Sermon Summary
This past Sunday, Easter Sunday, we noted that Jesus’ resurrection changed everything. Sin separated us from God, but out of His great love, He sent the Lord Jesus, to be our Passover Lamb. But some of us have trusted Christ as our Savior but not moved on to spiritual maturity. That is a dangerous thing. The book of Hebrews was written to a group of believers who were spiritually stuck. They had been exposed to lots of Christian teaching, but they had done little with it. They had grown bored with Jesus. Other things had become a higher priority, and as a result they were just drifting spiritually (Hebrews 5:11). Does that describe you?

I think of a man who used to attend here with his family. But then, a compromise here, a concession there. He bought a motorcycle, and Sunday morning is a nice time to ride. So he began to miss a Sunday here and a Sunday there until he was missing more than he was attending. He eventually met someone who shared his love of motorcycles— a woman. You can guess the rest of that story. He eventually left his family. But he had
walked away from God before he walked away from his family.

The author of Hebrews describing the “spiritually arrested.” In 5:12. They should have been helping others grow in their faith—but instead, they were still spiritual babies. They should have been eating steak, but they were still drinking our of a bottle. They should have been nurturing themselves on the meatier doctrines of the faith, but they were still in need of the most basic of spiritual truths.

Had my friend not violated the truths in Hebrews 10:23–25 he would still be walking with God and leading his family. How many times people say, “You Christians are all hypocrites.” Many Christians live lives that are consistent with what they believe—not all of them, and my wayward friend is an example.

He claims to be a Christian, but his life tells a different story. Hypocrisy has always been with us. The Apostle Paul addressed hypocrisy when he wrote to the church in Corinth. In this letter Paul identified three kinds of people: (1) the natural man, (2) the spiritual man, and (3) the carnal man. The natural man is the non-Christian. The spiritual man is the believer who is seeking to please Him in all that they do. The carnal man is a
Christian who is living virtually like their non-Christian friends. The author of Hebrews would call them “spiritually dull” we might call them hypocrites, Paul says they are carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

These carnal Christians in Corinth had been believers for at least three years. He expected them to be further along in their walk of faith. Instead their lives were marked by jealousy and strife. They had rotating teachers, just like TCC does. There is nothing wrong with preferring one teaching style over another, but they were forming cliques (1 Corinthians 3:3–9), and that’s carnal and immature. God wants us to grow in our faith. Milk is ok if you are a brand new Christian, but at some point we need to come off the bottle (Hebrews 5:13-14).

Spiritual babies have not submitted to Christ’s lordship, and their life is bearing the rotten fruit of that decision. Are you spiritually stuck? Are you immature past your time? Are you a hypocrite, professing one thing, and living another? Have you been a Christian long enough that by now you should you be mentoring others in the faith, but you can’t, because still on milk? (Hebrews 6:1). If you want to get unstuck you have to make a
conscious decision to move forward. You have a decision to make. You must come to a point where you say, “Jesus, not my will, but your will be done.” Have you done that?