Do you realize most of the christian church has never graduated from elementary school?
I am reminded this morning of a very silly and not completely recommendable movie called Billy Madison. It's a slap stick Adam Sandler movie that came out years ago. Adam plays this wealthy kid, Billy Madison, who hasn't had to work a day in his life. He coasted through school because his dad payed the teachers to pass him. Now he gets drunk every night and sleeps it off around the pool everyday. Until his dad is going to give the family business to someone else. Now Billy has to step up and go back to school and pass all 12 grades once again without daddy's money this time. But he has to do it in a couple on months, so it's fly by the seat of his pants time. It is so goofy seeing the "grown man" sitting in the little kid's desks and then trying to be the cool poser in high school when the generations have changed.
Can you imagine staying in elementary school for the rest of your life?
And yet it seems to me the church might be doing just that. In Hebrews 6 we are encouraged to move beyond the basic teachings of 1. repentance from acts that lead to death (sins) and faith in God 2. Instruction about baptism 3. lay on of hands 4. the resurrection of the dead 5. eternal judgment.
Really we are to move beyond these things? To grow in christian maturity there is something more? Most of the christian churches we go into today teach nothing more than this. Repent, pray the sinners prayer, be saved. Then to really seal the deal you can be baptized so you don't have to fear the resurrection of the dead or the judgment.
That's were we pretty much stop, over and over again every week, the same basic message...repent come to salvation.
This was the message of John the baptist, repent and be baptized, prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus however went beyond this. The baptism of Jesus was the baptism of the spirit, one which was meant to be trans-formative and come with power to live. John's was a good place to start but we must go farther.
These are good foundational teachings, but Hebrews is telling us if we stay here we are the Billy Madison's of the kingdom. Adults sitting in the elementary school desks. There is more. This message is to change our lives. When it is sown it will bring forth a crop. There will be evidences which Hebrews says God will remember.
"God is not unjust he will not forget the work and love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
Wait a minute, we don't like this so much. You mean we will be help accountable for the way we treat other people. I thought this was all about grace, I thought this was all about what God has done for me not what I have done for him.
It's true Jesus died for us so we could have life. If you have the son you have life. Even our imitation of Jesus is through faith. You and I can stay stunted in elementary school if we want to, getting spiritually wasted every worship service and then sleep it off by the side of the pool.
But we will never be mature Christian's that way. We will get stuck in our little tiny desks with the bottle's of spiritual milk hanging from our mouths.
Harsh? I know.
But if our faith doesn't shape and change our lives what good is it? If it does not integrate into the fabric of our conversations and personal ethics at work, then what good is it? If we do not treat our families and co-workers and co-human beings better because of it, then what good is it?
Our faith and our theology must become incarnational! It must take on the flesh of our daily lives as our God took on the flesh of sinful humanity to show us his great love for us. Faith must meet life! This is christian maturity, this is spiritual growth!
Now don't forget to stay connected to the vine. Doing good dutiful deeds without connection to Christ gets us no where. But living our connected faith out in the world gets us everywhere.
May we dig our roots into the foundations of Christianity, deeply in, and then may we grow in the light of God's love stretching our branches to heaven to be a blessing to all as we have been blessed. Let us graduate from elementary school and move on in higher education.
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