Grow Up - 1

Love is a real blessing for Marlene and I to be back. I believe this is our seventh time as you can see I'm getting older and part of the thing of getting older is you don't quite remember like you use and then not only times and places and events, but people as well so you may remember us more than we remember you initially so don't be offended if you have to tell us your name again, at least for me that would be very very helpful. We're very glad that we were able to bring our granddaughter Bethany. She's been our handmade so far this week and I like that I can see why they had handmaids in the Bible – she's especially her old grandpa outside nice to have somebody who's smart and able and pretty as well. So that's always a blessing. We want to bring you greetings from our home church in Benbrook Baptist Church Benbrook is just on the outskirts of Hamilton.

Hamilton is about.

I guess similar to Pittsburgh. It's a steel city. Our football team actually wears black and gold as well as Pittsburgh does and that's about a little over half a million people in Benbrook is just in the suburbs so we did in the Hamilton area for homeboy 42 years and we thank the Lord for his goodness to us and we do send greetings to bring greetings from our church family.

Would you take your Bible again please and turn to the book of Hebrews Hebrews chapter 5 I'm reading from the ESV it's very similar to the new King James I'm going to read again just verses 11 to 4 team and then we will dive in Hebrews chapter 5 beginning at verse 11 about this. We have much to say and it's hard to explain, since you become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Now, I've probably going into a passage of Scripture this week that probably angels even fear to tread. But some I trust that by the time we're through. I won't be stoned and we will all be blessed.

What I'd like you to do as we work through these passages we will have six sessions together is Big Ten that were going to visit a house six Hebrews laying.

For example, and when and where were going this morning is just up to the front porch and knock on the door and then beginning in Sunday school to Wednesday night were going to go into the house and were going to go through five of the house in the five rooms of the house will be the difficult part of all of this, which is Hebrews chapter 6. As we begin, we need to remember a few things. First of all, the book of Hebrews is not technically a letter like Romans or second Thessalonians or Galatians or Ephesians I may say at the beginning of Hebrews. The letter to the Hebrews, but technically it is not a letter if you were to look in chapter 13 verse 22, you would see that Hebrews is a written sermon, the pastor, and that's one of the difficulties in this marvelous book is we don't know. There been many suggestions it may be the apostle Peter, or Paul, I should say maybe Luke, it may be a policy that who knows and is one of the church father said only God really knows who wrote the book of who preached this sermon from Hebrews and furthermore we don't technically know who it's preached to a most of the New Testament letters say Paul or Peter or James whoever it might be to the church that is scattered in Cappadocia or wherever it might be the church in Corinth. The church at Philippi, but this sermon just begins as a sermon. He dives right in no introduction, no greetings from the church or anything like that. He is just diving and because you see, the issue is very urgent. The situation is very serious if he could he would be there in person to preach the sermon, but is not able to be there and obviously they can't live stream.

The sermon they can't send a CD Mouthful around with One of These Devices and Pick up the Sermon We're Very Glad for That Because This Sermon Has Been Preached Literally Thousands and Thousands and Thousands and Thousands and Thousands and Thousands of Time over the Last 2000 Years and Is a Sermon That Every Believer Needs to Hear Again and Again and Again and Every Congregation Needs to Hear Again and Again and Again Now Because It's a Sermon We Need to Study This Book like It Is a Sermon Sermon's Consist of Two Things At Least They Should.

There Is Exposition There Is Teaching There Is Doctrine There Is Explaining and and If You've Ever Worked through the Book of Hebrews, or Even Just Read It Yourself and I Hope You Have. I Hope You Will This Week Forward through.

You Will See That It Is Packed Full of Great Political Theology and Is Not the Kind of Theology You Just All I Get It You Back Again and Again and Again and Part of the Difficulty Is That This Preacher, Whoever He Is, He Is Just Full of the Bible. He Is Full of the Old Testament Scriptures, and He Is Saying Marvelous Things from the Old Testament That I Would've Never Got If the Sermon Had Never Been Preached and I Don't Think He Would've Got It Either Explains Amazing. Absolutely Astounding Things Wonderful Things, Saving Things, Things That Will Stand the Test of Time and Things That Will Impact for All Eternity. But Sermons Learn Not Just Exposition There Not Just Teaching This Sermons Are Not Lectures at University.

A Good Sermon Not Only Exposes It.

It Does Exposition but It Exhorts It up Wise and and What We Will See As We Go through Our Section and As I Explain As You Go through the Book of Hebrews You Will See That He Goes from Teaching to Application Teaching to Application Teaching to Application Lot Sermons and That's Fine Will Teach for 40 Minutes and Then Apply and That's Good Way Preach. Sometimes It's Good to Apply First and Then to Teach. Sometimes It's Good like This Servant to Teach Little Applied Teach Little by Teach Little Apply Because You See to the They Keep in Mind You've Not Heard until You Eat You You You Don't Get It Because You Can Write It down in an Exam You Get It When You Live It. That's How We Know You Got It in This Book Is a Sermon Written to a Congregation We Don't Know Where They Obviously Aren't Meeting in the Building like This Are Probably a House Church. They Are Probably Jewish in Their Background, Both in Terms of Their Race and Their Religion and Their Living at a Time Probably Well Obviously Somewhere in the Roman Empire Where There's Persecution and the Irony Is That the Persecution Isn't Primarily from the Romans. It's from Jewish People and If You Read through the Book of Acts You'll See That Often. Paul's Biggest Problem Was with the Jews Was in It. Romans Couldn't Care Who Was in Corinth or Any Other Place. But the Jews Cared and They'd Stir Things up and They Get People Going and so the Temptation for This Congregation Probably House Churches. Man Is It Really Worth on a Beautiful Sunday like This in a Beautiful Part of the Country. It Is, but Is It in a Muslim Country.

Is It in Ukraine. Is It in Russia. Is It Worth Pressing on and Persevering and Hanging in There and Not Quitting. No Matter What It Cost You, and We Know from the Sermon That It's Cost Them A Lot.

So Far so Far Nobody in the Congregation Is Missing Because the Remark, but They've Lost Their Jobs. They Lost Possessions They Been Persecuted They Been Mistreated. They Had to Associate with Others Who Been Person and Their Wavering.

Their Faith Is Wavering. Is It Really Worth That You Know All They Have To Do Is Just Backtrack a Little Bit and Go Back to Judaism, and Why Not Judaism's and the Bible Is an and the Guy He's Preaching the Sermon Says You You You Can't Go Back When You Come This Far, You're Either in or You're out. There Is No Middle Ground. Nobody God Intended. No One to Go to the Old Testament and Stay There Now. One Other Thing about a Good Sermon. It Should Have One Thing. There's Nothing like a Sermon That Has Importance of Tithing the Priesthood of Jesus and the Need to Witness at Work out. The Trouble with Those Points Is That They're All Good and They're All Biblical, except the World Is That All Connect Together and I Learned a Long Time Ago. Keep It Simple for Saul Because I'm Stupid and Secondly Especially on a Sunday Morning Some of the Congregations a Little Nosy so You Teach One Thing, and in This Sermon the Preachers Teaching.

One Thing His Buzzword Is Better At Least 12 Times in This Book. He Uses the Word Better Better Covenant Better Promises Better Inheritance, and so on, and His Point in the Sermon Is It Doesn't Get Any Better Than Jesus. Jesus Is Everything That the Old Testament Was Pointing Towards Constantly Flashing Coming Soon to This Planet As a Savior Who Is Out Of This World and He Will Fulfill All the Prophecies and Types in Pictures and Everything That the Old Testament Is Pointing the Old Testament Is Not an End in Itself.

Now That's Introduction What We Want to See This Morning Is First of All, the Parenthesis. Secondly, the Problem and Then Thirdly the Preventative.

First of All, Then the Parenthesis Know the Word Parenthesis Is Not Found in the Text Put the Word Is a Combination of Two Greek Words, You Know You Crazy Glue Them Together and You Can Make a New Word That's Always Fun to Make New Words Out Of Gluing Together Old Words Peron Means Alongside Thesis Means Thesis or Theme or Topic and Apprentice Is Is Something That You Throw in Alongside the Main Theme. Now It Should.

If It's Going to Be a Good Parenthesis. It Should Contribute Towards the Main Thing and Not Be Something Way off.

It Is Helping You to Understand and Respond in the Light of the Main Theme in the Main Theme Is It Doesn't Get Any Better Than Jesus. And If That Was True in the First Century, in the Middle of the Roman Empire Is Certainly True in the 21st Century.

In a World That Is Demonstrating Continually. It Has Nothing to Offer.

Everything Is Bankrupt. God Is Showing Us That the Emperor Has No Clothes. Whether That's in America, Canada or Russia or Any Place in the World. The Emperor Has No Clothes. This Is a Culture like Every Culture That Is Lost. No Were Not Mad Were Not Angry.

You See, God Is an Interesting Interested in Saving America or Canada Is Interested in Saving Americans and Canadians and Ukrainians and Russians. All of the People Groups of the World Is Not Marvelous.

The Church Is This Wonderful Mosaic Now Back to the Parenthesis about This in Verse 11 Is the Teaching about Jesus and in Genesis 14 We Meet This Mysterious Character.

He Appears and Disappears.

His Name Is Melchizedek and Empty Hugo Back to Teach about Him. In Chapter 7 and and He's Saying That Jesus Is of the Order and the Line of the Priestly Line Not of Levi, but It Melchizedek. Absolutely Astounding Stuff. Great Stuff. But Then He Says Timeout. I've Got A Lot to Teach Them in Some of This Is Going to Take Some Brain Sweat When I Was Pastoring Full Time, I Would. Every Once in A While. I Don't Say It Every Week, Every Week, They Don't. But Every Once in A While I'd Say This Would Be the Most Thinking You'll Be Doing All Week. Don't Check Your Brains at the Door. Christianity Is the Thinking Person's Religion.

I Never I Get Saved at 70 and I've Never Thought so Much As I Have from 17 on My Been Saved Almost 56 Years and I'm Taken and Thinking and Thinking More Than Ever. This Is an Amazing Book. Absolutely Astounding Book and It's Constantly Coming and Grappling with Me and Getting Me to Reprogram Me by the Grace of God so That I Will Think God's Thoughts after Him. I Don't Naturally Do That but He Says in This Parenthesis There's a Problem You See Sermons Are Designed for the Ear Gate.Our Culture to Some Degree As Loss That We Think Sermons Are Designed for the Eye Gate with Their Design for the Year. There Is Something Amazing about the Ability to Hear Things Are Going These Things at the Side of Your Head Stuff Goes up and Rattles around in Your Head and It Comes out in Your Hands and Your Feet Absolutely Astounding How God Can Use the Word of God Preached and Proclaimed and Taught so That It Changes People. But There's a Problem They Become Dull of Hearing the Word Go.

There's a Very Interesting Word Because What It Really Means Is to Be Slow or Sluggish or Lazy or Negligent Home Is Not That There's a Buildup of Wax There.

There Is Not a Problem Because You Can Bang Once Too Often Playing Football and That the Problem Is I Just Got Lazy Listening to God. Have You Ever Got Lazy Listening to the Word of God. You Have If You Can Say for Any Length of Time.

This Kind of Dullness of Hearing Is the Kind That Husbands Have Sometimes with Their Wives, You Know You Are There Now or the Kind of Hearing the Kids Sometimes Have with Their Parents, Especially Guys with Their Mom and and Is Not That You Can't Hear the Words Is That Kinda Lazy and You Don't Want to Take the Effort of Hearing Because You Know Hearing Means Responding. I'm Watching Sports and Flicking through to See What's Good on TV and My Wife. I Think Said Something to Me and I Know If She Did Say Something to Me. It Probably Means Getting up Out Of the La-Z-Boy Doing Something Release Muting the Thing in Listening and and You Get Lazy and and You Get Lazy Because You're Tired You're Tired of Struggling You're Tired of Saying No to Sin You're Tired. Tired of Constantly Going Upstream against a Culture That Is Loss Is Lost. As This Culture Is in the First Century. You're Tired of Resisting the Devil.

You're Tired of Fighting Yourself. You're Just Tired of the Effort and the Sweat and the Energy That It Takes to Press on and to Persevere and to Not Quit and and and There's Something about That. Yeah, I'm Not Sure It's Worth the Effort Anymore Not the Effort to Get up and Showered, Get Dressed and Come to Church. Most of That Les Can Do That in Her Sleep and to Listen to the Sermon. Most of Us Can Do That in Our Sleep As Well, but the Effort of Listening like You've Never Heard This before. I Remember When I Was a Young Christian I Heard Someone Say That Every Time You Heard the Word of God.

You Should Listen to It like Listening to a Will to See If Your Names and in the Parenthesis Says Hey Sign-Up Sheet Wake up. This Isn't Just One More Sermon Rattling on about Jesus. Well That That's the Parenthesis. What Is Interesting Is If You Were to Read through the Whole Sermon That This Is the Third Parenthesis in the Sermon Were Going to Chapter 5 and and the Kicker Is Guided Preached the Sermon in Chapter 13 Says Hey I Hope You'll Bear with This Short Sermon in the Kicker Still Is That There Will Be Two More Parenthesis in This Book. There Was One in Chapter 21.

In Chapter 4. This One Here in 56 Another One. Chapter 10 Another One in Chapter 12 What I've Learned Is That If My Wife Persisted in As I Would Call It Nagging Me There Is Probably a Good Reason and If the Preacher Persist in Making Us and Bothering Us. There's Probably a Good Reason Because He Says the Real Problem Is Not the Wax in Your Ears from Biblical Buildup.

The Real Problem Is Spiritual Immaturity. We Have 11 Grandchildren and What We've Observed of All of Them except of Course Bethany Was Here Is That They've All Kinda Resisted. In Some Ways to Grow up They like the Bottle.

I like the Brass They They They Liked, Not Just the Food but the Warmth and Intimacy and Once You Had Wanted to Her for Six Kids. They like Special Time with Her Mom, and Your Patient and Your Kind but You Have To Try to Say Not yet yet You Got to Grow up. You Gotta Grow up. Now You Never Say No to Your Old Stop Acting like a Two-year-old, but You Do Say to 12-year-old Stop Acting like a Two-year-old and and You See in Real Life We We Expect Growth Stoically Wheat We Would Be Shocked If the Some Guy Was Going through the Line That University Get His Diploma. I Went through like This Second Is Thumb and Said Well I Would Say That That Guy Could Put a Man on the Moon but Once You Get to Grow up. And If That's True in the Physical Ram Is Especially True in the Spiritual around See the Problem Is That This Congregation Is Deliberately and Willfully Not Growing up. The Preacher Says You Know by Now You Should Be Teaching You Got the Need of People Teaching You and Ann Were Talking about the ABCs That Christianity 101.

Now That Doesn't Mean Every Christian Should Be Teaching a Bible Class, but What It Does Mean You Can Say for Any Length Time Where the Pastor Should Come to You and Say We Have New New New Convert Here. Could You Take Susie under Your Wing. Could You Take Charlie under Your Wing, Could You Die a Disciple Them.

Could You Mentor Them and Every Believer Should Be Able to Do That Not Every Believer Can Get up in the Pulpit That Every Believer Can Teach at an Adult Searching Class, but If You Been Saved for Any Length of Time You Should Be Able to Reproduce and You Should Be Able to Help Younger Believers to Grow into Mature and the Preacher Says and Not Even Close.

I Hate Preachers Who Bugged People, You Know You Want to Come to Church to Feel Good, Don't You, but I'm Glad I Don't Go to a Doctor Just Wants Me to Feel Good. I'm Glad I Go to a Doctor Who Wants Me to Be Good to Be Good and Healthy to Be Good and Strong. II Would like to Live A Few More Years and I'm Glad for a Doctor. I'm Glad for Preacher Don. This Is What You Need to Hear.

Maybe Not What You Want to Hear the Problem with You Is Your Spiritually Mature. Well, What's the Preventative That They Say They Say That You Are What You Eat and That May Sort of Trying to Be True in the Physical Realm. I See Some People Skinny As a Rail but Boy They Can Eat Anything and They Can Eat Anything.

Almost Anytime Day or Night and There's Others. We Just Walked by Something and We Gain and We Haven't Even Put It in Her Mouth. Yet, but That Never Happens in the Spiritual Life.

I Never Just Walked by a Good Sermon Kind by Osmosis It with Degen Hey Man, Have I Ever Grown. Notice What He Says Some Verse 13 for Everyone Who Lives on Milk Is Unskilled in the Word of Righteousness since He's a Child He's a Baby but Solid Food. Verse 14 Is for the Mature, for Those Who Have Their Powers of Discernment Trained by Constant Practice to Distinguish Good from Evil. Now You See How This Laziness Thing Kicks in. Because It's by Constant Practice of Being Trained and That's When I Get Tired of the Still More to Learn. Still Another Issue out There There's Still Another Book Read There Still Another Problem There. We Got Our Kids through Now It's the Grandkids. And before You Know to Be the Great Greg and and You Know I've Been Saved Almost 56 Years and I've Never Had a Day in 56 Years That I Had Nothing to Pray for This Praise and Worship. Thank the Lord There Is No Needs. There's No Problems and No Difficulties.

That Gets Tiring Because You Know Some People You Prayed for 2030 4050 Years and Going to the Word Again Another Sermon Another Book. Another Issue It's It's Easy to Get Tired Is It's It's It's Easy to Say Who in the World Needs This. I've Been Praying for My Country since 1966. How's It Going. I've Been Praying for People to Be Saved Some for over 40 Years Wrestling with Issues Struggling in and You Seem My Biggest Problem Is Me Stop My Wife, It's Not My Grandkids. Believe It or Not, It's Not Even the Church It's It's Me and I'm Almost 73 and You Think, Well, I'm Pretty Well through Sinning but I'm Not Wrestling with Old Sins That I Wrestled with All My Life and What You Find out As You Get Older You Got a Nuisance to Wrestle with. I Wasn't As Grumpy As This When I Was 40 I Wasn't As Tempted to Be Cynical I Wasn't As Tempted to Look down on the Younger Generation and Think They've Got Nothing Going for Them. I Wasn't Tempted As Much Back Then.

The Thing I Know More Than Most People. I Go to the Right Church. I Read the Right Books and the Trouble Is That You're Always Struggling with You Luncheon and You Just Get Tired of It When You Get Tired of It and You Just Want to Give up and Give in. There's Nothing Wrong with Being a Little Baby a Little Longer. Is There When It's Not Your Kid Is Kinda Cute but There Is Something Wrong If You're Not Growing As a Spiritual Person.

If You're Still Sucking Her Thumb. If You're Still Wanting the Bottle.

If You're Not Tackling That the Broccoli and Asparagus and in the Solid Foods of the Word of God. There's Something Really Wrong and It's Very Very Dangerous Because As We Will See As We Knock on the Door and Go in That the Danger Is Not That I'm Just Not Growing up.

The Danger Is I Made Pasta Size in the Trouble with Spiritual Immaturity Is It's Very Hard to Tell Where That's Going to Go. My Wife and I Graduated from Bible College in 1972, the Valedictorian of Our Class Was Ravi Zacharias for 40 Years. Ravi Was the Most Prominent Christian Apologist in the Late 20th Century. In the Early 21st Century. You Can't Buy His Books Anymore Factors. No RC I Am Anymore. Anything I How Does That Happen and I Don't Know Everything, but I Do Know This, That When God Was Speaking to Him He Stop Listening in the Great Tragedy Is That You Would Have Known That.

And I Wouldn't Have Known That, but He Would Know and so As We Come This Week and As We Nexus at Sunday School Were Not Were Going to Go in the Door and and We Have To Come and We Have To Hear for Ourselves Not to Say, but I Hope My Wife's Listening O'Charley's Listening, but This Book Is for Me. If Nobody Else Is Listening. The Book of Hebrews. The Sermon of Hebrews Is for Don Theobald Because You See, It's like the Boston Marathon. It Isn't Who Started the Race Everybody Pretty Well Gets off the Line but Who Crosses the Line at the End and Is Not a Given. And As We Will See This Week As We Go through This Passage I Can Even Let My Theology Deceive Me. I Need to Be Teachable. I Need to Be Learning.

I Need to Be Hungry I Need to Hear This Word Every Day like I've Never Heard before, for the Glory of Jesus Christ and for the Good of My so Well around the Front Door or Knocking. I Can Hardly Wait to See What Was Going to See in the House on 6 Hebrews Ln.