Strauch, Alexander: Jesus Christ Our High Priest And Dull Christians ~ Littleton Bible Chapel

Now, today we begin a new section in the book of Hebrews. We are studying this great epistle to the Hebrew Christians, and, uh, we begin in chapter five, and this whole section goes all the way over to chapter ten. Five chapters on the theme of Christ's high priesthood. Jesus, the great high priest. I've entitled the message Jesus Christ, our high priest, and dull Christians. Now, back in chapter four, verse fourteen, look at this with me. Chapter four, verse fourteen, we were introduced to this high priest. Since then, we have a great high priest, not just a high priest, high priest would be great himself, but a great high priest, a superior high priest. No other high priest like this. Look at why. He has passed through the heavens. Jesus is the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. In other words, all these words are for encouragement and strengthening of our faith so that these Hebrew believers would not shrink back. The more they know of Christ and his great ministry as high priest for them, it will encourage them. Now, in verse sixteen, we have a wonderful verse that should invigorate our prayer life. Look at verse sixteen. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. That's a place of prayer, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need. Now, we have a goal in this series, and let me tell you what the goal is. Our goal in this series, when we are finished with it, is that you'll be a better worshipper. You'll be a better prayer warrior. You see, Jesus Christ is the great high priest, but we can't stop there. He's made every single one of us who are born again a believer priest. We're a whole congregation of priests today. And one of our goals is that you will become a better priest. You'll understand your prayer ministry that God has given to every single one here. You'll understand your ministry of offering sacrifices to God, the fruit of the lips, you're offering in money, and evangelism is sacrifices offered up to God. You are believer priests. You need to know about priestly ministry. Now, Christ has a priestly ministry for us. He's in heaven for us. He's praying for us. He's advocating for. We have people in important places. I'd rather have Christ at the right hand of God the Father there for me than someone in the White House. There was a man who used to come and preach here, his name was Bob Clark. He used to be at our camp, he's dead now, but Bob used to say this: whenever I pray, I close my eyes and I picture up in heaven my great high priest there, standing there for me. And then I picture myself as a priest, an Old Testament priest, and I have my white linen garments on, my priestly clothes, and I come into the sanctuary, I come into the throne, and there I do my priestly ministry. Think of that the next time you pray. You are a priest, and you have the ministry of interceding to God at the throne of grace for mercy and help for yourself and for others. What a tremendous privilege, and I want you to know there are numbers of us here in the church that take our church directory as believer priests, and we go through that directory as priests praying for you every single... year? Day. Day. You also have that ministry. Now, why we must ask five whole chapters on priesthood and Christ's high priestly ministry right in the center of the book? Why do we need to hear about Jesus Christ's high priestly ministry? Here is why. The readers of this letter were Jewish Christians suffering for their faith. They had, they had been persecuted, and they were persecuted largely by Jewish people, relatives, neighbors, possibly Jewish officials in the synagogue. And one of the attacks upon these Jewish believers would be this: Where's your priest? Where's your high priest who goes for the whole nation on the Day of Atonement into the Holy of Holies and offers sacrifice for the nation for the forgiveness of sins. This would hurt. Where's your priest? Now, we need to realize in the Old Testament, there's a great deal of information and commandments about the high priest. You'll see his picture right up in back of me here. Priesthood and the high priest was fundamental to the whole Jewish system of religion. God had given elaborate dis- instructions about the priest. He was not careless about this. There could only be one high priest. He approached God. He went into the holies of holies. He offered offerings for forgiveness of sins. But I want to add something. Not only does the law prescribe the priesthood and the high priest, there was a beauty to it. In the Old Testament, we're told that the priestly garments, as you see up here, they were made for the glory and the beauty. It was a dignity and a s- sacredness to this, this whole thing. You think of a Jew at the temple with the sacrifices and his high priests and the priests and the Levites and the choir and the special days of atonement, special day of atonement, and the feasts and the Sabbaths. I mean, it was a really a beautiful system. Can you imagine a Jew saying to a Jewish relative, you've forsaken Israel. You have forsaken God's way. This would hurt. Some of these believers may have missed this. They have missed the beauty, the pageantry, the glory of Israel and the priesthood. Was a security in it. And some of them, it appears, were really not leaving their old Judaism totally. In fact, some weren't even meeting with the church, chapter ten tells us. And so if there's tug of war going on in some of these believers' life, under persecution, under trials, they need to understand they have a much better high priest, a better covenant, a better sanctuary. They've got to understand this. We have the same thing today. I buried my father just a little over a year ago, and my father was a Protestant, but he had very close, I mean, very intimate friends who were Roman Catholics, and I did the funeral, and they didn't argue with me. We don't argue. They're very lovely people. We're very good friends. When I'm back in New Jersey, we go to dinner, but to them it wasn't a funeral. There was no priest there. You need a priest to bury him and to perform the rituals. Who am I? I'm not a priest. One of the great preachers of the twentieth century was Harry Ironside, and Harry was a very effable person. He was on a train, and uh, he noticed right to the uh, left of him was a Catholic nun. Well, being the friendly person Harry Ironside uh, was, and a person who loved the witness, he went over and sat next to the nun, and they started a a lovely conversation. And during the conversation, the nun complained to him and said, you know, you Protestants don't have a priest. To us, priesthood is essential to our religion because the priest represents us to God. Well, Harry listened for a while and said, you know, you've made a terrible mistake. She said, what is that? He said, we have a priest, we have Christ the Great High Priest who intercedes for us and prays for us every single day, day and night, he doesn't even go to sleep. And I'm a priest, and every Protestant is a priest. Oh, she said, that's too much. He said, yeah, and I'm a saint too. A priest and a saint. Many people wonder, why don't you have a priest? We do have a priest. Priesthood is very important. Now, the question is this, how does Jesus Christ become a high priest? He was not of the priestly family. This was by heredity, by divine appointment. Christ was of the tribe of Judah, didn't perform priestly duties during his life in the temple, and the law would not allow him to be a priest, very strict laws about this. Well, the writer of Hebrews is going to show us now that we have a priest. Don't be embarrassed. We have a great high priest, unlike any high priest who's ever existed. So Roman numeral one in your outline, Jesus Christ's qualifications to be high priest. A, the Old Testament principles for the qualifications of the high priest. I'm going to move very rapidly now for a reason. We've got te- we've got five chapters ahead on this. Be a lot of repetition, and verses one to ten are the introduction to the five chapters, so I can just very rapidly touch on this and spend our time on the really important point. So don't get discouraged and say, I wish you'd talk more about Melchizedek's priesthood. We're going to have a whole chapter on it. Kent Hughes puts together this outline, I'm going to follow his outline, it's very good. How can we say Jesus Christ rightfully is a high priest? Well, one, solidarity with, excuse me, the basic requirements for a priest. These are the basic general requirements. Number one, solidarity with the people. Let's read chapter five, verse one now. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed. Now, here is a wonderful definition for priesthood right here. Look carefully. I've got it on the screen also. To act on behalf of men in relation to God. Did you see that? That's a wonderful definition. A priest acts as a representative for others to God. But he must be chosen among men. He's a man, a human being, mortal like everyone else. Second, sympathy with people, verses two and three. This is a qualification now for a priest, general qualification. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weaknesses. Because of this, he, the priest, high priest, is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. The second thing he says is, is that the high priest has to have a gentle, forbearing disposition. He cannot be heartless and cruel. You stupid people! How do I deal with you? No, he's stupid, he's wayward, he even has to offer sacrifices for his own sin. Thus, he can deal with people, he understands people. He can be their religious psychologist and spiritual advisor, because he knows their sins. I want to just make a point here. There's a high quality stressed in the Bible on forbearance in dealing with people's sins. I want to remind you that. This is not the only place this is stated. Philippians chapter four verse five says, let your gracious forbearance be seen by all men. A Christian who is a priest, who will minister to others, pray for others, counsel others, needs to have gracious forbearance. We don't just kick people around because they don't do it our way, or hate them or, or show contempt for them. Now, number three, selected by God. Verse four, And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. This is by divine selection. You cannot make yourself a priest. You cannot go to preschool. You cannot have your friends elect you as a priest. God selected a family, the family of Levi, and then out of the family of Levi, the family of Aaron. Now the family of Aaron, Aaron becomes the high priest. It's a hereditary. It's something God has chosen. Now that's the Old Testament law, and the question is, Jesus does not qualify. All right, let's look at B, the appointment of Christ as high. What right does he have to be a high priest? We've looked at four laws, four ways, or three ways that a priest must meet certain qualifications. What about Christ? Does he meet these qualifications? Well, let's look at the first one, selected by God. We just saw that in verse four of any priest. Look at verse five, very important. So also Christ, so also Christ. Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest. Jesus did not appoint himself. He didn't decide, I don't like the priesthood anymore, I'm going to be a priest. No, no. But was appointed by him, by God, who said, now we have two Old Testament quotes. The writer of Hebrews loves to quote the Old Testament because he's talking to Jews, and the greatest proof is what the Bible says, what God says in the Old Testament. Two quotations. One is the ultimate royal office, and the second is the ultimate priestly office. He first quotes Psalm two, which we've already looked at. You are my son, today I have begotten you. An enthronement psalm, a psalm of when Jesus, after his resurrection ascension, went to be enthroned at God's right hand. In other words, he's a priest. I mean, he's a king. He's a king. And then the second quote from Psalm one hundred and ten verse four, as he says in another place, now remember, this is authoritative word of God, you are priests forever, forever after the order, not of Aaron, of Melchizedek. In the word of God, which would mean a lot to these people, there was the announcement that the Messiah would one day be appointed a priest after a different order. He is not a priest after the order of Aaron. Aaron's priesthood was limited to the nation of Israel, to a time, to a people, with strict rules. Jesus is not of that order. He doesn't belong to the Aaronic priesthood. His priesthood is cosmic. His priesthood is over all people forever, because it's after the order of Melchizedek, which we will explain later in this series. In other words, Aaron's priesthood is obsolete, cancelled, no longer needed. The staggering significance for the Jewish Christians is that Jesus has a superior priesthood than Aaron by the Old Testament truths. Messiah would be the king, and he would be the priest, and we also already know he's a prophet. Prophet, priest, and king. Now, what about his solidarity with people? What would he know about people? What would he know about the sorrows and the experiences we have? Well, verses seven to ten show his solidarity with us, and that he can, as a high priest, really understand us and sympathize with us. In the days of his flesh, that's his incarnation, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with a loud cries and tears. This is in the Garden of Gethsemane, to him who was able to save him from death, he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, being made perfect. Now, my dear friends, please mark this in your Bible. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. uh Three things to notice. A, in the days of his flesh, verse seven, that's his incarnation. Jesus took flesh, just like the priest had flesh. B, in your outline, he suffered in the garden untold pain and agony as he faced death, the cross, and the judgment of God. He knew pain. He knew agony. He knew where it was to submit his will to God's will. He knew what it was to face that bleak, dark hole of death. He knew what it was to look at the sin of humanity that would be placed upon him. My friends, he can sympathize. He understands. He experienced the full range of human emotion, and see, he learned by experience the cost of obeying God in a fallen world. It says his obedience, by his obedience, he was made complete in his human experience, in submitting his will to the Father's will, carrying out the mission that was given to him. He knows every human experience. He was made perfect for his mission, and he completed his mission. The Lord Jesus Christ knows. He can look down from heaven and sympathize with our sorrow. He experienced sorrow. He can experience that struggle of will with God's will. He can tell, I know that. You heard of the Irishman who said, temptation doesn't bother me, I just yield. Jesus never yielded, so he felt the full weight of temptations and struggles and pain and submitted himself as the perfect son, completed all that the Father had called him to do, and made perfect. He is perfectly merciful and compassionate. Now, the last thing said is this, the glorious results. Verse nine, this is incredible. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. No priest has it ever been said that he is the source of eternal life. Did you hear that? The source of eternal life. We think too small of our high priest. We do not understand the greatness. He is a great high priest. David Gooding says we would all be lost if he did not, if we did not have a high priest who constantly and incessantly intercedes for us, who advocates for us at the right hand of God. He has a saving ministry, and he will guarantee the future of heaven and safe arrival to, arrival to heaven. This year, I've done a number of funerals, not funerals here in our own church, and every time I do a funeral, I'm reminded again of the absoluteness of death. I just talked to a young widow the other night on the phone who just lost her husband a month ago, and she also said the same. It's so final. It just, it can't be reversed. You can't go back and say hi to your spouse or say, boy, I'd like to say some things to you I didn't say when you were alive. It's awesome. Death is awesome. One minute you're alive, and the next minute they got to find a box and put you in because the whole body begins the corruption process of decay, which is the most ugly thing you've ever seen. We once had to visit a person who had died, one of the saints here, seven days after the person had died, not been embalmed for certain reasons, and we had to see the body seven days later, and it's one of the most grotesque things you will ever see in your life and to smell. When you face this awesome, bleak black hole of death, which terrifies us all, you wonder, what is after? A- and really, questions of the stock market really aren't that important anymore. Jesus is the source of eternal salvation. What a tremendous work he does. No one else can do this work to provide for you eternal life. What a great high priest we have. Now that's the introduction to the next five chapters. At this point, without any warning, the inspired writer turns from exposition to earth shaking rebuke. Or as Mike Douglas says, a direct missile shot to the head. And after he said that, one person said, that's the American way. Just shoot a missile at him. I'd not heard that before. Well, I don't know if the writer was an American or not. I doubt it, and I doubt he had missiles, but he is going to fire a missile shot right at the head of his readers. I don't think it was a super pleasant experience. And so I've entitled this section The Glorious Truths and Dull People. The writer turns to his readers to warn them of spiritual immaturity. He says to them this, look at verse eleven— Now about this, that's the Melchizedek High Priesthood and its prefiguring of Christ. About this high priesthood and this new order of priesthood, we have much to say, and you need this material, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. These believers needed this material. They were facing trials. They were under persecution. Some of them were tempted to go back to Judaism. Some of them were halfway there. Some of them weren't letting go of the old ways. They needed this teaching on the superiority of Christ's high priestly work for us and our priesthood. They needed this. They needed this to answer their critics. They needed this desperately for their own struggles about what has God done with our religion. And they're not prepared to even hear an exposition to encourage them and strengthen them in their faith. And so he's very severe to them, and I, I call the first point here, people who are dull of hearing, verse eleven, You have become dull of hearing. Now that word dull means sluggish, lethargic. They listened with the attention of a slug. They were unreceptive. Glorious truths of Christ, magnificent doctrine, but they were slugs. They had gotten tired of listening, and they did not have listening ears. Now the opposite is all ears. You ever hear that phrase, they're all ears? You look down, and here's a person, they're all ears. It's interesting when you go to different churches to speak, some congregations are dull. They are dull. You look out there, and they are looking through you. They're thinking about the roast at home and the football game this afternoon. And you say a joke, and they just have a completely straight face. They're hard to talk to. It's a hard crowd. They don't motivate you. You look at them and you go, what am I even doing here? I'd rather go home. I hope they'll pay me. They're dull. You can see it. They're dull. I often, at the door, when they say, oh, that was a fine message, I've often been tempted to say, what did I say? Oh, I don't know. It was very good, though. We're all ears. Now, I have to say this to you, and I'm not lying or trying to butter you up so you'll give me a lot more money, which of course I would take, but I'm not saying this for that. You are a great congregation to talk to. Anyone who's been up here says that. Dave McCloud says it, others who have been up here. You listen very carefully, you're with me. Very rarely do I see someone sleeping. Of course, those people we've thrown out of the church. You're a very comfortable audience to be with. You're with the person who's speaking. It's like being a school teacher. Can you imagine school teachers, they look out there at junior high students, and they're all just, you know, and you're going, they're not going to listen to a word I say. And then you get to college, and all of a sudden you get to a point where you've got people with all ears, and they're interested in the subject. In the history of preaching in Britain and America, F. R. Weber tells, uh, of the story of when the great awakenings happened in through Whitefield and Wesley and England and America, how, how people were so attentive, and he, and he writes these interesting words. Men and women studied shorthand in order that they might take down the sermons that were stirring the English-speaking countries. This had happened once before in Scotland, and it made its appearance once more in all the countries where the influence of the awakening was felt. It was not unusual to see men with a portable inkwell strapped about them and a quill pen thrust over their ear, hastening to join the throng assembling on a village green. They were so eager to hear the word of God that they studied how to take shorthand so they could write these things out. They didn't have tape recorders in those days, didn't have films. Richard Baxter wrote a little track, and it's called Directions for Profitable Hearing of the Word Preached. Listen to what he says. He's speaking to you right now. You make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it. In other words, right now, you should be diligent to pl- apply the Word of God. Cast not all upon the minister as those that will go no further than they are carried. You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the time be as busy as he is. You must open your mouths and digest the Word, for another cannot digest it for you. Therefore, be all the while at work. Abhor an idle heart and ear in hearing, as well as an idle minister. In other words, if you want to get something out of the word of God, don't be like these Hebrew Christians who are dull of hearing. You have work to do. Listen carefully, apply it to your life, take notes, open your Bible, look up the references, hear what the preacher is saying. When your mind starts to wander, and it does wander, my mind wanders out there. I start thinking of things, I've got things that pop into my mind. I have to just discipline my mind to bring it back to the speaker. We've said to you that we have this little wonderful little commentary by David McLeod. It will help you if you read it before. I'm reading the passage, even if I'm not speaking, I've been reading a chapter every day, every day, just in regular reading of the book of Hebrews, so that when the speaker speaks on Sunday, I'm ready for it. I already know the chapter. If you have not even looked at the chapter, you're being hit cold right now. You will not get as much than if every day you have prepared yourself for the next chapter. Dull of hearing. Do not be dull of hearing. It's a terrible crime against the word of God. B, people who are unwilling to learn and grow. Notice verse, verse twelve: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need indeed to teach you again the basic principles, that's the ABCs, of the oracles of God. You need milk and not solid food. By this time, they've been believers a whole generation. Maybe we're in the second generation of believers. They should be able to open the Bible and the, the gospel and minister to other people. Doesn't mean you're a platform preacher, it means that you can teach the basic ABCs, the beginning works of God and gospel of God. But he says here, you, you need someone to reteach you ABCs, the elementary teachings of the word of God. I just want to make one comment here about a great biblical principle you may not be aware of. We say it in English, use it or lose it, but the Bible has its own way of saying it in Matthew thirteen twelve, It's not on the screen, so listen with your attentive ears. Matthew thirteen twelve, Whoever has, re means has the word of God, whoever has will be given more and will have an abundance. So when you receive the things of God and you have the things of God, not only will you get more, you'll have them in abundance. In other words, it's a principle that when you're learning the things of God, you can keep getting your frame of reference enlarged constantly. Now, here's the warning part. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Spiritual regression. I've seen it right in this church, Thirty years, thirty five, forty years ago. There were men in this church that could minister from this platform. They knew their Bibles, they knew theology, uh, people enjoyed their ministry, and then they got sidetracked, they got bitter at someone, they hardly even went to church anymore. Everything they once knew, they just almost completely lost it. In other words, you don't play with divine truth. What you have, God will actively take it away from you, and so you will regress to become a baby all over again. Now, next, see people who are living on baby food, verse thirteen: Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. That's both doctrine and ethical life, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, since he is a child. Now, the writer gets more direct and more sarcastic. He says, you need milk, not solid food. You're still a baby on the bottle. There are adult infants still nursing. Now, can you imagine if I were to look out there right now and all of you adults were in diapers? Many of you are sucking your thumbs, and some of you pull out a bottle, and you just can't wait to get on the bottle. Would that be odd? But it happens in many churches. Spiritual infants, adult infants who never, never grow up. They stay on baby milk, formula. They like it better. And he says that they're unskilled in the things of God. Well, of course they are. They never grew up. Whole congregations stay this way. I was in Long Island, and I met this, uh, uh, preacher, and he said, after I got done speaking, he said, I'd like to meet with you in the morning for a cup of coffee. I told him I'm a Christian, I don't drink coffee, but I'll have tea. So he immediately saw my spiritual superiority. We, we had, uh, a cup of tea in the morning, and he told me this story. He had gra- graduated from Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and he went back to Long Island, where he was from, and he was hoping to become a pastor of a church. And as soon as he got back to Long Island, there was an opening in a church that needed only a six-month interim pastor. So he said, I might as well take it, I don't have any at church. So for six months, he was a pastor, interim pastor, waiting for the real pastor to come. Well, when he got done with that, someone said, you did such a wonderful job, would you come to our church and be interim pastor? For eleven years, that became his job, a professional interim pastor. So here's what he wanted to say to me. He said, Alex, I've been in a number of churches now. I've been the interim pastor. I've been an intern pastor up to a, a year even, and here's what I've learned. Nobody is developing the congregation. When the pastor leaves, there isn't one man in his forty or fifties who can open the Bible and teach. There isn't any who can lead the congregation, and when the next pastor comes, they start in a whole new direction. They're completely clergy dependent. That's the exact thing he's talking about in the book of Hebrews here. People who never grow, never develop, can't be leaders, can't be teachers. They should have been teachers by now. They should have known the things of God, the words of righteousness. They should have known sound doctrine, and if the pastor leaves, if the pastor drops dead and has a heart attack, they can pick up his Bible and get started. What a wonderful thing that if one of our leaders here died, we have numbers of men who could take over the teaching ministry of this church, and many who can take over the leadership of this church and continue its direction. They are people who are living on baby food, and they don't want to get off of the bottle. Number four, here we have the contrast. People are living on solid food are mature. Verse fourteen, but solid food is for the mature. That's where you're supposed to be going, a mature adult. For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. You see, a child cannot distinguish good from evil, but a person who knows the Bible and a person who's growing in the faith is a person who has spiritual discernment and can distinguish good from evil. When they hear of the terrible ethical question of abortion, they do not have to struggle. They know from the word of God what the answer. When they hear of emergent church and people joining emergent church and they see what it is, immediately they have discernment. This is not what God wants the church to be. They are not floundering around. They know the things of God. Now, here is an earth-shattering truth for us this morning. Every church has an environment, it has an atmosphere, it has a spirit, it has a culture. Every church. You can visit a church, and within ten minutes, you can capture the spirit of that church. Is it highly critical? Is it paranoid? Is it very exclusive? Is it unfriendly? You, you can sense a church. You can go into church, and you can sense, you can look at the audience, it doesn't take long. This is going to be hard to teach them today because they are dull of hearing. They're still on baby food, and it's going to be hard to explain what I want to say this morning because they have become dull of hearing. Whole congregations that are a mile wide and a half inch deep. No one grows up. No one ever graduates from school. They're all in diapers and on bottles. We have a wish, and we have a prayer for our local church, and that is that you will grow up, that we would have an exciting church, a church that has a thirst, an unquenchable thirst for learning and growing in the faith. And when you come here, you are eager to learn. Donald Gray Barnhouse once said he thought the greatest fear people had in going to church is that they might actually learn something. I hope when you come here, you're eager to learn and to be changed and to, to grow and to mature, and you will not be satisfied with baby pablum. You want strong food and meat so you would grow. These Jewish believers had a spirit of dullness, spiritual laziness. They were infantile. They were unprepared for the trials of life and the tough questions they were being faced with by their opponents, although there were excellent answers. This is one of the keys to this whole problem in the book. Believers that have not gone forward, and when you don't go forward, you fall into the very state of these believe- people, and you go backward. You do not stay the same. That is not possible. God will not allow it. Spiritual retrogression. Here I saw in the paper here just recently, in our secular paper, learning should be a lifelong endeavor. In fact, they give you all the different benefits for why you should just keep on learning. The secular world says this. We should keep on learning, and yet so often Christians are just satisfied where they are. They don't want to learn another thing. They rebel against it. Bobby Clinton, in his study on why people don't end well in their Christian life and the believer's life, says only a few end well. He, he says, here's the reason why. We have observed that most people cease learning by the age of forty. By that we mean they no longer actively pursue knowledge, understanding, experience that will enhance their capacity to grow and contribute to others. Most simply rest on what they already know, but those who finish well, listen carefully, focus on these words, those who finish their Christian life well maintain a positive learning attitude all their lives. You know, the Christian life really is an exciting life. The TV is not an exciting place. I often have people call me, they're not Christians, they're old, old friends. One, one called yesterday. Boy, you can hardly find anything good on TV. Well, that's a great discovery. The Christian life is an exciting life because we're constantly challenged by God and his word, and to grow and to transform. I think of First Timothy chapter four verse seven where Paul says to Timothy these wonderful words, train yourself in godliness. Actually, it's the word exercise. Exercise yourself in godliness. And I think of Paul's words to Timothy later in chapter four verse fifteen. he says this, Timothy, take pains with these things, the things of God. Be absorbed in them. In other words, be totally committed to them. Now hear this, so that your progress will be evident to all. Paul wanted the church at Ephesus to look at Timothy and say, look at this young man growing. What a terrible thing to see a man in his twenties or thirties and he's just stopped learning, stopped reading. He's, he's just drifting. What a waste of human life it is. Paul says in second Corinthians chapter four verse sixteen, though my outer man, that's the physical body, the outer man is decaying. Yes, it's decaying. I need hip replacement, I need knee replacements, hair replacements, ear replacements, eye cornea replacements. The outer man is just breaking down, the skin's sagging. You just don't have the zeal and zest anymore. Paul, in a man in his sixties, says the outward man is decaying. Try to help it, but it's going to beat you. He says this, although the outward man is decaying, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day. Think of that. He's young at heart, young in spirit. Every day there's a renewal, a freshness in his life. Well, that's a positive life, a exciting life. Life can get awfully boring. You wonder why I even get up out of bed in the morning, particularly as the body does decay and break down. But here's a man who says his inner life is being renewed. And then in two Corinthians chapter three verse eighteen, Paul says this, we all, with an unveiled face, unlike Moses, beholding as in a mirror, we're looking in at the scriptures, the glory of Jesus Christ. And as we're looking at Jesus Christ in the holy word of God, we are being transformed into the same image, glory to glory to glory, just as the Lord the Spirit. In other words, the Christian life is a life of moving from glory to glory, a constant metamorphosis, change, moving from the caterpillar to the beautiful butterfly, becoming more and more like the lovely Lord Jesus. And then First Peter chapter two verse two, listen to these words, like newborn babes, like newborn babes. Well, we've got lots of newborn babes here. They're all over the place. Don't just be careful wherever you step, they're all every place. And there's more coming. They're coming. What is the chief characteristic of a newborn babe? Eat. They want to eat. Now, they have a secret weapon. You know what it is. That tells you, feed them or they will not stop. It's terrible when it happens three in the morning. All right, now here's the analogy, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. You think you know it all? You don't know anything. We're in the dark. We're in a little rowboat by the side of a m- mammoth ocean compared to what we can know of Christ. Like newborn babes, you're to have that kind of craving for your salvation, to understand the cross, to understand the resurrection, to understand the priestly ministry of Christ. Oh, all these major aspects of Christ. We are to grow up unto salvation. Then second Peter chapter three verse eighteen: Grow, grow, grow in the grace and grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Two principles, growth and decay. There's no others. Philippians chapter one, Paul says this, yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. I know that I will remain and continue for your progress and joy. No one will hear me out there if I don't put this back on. All right, your progress and joy. But then he goes on to say this, listen to what the apostle says. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on. I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. Here's a man who's growing, growing, growing, pressing on, going forward. He doesn't even look back. Good things, bad things, just go ahead. When God puts you in the life, in the driver's seat, he did not say live life through the rear view mirror. You can only look through the windshield or you'll be killed. You look for the windshield and you go forward. Life is one direction. One of our city fathers, the man who started the Denver Post, Bonfils, says this, there is no hope for the self-satisfied man. Someone else said this, if you live in the past, you won't have a future. God wants you to grow up, he wants you to mature, he wants you to continually, every single day, have a renewal of heart and mind, and to go forward. This is God's will. These Christians have become dull of hearing. They were on milk. They did not want to grow. They did actually, they did not want to face the wonderful truths of Christ and his new priestly ministry. They, they wanted to dabble back there in Judaism, the old ways. They didn't want to make this clean break they needed to make, and they wanted a foot in both worlds, and then they were being tempted by, by those who opposed them, and consequently they were not able to face what they were facing in trials and temptations and persecution. They didn't have answers, and the writer says, I'd like to tell you more, but I can't because you, you won't even understand it. What you need, you won't even be able to receive. What a terrible predicament. How do we grow? How do we grow? With this, I want to close. First of all, you, you ask God for a hunger, a thirst for growth. If you don't have that, get on your knees every day and say, Lord, I don't really care about growing. I'm dull of hearing. I'm on the bottle still. I'm wearing diapers. Not been much renewal in my life. Just ask God to give you that desire. It's got to start with a desire. God works in us to will and do his good pleasure. He works in our will, and he works in our actions. So ask him. And then learn to listen to CDs and tapes. You take a message like this, get it, go over it in your car two or three times. Rehearse it. Listen to Bible teaching tapes. Take your Bible and listen to it read in the car. Don't just sit in the car and stare and look for police. Go to good conferences where you'll hear things taught. Read good books. Ask, what good books should I read? Downstairs in our book room, we've got great, important books. Even you say, well, I'm not a reader. Okay, I can agree, and we're not all readers, but you could read a little bit. You could start small, baby steps to get off that bottle. Make sure you have time with God, some quiet time with God in this noisy, polluted world. Take classes at a local school. Seek a mentor. Watch for those distractions in life. There's so many of them just distracting us from growth, distracting us from really important things, and we're sidetracked. Before we know it, it's too late. We've regressed, and we've lost, and what we had was all been taken away from us. Have this desire to grow, because there are great things to learn about Christ and a great life to live for Christ. It's an exciting life. Wouldn't want to be without Christ in this world. And when you come to the end of life, and you will come, there's one there who is the source of eternal salvation. I hope you know the personal source of eternal salvation, Jesus Christ, that he's your high priest at God's right hand for you, for you, in the presence of God, ministering to you. Do you know him? Will you stand with me as we close in prayer? Father in heaven, we just ask that you will speak to us all today about having listening ears and to be all ears and to have interest in Christ, his priestly ministry, and the priestly ministry you've given to us. We are all priests today. We are all saints today. We have great privileges and great responsibilities placed upon our shoulders to offer sacrifices to God, to know the things of God, and to instruct others, to instruct our children. May we take our priesthood seriously. The privileges of prayer that you have given to us at the throne of grace. Oh Lord, protect us from dullness and spiritual laziness and self-satisfaction. Protect us from all the distractions in this world, and there's so many voices that call us to lesser things, to wastefulness of time and energy. Protect us from these distractions, O God. And then we pray if someone hears today, we do not know who they are, and they do not know the High Priest. They have not come to his throne. They have not come to receive from the source eternal salvation, sins forgiven, newness of life. And today they would hear these words with listening ears. They would hear, and they would believe, and they would become a priest today, a saint, a child of God. They would be eager to grow and to learn of their new faith. Now, to all these ends, we ask your help through Jesus Christ. Amen.