Sermon outline

Full Disclosure: I’m always borrowing from James Jordan, but this outline borrows from him more than most.

INTRODUCTION We tend to read the Bible as if it were only about God working out our salvation from sin. But that is too narrow an understanding of God’s purposes in creation. As James Jordan has put it, the Bible is salvation history, an account of holy war, and the story of the maturation of man into glory.

THE TEXT “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward . . . .” (Hebrews 2:1-18).

WHAT’S IN THE BIBLE? If we think of the Bible as a book only about salvation from sin, we have a hard time accounting for its actual contents. Think of the stories of the patriarchs. Yahweh promises to bless Abraham with a seed that will bring blessing to the nations, the same seed promised to Adam and Eve. Through the story of Abraham, Yahweh shows that He will overcome all obstacles – death, barrenness, threats from Pharaoh – to bring His promised seed into the world. But the story is also the story of Abraham’s growth in faith: He believes God, and in the end he is so confident in God that he is willing to sacrifice his long-awaited son. He grows also in glory, from being “Abram” to being “Abraham.” The story of Abraham is the story of God bringing Abram to maturity, to what the Bible calls “perfection.”

And what is the point of the lengthy narrative of Jacob? It again focuses on Yahweh’s faithfulness in keeping His promises, but it also tells the story of Jacob’s growth in wisdom and skill in deflecting the threats of his brother Esau. If Abraham grows into the kind of man who is willing to sacrifice his son, Jacob grows into the kind of man who knows how to pacify a murderous brother. The story of Joseph is about a man who matures through trials to become second to Pharaoh in Egypt.

INFANCY OF ISRAEL Maturation is not only a major focus in individual stories but a major theme of the Bible as a whole. As Paul describes the story of the Bible, it moves from the “minority” of Israel to the “maturity” of the church. Under the Old Covenant, Israel was under tutors, guardians, and managers (Galatians 3-4), but now that Jesus has come we have come to mature manhood. Through Jesus, many sons have been brought to glory. This does not mean that they have been brought into heaven. It means that sons have been glorified, brought to full humanity. This is as much the goal of the work of Jesus as our deliverance from sin.

PRAYER This has important implications for prayer. In a number of respects, we are to pray like little children. We should recognize that we can’t do anything without our Father’s help, and ask Him with the confidence of a trusting child. But in other respects the Bible teaches us to grow up (1 Corinthians 14:20). Through immersion in Scripture, through consistent prayer over many years, through learning the Psalms, we should aspire to mature until our desires imitate God’s desires, our thoughts His thoughts, our prayers His will. God wants us to grow from priests, who need explicit guidance at every turn; to become kings, who can discern good and evil and make judgments in complicated situations; to become prophets, members of God’s council and advisors to the heavenly King.