Last July a Champaign mother stirred up a great deal of controversy when it
was discovered that she was still nursing her eight year-old son. When
interviewed on "Good Morning America" the mother said, "Kyle is my only son and
he's very important to me and he's going to be allowed to nurse until he decides
to finish weaning himself." After the show aired the State of Illinois pressed
charges, the boy was put in temporary foster care, and the mother was subjected
to counseling and evaluations. Despite all she went through, at last report the
mother was still nursing the boy on occasion and passionately defending the
practice!
Why was there such an uproar over a mother nursing her eight year-old son?
The answer is obvious. We instinctively believe that at some point children
must move beyond milk, Gerber food products, diapers, and Fisher Price toys! A
child must grow to eat solid foods and to become less dependent on mom. In our
culture refusing to move beyond infancy is virtually a crime!
Some Christians never mature.
I appreciate the Amy Grant song you just heard titled "Fat Baby". She
exposes an outrageous problem. The problem is that there are Christians who
never move beyond infancy and toward maturity. Christians who have been
drinking out of baby bottles their entire lives. Christians who cannot stomach
much more than an occasional Sunday spiritual lunch. Christians who have
sampled the deeper, solid food, but who prefer milk instead.
Christians who know
John 3:16, who tote around their King James
Bible, who know all the books of the Bible, who have even knelt at the altar,
and who weekly go through all the motions, but who are lacking any real
spiritual center. Christians who are baptized, sanctified, and redeemed by the
blood, but whose daily devotions are stuck in the mud. Christians who are alive
and saved, but who turn their noses at doctrine, who rarely feed on anything
substantive, and who spend their whole lives being momma's boys.
Talk about outrageous! Outrageous is the fact that Christians can spend
years, even decades in the Church, but never move beyond infancy. Yet this sad
fact rarely makes the headlines. We don't talk about it. There is an elephant
in the room, but no one wants to talk about it!
Hebrews 5:11-14 (NIV) rebukes
us.
"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you
are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you
need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again.
You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant,
is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for
the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from
evil."
Notice how the writer of
Hebrews describes the problem in
Hebrews 5:11. They were,
"slow to learn". Literally, the Greek text says that they were,
"hard of hearing" or, "
dull to hear." And it wasn't that
these Christians needed hearing aids. Their ears were perfectly fine.
They weren't hearing impaired. Their problem was that they were selectively
listening to the counsel of God. Year after year they kept wearing out the
verses and pages of the Bible. They kept regurgitating the same old worn
cliches that once enriched their lives. Their problem was that they kept
eating, eating, and eating, but they never digested the word of God. They
attended Bible studies and classes, they listened to sermon after sermon, they
tuned into Christian radio all day long, but never truly absorbed what they
heard.
A few months ago Lara and I were talking about our female dog, Addie. Lara
joked that Addie seemed to become hard of hearing. We would come home and
instead of greeting us, Addie would stay downstairs on the couch, snoring away,
oblivious to our arrival. Or we would be going to bed and call out for Addie to
come, but she wouldn't! We finally got to the heart of the problem. Addie
doesn't have a hearing problem. She has a selective hearing problem. Her ears
are fine. She can hear the slightest crinkle of a potato chip bag. She can
hear the slightest bounce of a ball anywhere in the house. From anywhere in the
house she can detect the closet door (the closet which contains her leash) being
opened. But call her to get in her cage and sure enough, her hearing
short-circuits.
This is the problem the writer of
Hebrews is driving at regarding the
Hebrew Christians. It isn't that we are hearing impaired. Instead we
selectively hear and obey what we want to hear and obey, nothing more and
nothing less. We prefer milk over solid foods because it is so much easier on
our stomachs. We are comfortable being saved, and we are content with being
nursed along. We are terrified at the thought that maybe it's time to grow into
spiritual adulthood and start contributing to the nourishment of others instead
of just feeding and sponging and demanding and nursing and consuming.
Still being fed.
This is the author of
Hebrews second point. He says,
"In fact,
though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the
elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid
food!" Let me amplify this verse. The Greek text says,
"By this time
you ought (are indebted to be, owe it to be)
teachers, but, you still
need milk!"
The writer of
Hebrews is lamenting all the squandered potential he
sees in the Church. He sees all these accomplished professionals in his midst.
People who had risen to prominence in their community, in their workplaces, and
among their peers. People who in their every day lives had taken enormous
risks, had stretched themselves, had taken on challenges, and had demonstrated
their ability. But these were the same people who in their spiritual lives had
remained comfortable, had squandered their potential, had remained idle and
unproductive, and had wasted away opportunity after opportunity to grow. They
had refused to be challenged, to soar to new heights, to move on toward
maturity, and to walk by faith. They could have and should have been teachers,
but they were still stuck in kindergarten, in elementary school, learning their
spiritual ABC's!
I still remember my half-day kindergarten classes, do you? The highlight of
kindergarten was that every day just before noon, we'd march single file down
the hallway to a refrigerator where we would line up to receive a small carton
of milk and a freshly baked cookie. It was the same every day. Line up. Get
milk. Get cookie. That's all I remember!
But oh, how I loved those days! That milk and cookie would make me feel so
warm and full. Life back then was so easy and uncomplicated. My biggest
challenge was learning to write my full name, Jonathan Edward Morrissette. But
I'm glad Im not in kindergarten anymore, aren't you? I got bored singing the
alphabet a long time ago, counting and drawing letters and learning to tie my
shoes, and saying the names of the months in order. I'm glad I moved on! There
is so much more to life than lining up at the refrigerator waiting for my daily
milk and cookie!
Beyond spiritual kindergarten.
And I'll tell you something else. I'm glad I'm not in spiritual kindergarten
anymore. I enjoyed those first steps of faith, learning how to read the Bible,
how to pray, how to memorize scripture, and how to understand basic Christian
doctrines. I sometimes think about those days when I could go to church and not
worry about having a lesson prepared, or a sermon, or having an answer to a
question, or being concerned how someone else was doing. But I'm glad I've
moved on from those days, and I don't mean that in a prideful or
self-congratulatory way. It's just that there is so much more beyond the
elementary teachings and more to life than waiting for spiritual milk and
cookies.
The writer of
Hebrews is telling us rather candidly I think, that we
are long overdue. Enough time has elapsed that we should all be teachers, but
as it is, some of us are still waiting in line to get a milk mustache and to
feel warm and full. When will some of us ever get around to moving toward
maturity? That is the concern of the author of
Hebrews and of every
reasonable Christian.
The author of
Hebrews is concerned that we move beyond milk and to put
it bluntly, that we grow up. He's saying that it's time we develop a taste for
steak. It's time that we develop a voracious appetite and feast on the deeper
things of Christ and his kingdom.
Hebrews 6:1-3 (NIV) says,
"Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to
maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to
death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands,
the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will
do so."
Beyond spiritual milk.
Let's pause here for a moment and rehash some of what we have been talking
about. The problem is not that the author of
Hebrews is a dull or boring
teacher, because this has always been a common complaint Christians make of
their teachers. The problem is that the Hebrew Christians were dull hearers.
They were slothful. They were lazy. They were apathetic about the deeper
things of Christ. They selectively listened and did not fully obey the whole
counsel of God. As a result, their spiritual development was stunted. They
were stuck on milk! Their immaturity was evidenced by their inability to share
spiritual truth with others. They had been Christians long enough to be able to
share God's truth, but they were again in need of learning the basics concerning
the Christian life.
Have you ever stopped to consider what milk is? Warren Wiersbe comments that
milk is predigested food. As such milk is especially suited to babies and those
who are sick or to those who do not have teeth! A sign of spiritual immaturity
is Christians who need everything predigested. The mark of spiritual immaturity
is Christians whose first question when they come to church is, "Got milk?"
Spiritual immaturity is Christians who always need someone to read and
interpret the Bible for them. It's parents who are unable to teach their
children about Jesus. It's church leaders who do not know how to share the
gospel or cultivate deeper life in other Christians. It's older men and older
women who have never taken it upon themselves to mentor younger men and younger
women in the faith. It is Christians who have to be entertained with music and
drama and instruments and special lighting and sound effects and powerpoint and
all the frills in order to get an ounce of enlightenment.
Spiritual immaturity is Christians who are most concerned about staying
comfortable, singing the same songs, quoting the same Bible verses, following
the same liturgy, and having everything their way. These folks are never
looking beyond themselves at the opportunities to disciple young people and
young families which are abounding in their midst.
The writer of
Hebrews is raising the bar for church leaders, for
parents, and for Christians. There is a time when every Christian must crave
pure spiritual milk. Just as everyone has to come into this world as a baby, so
everyone has to be born into God's kingdom as a baby. But it is tragic when a
baby doesn't move on to maturity. As Wiersbe says, "No matter how much parents
and grandparents love to hold and cuddle a baby, it is their great desire that
the baby grow up and enjoy a full life as a mature adult. God has the same
desire for his children. God wants us moving beyond infancy into maturity."
Marks of true maturity.
We're going to move on to cover the additional verses in
Hebrews, but
let me briefly sketch out what spiritual maturity looks like and then you
can judge whether you are moving toward maturity.
First, a mature Christian is unshakably devoted to
Jesus Christ.
This describes a disciple's relationship to God's only Son. A mature
Christian is one who has mastered the elementary teachings about Christ, has
developed deep convictions concerning the identity of Jesus Christ, and is
vitally connected to Jesus Christ through prayer, daily devotions, scripture
memorization, Bible reading, meditation, fasting, and Bible study. In other
words, this is someone who has an insatiable desire to know Christ and search
out the deeper things of God. This is a person who isn't content with what he
already knows, but is actively growing and pursuing Christ, even into old
age.
Second, a mature Christian is tirelessly committed to
developing other Christians.
This describes a disciple's relationship to God's family, the Church. A
mature Christian is one who has become accountable to other Christians for his
own growth, but who is lovingly holding others accountable for their growth. It
is a parent, a mature Christian who is actively discipling his or her children.
It is a Church leader, a mature Christian who is actively mentoring an upcoming
leader. It is an older man or woman, a mature Christian who is actively
investing in the lives of someone younger in the faith. It is an older brother,
or sister, or student, or whatever. It's the same. A mature Christian is
patiently encouraging and investing in the growth of others.
Third, a mature Christian is consistently modeling
Christ's lifestyle.
This describes a disciple's relationship to God's Holy Spirit. I know it is
easy for younger people to beat up on their parents, for parents to beat up on
church leaders, or for Christians to beat up on pastors. It is easy and
tempting for us to question the spiritual maturity of others. But a mature
Christian is not someone who is perfect in everything he or she does. A
maturing Christian is someone who is becoming increasingly consistent day after
day as God's Holy Spirit transforms him or her from the inside out. The
question is, are you being transformed? Are you becoming more like Christ? Are
you yielding to the leadership of the Spirit of God? Are you obeying your
conscience? Are you a doer of the word and not merely a hearer?
Last, a mature Christian is intentionally multiplying new life
in the world.
This describes a disciple's relationship to God's world.
Hebrews 5:12 mentioned
that we ought to be teachers. I pointed out that a more accurate translation is
that we are indebted to be teachers. A sign of spiritual maturity is taking the
new life we have received in Christ, and then sharing it with the world God
loves. It's taking those tell, invite, pray cards seriously and inviting people
to come and see Jesus Christ. It is inviting as many friends and family members
as possible to our church on Friend Day and Easter so that they can hear the
gospel and know Jesus Christ.
There is so much more to spiritual life than mere infancy. God wants to
mature us and to accomplish great things through us for his glory. He doesn't
want us to spend our entire lives lining up for milk. He wants us to be
teachers and disciplemakers who make a difference. But it comes down to one
thing. Are you listening?
Are you hearing God's call? Or are you selectively hard of hearing or dull
of hearing?
