Sermons

FILTER BY:

← back to list

Mar 09, 2025

Grow Up

Grow Up

Passage: Hebrews 5:11-6:3

Speaker: Andrew Kerhoulas

Series: Worthy: His Worth, and a Life Worthy of Him

Keywords: repentance, maturity, eternal judgment, discernment, solid food, trained, dull of hearing

“Grow up.” Nobody likes to hear those words. But the author of Hebrews didn’t hesitate to call out spiritual immaturity in the first century church. Just as a parent will encourage their children to grow and mature, we are shown the problem with and the solution for our arrested spiritual development.

 

CENTRAL TEXT:  Hebrews 5:11-6:3

Heb. 5:11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 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, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.

 

PRE SERVICE TEXT:  Hebrews 6:1a

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity…

 

CALL TO WORSHIP:  based on Psalm 147:1, 3-5, 7

LEADER: How good it is to sing praises to our God!

ALL: He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds.

LEADER: He counts the stars,and calls them each by name.

ALL: How great is our God! His power is absolute, and his understanding, beyond comprehension. 
So come, sing out your thanksgiving to God. Offer to God that worship that belongs to Him alone!

ALL: Open our eyes to see your glory today.

 

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH:  Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1

LEADER: As we continue in worship, let’s confess our faith together from the Heidelberg Catechism. Christian, what is your only comfort in life and in death?

ALL: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death— 
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. 
He has fully paid for all my sins with 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 in heaven; 
In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. 
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life 
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

 

BENEDICTION:    

LEADER: May God the Father, who loves you as his precious children, grow you up into maturity.

ALL: Amen.

LEADER: May Christ, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, be your vision for all of life. 

ALL: Amen.

LEADER: May the Holy Spirit, who convicts us and comforts us with the truth, lead you into the way everlasting.

ALL: Amen.

LEADER: And may the goodness and mercy of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, follow you all of the days of your life. 

ALL: Amen.

 

RELATED SCRIPTURES

  • John 20:15-16
  • Acts 20:21
  • 1 Corinthians 3:1-9
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:11
  • Hebrews 3:13, 6:12, 10:24-25
  • 1 Peter 3:15

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Can you remember a time when someone told you to “grow up”? If you can recall that experience, what impression did that make?  
  2. Jonathan Haidt writes, “Overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world…are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.” How have you seen this play out? 
  3. How were the first century Christians immature according to Hebrews 5:11-6:3? Name some ways spiritual immaturity continues today. 
  4. Many in the ancient church were being tempted to slip back into the Judaism basic doctrines that are core to both Jews and Christians rather than to grow up into maturity (see 6:1-3). Employing the metaphor, what does it mean to “not lay a foundation again”? How are we to build on the foundation today?
  5. What has Jesus done for us and given us to ensure our growth in him (see 1 Corinthians 3:5-9)? Discuss and then spend time asking the Lord to grow you up in specific areas of your soul that are underdeveloped. 

 

ILLUSTRATIONS

Mar 9, 2025

 

QUOTES

 

  • My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.
    - Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

  • Most people don’t grow up. It’s so…difficult. 
What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. 
They honor their credit cards. They find parking spaces. They marry. They have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older, but to grow up costs the earth, the earth. 
It means you take responsibility 
for the time you take up
and the space you occupy. Grow up.


    - Maya Angelou

  • Experience, not information, is the key to emotional development.
    - Jonathan Haidt,     The Anxious Generation

  • The cost of a thing is the amount of…life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
    - Henry David Thoreau

  • A passion to teach without a burden to study is just a desire to perform.
    - H.B. Charles Jr.

 

 

 

BOOKS / DOCS