“On To Maturity” [Matt's Messages] ~ Matt Mitchell

“On To Maturity”

Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

The Letter to the Hebrews

Lanse Evangelical Free Church

May 10, 2026 :: Hebrews 5:11-6:3

What is the most loving rebuke your mom ever gave you?

I’m not asking what is the most loving thing she ever said to you. That was probably some variation on, “I love you.” Or a promise she made to you. Or perhaps she pointed out something wonderful about you–some gift of God’s grace in you with well-chosen words.

I hope everybody here has gracious words from their mother that they can cherish all your days. I’m sure there are some who may not. The Lord knows, and He is sufficient no matter what. He has loving things to say over you even if your mom never has.

But what I am asking right now is what is the most loving rebuke your mom ever gave you?

The time she told you off.

The time she scolded you.

The time she bawled you out.

The time she read you the riot act.

And you needed to hear it from her!

Nobody likes to be scolded, but sometimes a scolding is exactly what we need to get our attention and to keep us from going off the rails.

All good mothers know that.

And so do all good pastors. And this pastor who was writing this sermonic letter to the Hebrews chooses this moment in his missive to lovingly rebuke his readers.

Did you hear it as it was read to us? Did you hear the rebuke? It starts in the first verse. Verse 11.

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.”

Ouch.

He says that he has a lot more to say about what we were studying last week–Jesus is our great high priest. Jesus is the greatest high priest there ever was. He’s like every other high priest (human, subject to weakness, called by God), but He’s better than every other high priest. He is a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Wow! What does that mean? This pastor wants to explain it. But he’s afraid that the Hebrews are not paying attention.

“It is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.”

And that’s saying it nicely.

The King James and the ESV has “...you have become dull of hearing.”

The CSB has, “...you have become too lazy to understand.”

The updated NIV has, “...it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.”

That’s a rebuke. That’s a scolding. He wants them to feel some shame. Because this is not about their intellectual abilities. This is about their hearts. They are not listening with their hearts. They are zoning out.

And this pastor is saying, “I’m worried about you guys. Something has gone terribly wrong here.” Look at verse 12.

“In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!”

That’s a rebuke. He’s saying that they have not grown as they were supposed to. It’s as if their mothers took their twelve year old to the family doctor, and she held up the growth chart and said, “You are in the 1st percentile for growth. Or maybe the -25th percentile. You should be here, and you are here."

Is there anything wrong with a baby who only drinks milk? No!

Is there anything wrong with a newborn baby who only nurses? No! It would bad if a newborn baby was eating a piece of pizza! Or a porterhouse steak.

But what if you are 25 year old who is still nursing? A 10 year old that never eats a piece of pizza. Nothing but milk.

What would that 10 year old look like? What would that 25 year old look like? We call it “failure to thrive.” “Stunted growth.”

These readers had had the gospel for some time, and they should have been further along. They should have been teachers by now! It’s not that they should ever stop learning. It’s that they have stopped learning. They should have learned enough by now that they have something to give to others.

“C’mon, guys.” That’s what he’s saying to them. “C’mon, guys. Milk is good, but have you tried chicken? Solid food is even better!” Verse 13.

“Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.”

This is not working. To be “not acquainted” in verse 13 means to be “inexperienced, unskilled, undiscerning.” Sounds like a little baby to me. And it doesn’t sound like what a Christian ought to be. If you are a Christian, if you have been a Christian for any length of time, you’re going to learn what God says about what is right and how to be right with God. But these folks were still acting like babies, like spiritual infants. And so this loving pastor rebukes them.

I have only two major points this morning from this text, and they are two sides of the same coin.

#1. DON’T STAY A BABY!

Don’t stay a baby Christian.

Now, if you are a baby Christian here today, praise God! Welcome to the family. It’s okay to not know hardly anything yet about Jesus. We will teach you about Jesus here. Who He is. What He has done. What He is going to do. And what He wants from us. We will teach you “the teaching about righteousness.”

But you have to listen. And you have to grow. We will serve out the milk, but you can’t stay on the milk. You’ve got to graduate to solid food.

And not go backwards! I think that he’s implying that they have been fed some solid food before, but they’re kind of like, “I’m not sure I really want to hear all this. I’m just going to coast by on the old stuff. The milk. The introductory stuff. That’s good enough for me.”

“And I’m not going to grow.”

Is that you? Have you said, “I’m mature enough. I think I’ll just coast from here.” That’s infantile! Don’t stay a baby.

I was trying to think about the most loving rebuke that my mom ever gave to me. And I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting some of them because who wants to dwell on the times when Mom was disappointed in you?

But what came to mind was a particular time when I wasn’t pulling my weight around the house. I think I was a teen or maybe a pre-teen. And I wasn’t doing my chores, and I basically thought that I was above all of that serving stuff. Mom could do all that stuff. She enjoys doing house work! Which is obvious by how much of it she does.

(Which tells you just how immature I was.)

And I remember my Mom rebuked me, and she basically told me to grow up. I was getting older and could be more responsible around the house, not less.

Don’t stay a baby. Don’t stay a baby Christian. Take an inventory of your spiritual life. Take a long look at yourself.

Have you grown as a Christian? Recently? Is there any difference in your life now from before? Or over time? Have you grown in the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Are you more self-controlled now than you used to be? Are you more patient? Are you more gentle? Have you learned your Bible? Are you reading it? Are you understanding it more and more? Are you listening to the message on Sunday and applying it your life?

Or...are you slow to learn? Do you have your fingers in your ears like a spiritual toddler? You can be quite old physically and still act like this. Because it’s a matter of the heart. Don’t stay a baby. Flip-side:

#2. GROW UP IN CHRIST.

Look at verse 14.

“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. [Chapter 6] Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity...”

There’s our title for today: “On To Maturity.”

Don’t stay a baby Christian, grow up in your relationship with the Lord and become mature.

The word for “maturity” in verse 1 is the same word as we saw applied to Jesus last week in chapter 5, verse 9 about how He was “made perfect.” We said that is “made complete” or “made whole.” In Jesus’ life, that was graduating from the school of suffering to being the perfected high priest.

In our case, it’s that we are becoming more and more like Jesus. More and more like we were made to be. Maturing in our faith and becoming like our Lord.

Hebrews urges us to “go on to maturity.” What does that look like?

I think this passage gives us a picture of maturity when we consider the flipside of what it says about immaturity.

Here are 5 things I’ve noted down:

First, a mature Christian is eager to eat meat.

They want that solid food. If an infantile Christian is choking on the solid food, a mature Christian is not only able to eat the solid stuff, but hungry for it.

My friend Nick, the pastor at Blue Course Community Church, was telling me this week about a young Christian who was in the Blue Band and got in from playing at an away game at 3am one Saturday night last year. Or I guess that’s Sunday morning. And she was at church at 10:00 because she wanted to be fed!

Are you hungry for the meat of God’s Word? If you miss a Sunday here, do you read or listen or watch last week’s message to get caught up and fed? I do! And I actually listen to last week’s message every week even though I wrote it to get myself ready this week’s.

Do you read your Bible? Do you study your Bible? Do you study it with other people?

Second, a mature Christian is ready to teach.

That doesn’t mean that you’re ready to get up here and preach. Or even back there and teach a class. But it does mean that you are ready to explain the gospel to someone else who isn’t as far along as you.

If your friend has questions, are you ready to give them some answers? Can you explain what you believe?

Moms, you need to teach your kids Christian doctrine. It’s part of the job description you signed up for when you got pregnant. And, yes, that means that you will constantly be learning. You will need to keep learning to keep teaching. Moms need solid food so that they can nurse. Mature Christian moms need solid food so that they can nourish their baby Christians at home.

Third, a mature Christian puts it work. They put what they know to work. That’s in verse 14 of chapter 5.

“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”

A mature Christian takes in spiritual nourishment and then does something with it. Like what Keith Hurley taught two weeks ago. A mature Christian doesn’t just hear the word and nod along. They take what they hear and do something with it.

“Constant use.” “Trained.” The word for “trained” in verse 14 is from the root word “gumnazmo” from which we get our word “gymnasium.”

It’s a work out. When you listen to a sermon, do you think, “What can I do with this? What must I do with this? What will I do with this?” It’s pumping iron.

Mature Christians fill up with the protein of God’s word and then work out with it until they are changed. Until they can tell the difference between good and evil. They have discernment.

Fourth, able to discern.

Mature Christians know what the right thing to do is.

For example, our Lord Jesus told us to forgive those who sin against us. Does everybody agree with that? Are you doing that?

See, that’s what it means to be “slow to learn” if you don’t take what God’s Word says and then do it. Of course your spiritual growth is going to atrophy.

Jesus says, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” In other words, keep your promises. Are you doing that? Are you keeping your promises to your employer? To your mortgage company? To your spouse?

“Well...”

See, everybody loves Jesus until He starts to demand things. And then we start looking for loopholes.

And then we start trying to ignore Him. Maybe we still want be counted among the Christians, but we don’t really want to be acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.

Grow up. Mature Christians grow in Christ by putting what they are learning of Christ to work which makes them able to discern right from wrong, good from evil.

And lastly, mature Christians build on the basics.

Notice again what it says in verse 1 of chapter 6.

“Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity...”

Now, I don’t think that he means that we should abandon the elementary teachings about Christ. Do you? I don’t think he means that we should leave them in the dust. We should never abandon the elementary teachings about Jesus. We will always need them. They are our sure foundation.

But we need to build on that foundation. We don’t throw out our ABC’s. But we use those ABC’s to write sentences, and paragraphs, and books. We don’t throw out the basics, but we build on them. If we never do, then we never mature. Look at what he goes on to say in verse 1.

“Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.”

He says that we (and notice that he includes himself here, we all need to do this) are to “go on to maturity.” Or more literally, “be taken forward to maturity” as if God is sweeping us along in the process. We don’t do this in our own power. But we do do it. We go on to maturity not by re-laying the foundation, but I think by building upon it.

Now, the list of six things there in verses 1 and 2 have been taking differently by different biblical scholars over the years. They are obviously all basic things, but it’s not clear exactly what kind of basic things.

I tend to think that they are basic Christian things because verse 1 says “elementary teachings about Christ.”

So that’s repentance from sinful acts and flip-side faith in God. That’s the doorway into a relationship with God. Turn and trust. And we know that’s turn and trust in Jesus the Son of God who died on the Cross for our sins and came back to life to give us life. That the basics of conversion. Conversion 101.

And then baptisms and the laying on of hands would be John’s baptism before Christ and Christian baptism after Christ and the commissioning of Christian leaders for leadership and service. These are the basics of church life. Church 101.

And then resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment are the basics of Christian teaching about the end times. Christian Future 101. There is a new world coming when Jesus returns.

These are all things that all Christians should have been taught early on in their faith.

Do you know these things? I hope so. (If not, let’s talk!)

Should we abandon these things? No, of course not. And really, we should revisit them regularly. That’s why we recite our statement of faith and sing the songs we do to remind ourselves of the basics of our beliefs. But we go deeper. And we go higher. We build on those basics. We go on to maturity.

Interestingly, many other Christians have noted that these 6 things are not distinctively Christian. In fact, they all could be taken as basics of Jewish teaching from the Old Covenant.

So it could be yet another way that Hebrews is saying that these believers should not go backwards.

Maturity in Christ would mean not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works (good works will not save us!) and of faith in God.

Or instruction about (the new NIV now has) “cleansing rites” which could be Jewish washings like we read about in the Old Testament or what the Pharisees were famous for doing (see also 9:10-14).

And “the laying on of hands” might be when a temple-goer lays their hand on a lamb before sacrificing it.

And “resurrection of the dead” and “eternal judgment” are truths taught in the Old Testament, too.

It may be that these Hebrews were tempted to lay again the foundation of the Old Covenant way of approaching God. The Aaronic High Priest and all.

But the author is saying, “That won’t work. You can’t go back. There is a New Covenant with a Greater High Priest, and it is much better, and it is now the way to perfection, to completeness, to maturity.”

Don’t get stuck back there. That’s all good stuff. But don’t get stuck there. Don’t keep getting started and going nowhere. Build on it. Let us go on to maturity. Does that make sense?

And though he’s been giving them such a hard time, he ends this section with a word of encouragement.

“And God permitting, we will do so.”

We will go on to maturity! If the Lord wills. And we know that He’s said this is part of His revealed will, His will of command. And He’s so good and gracious and loving and powerful, if He empowers us to go on to maturity, then we certainly will.

Because the opposite is just terrible to think about. Next week, God-permitting, we will think about. The next few verses are some of the hardest to interpret and heaviest receive in the whole Bible. It’s a warning. Not just a scolding but a warning.

But before he issues that warning, this pastor takes a deep breath and gives us a strong word of encouragement.

Like a good mom, he has issued a loving rebuke. “You are being dull. You are being lazy. You are not listening. You have your fingers in your ears. Do you hear me?”

He obviously thinks they might be listening. They are slow to learn, but he hasn’t given up on them.

He’s doing that loving-dope-slap-on-the-back-of-the-head thing that some moms have perfected.

And he says, “Don’t stay a baby. Grow up in Christ.”

“Let’s all do it,” he says.

And God-permitting, we will do so.

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