Introduction
Are you content to stay on the surface of Christianity, busy with the church calendar and familiar traditions, while your heart and mind remain untrained in the Word? The central lesson I want to press into you is this: Jesus calls us beyond crowds and excitement into mature discipleship, moving from “milk” to “solid food” through practiced obedience that endures to the end (Hebrews 5:9–14; 6:11–12). Even on Palm Sunday, when many are thinking about celebration, I want us to do what Jesus often did when He saw excited crowds: pause and examine what’s really underneath. Our moment as the church makes this urgent. Research has long shown what many pastors have sensed: many professing believers revere the Bible but don’t actually know it. And when trials come, when a crisis of faith hits a son, a daughter, a friend, or even our own heart, surface-level faith often collapses. Hebrews was written into that very problem, and it offers both a diagnosis and a remedy.
Main Points
Are you content to stay on the surface of Christianity, busy with the church calendar and familiar traditions, while your heart and mind remain untrained in the Word? The central lesson I want to press into you is this: Jesus calls us beyond crowds and excitement into mature discipleship, moving from “milk” to “solid food” through practiced obedience that endures to the end (Hebrews 5:9–14; 6:11–12).
Even on Palm Sunday, when many are thinking about celebration, I want us to do what Jesus often did when He saw excited crowds: pause and examine what’s really underneath. Our moment as the church makes this urgent. Research has long shown what many pastors have sensed: many professing believers revere the Bible but don’t actually know it. And when trials come, when a crisis of faith hits a son, a daughter, a friend, or even our own heart, surface-level faith often collapses. Hebrews was written into that very problem, and it offers both a diagnosis and a remedy.
Christ Saves, And We Must Obey
Hebrews anchors everything in Jesus first: “Having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:9). He is not merely a helpful religious figure, He is our High Priest, appointed by God, fulfilling what earlier shadows pointed toward (Hebrews 5:10).
But the writer pauses mid-teaching (right as things get “rich and dense”) to confront a painful reality: the reason deeper truth isn’t landing isn’t because God’s Word is unclear, it’s because the hearers have become “dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11). This is love, not insult. God is exposing the condition of their discipleship so they don’t drift away.
Dull Hearing Leads To Sluggish Faith
The passage divides us into two categories: the dull and the mature, the immature and those “of full age” (Hebrews 5:11–14). Hebrews 6 shows what’s at stake: the writer urges diligence “to the full assurance of hope until the end,” warning them not to become sluggish (same root as “dull”) but to imitate those who inherit the promises “through faith and patience” (Hebrews 6:11–12).
So I want you to hear this gently but clearly: dullness is spiritually dangerous because it makes endurance unlikely. God intends you to make it to the end, not merely start well.
Always Learning, Never Teaching
The first mark of immaturity is sobering: “By this time you ought to be teachers”, yet they still need someone to teach them again (Hebrews 5:12). The issue is not that everyone must be a public preacher; the issue is that maturing disciples naturally begin to strengthen others. They can explain the basics, encourage the weak, counsel the confused, and pass on what they’ve learned.
A simple diagnostic question for you: After all you’ve received, are you increasingly able to give? Or do you perpetually need a spiritual “translator” because you’re stuck at the beginning?
Returning To Milk, Avoiding Solid Food
The second mark is that they’ve “come to need milk and not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12). Milk is good, for infants. But it’s not good to return to it after you’ve been invited to grow.
In Hebrews, the author repeatedly goes back to foundational “first principles”, creation dignity, humanity’s fall, Israel’s unbelief in the wilderness, the whole storyline of God’s covenant dealings, because those foundations matter. Yet those foundations were always meant to lead you into the substance: Christ Himself, and a life built upon Him.
This is especially relevant in seasons like Easter, when many will show up for the “holiday basics” of the faith, incarnation and resurrection, yet then treat the gospel as a one-time message that changes nothing except where they’ll go after death. I’m calling you higher: the gospel is not only the doorway into grace; it is the foundation for a whole life of discipleship.
Even Hebrews 5:8 stretches us beyond “elementary” faith: Jesus “learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” That is solid food. It means suffering is not an interruption to discipleship, it can be one of God’s classrooms for obedience.
Unskilled In Righteousness, Not Uninformed
The third mark is subtle but crucial: “Unskilled in the word of righteousness” (Hebrews 5:13). Notice it does not say “unaware” or “unversed.” Many can be familiar with Bible content yet remain unskilled in righteous living.
So hear me: discipleship is not merely absorbing information; it is developing holy skill. The Word is not only something we memorize, it is something we learn to do.
Think of any skill you’ve grown in: you progress from the “green runs” to harder terrain. God does not want your entire Christian life to be the spiritual equivalent of the bunny hill, where the hardest part is parking and showing up. He wants to train you to live by faith, to love your enemies, to endure suffering with joy, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and to obey when it costs you.
Maturity Comes “By Reason Of Use”
Now the remedy: “Solid food belongs to those who are of full age… by reason of use” (Hebrews 5:14). Growth happens when the Word moves from the sanctuary into the streets, when you practice it until it becomes lived wisdom.
This is exactly what James teaches: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). The danger is self-deception, thinking we’re fine because we’ve heard truth, while our lives remain unchanged.
And be careful here: doing is not how you earn salvation. That would be returning to “first principles” again. We are saved by grace, not by works, but grace truly trains us into obedience, and God prepares good works for His people. Doing the Word is work in the sense that it requires effort, repentance, practice, and perseverance.
James gives “on the ground” examples of what this looks like:
- Practicing joy in trials (James 1:2)
- Seeking wisdom from God (James 1:5)
- Confessing sin and praying for one another (James 5:16), believing that “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much”
Discernment Grows With Exercised Senses
Finally, the mature have “their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14). This is not permission to live by emotion or instinct. Our hearts can deceive; we must be grounded in Scripture. Yet as you mature, Scripture forms your judgment so you can navigate complex choices faithfully.
Babies have no discernment, especially about what they put in their mouths. They’ll reach for what could poison them, choke them, or harm them because they cannot tell the difference. In the same way, immature believers often consume whatever is in front of them, ideas, entertainment, teachings, habits, relationships, without trained spiritual judgment.
But God wants to grow you into a disciple who can say, with increasing clarity: This is good; this is evil. This builds faith; this dulls it. This is wise; this is foolish. This is Christlike; this feeds the flesh.
Conclusion
I’m urging you, in love, not to settle for surface-level Christianity, especially in a busy church season filled with tradition and crowds. Hebrews calls you to honest self-examination: Am I dull or maturing? Do I keep needing “milk,” or am I moving into “solid food”? Am I only learning, or am I increasingly able to teach and strengthen others? Am I merely informed, or am I becoming skilled in righteousness?
God’s remedy is not complicated, but it is demanding: use what you hear, and let God exercise your senses through obedience, so you can discern good and evil and endure to the end (Hebrews 5:14; 6:11–12).
Father, thank You for giving us Jesus, our perfected Savior and faithful High Priest, who is the author of eternal salvation. Forgive us for the ways we have become dull of hearing, sluggish in faith, and content with milk when You have invited us into solid food. Holy Spirit, humble us where we need to be taught again, and strengthen us so we do not stay there.
Train us to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Give us diligence to press on to full assurance of hope until the end. Exercise our senses by reason of use, through obedience in trials, through seeking Your wisdom, through confession, prayer, and love, so we can discern both good and evil and imitate those who inherit Your promises through faith and patience. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Conclusion
I’m urging you, in love, not to settle for surface-level Christianity, especially in a busy church season filled with tradition and crowds. Hebrews calls you to honest self-examination: Am I dull or maturing? Do I keep needing “milk,” or am I moving into “solid food”? Am I only learning, or am I increasingly able to teach and strengthen others? Am I merely informed, or am I becoming skilled in righteousness?
God’s remedy is not complicated, but it is demanding: use what you hear, and let God exercise your senses through obedience, so you can discern good and evil and endure to the end (Hebrews 5:14; 6:11–12).
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for giving us Jesus, our perfected Savior and faithful High Priest, who is the author of eternal salvation. Forgive us for the ways we have become dull of hearing, sluggish in faith, and content with milk when You have invited us into solid food. Holy Spirit, humble us where we need to be taught again, and strengthen us so we do not stay there.
Train us to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Give us diligence to press on to full assurance of hope until the end. Exercise our senses by reason of use, through obedience in trials, through seeking Your wisdom, through confession, prayer, and love, so we can discern both good and evil and imitate those who inherit Your promises through faith and patience. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.