If you would, please remain standing if you're able for the reading of God's Word. If you want to grab a Bible, please feel free to do that. If you don't have one, there may be one underneath the chair in front of you, and we'll be reading from Hebrews chapter 6, verses 1 through 3, which is on page 1278, if you're using one of the Bibles that we provide underneath the chair. Here now, God's holy, true, and life-giving Word. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do thank you once again for your Word. We thank you for the way you have revealed yourself to us, in and through your Word, and most of all, in and through the work and the person of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, we do ask now that you would open our eyes and our hearts to the truth and to the majesty and glory of Jesus that we see as we study this passage. We do pray that you would use this time to help us to know you more and grow in faith and be more able and more excited to continue to make disciples of our neighbors and the nations for we pray in Jesus' name, amen. There's a skill that I have that I don't get to use very often anymore now that I live in Florida. I grew up in Minnesota and upstate New York, where there is this stuff that comes in the wintertime called snow, it's white, it's cold, you've probably seen it in the movies. And if you grow up in a place where there is snow, when you learn to drive, if you have a dad like I did, he teaches you how to do what he called the Minnesota rock. Minnesota rock, basically what that is, it's not music. When you're driving in Minnesota invariably every winter, at some point you can get stuck in a snow bank, it's just going to happen. And so when you're learning to drive, you learn how to do this thing where basically using the laws of physics, you put the car in drive and you let it move forward just a little bit but then put it in reverse and let it move back and then put it in forward and then put it in reverse and go back and you kind of a little bit more and more and you get that car rocking. And eventually what it does is it kind of bursts out of the snow bank and everybody says yes, now we can go on to the grocery store or wherever you were headed that day and you're free, you're broken free. And it's a skill that once you're in Florida you don't use anymore so I miss that but it was always nice to know that if I got smashed into a snow bank I could probably rock my way out. The last week and this week as well, we're talking about this concept of spiritual maturity and one of the things that is important for us to understand about spiritual maturity is God calls us to it because oftentimes we feel like we're stuck, we feel like we're not moving forward or we're not able to really understand God or we have all sorts of questions and concerns. And one of the things that God lovingly does for us is calls us not to work with the laws of physics but to understand Him and see the ways that He guides us and tells us how we can kind of get unstuck and keep moving, keep growing onto maturity. And that's really what the author is talking about here and last week's passage as well, as concept of the importance of moving on, going on to maturity, to spiritual maturity and expanding our understanding of who God is and what He's done for us in Christ. And so last week our focus was the same as it is this week that living by faith in Christ involves pursuing spiritual maturity. Our faith is not just about believing the gospel that we might be saved but even now in this life that we would pursue spiritual maturity, trusting in the ways that He's called us to do that and helps get us unstuck, helps keep us moving and growing in our relationship with Him. So spiritual maturity, last week one of the things we did is we talked a little bit about sort of having a category for what we mean when we talk about spiritual maturity and I said that we could think about in terms of growing to maturity in our head and in our heart in our hands, representing you know we want to grow to a mature faith in our head meaning we want to have the right thoughts about God. We want to really understand what His word says, what it teaches, theologically. We also want to grow to maturity in our heart meaning we want to develop those right affections for God. We want to really experience His love and love Him back. And then in our hands we want to live in ways that honor Him and end up being a blessing to others. So that's kind of a way to understand what we're after in spiritual maturity that we would grow in our knowledge of God, that we would grow in our affections for God and we would grow in the way we live for His glory. And one of the things we talked about is that you know the author of Hebrews is calling this congregation that he's writing to, to spiritual maturity, he's calling them to move forward. And part of that that we talked about last week is so that we're able to do certain things, talk about how the more spiritually mature we are, the more able we are to understand some of the deeper mysteries of the gospel, the more able we are also to recognize false teaching and also the more spiritually mature we are, the more able we are to help others come to know the Lord or grow in their relationship with the Lord. One of the things that we can also recognize is when we see the ways in which God is calling us to trust Him and do things that will lead to our spiritual growth and also we're able to get unstuck and keep moving and keep growing in our relationship with Him. So we'll be talking about that this morning, we'll talk about spiritual growth, how it involves a journey and it involves a foundation and it involves a partnership. So if you're making an outline, I'll leave some room for those three things, spiritual growth involves a journey, it involves a foundation, it involves a partnership. Take a look at verse one, chapter six verse one. He says therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. One of the things that he's emphasizing here is that spiritual growth is a lot like a journey. If you're going on a journey, you know that it's going to take time, it's going to take effort, it's going to take determination, but the language he's using does emphasize our part, our effort that we would leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. So spiritual growth is like a journey that we want to be on and we want to be putting forth like any journey if you're going to get somewhere, there's going to be some effort on our part. Now here's the thing about effort. In a church that focuses a lot on the grace of God, where we are reconciled to God by his sheer grace through the finished work of his son, which we received through faith. When we talk about the grace of God, sometimes we get scared of that word, effort. But the reality is if we're going to move forward on our journey, it will require effort and that's why I think Dallas Willard is really helpful on this, he says, the path of spiritual growth in the riches of Christ is not a passive one. Grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. And that is a tremendously helpful thing for us to realize that when God calls us to go on to maturity, he's not calling us to try to earn something from him. We have all we'll ever need from him by grace through faith in Christ. But he is calling us to move on, move beyond the basics, move on to maturity, to be on a journey in which we are growing. Now a journey has parts that are challenging and then also usually parts that are pretty rewarding. I remember years ago when I was doing youth ministry at this church, when I was the youth pastor here, I used to take kids to summer camp up on Lookout Mountain in Georgia where coming at colleges and we'd go up there and we'd spend a week up there and we'd always go on the hike. The kids who had been there before would always be excited about going on the hike. The new kids, you know, it was their first year at camp, they would say, what is the hike? And then they'd find out. And so we'd go on this hike and it was quite a journey, you kind of go off the college campus down into the thick woods there and there's trees everywhere and there's a very thin path and there's a lot of logs and rocks and you can twist your ankle. It's hotter than you can possibly imagine and mosquitoes are biting and people are twisting their ankle or trying to jump over things and avoid animals and all that stuff and it's like this crazy experience and a lot of times the new kids are saying halfway through, they start saying, why are we doing this? And then the kids who have been there are the ones who will say, oh, just hang in there, let's keep going because they know that as we keep going, eventually we arrive at this clearing where there's this just massive cliff and you're standing on the edge of it and it's like hundreds of feet down, okay, so worst nightmare for a youth pastor, several teenagers standing on a cliff. But that journey led us to that point where you look out and you're just absolutely amazed. You just blown away at the beauty of creation and it's like, you know, in that moment all the grumbling about mosquito bites or twisted ankles, all that just stops because it was all worth it. The journey was worth it to see that. That's how we want to understand spiritual formation, that God is calling us to be on this journey and a lot of it is difficult, some of it can be very challenging in studying some of the things about God that we don't understand or in trying to live according to His ways. It can be very challenging, however, He calls us to it because He knows that as we continue on in the journey, that it will be worth it. So think about a healthy devotional life, you know, sometimes we talk about this, the importance of having a devotional life where we're in the word and we're in prayer on a daily basis and a lot of times people say, I just don't know if I can really ever do that or if I'd really get anything out of it, but that is one of the things that helps us move on to maturity and I like what our book of church orders says about that. It says the many advantages arising from a conscientious performance of these duties that is being in the word and prayer, having a devotional life. Our best known to those who are found in the faithful discharge of them, in other words, the ones who are regularly doing these things are the ones who begin to see all the advantages. They begin to see the way God is working in their lives through spending time with Him in the word. So that's one of the things I think we can take away here is that we want to see spiritual formation, spiritual growth as a journey that we're on and there's going to be parts that are difficult, but it will be worth it as we grow, as we see the things that God is doing in our life. Now every journey has a starting place. In our case, the author says that it has a foundation. Take a look at the rest of verse one and let's talk about how spiritual growth has a foundation. He says, let's go on to maturity, not laying again, a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and the instruction about washing the laying out of hands and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. What is he talking about there? Ultimately, what we want to recognize here is he's talking about the fact that spiritual growth involves building on a foundation. So notice that he's saying these are the things that make up the foundation. He doesn't want to lay a foundation again, he wants us to realize that these basic elementary doctrines of Christ are the foundation on which we should be building. So he's showing us the importance of understanding what the foundation is and the foundation is the gospel and some of the promises that we receive through believing the gospel. So when we think about the gospel, the good news, we want to think about the events and the promises. The gospel is the good news that God sent his son to live a perfect life and then die a sinner's death and then be buried and then raised from the dead so that whoever believes in him could have eternal life through faith in him. So that's the announcement of what God has done on our behalf. That's the good news. But then there are promises that we have as we respond to the gospel and ultimately what he's talking about here in the rest of verse one is the ways we are meant to respond to the gospel, to receive those promises. So think about the gospel promises that we talk about here quite a bit because they are foundational. And when we talk about what we receive through faith in Christ, sometimes we put it in terms of freedom that through faith Jesus sets us free from the penalty of sin and from the power of sin and one day he will return and set us free from the very presence of sin. These are the promises that we receive when we trust in Christ, freedom from the penalty of sin, freedom from the power of sin and freedom from the presence of sin and what's interesting is what he's doing here and these next two things that he lays out here, he mentioned six things and really three sets of two things and each one corresponds to the basic elements of these truths of the gospel and the promises. So for example, he mentions repentance from dead works or repentance from works that lead to death so sin and faith towards God. Now repentance and faith is how things begin, right? That's how we begin a relationship with God, we acknowledge that we're sinners, we deserve punishment. However, we see that the grace of God is offered to us in the gospel and as we trust in Christ what we receive is forgiveness and we're declared righteous eternally and we are set free from the penalty of sin. We will not be condemned or judged by God because of our sin now or ever. We call that the doctrine of justification that we're forgiven of all of our sins and we're declared righteous not because of anything we've done but because of what Christ has done and that being imputed to us, given example, I did this couple weeks ago but I'll do it again. When you think about justification, what we receive through faith, imagine if this booklet here is a list of my sin or at least one volume of therefore, then imagine my Bible is a list of all the perfectly righteous things that Jesus has done. When we trust in Christ, there's an exchange that happens. God has taken all of our sin and placed them onto Jesus and then punished Jesus for those sins on the cross so they're paid for. But God also takes all the perfectly righteous acts that Jesus committed in his life and then he applies that to me as if I had lived a perfectly righteous life and when God looks at me, he sees the righteousness of Christ and I'm free from the penalty of sin. I do not have to fear God because he'll never judge me so that's freedom from the penalty of sin and he's talking about that when he calls us to, what does he say here? He says, instructions about repentance towards dead works and faith so he's talking about what we receive through that which is justification. Then freedom from the power of sin, okay? We also receive freedom from the power of sin, how is he talking about that? Notice that he talks about washings, okay, and there's literally baptism so he talks about instructions about baptisms and then he talks about laying on hands. Now what's interesting about this is the baptism being a ceremonial washing was meant to be a picture of the work of the Holy Spirit. We talked about that when we had the baptism earlier, right? It's meant to signify the work of the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands in the New Testament was to signify the coming of the Holy Spirit to somebody who believes. So Rick Phillips in response to this, he says that the author is talking about these two things for this reason. He says taken together washings and laying on of hands have to do with our empowerment for the Christian life, that is they point us to sanctification. So what the author is also talking about is how we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in relationship with God and live in the ways that he wants us to that will lead to his glory and our joy. That's being set free from the power of sin. It no longer dominates us anymore, we're liberated, which means we can change, we can grow, we can become something that we weren't before. So another gospel promise then is the freedom from the power of sin third, freedom from the presence of sin. He signifies that or talks about that basically by saying resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment because he's pointing to the end. How do things end? Well, for the Christian, what happens is we're all raised back to life when we're glorified. We're given this brand new body that works perfectly and God's judgment comes down on the world for the sin of the world, but it doesn't hit us because they hit Christ instead of us. And we're ushered into the new heavens and new earth where we have these perfectly working bodies and we live in the perfect new heavens and new earth with our perfect God forever and everything is wonderful all the time. What happens when Jesus comes back, raises us from the dead and then judges the world? And so he's talking about that as well, freedom from the presence of sin. So that's why we talk about these things all the time that through faith, we receive freedom from the penalty of sin. We receive freedom from the power of sin. We receive freedom from the very presence of sin one day when Jesus returns. But what the author's getting at is that's the foundation. It's not the whole house and I think he very intentionally uses that word foundation. So think about your house. How important is the foundation to your house? How often is that foundation under your house? How often are you walking around on that foundation and enjoying the fact that there's a foundation underneath you, right? It's okay. So the foundation of our houses are absolutely essential. Without them, we can't really have a house. But on top of the foundation then is all these things that make the house even more enjoyable than a concrete slab would be. We wouldn't want to sit on a concrete slab and say, home, sweet home, right? So there's walls and there's doors and there's windows and there's furniture and there's a kitchen and a living room and a dining room and bedrooms and all these things that make up what makes a house a wonderful place to be in. So the foundation is critical, it's always there, it's always in use, but also what's on top, what's meant to be built on top matters and what is very important to us. And so when you think about that, then what he's saying here is these truths of being set free from the penalty, the power and one day the presence of sin is absolutely important. We never really get away from it. We really though are meant to build on it. There's so much more for us to know. There's so much more for us to celebrate. There's deeper and even more special things than being forgiven or being declared righteous. Things that are meant to make our heart sing and sing and sing and sing. Think about this. In John 17, Jesus is praying, his high priestly prayer, he's praying about us who would believe. And one of the things that he says is interesting, he kind of defines eternal life and he doesn't say this is eternal life that they'd be forgiven. Here's what he says, he says, and this is eternal life that they know you and the only true God or that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So what he's emphasizing there in that prayer is that the ultimate joy, the most amazing part of being redeemed is not just being forgiven, but actually being able to truly know God and have true communion with the living and almighty God who is infinite and therefore can fill our hearts with joy at all times as he will in the New Heavens and New Earth. But even now, as we seek to grow in our faith, as we become more and more mature, we know him even more and that fills us with more and more joy. And that we do that by building on the foundation, by being really sure of the foundation, but then also building on it with all these other things that God has revealed about himself in his word. By the way, this is why our worship service is designed the way it is. A lot of churches tend to try to get people to step onto the foundation and a lot of the teaching is simply, it's the basic stuff to kind of just get people to put their faith in Christ. Well, we're all about that, but we're not only about that, we also want people to grow. We want people to build on that foundation so that they grow up to maturity in the faith, which ends up glorifying God and bringing more and more joy to the people. So we do different things that are not necessarily because we like them, but rather because we see God instructing us to do those things when we worship him. We trust that as we do things his way, more and more, we're building on that foundation. We think about the Catechism answer that we did today as we read through the question answer, the Catechism, we're deepening our understanding of what it meant that Jesus was buried, things like that. So the pursuit of spiritual growth is not leaving the basics behind. He's not saying we should leave the gospel and abandon it, but rather we should build on it. So if you imagine the journey, it's kind of a journey of being on the foundation and then building up as we deepen and widen our understanding of who God is. Now here's the thing, there's a journey and it's got a foundation, but it also has a partnership. Let's look at verse three. There's a partnership, this is important for us to understand. He says, and this we will do if God permits, in other words, he's saying, and we will go on to maturity, we will become more mature joy-filled followers of Jesus, if God permits. So ultimately what he's doing is he's highlighting the absolute sovereignty of God over all things. Now he does say this we will do it, and notice he includes himself in that. He's not saying you guys need to be more mature, he's saying we all will do this. We're all in this together. He says, this we will do if God permits, and you can kind of see that there's things we want to do, we want to put forth effort and trust that God will make it happen. And that's the thing, spiritual growth ordinarily happens when we intentionally are partnering with God to see that when it comes to our justification, when it comes to being declared righteous in God's sight, we don't do anything, we're not his partner. We contribute zero to that, it's all 100% what Jesus has done for us on the cross. But when it comes to our sanctification, we're empowered by the Holy Spirit. So in a real way, we're partnering with God through the work of the Holy Spirit to put forth effort, but then for the have that effort empowered by him so that it is fruitful. Think about what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1510, he says, by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. You see what he's saying? Paul's very spiritually mature, so mature that he would, we see him singing while he's in prison. Has that deep and powerful relationship with the Lord Jesus and what he's saying is that he really worked. He labored. But he also recognizes he can't be prideful about it because it was the grace of God empowering him. We see the same thing where he calls us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling in Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Paul says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now, it's important we recognize when he says work out your salvation, he's not saying earn your salvation. He's saying work out the implications of it, but what he's saying pursues spiritual growth, he's saying grow in your understanding of these things and your application of all the truths of the scriptures, but what he's saying is, why do we do this? Because it is God who's working in us both to will, so to make us willing to do these things and to work, so to empower us for these things. So important, such a huge key to spiritual growth is to believe that the Holy Spirit of God is within us, if we have faith, and he's within us, and he will empower us as we put forth effort. And you've seen this because you've probably seen a small child dunk a basketball, you've ever seen a three or four-year-old dunk a basketball? How does that happen? Well, mom or dad comes up to the child, gives a child a ball, kid grabs the ball, smile appears. Mom or dad gets behind the little kid, grabs them and by the way, we're talking like an eight foot hoop, not a ten foot, I don't know how tall some of you are. Mom or dad grabs that kid, puts them up as high as we can, that kid takes that ball and booms, slams it down, kid is set down on the ground, he's celebrating, you know, we did it, I did it, I dunked it. And mom or dad is saying, you did dunk it. And he did. Not on his own, not on his own power. So why did he grab that ball and look at that hoop because he knew that mom or dad was going to wrap him up and lift him up and empower him to do something he could not even imagine doing on his own. Otherwise. And this is how lives really change, it's believing that yes, we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. But also we're sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit as we put forth effort to know him more, to have the right affections for him more, to live more in a way that's holy and pleasing to him, as we do those things, our effort is empowered by God himself through the work of the Holy Spirit. And so what's interesting is the key to spiritual growth is the same key to actually beginning a real relationship with God and that is faith. It's believing. It's believing that hospital and believing that not only are we free from the penalty of sin but we're empowered by the Holy Spirit to grow as we await being set free from the very presence of sin. So see it, we see it as a journey, right, that we always want to be on, okay. We just keep swimming, just keep swimming, we want to be on this journey that's based on a foundation that's unchanging these amazing truths and we want to put forth effort to know him more, to love him more, to live for him more, believing that as we put forth effort the Holy Spirit empowers and kids end up dunking basketballs. Now I want to give you some practical things. One of the things I mentioned earlier and I'll expand on that a little bit, one of the things that really helps someone grow to maturity is being in the word regularly. Spending time in the word in prayer and really developing a personal devotional life. And I want to give you a resource for that because there's a special thing right now. This is a magazine called Table Talk, it's put out by Ligonier Ministries. And I'm a subscriber and some of you might be as well, but there's two things that's really cool about this. One, you can get three months free right now and I don't work for Ligonier, they don't know I'm saying this, I literally am saying this because I think it's a good tool for somebody who's wanting to have a better, more consistent devotional life. It's a little magazine, you can get three months free if you go to their website right now. And every day of the month what it does is it gives you a scripture reading so you can spend some time in the word, it gives you a devotion to read, something to think about, something to wrap your heart around, is a scripture verse that you can either memorize or at least read and a few other things. And so it's really powerful because it's basically a personal devotion plan in a box, or a book actually. Great tool, okay, I've benefited from this and maybe you will too, and like I said, if you go on line, you can get three months free and then even if you don't continue with it, this could actually be what helps you begin to have a regular devotional life. And you'll see that that effort will be worth it, that God will meet you as you seek to grow in that way. Another thing would be to learn a catechism. If you go to our website right now, uPC-orlando.com on the very front page, one of the lower big icons, it says Heidelberg catechism, and you can download for free a PDF copy of the Heidelberg catechism and you could actually look at all the questions and answers that we've been going through and we'll be going through as we continue through the year. You could look at all the scripture references that formulate those answers, maybe even memorize some of those answers and deepen your understanding of theology and your understanding of what the scriptures teach. The creeds and confessions and catechisms are not equal with the Bible, they're actually below the Bible, they don't have authority, but they do help us understand and articulate what is authoritative and that would be the Bible. And the more, when you memorize some of these things, it helps you summarize what the Bible teaches, it helps you actually preach the gospel to yourself. You know that there's times in my life where I simply go through question number one of the Heidelberg catechism just to calm my heart when things go crazy, because the question one of the Heidelberg catechism is what is your only comfort in life and in death? And anytime I want, I can say, that I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ who has fully paid for all my sin by His precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my father who isn't heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation because I belong to him Christ by his Holy Spirit assures me of salvation and makes me willing and able from now on to live for him. Now that'll preach and it'll preach to you. See, we summarize these truths so that we can speak these things into our lives, what the Bible is actually teaching us. It helps us to grow. So maybe you want to download the Heidelberg catechism and study it and learn from it. Or maybe it's just as simple as saying, you know what, I only come to church once or twice a week, maybe a month. Maybe you want to move towards every single Sunday and let's providentially hinder it. We're going to be here because we'll trust that God is here and the Holy Spirit will empower what we're doing. Maybe it's joining a life group. Here's the thing. There is not a person in the room, myself included, that can say, I've arrived. We all want to be on the journey and so we all can hear God speaking to us in His word even now saying, I've got more for you, I want you to know about me, come and get it. So let's stay on the journey, built on the foundation, trusting in the empowerment of God through the Holy Spirit and see what happens. Let's pray. Father, thank you. We do pray now that you would seal these truths through our hearts that we might all feel encouraged and inspired to step out and do the things or more of the things that you've called us to do to help us grow to maturity and that we would trust you to get us unstuck and that as we trust in you and see how you work in our lives, we would be all the more ready to turn back and give you all the praise and all the glory. Help us to deepen and widen our understanding of the glory and majesty of the Lord Jesus. Help us to grow spiritually. Help us to go on to maturity for your glory and for our joy. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.