The Need For Growth

Introduction

We’ll begin reading in verse 11 shortly. It said a husband was holding an article that he passed to his wife. And he said, This is interesting. She said, What did you learn? He said that women speak 30,000 words a day, while men speak just 15,000. He said, What do you think of that? And she said, Well, I think it’s because women have to repeat themselves over and over to men all the time. And he said, Wait, what? You know, sometimes we have some impediments to where we’re trying to get to go. It’s very difficult to understand that I need to be somewhere else. It’s easy in theory. It’s difficult to say, I am flawed, I need to be better, and I can be better. It takes work to get to that better place.

1. The Absolute Basic Need for Growth

The question is, do we have the commitment to first see the need? Secondly, to be willing to map out the journey, and then thirdly, to take that journey. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 11, Paul begins at square one. The Christians, the Hebrew Christians, the converts to Christ, who he’s warning constantly in the book, do not fall away, do not give up, do not stop. He’s telling them not just don’t stop, you need to be going forward. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 11, about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have 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. It’s interesting to keep in mind in Hebrews chapter 5, the writer, whether it be Paul or anyone else, is very clearly pointing out to Christian people. You need to grow. By the way, you don’t just need to grow for growth’s sake. You ought to be what? You ought to be teachers. You know, a lot of times we reach this problem where we say, well, I’m just not good enough to be a teacher. I don’t have the skills. And then we say, all right, don’t pick me, and that’s the end of the conversation.

The writer says, you need to be growing. You need to be able to the end of verse 14. This applies to everybody, whether you want to speak in front of a small group, a large group, or no groups. We need to be able to distinguish good from evil. And what is the only way to do that? To grow. To learn. To commit. And so as we think about this new year, of course, resolutions are in the air. We need to recognize first and foremost the absolute basic need for growth. I think there is an elementary level here where everyone says, of course, I need to get better. Until the day I die, I need to grow. But you know what we really show is we don’t necessarily think of it that way.

I can give you a firsthand example. Many times in our Bible classes, from the age zero to eighteen, that is zero, to where they can sit in a seat for some period of time until the end of high school. We have a very carefully planned out curriculum. We have workbooks, we have exercises, we do tests, we do all kinds of recall examples, and we say we need to learn. And by age three, we want our kids to know this. By age five, we want them to be able to do this and be able to speak this about the Bible, this in their English vocabulary. By age seven, we want them to be able to understand. In age nine, we want them to get here. In age 12, they can do this, and by age 15, they’ll be trained, and by 18, they can be ready.

And then what do we do with the adult classes? No tests. Oftentimes don’t go over the book questions, and that’s fine. There’s different styles of teaching. But you see, sometimes we teach to the room, and the room isn’t taking it as seriously as we wish our kids were. I wonder how many times in our Bible classes, if we put in the effort that our children did, what the adult classes would look like. Would it go up? Would it raise the bar? Would it lower the bar? We’re intimately concerned with and aware of what we do for our children. But for ourselves, we kind of just let it ride and hope for the best. There’s no scripture to back up. Letting it ride, hoping for the best helps you be a stronger Christian.

2. Honor Him as God and Give Thanks

In fact, just the opposite. You have to decide to press forward. Notice in verse 11. It’s not a very kind greeting. For those of you who are dull of hearing, verse 12 and 13, you should be better than this. You should be off of milk. You should be on solid food. You need to be better. And so the question is, how can I, how can we be better this new year? How can we grow if we first recognize that need? I think fundamental to our understanding of this is to say, where does our faith come from? And then to think, how do we channel and develop that faith to grow the way we desire? If you look at me in Romans chapter 1, if you put a marker there, we’ll be there for a little while.

In Romans chapter 1, we’re aware of verse 16, where Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for as the power of God and his salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and to the Greek. But right after that great news, right after that good news, beginning in verse 18 of Romans chapter 1, all the way until Romans chapter 3 and verse 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Paul has some bad news. He says in chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, Gentiles, you have sinned, you have messed up, you need Jesus. And you can imagine the Jews at Rome going, that’s right, Paul, you tell them. And in chapter 2, he says, The Jews, you have sinned, you have done wrong, you need Jesus.

Chapter 3, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The good news is, of course, Jesus is that sacrifice. The propitiation that Tom spoke about is manifested in Jesus through his sacrifice through God’s great plan. But in chapter 1 and verse 18, as he’s addressing the Gentiles, notice while they didn’t have the law of Moses, they had expectations from God that were predicated on some basic fundamental attributes, which if we apply to ourselves, I think will help us grow. Verse 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, and note this, so they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. I think verse 18 is pretty clear. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. We get it. God will judge us for being wicked. If men are wicked, if we suppress truth, God will judge that. And so the Gentiles were guilty and stood condemned without the grace of Jesus. But I want to note that, first of all, God says you should know better. And the question of the Gentiles would be, why?

What did the Gentiles have? How could they possibly know better when the law and many of the miracles were for the Jews? Now, of course, we know, even going back into the Old Testament, that God did care for the Gentiles. That’s the entire book of Jonah. You remember God says, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh. He goes, No way, pick somebody else. People of Nineveh were Gentiles, Assyrians. And Jonah was to go there in chapter 3, he got over himself. He did what God said to do. By the way, God always gets his way in the end. It’s better to just go with it now than be told and dragged through it later. In chapter 3, the people are told the message, repent or you’ll perish.

And they repented. From the king down, the people of Nineveh repented. And so God relented of the disaster he was going to bring upon them. God cares for the Gentiles. But notice in verse 20, he says, the Gentiles should at minimum know what about me? For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly perceived since the creation of the world in those things that have been made. They are lacking excuse. God says the Gentiles should know there is a God. Because they should look around and see the need. They should be able to see from creation there is something more powerful, more special, with a nature greater than our own. And then you kind of think about Paul in Acts chapter 17.

There he goes, wandering into the Areopagus. And he has all those Athenians who are around just wanting to talk about different things. And remember they even have that altar to the idolatry everywhere? And he says, Look, you have this altar to the unknown God. I proclaim to you I know who the God is. And what did he say about God? My God, the real God, doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need things by human hands. My God is greater than us because he made us, he doesn’t need us. But he wants us. He sent Jesus to die and yes, to be resurrected as a proof of judgment, as a proof of love. We should be able to know something about God. Now, if we stop and actually think about creation every morning, if you woke up and were thankful to God for creation, don’t you think that would change our mindset a little bit?

You know what we normally do when we wake up, we think about all we have to do for the day. And maybe we pray to God and we help we pray that he helps us get through it. But what if we just started our day thinking about how great God is? Do you think that might impact our character a little bit? Do you think it might make me a little more prone to reading the scriptures? To being thankful for him, to have a changed heart. We should start at the beginning. But you see in verse 21 that this knowledge isn’t just something to walk away and say, okay, there’s a God. We should be changed by it. Notice in verse 21, it says that the Gentiles, although they was, they knew God.

They knew him. They were without excuse, verse 20. They knew God, verse 21. Yet God has two main problems. And by the way, when you read from verse 24 to 28, they just completely bottom out. I mean, you see three digressions. 24, 26, and 28. And by the time you get to 28 through 31, they’re just into all manners of unrighteousness, all manner of evil. Where does it start in verse 21? They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. Now that’s pretty interesting. You think about growth, and you know what we do? We say, okay, how am I going to grow this new year? I need to read more, I need to pray more, I’m going to set some timers, I’m going to write my calendar.

Do those things. That’s great. Work on reading more. Let’s do that. Let’s pray more. Let’s be here more. Let’s encourage others more. Let’s start with the basics. That God deserves to be honored and praised, number one in everything in our life. And thanked for his role in it. The beginning of the digression was they did not properly recognize God in his place as ruler and creator of their individual lives. You see, we kind of take a shortcut with growth. We think, okay, I already believe in God. I got that part down. I already have a basic fundamental understanding of some Jesus things. So I just kind of need to hone my knowledge. No, we need to start from the beginning. If God created the world, and in it we see his eternal power and his divine nature, if he is God, then I will be thankful, and that will change my heart.

I will honor him as God, which means his will comes first. It makes the next steps easier. Do you see that? It’s really hard to commit to doing something you don’t want to do. Ask me about my vegetable resolution. I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t make a resolution to eat vegetables. When you think about what God says here, he says, the way to change, the way to grow in faith, the way to be strong in me, love me, honor me, be grateful and thankful to me. Without that foundation, the growth will topple. If you just care about what God benefits you instead of God Himself, the Jingah Tower will fall. Maybe not right away. Maybe not even in 2020. But if God blesses us with a few years, it will fall.

3. Why We Fail to Grow: We Get Distracted

Our foundation has to be founded in God. And the fact that God deserves our all, not our sum, not better than last year, our all. And so you look at this, and the question would really become why do we fail to grow? I think there’s three main reasons, umbrella reasons. One is we get distracted. You notice in verse 21, they knew God. They knew him, but they didn’t do it. The question would be why? Well, obviously, according to verse 18 and then 24 through 31, they didn’t care. They wanted to live their own life. But if you really are aware of who God is and what he offers, and there’s judgment coming, there has to be some reason you live for unrighteousness instead of holiness. There’s got to be some compelling pull.

And I think sometimes it’s just that we get distracted. Do you remember in Matthew chapter 13 in the parable of the sower? There’s that thorny soil. What did Jesus say when he’s explaining it to his disciples? I love the disciples. What does that story mean, Jesus? And he says, the thorny ground is what? Those who are choked out by the concerns and the cares of this world. It can happen. Remember Hebrews chapter 5? Who is that written to? Christians. It can happen to me. It can happen to us. How? Not because we hate God, not because we just want to sin, but because we get distracted. My final year in college was when Kashka came. And the first Tuesday night of the semester was when I met her.

And I was a part of a board, let’s say, that was involved in getting a Bible study going around 9 o’clock on a Tuesday night. I met her around, let’s say 7 30 or 8. And I want you to know that here I am, a preacher. I knew I was going to be a preacher at that point. I am an officer of the board who created the Bible studies. My best friend is the one leading the Bible study. Where do you think I was at 9 o’clock? If you bet the Bible study, you bet wrong. I was with my now wife, Kashka. We get distracted. What we focus on changes our perspective. What we truly want most, we live for. This is why the foundation is so critical.

If you try to skip honoring God and just do God like things, it won’t last. Our hearts. The soil has to be good. And so maybe we have to remove the thorns first. Maybe we need to make sure the ground is cultivated and ready from the fore. And so I’d ask you, maybe you get distracted by good things. Maybe it’s not some sort of sinful practice that leads you away from God, but it’s good things that add up that take you away from the time you need to grow and to stand tall against the tests of the devil. There are so many good things. Education is a good thing. Extracurricular activities, teams are a good thing. Spending time with friends, even Christian friends, is a good thing.

But sometimes we let good things get in the way of the one thing that matters most. And that’s honoring God and putting him first. It’s an uncomfortable message. But when it comes down to it, God says, you choose me or you choose yourself. There’s no in between. There is the narrow way, and there is the broad way. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but who? He who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. So as we ramp up the new year before your calendars get crazy busy, I know some of you are thinking, too late. Remember, God comes first. It’s not a tiebreaker. You pencil God in first because He deserves it. Don’t get distracted.

4. We Think We Know Enough

You see, it’s really crafty of the devil. He doesn’t even have to convert us to another religion. He doesn’t have to convert us to not believe in God. He just has to keep us busy. Don’t let him keep you busy. Don’t fail to grow. Don’t be distracted. I think another reason is sometimes we think we know enough. If you notice in verse 22 and 23, as a result of their hearts being darkened, as a result of their refusal to honor God in his proper place, to be thankful to him, they claim to be wise and in place actually became fools. Verse 23 says, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Now this one I want to specify, I don’t think that everyone walks around saying.

I don’t think too many people in this room go, you know what? I just know all I need. I don’t need to learn one more Bible verse. I don’t need to be any more committed. I’ve knocked out all the sin in my life. I don’t even need the grace of Jesus anymore. I’m good. I don’t think anybody believes that. But our actions betray our true mindset on this, don’t they? We think we know enough. See, this is a really easy equation. If you were concerned about something, if you went to the doctor and you got a really tough diagnosis, and he told you, you need to change your life. You have to be different. You have to eat different, you have to exercise differently. If you don’t, you will die in a month.

Do you think you might change? Maybe a little. If you’re like normal people, like me and everybody else, probably in the room, the doctor says, all that medicine says, all of science says, if you exercise regularly and you eat healthy in good portions, you’ll be healthy and happy. You know what we do? Not my problem. The doctor didn’t tell me I have a month to live. God expects us to care and to take every moment captive. We have to care. Do you believe that Jesus could come at any time? When we live for ourselves instead of for God, we’re showing we are putting our needs first, our desires first. And we have that option. The free will God gives us allows that. But just don’t make a mistake.

Don’t lie about it. Let’s confront it. If we live like that, we are acknowledging to God through our actions, regardless of what our words say, that we think we already know enough. And when we claim to be wise, what do we become? Verse 22. Fools instead. Let’s not make that mistake. If you notice, sometimes we don’t grow because we don’t want to. Again, I don’t necessarily think it’s out of arrogance. I don’t think it’s out of purposeful vengeance on anybody. But it’s the slide of the distraction of the internal, I’m good enough. Verse 24, here’s what happens when we think you’re good enough. You know, claiming to be wise and they became fools is just the tip of the iceberg. Verse 24, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. Verse 26, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts of men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetous, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossip, slanderous, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

Verse 21. Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. It’s just ten verses away from verse 31. Foolish. Faithless, heartless, ruthless. Verse 29, eight verses away. Filled with all manner of unrighteousness. Evil. If you don’t grow, you’re moving backwards. There is no standing still. So the question this morning is how I use my day. We have one more slide. Will I use my day to grow closer to God? Or will I allow myself to slip farther? Backwards. Towards my adversary. Towards God’s adversary. Towards the evil one who wants nothing but me to be lost forever. The choice is mine. It doesn’t matter why we fail to grow, it matters that we do something about it, starting from the beginning, building up the block.

5. How Can We Grow? Be Thankful

So how can we grow? Well, verse 21 is very clear. Be thankful. Recognize the need to put God first. And you know what happens is we get distracted by this life, and our prayer lives even show it. Our quote-unquote church life shows it. You know how? Our prayers, when we’re focused on God, praise Him, thank Him, reach out to Him. Our prayers when we’re stuck in the here and now, and it’s okay on a temporary basis. Our prayers get caught up with what we need from Him. If you ever look at prayers in the Old Testament, what did many of the prophets do? They started with praise of how great God is. Confirmation that God has always kept his promises. People committed to God recognize God is not a genie.

He is the eternal creator and our Heavenly Father. You don’t get one without the other. We need to be thankful. Being thankful changes you. It changes your heart. It makes you a better person. You see the light. You see what God has done. You find ways to be happy instead of inventing ways to be miserable. And don’t mistake. That happens when we’re not thankful. It’s crazy. It’s ludicrous. It’s absurd to me, to human understanding that what could result in Romans 1 and verse 29, filled with all manner of unrighteousness, begins with not being thankful. And yet, clear as day, Paul has that message for us. Be thankful. Every morning. Be thankful to God and be specific. Write what you’re thankful for. And by the way, we often pray for things.

6. Make Commitments and Stay Accountable

How often do you go back and thank God for the prayers he’s answered? Sometimes we just move on to the next need. I’m glad God is better than us to take these prayers. I’m glad that God wants us to bring those desires to him. But let’s not stop and take it for granted. Be thankful. Praise Him when He comes through. Trust Him when it doesn’t happen the way you think it should. We need to grow. We need to start by being thankful. Secondly, we need to make commitments and then be willing to keep them. Going back to Hebrews chapter 5. Imagine if you were receiving this message. If this message was for me, if this message was for the church at South Bumby, verse 12, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food. What do you think we would do with that? Do you think we’d go, oh, man, that writer was brutal. Well, see you next week. We’d want to change. We’d say, what are the elders going to do? What are the vegans going to do? What are the preachers going to teach? What are the teachers going to teach? What are we going to do? Because we’d recognize an urgent need to be better. God’s telling us. He doesn’t have to call you out by name. He doesn’t have to say self bun bee by name. We need to grow. We need to grow closer to God every day because the storms of life are coming if they’re not already surrounding you. Be ready. Be prepared.

Honor God. That means you have to make a commitment. No more just I should be better. You know what happens when you aim at nothing? You hit it every single time. I have to share the story. It’s too funny. I was fixing Koska’s computer on something. I was testing it. And I saw something that said 2019 goals. And I was curious, so I clicked on it. And I saw that she did not miss a single goal in 2019. She didn’t miss a single one. I have to confess the document was blank. But she didn’t miss any one of those 2019 goals. We have to be willing to make and keep commitments. She’s more of a planner person than a computer person, just to save that. We need to grow.

Find out which area you need to improve in. Think about how you can get there. I think this morning we’ve underlined sufficiently the need for growth. Remember step two? Make a plan for growth. How are you going to make that commitment? How are you going to make sure that you stay on track? Well, one such way, and the final point this morning is to stay accountable. Which means you might need to find someone to keep you accountable. James chapter 5 and verse 16 describe something incredibly embarrassing for us. A lot of ways. If you look at James chapter 5 and verse 16, I think almost everybody knows this passage, but we don’t really practice it that all that often. Not only is God pretty clear in what he expects of us, it helps us with everything we know we need.

Everything Christianity says or proclaims to be about is fulfilled in James 5, 16. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. This is what Christianity is about. Helping each other and trusting God to be the power. It doesn’t say confess your sins to one another so you get forgiven. No. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Why? That you may be healed because you’re praying to God who will take care of you. We have a need for growth. Part of making the plan is to recognize areas of weakness and to find a plan to grow in that area. But then when you do that, you have to stay on track.

There’s a reason everybody laughs about resolutions. Because in January, the gyms are packed. And in November, they’re empty as we’re preparing ourselves for a different kind of training for Thanksgiving meal and Christmas meals. Stay accountable. Find somebody. If you can’t find someone in this room who you trust, whom you love, who you can be accountable with, what hope do we have? God says, this is the plan. This is how we do it. And we do this trusting in God together. It’s us at the bottom of the pyramid, reaching up to God so that He will pull us up, that He will forgive us, that He will keep us strong. We need to grow strong this year. Wherever you’re starting from, level one to level 9.9, we need to grow.

Conclusion

But it might be that you’ve never taken that first step. Recognize that there is no forgiveness outside of Jesus. Like the Gentiles in Romans chapter 1. Without God, we are filled and covered in our unrighteousness and our evil. The Jews were without excuse. The Gentiles were without excuse. The Jews with law didn’t keep it, couldn’t keep it perfectly. We can’t either. The Gentiles without a law, even though they should have recognized God, couldn’t keep that, insofar as whatever their responsibilities were. We need the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, if you’re willing to confess Him as Lord, repent of your sins and rebellion and say, God’s will be done, not mine. You can be baptized having your sins washed away, sharing in that death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

And be a new man. The first journey of a thousand steps begins with the first. Be a new man.