Don't be Dull of Hearing!

Hebrews 5:11-14 “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.

·         This passage and this sharp exhortation in Hebrews come somewhat unexpectedly – like a phone call to a person still in bed. It is a call that is meant to rouse the hearer; to wake up the hearer, so that the hearer will listen more closely and learn. It is a sharp word that has a little bit of a bite to it, but the author isn’t being mean, he intends to help the hearer grow up and pay closer attention to how they are hearing.
·         If you were a first-century Christian, reading Hebrews and possibly starting to lose interest or maybe starting to lose track of what the author is trying to say as he is unpacking and applying the High Priesthood of Christ in relation to Melchizedek, this temporary detour is meant to get your attention and help you avoid further trouble understanding.
·         The author of Hebrews has just finished explaining that Jesus is a High Priest of an entirely different order and he will continue to explain and expound how Jesus is a high Priest in the order of Melchizedek but he takes some time out in these verses and the rest of chapter 6 to exhort and instruct his listeners.
·         This letter wasn’t just written to a general group of unknown people – the author knew the church he was writing to and he knew their temptations and what they wrestled with.  The author knew that by about this time in the letter, they would probably no longer be tracking with him and they potentially would have lost interest and started to not pay attention. So, he writes to them to explain that he knows that what he has just been saying about this Melchizedek is hard to explain.

In verse 11 he says, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

·         And he says the reason it is hard to explain to them is that they have become dull of hearing. Another way of putting it is that they have become sluggish in hearing.
·         He is saying that they’ve become slug-like – slow to respond and lazy in hearing and applying. And what this passage is saying is that
 
1.       Becoming a sluggish hearer is dangerous
·         You see there is a very real danger to dullness of hearing.
·         This is a serious problem, because from the very outset of Hebrews, it is clear that hearing and obeying the word of God spoken through the Son is how they became Christians.
·         And it is because they tend to be sluggish in the way that they hear, that he knows that there is a significant risk that they may not fully get what he is saying and he wants them to get it, so he exhorts them to not be hard of hearing and to grow up and start eating solid food and apply themselves to learning.
·         This isn’t hard to relate to is it? How many of us have fallen asleep in church or in a lecture when someone is talking about something important but that takes some effort to understand? What is happening is that we are not making great efforts to pay attention and apply what we are hearing. We may just need more sleep sometimes and to plan better, so that we might benefit more. But, if it is a regular occurrence, it is probably because we have developed habits of listening that are sluggish and we don’t make great efforts to pay attention so that we might learn and apply.

Romans 10:17  ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

·         If we are not truly hearing; if we aren’t being active hearers of the word of Christ or the word of righteousness, it has implications. It affects our faith.
·         In Matthew 13, the disciples asked Jesus why he spoke to the people in parables and he said,

Matthew 13:13-15  …“because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand…  ¹⁵ For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.…”

·         Jesus explained that they couldn’t hear because their hearts had grown dull. They had grown dull and this was dangerous because they were no longer able to hear and understand what Jesus was saying and because of that, they didn’t turn to Him and receive the healing that they truly needed.
·         Being dull of hearing; being sluggish isn’t ok, because being a sluggish hearer makes you childish.

2. Being a sluggish hearer makes you childish

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.
·         The author is saying that there has been plenty of time for them to grow up in their knowledge of Christ.
·         By this time, they ought to be grown-up in Christ. They ought to be mature and it would be reasonable to expect that they would be mature by now.
·         Many grow up in Christian homes and have a lot of knowledge about the basic principles of the faith but really don’t understand how to apply the basics to their life.
·         Many can say that they know that Jesus came to die for their sins and take God’s wrath on Himself in our place. And this is good and essential, foundational knowledge to have. It is foundational to our faith that we must repent, turn from our sins and turn to God in humility, confessing our sins and then trust in Jesus Christ alone.
·         We cannot leave the fundamental truths behind in our Christian walk; instead, we need to work out the deeper implications of the gospel in our lives, if we are going to remain strong in the faith. But if we never go further in understanding how to apply this truth to our everyday lives, then we are still drinking milk and not eating solid foods.
·         If we don’t go on to a deeper understanding of how to apply the doctrines of justification and sanctification to our lives, to our thoughts and feelings and actions, then we are still drinking milk.
·         Now, milk is good and it is reasonable to have this as your diet if you are new to the faith or new to the idea of reading the Bible for yourself or new to the idea that every Christian is called to grow in godliness.  If this is you and these ideas are new and you’ve not been taught that you need to grow in your understanding, please do not feel any guilt whatsoever.  Instead, we want you to be inspired to see that not only are you called to grow, you can grow and it is reasonable to think that with time spent reading and thinking deeply about and applying God’s Word you will grow up in Christ.
·         We are meant to drink milk, but we aren’t meant to only drink milk for the rest of our Christian walk.
·         But there are many who Christians who do know that they need to grow and they do know that they need to read God’s Word and yet have not dug down deeply into what they believe. As a consequence, like a plant that doesn’t send roots down into the soil, growth is stunted
·         This passage isn’t meant to cause us to feel guilty or wallow in condemnation, but it is meant to get us to question our own pursuit of the things of God and for us to soberly evaluate our maturity based on how we hear God’s Word. It is not meant to condemn but to inspire us to grow and as a means of grace to spur us on to growth and to grow up, so that we can understand the things of God and enjoy God even more.
·         Infants know nothing of the pleasure of putting countless hours into learning to read and then finding that you can read great books and enjoy not only the stories therein but also learn and grow as a person. The Bible is not just another book though, it contain the words of life. God has given us His Words of freedom from sin, forgiveness, grace, love, peace with God. He wants us not just to read it but to seriously apply ourselves to understanding His word and ingesting it. We need to eat His Word and learn to digest the portions that require some chewing.
·         If I removed meat and other solid foods from my diet as an adult and I stopped eating anything except for milk, my body would begin to adapt. My body would change so that it got as much nutrients from milk as possible and it would also become accustomed to not having solid food after a prolonged period of time.
·         If I only consumed milk for several years, it would become increasingly hard for my body to digest more complex foods. I would regress and not be able to digest solid foods, unless I reintroduced them back into my diet and my body learned to digest them again.  It wouldn’t be good for me if I still needed milk. It would be a sign that something was wrong with my body or at least with my thinking. It would be a sign of deficiency. I would probably have other health concerns and become weak as a result of a milk-only diet for too long and I would need to change my diet if I wanted to be healthy and be able to do the tasks that are expected of normal adults.
·         The author is saying that only feeding on milk, (on what is easier to digest in God’s Word), is not good. It is a sign that you aren’t maturing, that you aren’t growing. And this isn’t the way it should be with people who have been Christians for a while.
·         They ought to be teachers, because they have had plenty of time to learn and know enough to instruct others. The kind of teachers they should be and the kind of instruction that is in mind, isn’t that he expected them all to have the role of a teacher officially. But, it was expected that every mature believer would be able to teach unbelievers or new believers about the good news of who Jesus is and why He came. It is also normal for a mature believer to be able to disciple others – to help teach them about Jesus.
·         Last year, we began to spell out our mission as a church: to be disciples of Jesus Christ, who are growing as disciples and making disciples of Jesus.
·         The very word disciple means to be an active follower of Jesus and His teaching. It means we must be hearing His Word to learn and apply and this is what we want to be. We want to be people who get to know Jesus closely and follow after what He commanded us as His disciples.
·         The primary way we get to know Jesus is to find Him in His Word.  That’s the reason that we studied Genesis last year, because we wanted to be able to better understand the need for salvation, as we learned about who man is, who God is and what our condition is before a Holy God. We needed to see the beginnings of how God called a people to Himself but how people were continually unfaithful and failed to keep the covenant God initiated with them. As Christians, we need to see how God is over all of creation and how He is a faithful redeemer. We need to understand the need for the covenant He made with His people through Abram and Moses. We need to see and understand these things, so that we can better understand the covenant that we have through Jesus Christ.
·         The more we know of God’s Word and apply it, the deeper our understanding will be and the stronger we will be in our Christian walk. And the more we grow, the more it should be normal for us to teach others – to disciple others. And the author of Hebrews is saying that instead of being able to teach others the basic principles of what God has said, we are told that they still need someone else to teach them the basic principles.
·         This isn’t an uncommon way for Biblical writers to speak to us. Paul makes this same kind of contrast between milk and solid food in this spiritual sense, in 1 Corinthians 3.

1 Corinthians 3:1-2  and I, brethren, could not speak to you as to ^aspiritual men, but as to ^bmen of flesh, as to ^cinfants in Christ.  ² I gave you ^amilk to drink, not solid food; for you ^bwere not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,

·         Being a child is ok when you’re young but you shouldn’t be a child forever.
·         When my little toddler falls over and mimics words and claps his hands in glee and dances to music awkwardly, it is adorable. But it wouldn’t be adorable if my 11 year old still couldn’t pronounce words well. It would be even more tragic if it was not because he had any learning difficulty but because he was just lazy and childish. Even at that age though, it could still be corrected, even if it would take some work.
·         It would be even more absurd if I told you that I had an “owie” on my head and my tummy ached and I needed my mommy to kiss the “owie” on my head. You would either think I had a learning disability or think something else must be wrong with me.  It would be terribly wrong and out of place for me to act like that and use that kind of language because it would be childish.

·         The author of Hebrews doesn’t want them to be childish.  He wants the listeners in the church to hear and understand and apply the word they are receiving. He wants them to chew on it, like a good meal and have their powers of discernment trained. He doesn’t want them to be children concerning the things of God but He wants them to be mature.

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.
·         The implication of what he is saying is that it doesn’t have to be hard to explain and they can indeed comprehend and understand what he is saying to them, if they apply themselves to hearing God’s Word diligently.

3.       Constant Practice leads to maturity

·         Later in the letter, we will find that the author actually expects them to respond by actively hearing him and no longer being dull of hearing.
·         No one expects a child to be skilled at music or art or even speaking but it is reasonable to expect that an adult has developed skill in some area. In the same way, it is not unexpected for a new Christian to need to learn and to now be very skilled with God’s Word.  You wouldn’t expect a new believer to totally understand the doctrine of the righteousness of Christ and how it applies to him and how to live in light of the fact that we’ve been declared righteous in Christ. But it would be right to expect that a mature Christian or a Christian that has been around for a while to understand why we need to be justified by Christ.
·         You would expect someone who has been a Christian for a while to know what justification and sanctification is and how to live rightly in light of what Christ has done for us. And if we have been Christians for a while, we should be able to quickly discern what is good and have some ability to discern spiritual and moral matters.
·         The author then is saying that he wants to give them more solid food and in fact, he will give us more solid food in the rest of the letter to the Hebrews. He wants the recipients of this letter to be mature and to be able to digest solid food.
·         The author spells out what it means to be mature. It is to have one’s “powers of discernment trained by constant practice, to distinguish good from evil”.
·         You can have your powers of discernment or your ability to discern trained to distinguish good from evil.
·         Like a skilled musician, if you continue to practice, you will understand more and more about music and develop the muscle memory necessary to play well. You will also develop an ear for music and be able to hear notes and when you hear a wrong note, you will know not only that it is wrong but you can tell what note needs to be played.
·         No one would pay to see a mediocre piano player, who had stopped practicing at age 8 and never moved beyond that ability perform a piece by Mozart.
·         I wouldn’t want a surgeon who had learned surgery 20 years ago but stopped learning more and no longer delved deep into new discoveries or deeper understanding of things. I would want someone who was skilled in quickly recognizing the problem in the midst of surgery and who didn’t need to continually go back to their elementary surgery textbooks.
·         For the people whom this letter was written to, perhaps the reason why they had begun to settle down is because they were unwilling to completely sever their old ties with Judaism and the way of life that seemed more comfortable and safer to them.
·         At times, as Christians, we can settle down and stop with just living safe and comfortable lives. We can become comfortable with knowing “enough”. We know enough to be saved but not much more. And as a result, we can remain caught in bad habits, wrong ways of thinking and get entrapped in sin more easily.
·         But if we are continually practicing, continually working at discerning and understanding God’s revealed word and ourselves, our actions, thoughts and motives in light of His Word, we will become better and better at quickly discerning good from evil and pleasing God in our lives.
·         A good police officer who is very skilled with his weapon and has lots of experience with people and has spent time learning about the people he is supposed to protect and serve, becomes very adept at distinguishing between good guys and bad guys. He knows what to look for and what to listen for and what to believe. Eventually, he can get to the place where he can distinguish good behavior from evil behavior and spot the tell-tale signs of a drug deal going down or someone being forced against their will or spot a shoplifter by their behavior, so that he can then really carry out his mission and be more effective as a seasoned cop.
·         Question:  So, what does it look like for us to spiritually and morally discern things?
·         The author of Hebrews says that the mature are those who have trained powers of discernment. They have constantly practiced and put to use what they have learned so that it is like they have muscle memory when it comes to making decisions and evaluating what they should and should not do, what they should and should not listen to, what they should and shouldn’t watch, what they should read, what they should and shouldn’t do.
·         This isn’t about legalism, in fact, it is about learning to understand how to apply the word of righteousness to our lives in every day meaningful ways.
·         This path to maturity that we are being called, the key to maturity has everything to do with what you hear and what you do with what you hear.
·         We need to start by listening to the Word of God, “the word of righteousness” that has come to us in Jesus, the Son of God. We need to read the Bible on our own and try to think about one thing we read that day and meditate on it all day long, so that we can understand it and apply it.
·         We need to listen to teaching and preaching. One way to do this practically is listening well to the preaching on Sunday mornings and then chew on what you hear throughout the week. Go to small groups and seek to apply it in your life each week actively. Talk to another mature believer about it if you don’t understand it and if you do understand it, try to help another person who might not.
·         Sometimes it won’t be easy to apply. You will have to think deeply about it at times to apply your heart and mind to what you hear.
·         Then, don’t just chew on it, swallow the Word and let it benefit you. Digest it and savor it. Let the promises of God alone satisfy you. Treasure God’s Word and be satisfied with it but then don’t stop there.
·         Practically put to use what you learn and be constantly looking to discern good from evil each day.
·         Most of what we must decide every day isn’t in the Bible, so we need to apply God’s Word to hundreds of decisions and actions and interactions all the time that require discernment – constant practice of applying God’s Word, recognizing what is good and what is evil. This isn’t legalism. Legalism is deceitfully simple. It is just taking a list of do’s and don’ts and trying to follow it, and legalism actually makes you childish. Legalism keeps you from practicing discernment and it masks immaturity.
·         But we can constantly practice and put God’s Word to work in how we spend our money what we do at work and whether we are diligent , what subjects we take at school, what we watch on TV and what we look at on the internet, what we read and what political decisions we take, how we treat our spouses or children, how we interact with our friends, what we say yes to and what we should say no to, how much we give at church
·         We have ample opportunity all of the time to be the kind of hearers that constantly hear to actively apply, so that we grow up and are mature and have trained powers of discernment.
·         We are meant to grow and chew on the solid food in God’s Word, so that we can effectively carry out our mission. If we develop this kind of spiritual discernment, it will lead to us becoming wise, godly and mature Christians, who are eager to grow as disciples of Jesus and make disciples.
·         And as Hebrews 12:11 will tell us later, it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 

Main Idea: Don’t be childish, grow up to maturity by constantly practicing what you hear

·         1 Timothy 4:7-8  …Rather train yourself for godliness;  ⁸ for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
·         Church, Let’s treasure the Word that has been spoke to us through the Son and let us live all of our lives for Him in response.

Potential Application Questions

1.       When you encounter a passage that is hard to understand, how do you react to it? Do you skip it, dig deeper, meditate on it or ignore it, etc?
2.       What are some signs of spiritual dullness?
3.       Are there any areas where you think you may have grown dull of hearing?
4.       How do you normally seek to apply the word you hear? How do you approach Sunday morning’s and the time of preaching and how do you normally approach your small group meetings? Are you actively seeking out growth-oriented relationships with others on your small group? the church?
5.       Are there areas where you’ve become complacent and no longer seeking to grow and learn?
6.       How are you seeking to make disciples by teaching others about Jesus?
7.       Read the following passages: from Hebrews out loud slowly, thinking about what they say:
Hebrews 1:3  “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”
Hebrews 2:11-18  “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,^{1  12} saying, "I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise."  ¹³ And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Behold, I and the children God has given me."  ¹⁴ Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  ¹⁵ and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.  ¹⁷ Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  ¹⁸ For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Hebrews 4:15-16  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  ¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Ask: How does the good news of Hebrews that you just finished reading apply to how you confront your own dullness or sluggish hearing?

8.       Where are some areas where you have not been constantly practicing distinguishing good from evil?

9.       Did the Holy Spirit bring the gift of conviction to you in any other areas while you were listening to the message?
10.   How would God have you respond and put off sluggish hearing (hint, its not just about listening)?
11.   Read: Hebrews 3:13-14  But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  ¹⁴ For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
Ask: How can you help each other recognize and combat dullness of hearing and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin?

12.   Read: Isaiah 57:15  For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
Psalm 85:6  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

Pray together as a group that God would revive you personally and our church, so that we may rejoice in Him all the more.