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Sunday, September 13, 2020

“The Elementary Teaching...”

A sermon based upon Hebrews 5: 11- 6: 1-12
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 
Sunday September 13th, 2020 (Growing In Grace)

Do you know the name Tom Dooley? Not the folk song Tom Dooley, but Dr. Tom Dooley?

You need to know his story, because Dr. Tom Dooley was a Twentieth Century saint. While serving in the Navy, he saw the physical suffering of the people of Southeast Asia - so much illness and suffering, so few doctors to deal with it. When his tour of duty was over, he resigned his commission and went to Indochina, now Laos, to serve as a medical missionary. There he poured out his life on behalf of the people. He saw patients in consultation. He prescribed. He did surgery. But not only that; he also recruited and trained doctors and nurses. And, he raised money and built hospitals.

Tom Dooley was a Christian, a devout Catholic. He had been made compassionate by the compassion of Jesus. And, he felt that he had received a call from God -a call to minister to the needs of those suffering people. His Christian commitment was symbolized by a religious medal he wore always around his neck. On the back of that medal he had inscribed some words by Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Because of his Christian commitment, he had made some promises to God. His healing ministry was his way of keeping his promises. He had come to love the people of Laos. Because of his love for them, he had made promises both to God and to them. He worked at fever pitch, sometimes driving himself to near exhaustion. How would he make a dent in the need? So much to do-so little time with which to do it.

In the midst of all of that, it was discovered that Tom Dooley had cancer. The doctors told him that if he returned to the United States, availed himself of the best medical care, and got plenty of rest, he could extend his life by some considerable degree. But, his work was not finished. His commitment was not complete. So, he decided to spend whatever time he had left continuing his work there in Laos. If anything, he worked even longer hours. He continued to see patients, train doctors and nurses, raise money, build hospitals. He worked and worked and worked, until one day he collapsed, and shortly thereafter, he died.

At the funeral service, the priest told the inspiring story of his life - a life that looked very much like Jesus’ life of compassion. He told of how Tom Dooley had invested his life in the healing of the people of Laos. He told of the medal he had always worn around his neck, and he read the inscription:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Then the priest added, “And now you can sleep, Tom Dooley, because you have kept all your promises.”

The Christian life can be described in many different ways, but there no better way to understand it than becoming a person who makes a promise to God and keeps it.
And the most important ‘promise’ we make is to follow Jesus, as the old gospel song says, ‘wherever he leads’. 

A FOUNDATION...
To keep following Jesus is what Hebrews is talking about.  Before the writer goes on to speak of God’s promise, he addresses what it should mean for us to keep our promise to God by continuing to follow a Jesus to grow, mature and keep moving forward in faith.

The lack of spiritual maturity among certain Christian is the major concern of Hebrews.  These Christians are not moving forward ‘to perfection’ (maturity) as they should (6:1).  They have started drifting, and have become disobedient, precisely because they aren’t maturing like they should (3:12-15). God had made them a promise that one day, after the labors of life are over, they would enter his rest (4:1-12).  Now, they are in danger of forfeiting God’s promise because of they have drifted far away from Jesus (2:1). 

Fear for their future prompted one of the most famous warnings ever recorded in Scripture: ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation.’  (2:3).  This was not a fear that they would not find salvation, but this was a fear that they might neglect and drift away (2:1) from the salvation offered to them through the hope of Jesus Christ.  Could we also, who have tasted of the heavenly gift of God’s love, as they did, neglect, drift and ‘fall away’ through our own immaturity or disobedience? 

We want to address that, but first, let’s begin where Hebrews begins.  The writer of Hebrews is encouraging his readers to ‘move on to perfection’, which is to move on  toward growth and maturity in Jesus Christ.  His point here is that they should have already moved beyond foundational, ‘basic teachings about Christ—-and others that he has listed here, like ‘repentance’, baptism, and these other basic teachings.  They should have moved beyond the basics, but they haven’t.

This reminds me a controversial book that came out a couple of years ago, by NC pastor JD Greer, entitled, ‘Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart!’  That title coming from a conservative pastor of a large, growing, mega church shocked a lot of people, and made a few others angry and upset. 

Regardless of the shocking title, the pastor was making an important point.  He said that when he was a young Christian, he was very insecure and kept asking Jesus into his heart.  He did it again and again, every time a new, dynamic evangelist came to town. He kept walking down the isle.  He got baptized four times.  He wanted and needed to be ‘sure’ of his faith.  But then, one day, he grew up.  He came to realize he should have been living his faith, not just ‘getting saved’ over and over again.  He even came to question whether being a Christian should mean having security.  He realized that being a Christian should be mean trusting Jesus and learning to take risks just like  Jesus challenged his own disciples to ‘launch out into the deep’ water (Lk 5:4).  He realized following Jesus isn’t something that happens because you say a simple ‘Sinner’s Prayer’, but it’s proved by how you live your life with and for Jesus.         

This is exactly the point the writer of Hebrews is making.  The Christian life isn’t about getting saved over and over, nor becoming sure in everything, but it’s about  growing up into maturity in Christ, and becoming the person you decided and promised Jesus that you would become in him.  Another way to put it is that sometime or other, you have to graduate Sunday School.  I don’t mean that you should stop going to Sunday School, but you need to grow from being a student to becoming a participant and contributor to the faith.   

The reason this is important is because, as the old saying goes, ‘if you don’t use it you’ll lose it’.  Any person who does not set goals, take steps, make advancements, and show improvements will lose interest in most anything they undertake.  And as a follower of Jesus, as the Apostle Paul told the Philippians,  you have to ‘strain forward’, press toward a goal, and hope to win ‘a prize’ of your heavenly calling (Phil. 3:14; 1 Cor 9;24).   

If you aren’t growing and advancing as a Christian, you are retreating and regressing as a person.  And just like the plant Hebrews refers in this text, you are like a worthless crop and are ‘on the verge of being cursed... dying, and ‘burned’ up (6:8).  What are we to make of such direct language as this?      

IF THEY HAVE FALLEN AWAY 
Well, we could decide to make nothing of it.   We could have the attitude which says: What’s the big deal? We all die, eventually, don’t we?  You could say: So, I remain an immature Christian.  Do I really have to go deeper, higher, further?  I like to keep things simple.  I have other things to do.  I’m busy.  I don’t have time to advance in my faith. 

This is the attitude of many, but Hebrews has a warning.  If you remain immature in your faith, the result is that you don’t stay ‘where’ you are or the ‘way’ you are.  You drift away (2:1) and eventually you fall away, Hebrews says (3:12; 6:6, see also Mark 417, 14:27; Lk 7:23, 2 Pet. 3:17).  Your faith becomes worthless (6:8).   This is what happens when your faith sits still, but life moves on.  Life is always moving.  If you don’t move with it, nurturing your faith and growing in faith, you’ve got problems.  It’s like flying a plane: You’re either soaring, or crashing.  It’s like a swimming in the water: Your either swimming or sinking.  Or, as Hebrews gives in an example:, it’s like the crop in your garden:  It’s either growing and producing, or your faith is being choked (6:8), is dying and will rot.   

Your faith in Jesus can be like taking in food too.  If you have tasted of the heavenly gift (6:4) as Hebrews suggests, and you have ‘tasted the goodness of the Word of God’ (6:5), but you did not swallow, your life isn’t being nourished and your spiritual life will be malnourished and it will die.  How can you be saved by faith when you have no faith left?  As Hebrews puts it, How can you escape, if your neglect so great a salvation? 

The language of Hebrews is pretty direct and sharp,  whether you are reading it directly or reading between the lines.   As Hebrews 4:12 says ‘the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, ...we are all laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.   In other words, to put it simply: ‘You can run, but you can’t hide.’

Many Baptists, at least in America, have resisted such warnings from Hebrews’. Many throw up the phrase ‘eternal security’ or ‘once saved, always saved’ and try to say to themselves, this surely can’t happen to me.   I can certainly understand why people say this.  This text is troubling, threatening, and challenging too.  It suggests that our salvation is a work left unfinished.  It suggests that saving faith might not rest upon faith alone.  It suggests that our “Peter Pan-Faith” needs to leave “Neverland” and grow up and go to work just like a twenty something ‘tween’ needs to do.

Hebrews is suggesting something else too.  Faith is not a ‘once and for all’ transaction. Too many Christians have the mistaken notion, that to ‘walk down an isle’ at church , to make a profession of faith, and to get baptized is all that it means to be a Christian. Of course, Faith begins with all these kinds of things, just as Hebrews says, and our Faith in Jesus is based upon the finished ‘saving work’ of Jesus on the cross.  Still, as the Scripture affirms, this faith in Christ’s saving work must still be  worked out...with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2: 12 ) in our own lives.  Of course our salvation is finalized and finished on the cross, but it still must be appropriated into our lives in the ‘work’ we do and the live we live.  If our faith doesn’t work and mature, this says something we too need to ‘pay attention’ too (2:1). 

In 1984, one of the greatest biblical scholars ever known in Southern Baptist life, professor Dale Moody, studied Hebrews and came to believe that many Baptists were misreading Hebrews if they held to the mistaken idea that no matter what you do, no matter how you live, you won’t ‘lose your salvation’.   In his statement to Baptist Press, Moody said “there is a superficial faith and a saving faith, a temporary faith and a permanent faith.  The superficial faith falls away, but the saving faith perseveres to the end.”   Also Moody added that once those who had experienced a temporary faith, that is a faith that does not grow and mature, and they fall away from it, it is impossible to restore them.  In other words,  if your faith is superficial and temporary, and you lose it, then you can’t return to faith in Jesus ever again, as Hebrews says, even in the King James Bible: “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt (Hebrews. 6:4-6).

Despite the scriptural foundation for his beliefs, Moody’s views did not agree with the Southern Baptist idea of the ‘security of believers’, and so this man, who was called “the most knowledgeable biblical theologian among Baptists” (Duke McCall) was dismissed and fired from teaching.  Dale Moody’s thirty-five year tenure at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary came to an end because of his biblical views on apostasy.   These are views that most all biblical Christians in the world hold, except Southern Baptists.

‘There’s a lot of biblical dynamite here.  You may not agree with Moody and you may not like to hear or read what Hebrews warns.  Even Moody used to try to clarify this conclusion with a cute little phrase, ‘The Faith that fizzles before the finish had a fatal flaw from the first.’   What he was trying to say is that you certainly can’t lose your salvation by accident, like you might lose your keys, your wallet.   As I used to hear baptist preachers quoting Jesus in John, ‘No one can snatch us out of God’s hand,’ but as a Methodist friend once rejoined:, ‘This doesn’t mean you can’t walk out’.  

For me, we just can’t take Hebrew’s warning away.  While I don’t think you can ‘lose’ salvation that shows evidence of being alive, active, and well,  I think anyone should have reason to be concerned if their faith is ‘dead on the vine’.  I don’t think anyone should trust their faith to any popular interpretation of Scripture, but we should actually read what Hebrews says, and take it very seriously.   If you faith isn’t maturing, growing, and developing, and is adrift, you could be at risk.  The key that unlocks the door to God’s future is to have a living, active, viable ‘Faith’.  And this isn’t the faith you once had, nor the faith you want to have, but it’s ‘a living’ faith that ‘meets the test’.  As Paul reminded the Corinthians: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! ( 2 Corinthians 13:5).

Will Willimon tells a story he once heard from Rabbi Friedman.   A pastor was called to meet someone at a beautiful location high up on a cliff.  When they sat down together to have a conversation,  the person commented how ‘loving and caring’ the pastor was.  The pastor answered “Thanks, but why did you want me to meet you here?”
“It’s a beautiful spot but a bit unusual location for a conversation.”
 Well, it’s because this place, this cliff overlooking town, the view from up here, has become an obsession for me. I just can’t get it out of my head. Thought that maybe you could help.”
 “Help you with an ‘obsession’?”  “In what way?”
“It’s kinda hard to talk about. But you are always so affirming and are such a good, open listener.  “You see,” the person continued, “For the longest time I’ve had this urge to come up here and jump off this cliff. Just to see what happens.”
“What?”  “See what happens, are you serious?”  “You could die!”
“Well,” the person answered, “I don’t see it as jumping off!  I’m just planning on walking on the edge and see what happens!  I’ve always been kind of lucky. Besides, life’s been a getting stale lately, and I thought this might give me a rush.”
“No, You can’t be serious. Why would want to do this?”
“Pastor, don’t you know that in the Bible, didn’t Jesus say that ‘God will send angels to take care of you.”
“No, Jesus didn’t say that, the devil did.  The devil was trying to get him to do what you’re talking about.”
“Well, maybe it is the devil, maybe not.  Who am I to judge? “No pain, no gain!”  Isn’t that what they say.  I’ve a got a real spiritual of adventure in me.  I like living life on the edge.
‘Man, you’re talking crazy!  The pastor said.  This is scary!  ...You don’t have to do this!”
As the person looks over the cliff, the pastor reminds him: “Now, please don’t do this, but if you jump, it’s your decision, not mine!”  I can’t stop you....
“Why not!”  The person said, as they jumped.” (Stories, by W. Willimon, 2020, Abington Press, Location 284, Kindle Edition).   

That story was told to remind pastor’s they aren’t Saviors.  We can help people, but we can’t save people.  But the story also reminds us of something else.  This is something that never stops, even after we become a Christian.  We always have ‘free will’.   While I don’t think anybody can accidentally ‘lose’ salvation, we can lose faith.   And it takes faith to ‘endure to the end’.  

Our need for faith doesn’t stop when we become a Christian.  We always have the freedom to follow and grow in faith, and we also have the freedom to drift and fall away from faith.  Does this mean we lose our salvation, or does this mean our faith wasn’t true faith?  That’s really the wrong question.   The right answer is that any faith that doesn’t isn’t growing and doesn’t follow through, ‘has a fatal flaw from the first’.  Even ‘flawed’ faith can appear real, just like counterfeit money.   The only one who knows the difference is us, and God. So, it’s up to us to constantly ‘examine ourselves‘

WE FEEL SURE OF BETTER THINGS...l
There’s certainly good reason to keep growing and maturing in our faith, rather than neglecting it.  And we are reminded, as this text ends, that God isn’t out to get us, but this direct talk is to warn, remind, and prevent the ‘worse’ from happening.   The author writes to encourage the Hebrews toward maturity in their faith.  He wants them to affirm their faith in Jesus and to rest assured of ‘hope to the very end’ (6:11).

Isn’t this always the nature of God’s warnings to us in all of Scripture?  God isn’t out to get us, but to save us.  And the greatest enemy we have, is not an enemy ‘out there’ somewhere, and it’s certainly not God; who is for us, not against us; but the greatest enemy is ‘within us’ —it is our own selves.

During the early years of football, as the second quarter ended in the championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants, Green Bay Coach Curly Lambeau thought about what to say.  This would be one of the most important chalk talks of his career. With the Packers losing 16-14, the players counted on him for a revised game plan.

Unfortunately, Lambeau never gave that all-important halftime talk. He got lost in thought on his way to the locker room. He opened the door to what he thought was the clubhouse and wound up on the street. Before he realized his error, the door slammed shut behind him. The coach was locked out. Lambeau pounded on the door, but it did no good. Then he raced to the nearest gate. The security guard refused to let him in. "If you're the coach, what are you doing out here on the sidewalk?" the guard sneered. Lambeau hustled off to another gate and another guard. But no amount of pleas or threats could get him in there either. The second guard shoved him away saying, "Yeah, sure, and I'm the King of England."

 Meanwhile, back in the locker room, the Packers were wondering where their coach went. As the halftime minutes went by, the puzzled players waited. They couldn't agree on a new game plan. By this time, their angry, red-faced coach had charged the main gate, only to be stopped once again. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Lambeau attracted a big crowd, including some reporters.

 The reporters recognized Lambeau right away. They convinced the guards that he was indeed the Green Bay coach. By the time he reached the locker room, though, the second half was about to begin.   Without Lambeau's instructions, the Packers faltered in the last two quarters and lost the championship 23-17.  (Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo, THE FISHING HALL OF SHAME (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1991).

Coach Lambeau's blunder reminds us of something God would never do.   God would never lock anyone out from his love. As CS Lewis once said, the gates of hell are locked only from the inside.  If we find ourselves outside of God's loving mercy and grace, its because we have locked Christ out and neglected to heed his call to forgiveness, redemption, and grow to maturity in his love.

Recently, when Harvey Weinstein was convicted of terrible crimes against women, a news reporter asked one of the jurors how he felt when they voted to convict.  The young juror answered very wisely:  ‘I took what we were doing very seriously.  This is a human being not anyone less.” 

I found it interesting that a person who many might call a monster, but that the juror who had voted to convict, with all that power in his hands, understood that every person should be respected, even when they have no self-respect for themselves.   In the same way, a person is loved by God unconditionally.  God does not lock any sinner away from redemption, but we can lock God out.  We are given free will.  We have the freedom to grow and mature in love, or we have the freedom to turn and fall away from love.  God gives us this freedom.  God will give us what we choose.  Why would anyone ever neglect to choose him?   Amen

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