Sermon Tone Analysis
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I love and appreciate the labor of love that is going into the new entrance of the church.
If you get a chance to see it, go take a look.
There is more to the eye than you can see.
I remember the first step in making the new entrance was to dig down.
The cement was poured into the forms and then covered over with dirt.
Then the building was built up.
These two features, digging down and building up, are the subject of my message this morning.
Hebrews 6:1-2 shows what our foundation is if one were to dig down.
Hebrews 6:9-12 shows what happens when we go on to maturity and build up.
Hebrews 6:1-2 shares common truths that the writer to the book of Hebrews assumed all knew.
Digging Down
These are called “the elementary doctrine of Christ...” They are foundational.
But knowing and embracing these elementary doctrines does not reveal maturity.
These are the ones that should reside in every believer.
They are foundational truths.
Foundational truths
What are these foundational truths?
I want to ask you if you are firmly established in these foundational truths?
Are they embedded in your life in such a way that you can move on from these to a position of maturity?
Repentance from dead works
Can you explain this to anyone?
What is so foundational about repentance from dead works?
The answer is simple.
We come to Jesus, not to continue in our sin, but to be saved from our sin.
We don’t come to Jesus just to get a free ticket to heaven.
We are sinners in need of a savior.
We found that Savior in Jesus Christ.
We want to change.
We want to leave our dead works behind and find the new life that Jesus has for us.
We realize that we are not saved by our works, but saved by faith in Jesus Christ.
Which leads us to the second foundational truth.
Faith toward God
Can you explain this statement?
It is considered to be foundational, one that every Christian would know.
Without faith it is impossible to please God.
We realize that our ways are not God’s ways.
We realize that there is a way that seems right, but the end of that road leads to death.
So we trust God.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.
We trust Jesus.
We believe he died to save us from our sin.
We believe that following Jesus in faith is the path to the new life.
This is foundational to the Christian life.
Instruction
The writer lists four teachings that were taught to every new believer.
The first is
Washings or baptisms
Can you explain these washings?
The Greek word comes from the same root as baptism.
I’m not sure exactly what the writer has in mind.
Scholars are all over the map on this.
I do know about three kinds of baptism mentioned in the Bible.
The first is water baptism.
When a person trusted Christ in the first century, the next step, if possible, was to be baptized in water.
Going down under the water symbolized the death and burial of Jesus.
Because the person being baptized went under, they indicated that when Jesus died, he died for them, for their sin, in their place.
The second use of baptism is found in one obscure passage in the Bible.
This refers to the baptism of or for the dead.
The Mormon church believes that a person living today can be baptized for someone who died and that will let them into heaven.
That is why the Mormon church is so heavily involved with genealogy.
The baptism of the dead has nothing to do with salvation.
It in all likelihood refers to the fact that new believers replace those who died.
With so few Christians in the first century, every new believer who made a public declaration of their faith in Christ was welcomed and in some cases, seen as a huge blessing for the church which had members that died.
The third use of baptism is metaphorical.
The Bible takes the literal picture of baptism and uses it to describe the baptism of the Holy Spirit or the immersion of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians uses this picture to describe how, at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit comes into an individual and in so doing, puts them or immerses them, into the body of Christ.
This truth is foundational.
God wants every Christian to understand that when they received Christ, they were immersed by the Holy Spirit into something bigger, the church.
He also wants every believer to be baptized.
The second instruction is laying on of hands.
Laying on of hands
Are you able to explain this?
The writer of the book of Hebrews puts this into the foundational truth that every Christian should know.
Whatever he is referring to has passed into obscurity.
The scholars are very mixed on this, which is unusual for something that should be foundational.
Some scholars believe that the laying on of hands was the Jewish way of passing on a blessing.
Others associated this with the recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
I don’t know, but I like the idea of the blessing on the newly baptized believer.
Today we have some people who have indicated a desire to be baptized.
Baptism
The third instruction is the resurrection of the dead.
Resurrection of the dead
Can you explain this?
This is why we are here today.
Now is Christ risen from the dead.
Many of us have loved ones who have died in the Lord.
Some of us still grieve.
We have been blessed by the class that Miriam and Terry have lead on Grief Share.
We love and miss those who have died.
But in Christ we believe that because he rose, we will rise as well.
We may die.
But in our death is resurrection.
The spirit at the point of death goes to be with God.
But the spirit and the body are reunited at the rapture of the church when our risen Lord comes for us again.
This is at the core of our faith.
We believe that Jesus rose again.
He not only rose again, but he was the first of many.
Jesus included me and he included you.
This is why Easter is a time of celebration.
Jesus triumphed over sin, over death.
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