So we're going to be working
in two different texts today. And I'm essentially going to
treat them as the same text. It'll be clear enough that I'm
allowed to do that. When we get there, I'll make
a case that these two texts are talking about the same thing,
trying to do the same thing, teaching us essentially the same
thing. The first text is 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. And then we'll also begin in
Hebrews 5. There's a lot here, but I'm going
to go ahead and read all of these passages before we begin. So
1 Corinthians 2, beginning at the beginning, Paul writes, And
I, when I came to you brothers, did not come proclaiming to you
the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. I decided to
know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,
and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith
might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a
wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed
to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden
wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they
had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it
is written, what no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the heart
of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.
These things God has revealed to us through the spirit. For
the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who
knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which
is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the
spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world,
but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the
things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not
taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual
truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and
he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually
discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself
to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the
Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
And then flip over to Hebrews 5. We begin in verse 11 of Hebrews
5. Again, the Apostle Paul writes,
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since
you have become dull of hearing. 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. For everyone who lives on milk
is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid
food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment
trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary
doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again
a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards
God and of instruction about washings and laying on of hands
the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this
we will do if God permits. So the first thing I want to
do here is point out Paul's bold declaration of the simplicity
and the sufficiency of gospel preaching. Remember in Romans
1.16, Paul tells us that the gospel is the power of God for
salvation. We boldly profess that salvation
is of the Lord. It rests solely upon God's mercy
and grace. It depends not on any foreseen
works of man. It only comes from God. But the
salvation is no longer a mystery. It's no longer hidden from us
how God has saved us. To the saints of the Old Testament,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David, there's some sense
in which their salvation was hidden from them. They were the
people of God, they were saved by God, but they did not understand
how they were saved by God, except that they knew that he had promised
to do so. This is because this salvation,
Christ the Messiah, was not fully revealed to them. They were saved
on account of the righteous and infallible promises fulfilled
by the righteous and infallible Christ. But Christ was still
a mystery to them, but he was a mystery that they had faith
in. Paul tells us in Ephesians 3 that, when you read this, you
can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which
was not made known to the sons of men and other generations,
as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets
by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow
heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise
in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So Christ is not a mystery to
us. Christ is revealed in the testimony of the apostles. We
can grasp the person of Christ through what is revealed in Scripture. God has not veiled the means
and the instruments through which he has worked out the salvation
of his people. And Paul tells us what that is
here in verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 2. I decided to know nothing
among you except Jesus and him crucified. This is the power
of God that Paul talks about in Romans 1. The power of God
for salvation is this gospel. Jesus Christ, his person, his
work, his obedience, his death on the cross, and his resurrection.
These things are not a mystery to us. And so Paul did not approach
the saints in Corinth with lofty speech and wisdom. So what does
that mean? I can't really tell you what
lofty speech would have been for Paul, though he may have
engaged with some of it at Mars Hill. Remember in Acts, Paul
engages the Greek philosophers there at the Areopagus. But I
can tell you what lofty speech looks like. for me and for us. In my preaching of Christ and
Christ crucified, I don't have to tell you that it's really
important for you to understand the deep philosophical underpinnings
of vicarious satisfaction. I don't have to explain to you
the ordo aequitatis or the ordo salutis. I don't have to explain
the significant distinction between God's ad intra and ad extra attributes
or how Christ relates qua humanis et qua divinitum. lofty speech,
and you don't have to know what any of that is. Fun fact, only
one of those things was made up by me. The rest of those were
real. They have their place, but they
are not essential, and in some cases, they are not even helpful
for you to understand, or to talk about, or to study. And one particularly pertinent
application here concerns the error of demanding affirmation
of not only the essence of gospel truth, but further demanding
an understanding and apprehension of these things. The requirement that one must
affirm some particular linguistic articulation of the doctrines
of the gospel the doctrines of grace, or other things. I've often seen well-meaning
people demand a certain working theological vocabulary before
recognizing a profession of faith as legitimate. And this is wickedness. If I question your profession
simply on the grounds that you have omitted my preferred language,
my preferred words, then I am an idolater of my own intellect. I am an idolater of my own linguistic
creativity. Paul declares here in 1 Corinthians
2 a divinely appointed sufficiency of preaching only that Jesus
Christ, God the Son, took on human flesh and obeyed his father's
law. And he went on to suffer the
wrath of the Father for the sins of his people. And by the power
of the Spirit of God, Jesus was raised from the dead in glory.
He ascended into heaven, where he now sits at the right hand
of the Father, waiting the day when at the Father's command
he will return to judge the nations. He will cast the devil and his
angels and all the wicked into the lake of fire, and heaven
and earth will be made new. and the people of God will enjoy
eternal communion with their Savior Christ. If you scoff at
this profession because it does not contain the particular articulation
of your pet doctrine, then you are an idolater. You bring shame
upon the name of Christ because you uphold your own worldly wisdom. You worship your own creativity. Instead, Paul was with the Corinthians
in fear and trembling. Humility, simplicity. His speech
and his message were not articulate and enticing. If you're reading
the ESV, it says plausible, but there's probably a better English
word for what Paul's trying to say here. The idea is that his
speech was not attractive and persuasive in a linguistic or
academic sense. Paul's teaching would not have
appealed to philosophers and academics. Whenever I read this, I think
of our brother, Pastor Jesse, because to me, Pastor Jesse emulates
what Paul is demanding of teachers here. You listen to Jesse, and don't
get me wrong, the dude's not dumb. He knows his Bible better
than any of us. But he doesn't sound like a seminary
professor, does he? No, because Jesse relies on the
sufficiency of the testimony of God. That is what we are supposed
to be doing here. We're not relying on our own
creativity and we're not relying on our own persuasiveness. We let the word of God do what
the word of God is designed to do. Because in the Word of God is
the power of God for salvation. As Paul says here, he characterizes
his teaching when he says, in the demonstration of the Spirit
and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God. The teaching that Paul provides
for us here is the power of God. It is Christ and Christ crucified. He declares the simple gospel
truth to the people of Corinth. When it comes to evangelism,
that's all we really need. Nothing you can add to the gospel
will make it more effective. The gospel alone is maximally
effective. Any sort of schemes or creativity
that you can bring to it actually detracts from what you're trying
to do. God has ordained the gospel alone
for the salvation of his people. And when you add your preferential
schemes to the gospel call, you run the risk of corrupting the
gospel that you profess. Instead, let your gospel be simple
and pure, and let your gospel glorify Christ and not yourself. Now Paul goes on in Hebrews now. He says, Hebrews chapter 5, verse
11. About this we have much to say,
and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.
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,
for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature,
for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant
practice, to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us
leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity,
not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works,
and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings,
the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
And this we will do if God permits. Now, I do not mean to use this
text to rebuke any of you. I'm not calling you out for being
big babies, for not being mature enough. Rather, I'm using these
passages together to expose the reality of neglecting the study
of the word and the assembly of the saints. So I think my mashup here works. Paul opens 1 Corinthians 2 discussing
the sufficiency of a pure and simple gospel of Christ in Christ
crucified. And then in Hebrews 5 11 he begins
with about this. And so we need to go back a few
verses to figure out what the about this is talking about. Back to verse 7 of Hebrews 5.
In the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers and supplications
with loud cries and tears and to him who was able to save him
from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although
he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And
being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation
to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the
order of Mechizedek, Christ in Christ crucified. The about this
of Hebrews 511 is exactly what Paul preached to the Corinthians,
Christ in Christ crucified. Same subject matter, same context.
this pure and simple gospel. So again, this isn't a rebuke,
but it is a warning that we should listen to. We must take Paul's
words and examine ourselves. Where the shoe fits, we wear
the shoe, and we trust the Spirit to guide us and to teach us through
the word. And where the shoe doesn't fit,
we are proactive in anticipating these things. We must get out in front of our
immaturity, be aware of how it can happen, where it comes from.
Paul says, it is hard to explain since you have become dull of
hearing. This means that the problem is not the gospel. The
problem is our ears. When we do not receive the teaching
of the scripture, it is because our ears have become dull to
the words of Christ. Now to be clear, this is something
that can happen to anyone, right? This happens to all of us. This
is something that we all experience, the dulling of our ears to the
words of Christ. This isn't something that happens
to you spiritual peasants out there, and us spiritual elites
up here are immune to the dulling of our ears. None of us is immune
to this. And so I would identify two root
causes. There are two things that can
lead us down the path of having dull ears, unable to hear the
words of Christ. Right, the first is spiritual
pride. Remember, the gospel is simple
and sufficient. But in our pride, we may add
to it, come up with schemes to make it more attractive, get
into the deep philosophies that no one cares about. It's particularly
easy for those of us who read a lot of the writings of men. This used to be something that
I struggled with, but I quit reading, basically. It's not
so much an issue for me anymore. But it was something that I had
to be careful of when I was still reading a lot of theologians.
You get caught up in the technical theological language and the
absurd hypotheticals, the what ifs. When we get caught up in
those things, our ears can become dull to the simplicity of the
gospel. Well, what if aliens came to Earth? Do we have to
evangelize them too? It's easy to fall into the trap
of asking and investigating questions that have no bearing in reality.
So here's how this trap works. I'm sure some of you will be
familiar with what's going on here. So we start from a place
with a simple and truthful and sufficient gospel. And then we
wander into these hypothetical scenarios and deep philosophical
questions that no biblical author ever had even on their radar.
when they were writing the scripture. Because scripture doesn't even
attempt to answer our questions, we have to start filling in the
gaps with our own creativity. We provide our own conjectures
about maybe how Paul would have answered the question. And then
here's where things go horribly wrong. We let those conjectures
bleed backwards into our understanding of scripture and the gospel.
Now your theology of how a missionary on the USS Enterprise ought to
evangelize is determining how you relate to your neighbor.
That's a silly example, but when it happens to us, it's much more
subtle, much more insidious. We let these deep philosophies
that are okay to think about as long as you are careful not
to allow your conjecture, your creativity, the things that scripture
doesn't speak to, to bleed backwards into your understanding of scripture. Now the other root cause, we
talked about spiritual pride, we talked about straying away
from the simplicity of the gospel, away from what scripture does
teach us clearly. The other root cause that I want
to mention here is the forsaking of the assembly. Now, I was going to be in Ephesians
1-4, but I decided that James has been talking a lot about
the church in our little sidebar out of 1 Timothy, which if ever
there was a time to do a topical sidebar on the church, it's in
one of the pastoral letters. And so I wanted to sort of hop
on the bandwagon there and talk about the church a little bit. Your maturity in Christ is directly
correlated to your fellowship in the assembly. When we gather together under
the teaching of the word, it forces us to engage with one
another on the platform of the gospel. It forces us to see the
simplicity of faith in our brothers and sisters. And this is, of course, the solution
that Paul goes on to give at the end of Hebrews 5. 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.
For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled, and the word of
righteousness is a child. In the assembly every Lord's
Day, we hear repeated back to us the simple, truthful, sufficient
gospel. And while we engage in some of
the deeper questions of scripture, we are always reminded of the
work of Christ. We're always reminded of the
person of Christ. But there's an important distinction
that I don't want you to miss here. I've told you that the
solution to dull years is the simple reminder of the gospel. But Paul makes a distinction
here about who, in particular, needs this reminder. There are
those who are mature in the gospel who may, for a season, become
dull of hearing. The solution is then the reminder
of the simplicity of the gospel. But Paul introduces another category. He speaks of those who live on
milk. Obviously, the analogy Paul's
working with here is of a young baby living on their mother's
milk, right? This isn't a bad thing, right? Infants don't eat solid food.
And there may be some among you who live off of spiritual milk. And that's okay. It's perfectly
appropriate for a new believer to crave the spiritual milk of
the simple and sufficient gospel. It's perfectly acceptable for
a new believer to, for a time, marvel at the glory of the simplicity
of the work of Christ and to be satisfied in that. But then Paul goes on to explain
when it becomes a problem. He says, some of you ought to
be teachers. If you look in 1 Timothy 3, one of the qualifications
Paul gives for the overseers of the church is that they not
be a recent convert. So with these qualifications
for elders and for deacons, there's an assumption here that you've
been in the faith for a long time and that there's a reasonable
expectation of maturity associated with the amount of time you've
been in Christ. There's a normative understanding
that time spent alive in Christ has some sort of correlation
to the maturity of your faith and the depth of your knowledge.
of the Scripture. And so Paul here in Hebrews 6
now is addressing people who have been in the faith for a
while, who ought to have a reasonably mature understanding of Scripture,
who still live off of spiritual milk. And now, to understand the end
of the analogy, we would all agree that it would be unthinkable
for an adult to still drink their mother's milk. Now Paul goes on talking about
food. He tells us that the solid food is for the mature. Solid
food here refers to the broad testimony of Scripture. The things in Scripture that
are not just the simple, insufficient gospel. Back in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul
says, among the mature we do impart wisdom. Though it was
not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are
doomed to pass away, but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of
God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None
of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written,
what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man
imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. These
things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit
searches everything, even the depths of God. And so Paul makes
this distinction between the earthly wisdom and the ancient
wisdom, the wisdom found in the depths of God's revelation. He
says it's not a wisdom of this age. It comes from a time before
time. His wisdom is eternal because
it proceeds from the mouth of God and His eternal decrees.
And then Paul tells us that this wisdom is made available to us
through the Spirit. I'm not claiming that the Spirit imparts to us
new and unique revelations. Rather, just as God has told
us exactly how He saves His people through the gospel of His Son,
He's told us precisely the means that He has appointed for the
working of the Spirit to train us up in all wisdom. So what is the source of this
wisdom? The Holy Spirit himself is not properly the source of
this wisdom. He sort of is, but not directly. Instead, the Holy
Spirit trains us in this wisdom through the Scripture. The Holy
Spirit equips and enables us to understand the Word of God. Paul tells us this in 2 Timothy
3. It says that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable
for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every
good work. So the Word of God is the source
material for the wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. The wisdom is the wisdom which
God decreed before the ages. What is a decree? It is a word. Therefore, the Holy Spirit works
through the reading and the hearing of the Word of God. But this maturity cannot be had
apart from the church. The maturity of your faith is
the marriage of the reading and the hearing of the word and the
assembly of the saints. This wisdom is given by the spirit
through the word and God has established the local church
as the context in which this takes place. What do we do when we gather?
We sing the words of God at each other. We listen to the word taught. We fellowship with one another
around gospel conversations. We discuss what we've been studying.
The seeds of maturity are planted when we study scripture alone,
and then the spirit gives the harvest when we gather together. When we gather, my study of the
scripture has the opportunity to bless all of you. And your
study of the scripture blesses me, as we learn and we grow together. Our own private studies of scripture
are essential to the maturity of all of us. It isn't just about
your spiritual health. It's about the whole body's. When one of us suffers, we all
suffer. And when one of us grows, we
all grow. And so these deep things of the
scripture, these things that are more than just the simple
gospel, the solid food for the mature, it falls upon the mature
to help feed the immature, right? The same way that you transition
a baby from milk onto solid food in steps, It's the same as we teach our
brothers and sisters. My daughters didn't go from drinking
only milk to eating steak and fresh salmon, because that's
their favorite foods now. No, they started with having
milk mixed with powdered grain, so like a wheat smoothie, basically.
And then eventually, they just started stealing food off of
our plates, and we knew that it was time to start giving them
real food. But we worked on that together.
They learn how to eat, and they learn how to stomach real food. So in the same way, we work together
to grow and mature each other. And as we do, together we are
able to stomach the ancient wisdom of God with some measure of discernment. So we talked about the damage
that can be done by undiscerning individuals pressing ancient
wisdom upon the immature people. Paul tells us that discernment
is trained by constant practice. Maturity and wisdom are things
that are conditioned by constant and consistent practice. Consistent study, consistent
fellowship. That's your secret to spiritual
maturity. So Paul gives an exhortation
here in Hebrews 6. Now let us leave the elementary
doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Not laying again
a foundation of repentance from dead works and the faith toward
God. So obviously Paul's not saying
that we should never teach review and study the gospel, right? No, Paul's declaring that this
gospel is the foundation of our relationship with God and the
foundation of our relationship with one another. The gospel is the foundation
of the deeper wisdom revealed in Scripture. The foundation. You don't lay a foundation for
your house in one place. and then go build the rest of
the house somewhere else, right? When he says, let's leave this
foundation, he doesn't mean let's go somewhere else. He means build
on top of the foundation, right? Continue building the house on
the foundation so that the house doesn't fall down. You've laid the foundation with
a simple and sufficient gospel, but now there are many pieces
which are built upon it. So move on to the next steps. Move on to the deeper wisdom
found in the Word. And so Paul brings us back to
one of our earlier points, talking about evangelism. He says that
the natural person does not accept the things of God. back in 1
Corinthians 2. The natural person does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He
is not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. So this is the issue when we
talk about simplicity of our evangelism. Paul tells us in
Romans 3, no one does good, no one understands, no one seeks
for God. The natural man cannot understand
spiritual truth. There's only one solution to
the blindness of man, that he be born again by the power of
the spirit, that his eyes be opened to the truth of God. It's
the only remedy for the spiritual blindness, this inability to
understand spiritual things. The grace and mercy of God found
in our regeneration and conversion by the Spirit. And to this end,
God has appointed one thing to bring about this regeneration,
one thing that is the instrumental cause of our salvation. God has ordained that the faith
of man in the gospel of Christ heard through the teaching of
the words of Christ as the unique means of bringing about regeneration. God has promised to use the gospel,
to use gospel preaching to gift faith to his people. This is
the only remedy to spiritual blindness. Isn't that what Paul
says again in Romans 1? The gospel is the power of God
for salvation. Only God with his spirit working
through the words of Christ can cure spiritual blindness, can
bring you understanding, so that we see the futility of adding
our own wisdom to the gospel. Nothing we can possibly add to
this gospel is going to make it more effective, because it's
already the power of Almighty God. What do you think you bring to
the table when the creator of the universe is already providing
all the power? You bring to the table exactly
the thing that he says you bring to the table, which is your mouth. You speak his gospel. And by that, his power saves
his people. Over the last century or so,
apologetics has become really popular. I think if you follow
Apologetics on Amazon, you'll get an email, about an email
a day about a new Apologetics book. You cannot argue a lost person
into salvation. They're not seeking for God.
They can't understand your arguments. They cannot believe spiritual
truths apart from regeneration and God does not regenerate his
people apart from his gospel. I don't mean to pooh-pooh the
study of apologetics, right, because Paul does demand again
at the Areopagus that we be prepared to give an apologia, a defense
for the hope that is within us. But it is not evangelism. Apologetics is not evangelism.
It's not for convincing lost people of anything. Apologetics, apologetic efforts,
ought to be intentioned with strengthening the depth of knowledge
of the people of God. So what about evangelism? Does
it really matter how we evangelize? A little bit. You can't treat
people poorly and act like a donkey while you evangelize. But do we need to add anything?
No. If anyone tells you that your evangelism must be anything
apart from simply teaching Christ and Christ crucified in love,
then that person is unqualified to be teaching anyone anything. So the gospel of Christ is sufficient
for your salvation. And it is simple, and it is understandable,
and it is relatable. It is easy to grasp by the Spirit of God. There is only Christ and Christ
crucified. But In God's time, we go on to maturity,
to learn more, to expand the breadth of our knowledge of Christ,
our understanding of God. And this God will permit. Let's
pray. God, we thank you that in your
word we have not only the simple and sufficient teaching of Christ
and Christ crucified, but beyond that we have all of the tools
that we need to go on to maturity, to have a lively faith. All the tools that we need to
serve and love our church. And God, for this, we worship
you. We thank you. And as we partake of your table,
again, remind us of this simple gospel, the work of Christ. We
pray these things in his name.