Moving Forward Personally: Walking the Discipleship Pathway | Harrison Campus

All right.

So my first point this morning is that spiritual growth is a non-negotiable expectation, non-negotiable expectation.

So the letter of Hebrews is this, this beautiful, deep presentation.

If you read the whole thing that Jesus is better and Jesus is the supreme and final revelation of who God is.

He's the greater high priest.

He's the once and for all sacrifice.

And so believers should persevere in the faith, draw close to God with confidence because of what Jesus did on the cross, getting rid of that enmity between us and God.

Now, But this book of Hebrews relies quite heavily on the first 39 books of the Bible on the Old Testament.

The author assumes that his readers, who he calls Hebrews, will have actually a pretty thorough understanding of, you know, Genesis to Malachi, those 39 books.

But, In verse 11, the author begins to bend a little bit.

He writes about this, referring to a comparison that he's just made between Melchizedek and Jesus talking about how Jesus is a greater high priest.

He says, I have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

He's frustrated because he wants to share these deeper truths with his readers.

And yet they've stopped listening.

They've closed their ears, perhaps for years to teaching about God, about Christ.

And so he can't go deep with them.

In fact, like a 40 year old living as a teenager, they should be much further along in their spiritual maturity.

They should have a far deeper understanding of God's word.

And that brings us to our first verse today.

Verse 12, where he writes, by this time you ought to be teachers.

And yet you need someone to teach you again, the very basic principles of the oracles of God.

So it's clear through this text, the witness of scripture that God does not expect people to, you know, one day place their faith in Christ.

And then by the very next day to have a PhD in Christian theology, each one of us is on a journey of growing to know Jesus through his word more deeply and In fact, the very definition of a disciple is a person who learns from a teacher who follows their rules, who tries to live like them.

So there's not an expectation that each one of us immediately reach this, this PhD Christian theology level, but there is an expectation that each disciple of Jesus be making steps to grow in their faith, to learn more about our savior.

This desire is expressed well in a number of places, but also in a place like Ephesians four, where, where Jesus gives certain people to raise up and help mature others in their faith.