1. You can’t mature if you aren’t willing to listen.

Hebrews 5:11

11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

Hebrews 5:12

 12 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, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

1 Corinthian 3:2, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,”

Ephesians 4:14, “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”

Hebrews 5:14

 14 But solid food is for the mature, 

1 Corinthians 14:20, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”

2. You can’t mature if you don’t apply what you’ve learned.

Hebrews 5:14

 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 6:1-2

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, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Hebrews 6:3

 3 And this we will do if God permits.

Hebrews 6:4-6

 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Hebrews 6:7-8

 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

Hebrews 6:9-10

9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.

Hebrews 6:11

 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,

Hebrews 10:19-23

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 6:12

 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

(Make all one slide)

 1Co 4:16, “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.”

 1Co 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

 Eph 5:1, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

 1Th 1:6, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,”

Hebrews 6:13-18

The Certainty of God's Promise

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

Hebrew 6:19-20

 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.