I know somebody who has seen what's broken in your life. And Dr. Tony Evans says there's hope because that somebody wants to fix each of us. God can meet you there. Don't turn your back on Jesus.
You press on because he's coming back to fix what's broken in your circumstances. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, and founding pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. Simply standing in a gym won't build muscles.
There has to be some sort of effort and commitment to a workout. Today, Dr. Evans talks about being committed to a spiritual workout, actively taking steps to press on to maturity as God works within us, transforming us from spiritual infants to mature believers. Let's join him as he gets started. The author of the book of Hebrews is concerned. He's concerned that the Christians here is writing to that they are stagnant, that they're not moving forward in their spiritual progress.
And because they're not moving forward, the danger is that they're going to go down. So over and over again throughout the book of Hebrews, he's encouraging them, challenging them, warning them, keep going. Keep going. Don't quit. Don't give up.
Don't throw in the towel. And so he wants to challenge and encourage them, as he says in verse 1, press on to maturity. Keep going in your faith. Spiritual maturity has to do with discernment or judgment. All of us know people who regularly make bad judgments in normal everyday life due to a lack of maturity. Well, when it comes to spiritual maturity, babies, those who are confined to milk, are limited to their five senses. Mature Christians have a sixth sense. Another sense, another pickup where they can perceive from heaven so that they can function on earth. And one of the reasons Christians give up throwing the towel, don't keep going, is because they don't see, except what they see. He says, you are infants even though some of you have been saved up to 30 years because you still don't have spiritual perceptivity. You're still limited to the five senses. Verse 1 of chapter 6 says, let us press on to maturity.
You have to decide you want to be mature. God won't do the pressing for you. He's not going to do the homework for you, which means that you have to press on to envelope and adapt and embrace a biblical approach to life if you're going to climb up in a world going down.
Far too many Christians are going down with the culture. You say, but I'm not climbing down with them. You don't have to. Just stand still. It'll take you down. You have to decide I'm going to grow in my faith through the knowledge and application of the Word of God, which is the process for becoming mature even though I can't get off of this escalator of the world I live in that's going down.
I'm walking up even though you're trying to take me down. And he says, you must press on to maturity. But he says in verse 3, and this we will do if God permits. You press, God permits.
There's a partnership. God will not make the decision for you to know his truth and to use his truth. You must make that decision. But once you make that decision to know the truth and use the truth, he will permit the truth to do the job the truth was designed to do. Many people aren't seeing God permit because God don't see them pressing. Philippians chapter 2 says the same thing another way. Paul says in Philippians 2 verse 12, So then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Now a lot of people quote that because that's a nice thing to quote. I'm working out my own salvation and fear and trembling, okay? Okay, well first of all, you can't work out something that ain't in, all right? So he's talking to Christians. He says, my beloved, so these are Christians that have Christ in them. He says the Christ in you has to be worked out. You got to work him out, okay? Well, some of us know what working out is. Others of us don't care to work out. But he says, I want you to work out your salvation that's in.
Work it out, for it is God, verse 13, who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So when God sees you working out, he is working in. You're working out, he is working in, so your work out is producing something stronger, bigger, more muscular. He sees you working out. You can hang around the gym. Look at you. I told you some years ago, when we were working in a church gym, and this lady came in, and you know, some people dress for the part.
I mean, everything about them says they're serious. This lady, this lady had on a serious workout outfit. She had on the thing around her head, tied in the back. She had things around her wrists. She came in blowing, started touching the toes.
No, no, no, no, all of this, all of this. It was very impressive. She looked like she was ready to go. She turned on the treadmill, started going on the treadmill.
She had the towel over her shoulder. Five minutes later, she got off the treadmill, wiped her forehead, said, I see y'all. Some of y'all look like you came to church to work out spiritually, but just because you're in the gym don't mean you're serious about a workout. It is only as the Word of God is heard and applied that God permits what you press. He says you must press on the maturity, and He permits you must work out your salvation, but He is at work in you, both to will and to accomplish His good pleasure.
If you're gonna work out, He gonna work in so that the work gets done in growing us from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. If you're in the same grade year after year, you're going backwards even if you're in the same grade. If you're in the third grade this year, the third grade the next year, the third grade the next year, the third grade the next year, don't think something hadn't changed.
You have gone backwards even though you're in the same spot. The author is concerned about these believers not moving forward, and he says, no, you must press. You must prioritize maturing. It's not gonna happen by chance just like a baby doesn't move from infant to an adult by luck. They have to be fed and clothed and trained and guided and disciplined. A whole lot of things has to happen before that baby becomes an adult.
A whole lot of things has to happen before a milk Christian becomes a mature Christian, and that is the knowledge of God's Word applied in life's realities. The principle works like this. Rate multiplied by time equals distance. If you want to walk from here to downtown Dallas, that's 11 miles, and you start walking.
It's gonna take you a while to walk those 11 miles of downtown. Now if somebody rides a bike, their rate of speed will shorten the time it takes to arrive at the destination, because they're moving faster than the walker. If somebody is driving a car, their rate of speed will shorten the time for them to reach the distance, because they're moving at a faster rate. If somebody's in a yellow helicopter, their rate of speed will shorten the time it takes to arrive at the distance of arriving downtown, because rate multiplied by time equals distance.
So you can have somebody who's been saved for 30 years who are outpaced by somebody who's been saved for one year, because the one saved for 30 years was hit and miss and crawling, but the one saved for one year was riding a Ferrari, and they really wanted to press on and grow, and so they override the person who's been saved an extended amount of time, because they've been moving at a faster rate. So the question is, how bad do you want it? He says, I want you to press on to maturity. I want you to prioritize your maturity. I want you to decide if you saw a 30 year old man still with a milk bottle, you would say something not right here. Something not right here.
He's 30 years old, still drinking from a milk bottle. There is a problem. These were 30 year old saints, and many of them were still drinking from a milk bottle, and the author of Hebrews says something wrong up in here, that they can never appeal to the spiritual. So you got husbands who want to get a divorce because they don't know how to appeal to the spiritual, or wives who want to leave because they don't know how to appeal to the spiritual, or children who don't know. See, you have to press on to understand how to apply spiritual truth to life's realities, not just learn the Bible. That's fundamental.
That's first. But even when you learn it, if you don't use it, you lose it. We'll continue with more of our message in just a moment. First though, when you visit tonyevans.org, you can find out more about today's teaching and the short powerful sermon series it comes from called, Pressing on to Maturity. All three full-length lessons on the importance of actively taking steps to grow in your faith can be yours for review and study on your own schedule. Available in a CD album delivered straight to your home, or as an instant digital download. And when you make a donation to help continue this broadcast ministry, we'll say thanks by sending you the audio collection along with an added bonus, a copy of the powerful book that takes these messages even further, Kingdom Living the Essentials of Spiritual Growth. The book and the Pressing on to Maturity audio collection are yours with our thanks when you visit tonyevans.org and make a donation. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222.
That's 1-800-800-3222. And now let's get back to today's message. His concern is this. He says, in the case of those who were once enlightened, verse 4, tasted of the heavenly gift, partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the Word of God, the power of the age to come, and then they fall away. Fall away means apostasy. He says once you apostasize, you deny the faith actively by verbal, visible denial, or passively just by walking away from it, even though you don't verbally say it. He says you have crucified the Son of God again and placed Him to open shame. In other words, you have joined the people who crucified Christ on Calvary. He says when you fall away after you've been saved, born again, redeemed, converted, he's talking to Christians.
He says when you fall away, that is, you get you keep going downhill, downhill, downhill, and you become a passive or active denier? He says you've helped them kill Jesus because you've joined their philosophy of rejection. Now that's something God doesn't take lightly. That's something God doesn't skip. That's why He says in verse 7, the ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it, brings forth vegetation. So He uses your life like a ground. The blessing of God comes down like rain.
When rain hits the ground, the vegetation grows, and the vegetation is useful. It's useful for you to eat, and it's useful for other people to eat. In other words, He saved you for usefulness. He blesses you to use you. He shows favor to you, to benefit you, and through you to benefit others. God is good to bring benefit to you and through you.
He wants you to mature so that you can get the full benefit of your usefulness. But on the other hand, verse 8, if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and its end is being burnt up. He says when a person apostatizes, they deny the faith, directly or indirectly. They say, Jesus, you're better off dead. I want to join those who crucified you, because I reject you like they did. He says it is impossible to bring that person to repentance. What He means is a person can fall away so far that nothing you do will change how they think or what they will do.
You ever talk to people like that? They're not gonna change. They're not gonna move.
They're not gonna budge. They have decided, this is how I'm gonna be. This is how I'm gonna live. This is how I'm gonna act. This is how I'm gonna relate.
This is me, and leave me alone. Once you fall to that level and there's nothing anybody can do, that's why the Bible says when we see people headed that way, to reach out to them and grab them before they go too far. Because once you've gone too far and it is impossible for them to be renewed to repentance, God says, I'll take it from here. God says the reason why when you fall away, Daddy has to step in and he has to let you know, I ain't playing up in here. You're my child, and I see thorns and thistles, not vegetation, so I got to burn this thing.
I got to burn this thing to get your attention. That you don't play with my Son who saved you, redeemed you, forgiven you, given you heaven. You don't play with him. And he says, but beloved, verse 9, we are convinced of better things concerning you. He says, I don't know I've been hard, but y'all are better than this.
The things which accompany salvation, because he's a saved people. He says, though we are speaking this way, he says, I know I've been hard on you, I know I've been tough, but I'm only being tough because I know you're better than that. Haven't you ever looked at somebody and say, you better than that?
You better than that? He says, saints, y'all are better than that. Climb on to maturity, he says, for God is not unjust so that he forgets your work, the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and still ministering to the saints.
Let me point this out. He says, the reason God will take it a little easier on you is he saw before you fell away what you were doing for others. So you better get busy doing stuff for other folk so that if the hammer falls, he has something to remember. He says, God is not unrighteous to forget what you have done to minister to others.
So he's exercising more patience with you. I am convinced of better things to you. And he says, we desire each one of you to show the same diligence, press, so that to realize the full assurance of hope until the end so that you not be sluggish, lazy Christians, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. God told us, told Israel, we're gonna leave Egypt, I'm gonna deliver you, and we go into the promised land. Now between Egypt and the promised land is the wilderness. Now in the wilderness, you're gonna have some trials, you're gonna have some tribulations, but here's my word, and here's how I want you to negotiate the trip from Egypt to Canaan, okay?
Yeah, there gonna be challenges, there gonna be the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, you know, Jebusites, it's gonna be the, it's gonna be the ites. But I want you to keep going, you press on, you keep going, because I'm gonna be with you. But every time you look up, they were saying, we want to go back to Egypt, we want to go back to Egypt. Wait a minute, I delivered you from Egypt. Yeah, but the wilderness, I don't like it. Well, press on to Canaan. Keep going, don't turn back. But we were, but we remember the meat in Egypt, the leeks in Egypt, the onions in Egypt, we remember all the fun we used to have in Egypt. Ain't no fun out here in the wilderness.
It's no fun in the wilderness because you ain't reached Canaan yet. Keep going. Don't stop. But finally decided, they said, we ain't going no further.
We quit. And for 40 years, they wondered in the wilderness, all over 20, dying in the wilderness because they refused to press on. Press on. Keep going. And when your legs get wobbly and you don't think you can keep going, connect with some folk who can hold you up who knows what it is to have somebody hold them up when they didn't think they could make it. Before you throw in the towel, keep going. The application of God's Word in life's realities and get the help of others as you need it and you decide I'm a press on. I'm going to decide to keep going because I want to reach my Canaan.
I don't want to wonder for the rest of my life going in circles in the wilderness. Queen Victoria had a prime minister in the 19th century. His name was Parmestan. He was on his way across the Westminster Bridge. As he was climbing across the bridge, there was a girl crying, tears coming down her face. He stopped and he saw why she was crying. She had purchased a bottle of milk, true story, and dropped it by mistake and it splattered. And that was the milk she was to take home. There was no more milk. He wiped her tears and he said to her, I'm so sorry, but I tell you what, you meet me here the same time tomorrow and I'm going to give you the money to get the milk. I don't have it with me now, but I will meet you here the same time tomorrow.
You be here. He went to Parliament meeting. The next day he kind of forgotten what he told the girl and then he looked at his watch, oh my, that girl may be at Westminster Bridge.
Let me run over there. And he hurried up, he left the meeting in a hurry, he went to the bridge, and there was the little girl. And he did what he said he was gonna do. He gave her the money for the milk and the tears became a smile because she could fix what was broken. Someone who had come along and seen her broken, but promised he would come back and meet her in her brokenness and make up for what was lost. I know somebody who has seen what's broken in your life, who have seen what shattered in your existence. I know somebody who's aware of the tears rolling down your face due to the pain of life, the failures of life, the circumstances of life, but who loves you enough to say I'm coming back. I want you to hang in here, don't throw in the towel, don't give up because I'm coming back, and when I come back I'm gonna wipe those tears and turn that frown into a smile because I am coming back and what you broke I can replace.
God can meet you there. Don't turn your back on Jesus. You press on because he's coming back and he's coming back to fix what's broken in your circumstances. Some encouragement today for those needing a little boost when it feels like all is lost. Now if you missed any of today's presentation or you'd like to hear the full-length version of this message, it comes as a part of the short sermon compilation called Pressing on to Maturity. As I mentioned earlier, all three messages in this collection are our gift to you when you make a contribution to help us keep reaching out on this station. And for a limited time we are also including a copy of a powerful book that supplements these messages called Kingdom Living, the Essentials of Spiritual Growth. Just drop by TonyEvans.org any time of the day or night where you can get all the details and make your donation online. Again, that's TonyEvans.org or you can call our 24-hour Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help with your request. That number again 1-800-800-3222. Sometimes it's hard to see a little seedling in a pot and envision the full-grown tree it's intended to become. But tomorrow we'll see why we need to keep that target in mind as we nurture and protect the seed of faith that God has planted inside us. I hope you'll join us for that. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and it's made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.
