a stable level of consistency, of you've learned enough to find yourself able to live a consistent Christian life and you're able to maintain your walk with the Lord? Or thirdly, have you reached the level of a teaching level where you're able to take the Scriptures and, 02:19 because of your knowledge of the Scriptures and life experiences, be able to teach others? Or do you find yourself at level four where you have your depth of knowledge and experience have taken you to a place of maturity where you are equipped to equip others, to train leaders, 02:39 to lead leaders, 02:40 and to develop leaders in the Christian life? So kind of four levels there: entry level, a level of consistency and stability, a level of teaching, or a level of training where you are now able to train others in the Christian faith. Where do you find yourself? 03:01 I'd like to ask that question. I'd like to ask that question of myself. I'd like to ask that question from time to time for others. I'd like to ask others that question first to evaluate our walk and experience in the Christian life. Where would you like to be is the follow-up question. Where would you like to be? 03:20 Where do you want to be? Where do you want to go? How far do you want to go? And do you have a plan to get there? And do you recognize the dangers of not growing? Now, there are dangers associated with not growing because we are pre-programmed as Christians to grow, just like our physical health is programmed to grow. 03:43 We are programmed in our Christian life to grow. But for some reason, we can go backwards. We can stagnate, and we can become dull of hearing, as is stated in verse 11. Dull of hearing. You have become dull of hearing. It's something you become because of lethargy. 04:03 So do you have a plan for spiritual growth? Do you have a recognition of the dangers of not growing and of stagnation and the danger of actually going backwards if you're not going forward? Someone has said, "If you stop and ask yourself why you are not so devoted as the early Christians, 04:24 your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability but purely because you never thoroughly intended it." In other words, we can say, "Well, we ought to be on fire for the Lord. We ought to be on fire like the early church. 04:40 We ought to be churches like the early church." But it's not because of ignorance or inability that we find ourselves in backslidden condition at times. It's because we really never intended to grow. We never intended. We never desired to grow. We never spurred ourselves on to spiritual growth. There were many opportunities, but we never took advantage of them. 05:01 So we talked this morning. I'm hoping to a group here that is growing. I believe that you are growing. I believe I see much growth in many of our lives as a congregation. But there's always this danger of becoming dull of hearing. 05:17 There's always this danger of sticking with the status quo and of not even recognizing our spiritual immaturity. So this morning, I have two points this morning, primary points from this passage of Scripture. 05:31 Number one is recognizing spiritual immaturity and then remedying or recovering from spiritual immaturity. Recognizing spiritual immaturity. Do you recognize it in yourself? We can certainly recognize it in others. But do we recognize it in ourselves when there's spiritual immaturity? 05:51 And then if we do see it, how do we recover from spiritual immaturity? So in verse 11, 12, 13, and 14, we see the recognition of spiritual immaturity. He interrupts his discussion on the priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchizedek. 06:08 And he interrupts with a parenthesis where he's going to warn them of the dangers of immaturity and of the dangers then in chapter 6 of falling away. And he says, "You really ought to grow. You need to be growing for you ought to be teachers. You ought to be at another level spiritually, but you're still stuck. 06:30 You're stuck and have need to somebody teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food." He challenges them as to their immaturity, telling them that the problem is not with the message, neither is the problem with the teacher. 06:48 The problem was with their own lack of understanding because of dullness. Dullness. And the Greek word for dullness here means to be a poor listener or you're slow to understand. It actually, at a bottom line level, means sluggish or lazy. These people were lazy when it comes to their spiritual life. 07:09 They were sluggish, and they had become poor listeners. He says, "You ought to be teachers, but you're still needing to be taught. 07:16 You ought to be reaching out to others, but you're still needing somebody to reach into your life and teach you." And that's a problem, he says, not because they were new Christians but because they had been Christians long enough that they should have been developing to a higher and deeper level. 07:35 And so we don't necessarily criticize or even critique new Christians. They are new. They're babies. They're babes. 07:46 They're weak. They're learning. They're trying to learn to walk. They're trying to learn to talk. They're trying to learn to give. They're trying to learn to reach out to others. And they're trying to practice and put into practice the teaching of the Christian life. We ought to have all kinds of patience and tolerance with that. But when they ought to be leaders and teachers, 08:06 that becomes a problem if they stay stuck. If they stay stuck. You are still needing to be taught the elementary truths and the basic principles. Some call it the first principles, the elementary principles. Over in chapter 6, verse 1, the elementary principles of Christ. It's the same word. 08:26 It's the same concept. The basic principles. It's similar to saying you're still needing to go over the ABCs of the oracles of God. You're still needing to go over the one, two, threes of the oracles of God. You still have to be reminded over and over and over, and you're stuck. That's the problem. 08:45 There's nothing wrong with the ABCs of the oracles. There's nothing wrong with the spiritual arithmetic of the one, twos, threes. But you don't want to get stuck there. You want to go on. You want to reach to another level of spiritual maturity. Now, there are two possible issues that Hebrews is addressing here. 09:04 One possible issue is that they are returning in their minds and in their hearts to the Old Testament system. And that's a danger that Hebrews is addressing. If you remember our early messages on Hebrews, we talked about that, that these people had a hankering, if you please, 09:23 to go back to where they came from, to go back into the law and to go back. There was, in the early church, a group called the Judaizers. The Judaizers were making their rounds. Wherever Paul and the apostles preached grace and freedom in Christ, they were, and the New Covenant, 09:42 they were going around trying to tell people, "You got to go back under the law. You got to practice circumcision, and you got to practice dietary laws and some things like that." He said, so that's one danger that the writer of Hebrews is addressing. The second danger, I think, is more practical to us, and that is what I call being stuck at the conversion stage. 10:04 And I don't sense that too many of us are in danger of going back into Old Testament ceremonial and dietary and Jewish laws. But our problem, more often as evangelical Anabaptist Christians in America today, is we get stuck in the conversion stage rather than in the spiritual growth mode. 10:24 And so both are a problem. He says, "You're needing to hear again the oracles, the first principles of the oracles of God." When he talks about the oracles of God here, he's talking about the declarations of God, the initial basic declarations and revelation of God. He could refer to the Old Testament, 10:43 which was the very beginning, basic institutional things that God instituted. 10:50 You remember when we started in Hebrews chapter 1, we said, "God has at Sundry times and in diverse ways spoken unto our fathers by the prophets. 11:03 But He has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." Well, the danger is to go back and emphasize what the prophets have said instead of emphasizing what Jesus has said in His word in the New Testament. Nothing wrong with the prophets. It's just insufficient. 11:22 Nothing wrong with the ABCs. It's just insufficient for us to grow and to be useful in God's kingdom. 11:30 They were moving away from their sufficiency being in Christ back toward the Old Testament system, not knowing that the Judaizers were out to destroy their faith, not just to nuance and color their faith, but to actually destroy their faith in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. 11:50 What He wants for them is He wants for them to experience the fullness of knowledge. He says in verse 13, "For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe." He wants us to know the word of righteousness. And then He wants us to experience the word of righteousness. 12:10 He wants to experience the exercising of our discernment between good and evil. And so He says, "Solid food." That's what we want for you. A full age, able to eat and drink a full adult meat and drink. And that those, by reason of use, 12:30 have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So He's talking about fullness of knowledge and depth of experience. Fullness of experience. This would be a balanced, mature life. He's talking about the discernment to exercise it, to get more of it. 12:50 You know, if you want discernment, you have to exercise the discernment that you have to get more. That's what He says here. Their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And so you exercise something, you get more of it. You get more and more of it. 13:07 And so the goal is to know and understand the difference between good and evil and to apply the faith in practical shoe leather. And so putting your faith to work and to practice, not just getting stuck at conversion. Yes, we all have to be converted. 13:27 We all must come to the cross through the narrow gate, to the cross of Jesus Christ, and lay down our sins and take up His righteousness as a free gift of God's grace. But we must go on from there, and we must put things into practice, to judge between good and evil, 13:49 right and wrong. And the word discern here actually is the word that means to judge, to distinguish between good and evil, to make a decision as to what is good and what is evil. I believe that part of that is the development of a biblical worldview. So we want to have a biblical worldview. 14:09 Something shook me many years ago. I was listening to a speaker on Christian education back in the days when I was a principal of Christian school and teaching in the Christian school. And I remember one of the leaders of the Christian school movement at that time made a statement in one of the teachers' orientation meetings. 14:27 He said that the American church no longer thinks Christian. I thought, "Wow." Now, if that was true 30, 40 years ago, how much more it's true today? 14:41 And so we have to think Christian, exercise this discernment between good and evil in order to grow. You must do it to grow, and you must grow to do it. And so to have a Christian worldview means that you must exercise that discernment. But then as you do exercise that discernment, 15:03 you get more discernment and the worldview increasing as our understanding increases. So how do we recover from this spiritual immaturity? Well, He says, first of all, in verse 14, that we should exercise the discernment between both good and evil. 15:23 But then He also goes on to say in verse 6, chapter 6, verse 1, "Therefore," which is connected to the previous chapter, "Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to maturity." So it's not conversion over and over and over. And again, 15:43 it's not disputing concerning Old Testament practices. And it's not getting stuck where I have to get saved week after week after week after week. But it's now moving on from those elementary principles and growing to the point where I can now teach others and then train others in the Christian life. 16:04 That's our goal. That's God's goal for us. And He mentions some things here. He says, "Let us go on to perfection." The word perfection there means maturity. Maturity. Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 16:25 Now, those are some basic theological and biblical things that we need to know about. He's not criticizing that we know those things. And He's not saying you shouldn't know those things. And it's not saying that you shouldn't hear about those things over and over. But you shouldn't get stuck there as a Christian. 16:44 You must move forward. You must move on. You must grow. Now, there's a little bit of debate among Bible scholars and commentators as to what He's talking about here in chapter 6, verse 1 and 2 when He mentions these things. Is He talking about Old Testament things? For instance, 17:04 the word here on baptisms, of the doctrine of baptisms, plural, can have the idea of the Old Testament ceremonial washings. And so we need to go beyond that. Baptism is a picture of that. Ceremonial washings are a picture of that. 17:23 But He said, "You got to move beyond that." No matter if He's talking about Old Testament or New Testament, Old Testament past or New Testament elementary doctrines, we must go on. We must move on. From repentance, He talks about repentance here. There's, again, a question. He's talking about repentance from dead works. 17:44 There's three types of works, at least three types of works in the Scripture. I talked about one two weeks ago in the preparatory message. There's the good works that follow those who believe, and that biblical faith, living faith, produces good works. And then there are evil works. We know what those are. 18:03 The works of the flesh, the works of darkness, the works of the old nature. And then there's dead works. And He says, "You need to repent of dead works," which the dead works are, those works by which we try to earn our status with God and to earn our salvation by doing the works of good works, 18:24 which are actually dead works. He said, "You need to move beyond that." So is He talking about the Old Testament, or is He talking about the New Testament, or is He just kind of lumping it all together and saying, "Wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, you need to move forward. You need to grow." And so He talks about the initial message of faith. 18:44 He talks about purification rituals. It's interesting, just going back to Israel again, almost every old ancient religion had its rituals and had its purification rites. And so you would have the Canaanites had their ritual baths, 19:05 and the Essenes had their ritual baths, and the Jews had their ritual baths, washings and cleansings and bathing and doing it in the right stream so that it's not stagnant water, but it's flowing water. And all those things date way back and even into pagan religions. 19:24 He said, "We're washed by the blood of Jesus. But even that, we need to move forward and not again lay the doctrine of baptisms." In fact, in our day, we can tend to get we can tend to have debates about baptism, not so much anymore. But there used to be a debate between the Mennonites and the Brethren. 19:44 The Mennonites believed in pouring strongly. That is the biblical form. And the Brethren, they believed strongly in immersion. That is the biblical form. And so do we debate those things, or do we just say, "Be baptized and move forward in Christ"? 20:03 I think some of those things are covered in this passage of Scripture. Discussion about laying on of hands. The Old Testament, there were laying on of hands for blessings. You laid on hands on sacrifices. You laid hands on people for service. You laid hands on people for the death sentence. 20:23 I'd like to have your hands laid on you for that. We're going to take this person and by force pronounce judgment on them. In the New Testament, the laying on of hands can represent initiation into the faith, baptism, we lay on hands, commissioning, we lay on hands, ordination, we lay on hands, healing, we lay on hands. 20:44 Sometimes people lay on hands to receive the Holy Spirit or a level of gifts, spiritual gifts. They did that in the book of Acts. 20:53 Whatever laying on of hands means, whether he's talking Old Testament or New Testament practice, we need to move beyond that because the laying on of hands was an initiation, initiating someone into greater service ministry or Christian discipleship. So it was with baptism. So it was with baptism. 21:12 So it is with ordination. Hands were laid on me when I was baptized. Hands were laid on each one of us when we're baptized. But you don't keep going back to the river and laying on hands. You move forward. And when I was ordained, again, laying on of hands of the elders, of the bishops, the overseers, whatever you call them. 21:32 You don't keep going back there and having laying on of hands again. That's an initiation into ministry. And so it is with these laying on of hands as initiation. We go on now to spiritual maturity. 21:49 And so it is with the same about the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. 21:55 The resurrection of the dead, very important doctrine, very important truth, especially for those who were coming out of Judaism, who had very little understanding, didn't have the New Testament yet in its fullness, had very little understanding of what awaits the soul after death. And so we understand more about that, 22:15 that there is an eternal heaven, a real place where real people go. And there's an eternal hell, where is a real place where real people go. We understand that. But that's one of those elementary doctrines of the Word of God that we now go forward from. 22:31 We don't just just just day after day and and and week after week preach on heaven and hell, heaven and hell, heaven and hell, heaven and hell, get born again, get saved, heaven and hell, and baptism. Those are good things. And we preach on those from time to time as part of preaching the whole counsel of God. 22:49 But He said, "There's other things that need to be preached and taught and instructed so that we can grow." And with God's help, He says, "We will do this. We will do this. We can't do this in our own strength. 23:01 We need God's help." Now, I'd like to apply this this morning by saying, I believe this is a way of saying that we should move beyond the conversion experience to the discipleship part, which includes putting the gospel into practice and developing a Christian biblical worldview. 23:24 Now, that is so important in the day and age in which we live. Understanding and developing a Christian biblical worldview. Everything that the world is pushing onto us today is the opposite of a biblical Christian worldview. It's the opposite. You name the subject. 23:44 You name the subject. 23:45 And when you begin to dig into it, if the world is promoting it, both, hear me now, on the political left and the political right, are looking at things through a non-biblical and in some cases non-Christian mentality. What is a worldview? 24:06 What is a worldview? A worldview is the way that we look at the world. How do you look at the world? You've come with Dr. Eggrich. We talk about the glasses, pink glasses or blue glasses. It's kind of what we look at relationships through. It's kind of the unspoken thing that colors how we see things. 24:28 That's what a worldview is. A worldview, a Christian worldview, more specifically a biblical worldview, is the set of glasses that we put on when we look at the world around us saying, "This is how we understand right and wrong, good and evil." And some of those things are unspoken, 24:50 but they're very much there. For instance, if you believe that God is real, that's a lens on your glasses by which you look at the world. That's not the only lens. But it is a lens. 25:08 You compare that with a person who believes that God is not real. And they will look at the same situation through two different viewpoints. Then you add to that the person who says, "Not only is God real, but He's involved in our lives. He's involved in our world. 25:26 And He has spoken into our world." That colors everything else more so than this guy over here who's colored with another lens of glass, colored lens, who says, "Not only is there a God, but if He is a God," which we don't know, or even if we do know there's a God, "He hasn't spoken. 25:46 And if He did speak, it was just suggestions and not authoritative commands." Those are worldview issues. 25:56 And if we're going to understand and exercise the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, we're going to have to look at the worldview, the lenses at which we look at the world, and realize that a biblical worldview, brothers and sisters, 26:15 in this day, in 21st century, North America, US of A, a biblical worldview is the minority view. It's not the majority view. Maybe there was a once upon a time when Americans had more of a Christian understanding. 26:34 And they may have even had a quasi kind of convoluted Christian worldview. They saw things more through the eyes of Christianity and the Bible than the pagans did. But that's long gone. That's long gone. So even for the writer of Hebrews to say, 26:54 "To exercise your senses to discern between good and evil is a worldview statement." That's a worldview statement, that there is good, there is evil, and we have the ability to know the difference. 27:11 So when we talk about a worldview, we're talking about viewing the world and coming up to some conclusions about the world that may not be specifically stated in Scripture, 27:25 but they are implied from Scripture as you look through the commands of Scripture and you look through the lens of wisdom and you look through the lens of trying to understand 27:38 what Scripture, how Scripture bears out in any one issue, that you can come to conclusions that are biblical worldview-based, even though they're not specifically stated in Scripture. We have to do that. We have to do that. If you're going to be mature, you have to do it. 28:00 And you will do it as you mature. So it's like one creates the other, which creates the original again. You need it to grow. And when you grow, you get it, discernment. 28:13 And so this reminds us then that every area of life, the Scripture and God has something to say about it. Every area of life. 28:28 I like to challenge us this morning with the idea that there is not one area of our lives that God doesn't have something to say about. Not one. Every area. I come up with a list. 28:43 Every area of life must be evaluated based on this scriptural understanding and lens through which we look at the world. Lifestyle. How do you live? How are you going to live out this Christian life? We got to go beyond, brothers and sisters, just whether or not you're saved, which is important. 29:02 It's the entry-level issue. But now we got to go on. Now, how are you going to live? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to evaluate good and evil? And how are you going to grow in the good? Politics, government, sexuality, relationships, entertainment, 29:24 education, finances. God speaks to all of it. He speaks to all of it. Separation from the world. What does it mean to be separate from the world? Spending. How do you spend your money? How do you invest your money? How do you look at the church? What about the issue of contraception and sexuality and family planning? 29:45 What about elections? We're coming up to an election here in a couple of weeks. And there's a lot of things being said about the election, about the electors, and about the electees. Lots of things. What's your position on this? 30:00 I got a thing in the paper yesterday prior to that, think of newspaper of different local races. Why do you think you should be elected? What do you think you bring to the election? What are your policies on this, that, and the other thing? A lot of things. Do we look at those things through a biblical worldview? Or do we look at those things through a Republican worldview or a Democrat worldview? 30:22 They are different. Not only is the Republican and Democrat worldview different, but the Republican, Democrat, and biblical worldview are different. 30:32 I have a concern about many of our conservative Anabaptist churches have jumped on some bandwagons of what's called Christian nationalism. Ra, ra, go USA. You are God's anointed for the end times and for this day and age. 30:52 And maybe we are. But I don't think it's the USA that's anointed. I think it's the people of God that are anointed. And maybe God does have a plan for the USA. 31:02 Just that we have to continue to look at the distance between the church and the world, between a Christian who is a member of the kingdom of God versus the functioning of the kingdoms of this world. So I challenge us today. I challenge myself because I'll be honest with you. 31:24 My heart and my worldview is much more consistent with one side than the other. I'll be honest about it. 31:34 But it's a challenge to me to look at these issues through the lens of Scripture and through the lens of God's wisdom rather than through the lens of the Republican Party or the Democrat Party or the Independent Party or the 31:51 Libertarian Party. See? 31:55 We have to learn how to discern good and evil wherever we find it, wherever we find it. I'm equally concerned about those liberal Christians who hitch their wagon to the Democrat Party and think that that's the way to be saved. 32:14 Someone has said it like this: "If the donkey and the elephant have disappointed you, try looking to the lamb." I kind of like that. That should be on a church sign somewhere. 32:30 Stewardship, death, healthcare, bioethics, peacemaking, estate planning, all those things God has spoken to. And we need to discern how to take what God's Word says and apply it to those specific areas. Just think of even in the realm of theology. 32:51 Those were just some practical things. But in the realm of theology, the theology surrounding creation and origins, salvation and sin and depravity and the atonement. You'll see in your mailboxes today a second theological article on the Anabaptist Council for Truth on the doctrine of the atonement. 33:12 There are different doctrines out there about what actually happened when Christ died for our sins. It's important. It's important. Say, "Well, that's just theologians in their high ivory towers." Let me tell you, theologians in their high ivory towers have ways of making inroads down into the grassroots in ways we're not even aware of. And so we have to be careful. 33:32 We have to be cautious. We have to be informed. How does grace and faith and works interact? 33:38 The sovereignty of God, the free will of man, the Christian's relationship with the state, the character of God, the nature of Christ, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament, and the nature of Scripture and the end of times and all those things, they make a difference in how we live. Are some more important than others? 33:59 Probably. But all of them are important for us to be aware of, or at least have someone in a congregation like this that is aware of those things that can give us instruction in those areas to help us learn how to exercise discernment between good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad. 34:22 And then we have the very practical things of discipleship, prayer, evangelism, missions, fellowship, business, the work world around us, marriage, parenting, devotional life, saving and investing and giving and attitudes and thought life and all those things. 34:42 God has very clear instructions on how to live those things. He says, "I want you to have fullness of knowledge so you are skilled in the Word of righteousness. 34:54 And I want you to have depth of experience so that you know how to discern between good and evil." This becomes a challenge in church life because we have people in church. We have people in our church. 35:08 We have people in just about any church of any size that has different people at different stages of development. We have some people here today this morning that are at stage one. Praise God. That's where you start. That's where it all starts. 35:25 I have to remember sometimes that when I was a young boy listening to our pastors preach and gaining a foundation, "Oh, brothers and sisters, bring your children to church. Bring your children to church." There's so much that is caught. And I remember hearing the Word of God and hearing the Word of God. Yes, I started at the narrow gate at the cross. 35:45 But much of what I believe today and how I have patterned my life goes back to my early church and home experiences. 35:53 And then we have people that are growing to the place where they're exercising their spiritual life. They're getting it. They're getting it. They're putting one foot in front of another. And they're reaching out. And they're living consistent Christian lives to God be the glory. 36:12 And then there are those among us who have a knowledge that God has gifted them with, both male and female. I know many of you in the church know the Scriptures. And you're able to teach. And I love to hear God's teachers teach the Word of God. And then hopefully, 36:32 there's some of us in the church that can train and that can help train others in righteousness and train the teachers and train the pastors and train 36:45 the future leaders. And this we will do if God permits. But what I want you to be aware of is that there's such a vast difference in maturity levels in the church and in our church. And not all of those things that need to be taught are going to be taught in 45 minutes on a Sunday morning once a week. 37:05 And so I thank God that we have care groups. We have Bible study groups. We have Sunday school. We have different opportunities for people to grow from the level that they're at. We have children's meetings. We have Christian Day School that we don't host, but we encourage. And so we must preach to instruct the young in the basics of the faith. 37:27 We must preach at times to warn the sinner and the rebel. At times, we must preach to comfort the afflicted and encourage the downtrodden. At times, we must preach to instill biblical convictions and practical applications. At times, we must preach to apply biblical principles to the issues of life. Other times, 37:47 we preach to feed and motivate the weary and the weak. Other times, we must admonish the careless and the unconcerned. We must edify the faithful and inspire greater accomplishments for God. We must care for the hurting and the broken. We must create a culture of growth. And when we, 38:06 as pastors, sit down to preach and prepare a message, all of these things go through our minds. What is God saying to this level and that level and that level and this need and that need? 38:16 And how can we bridge the gap between the pulpit and the pew to make the Word of God practical and applicable, as well as to teach sound doctrine that sometimes seems a bit theoretical? 38:34 But to take that and put it into shoe leather is the challenge that we face. So coming back to my questions at the beginning of the service of the message, where are you at? What level? And there are different ways of describing those levels. And there may be different levels that we haven't added or where we could add. 38:53 But nevertheless, the idea is going higher, going deeper, moving forward, leaving the discussion not entirely of the elementary principles of Christ, but moving forward to take this biblical worldview and flesh it out in the world around us. 39:16 How do you grow? One rabbi said it like this: "Faith like Job's cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken." Amy Carmichael once penned these thoughts: "Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. 39:39 I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step, by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories by faithfulness in the very little things. They became what they are. No one sees these little steps. 39:59 They only see the accomplishment. But even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph, no spiritual maturity. There's no sudden triumph or spiritual maturity. There's no instant fix. It is work of the moment," she said. 40:21 "The moment. 40:21 What do you do with the moment?" Leonard Ravenhill, in his Last Days newsletter, tells about a group of tourists who are visiting a picturesque village, possibly overseas in the old country somewhere, a picturesque village. And one of the tourists saw an old man sitting beside the fence. In a rather patronizing way, 40:41 he asked, "Were any great men born in this village?" And the answer was, "No, 40:48 only babies." I like that. You want to grow? You need to grow. I need to grow. How about just simply doing this? Asking God to take whatever circumstance you're in and use it to grow you. 41:10 He'll do it. It hurts sometimes. Today, in the Word, described the eagle's nest. We see the eagle's nest perched high upon a tree. We may see pictures of it. We may be in a place where we see the real thing. But what we don't often see is the inside glimpse of the eagle's nest. 41:31 When a mother eagle builds her nest, she starts with thorns, broken branches, sharp rocks, and a number of other items that seem entirely unsuitable. And then she covers that all with down and feathers and wool and fur from animals that she killed, making it soft and comfortable to the eggs. 41:52 By the time the eggs hatch, they're in a soft environment. And those little baby chicks, those little baby eagles are in a soft environment. And they grow. And they're used to being fed and so on. But what they don't know is that there's coming a day when the mother begins to take off the soft stuff. 42:11 And they are sitting there and laying there and trying to exist on the thorns and the brambles and the hard things, uncomfortable. Eventually, this and other urgings prompt the growing eagles to leave their once comfortable abode and move on to more mature behavior. 42:34 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint." How do you get there? By asking God to take whatever you're going through today. "They that wait upon the Lord in the current circumstance and situation of life shall renew their strength. 42:55 They're gathering strength from feeding on God's Word and trusting in the sovereignty and goodness of God. And then they get into a position where they grow and they can mount up with the wings like the eagles and fly like God intended them to be. God never intended the eagle to just sit in a nest. 43:15 God never intended children to just sit in a home. My mom told me. And my mom loved me as much as any mom. Mom loves her children. But she said, "Todd," she told me one day, she said, "I don't want you living at home when you're 30 years old." And what was she doing? Telling me to get lost? No. In fact, 43:35 she thought when I got married at 20, I was too long. I needed a few more years at home. 43:40 But what she was doing was saying, "You were meant to fly. You weren't meant to sit." Now, if you're 30 years old and still living at home, I'm not being critical of you. Please don't misunderstand me. God has a plan for each one of us. 43:57 But I am saying that maturity needs to happen in every area of life so that we can discern between good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad. Let's pray. 44:10 Thank you, Lord, for this very clear message from the book of Hebrews that you are interested and very much invested in our spiritual development and our spiritual growth. I pray, Lord, that you will create in us a hunger and a thirst for more, 44:30 more, more of God, more of your Word. Lord, don't let us be lazy. Oh, we can so easily be lazy. I can so easily be lazy and not take seriously the moments that I have to grow and to cultivate, to cultivate my spiritual walk. 44:53 Lord, don't let us do that. Don't let us waste the opportunities. And so, Lord, build us here at Living Water and each part of our congregation into Christians that are growing and maturing and developing, that we might reach higher heights and deeper depths in Jesus' name. Amen.