Asleep At The Spiritual Wheel? - [Hebrews 2:1-4]

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Well, there are easy things in life, and there are difficult things in life. And maybe one of the easiest things in life to do is drift.
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Drifting is so easy. Theological drifting is very easy.
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Anyone can do it. It doesn't take any skill, no sweat, toil, pain, labor involved.
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It's easy. It was 1636, 17 ,000 pilgrims had come over to Massachusetts, and they wanted a place where they could train men for gospel preaching.
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And so Harvard College started. It was to be known as a church in the wilderness.
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And the early motto of Harvard College was Veritas Christo et
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Ecclesiae, truth for Christ and the church.
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1700s come along, enlightenment, free will, rationalism, power of reason.
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Professor of divinity David Tappan died in 1803, and then president of Harvard, Joseph Willard, died a year later.
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There was a big struggle that broke out between the conservatives and the liberals, and the liberals won, and Samuel Weber was appointed to the presidency.
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Well, then some of the people said, we better go start another conservative seminary, and it was called
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Yale, the College of Yale, passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut in 1701.
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Well, guess what happened to Yale? Yale started out conservative, and it went liberal. So let's start another one to hold the fort,
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Christ Crucified, and that was Princeton. Princeton University founded in Elizabeth, New Jersey, 1746.
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And now when you look at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and almost every other seminary in the world, they start off theologically sound, and then they drift.
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And the bad news is you never just drift toward conservatism, towards biblical fidelity, it's often always the other way.
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Churches drift, drive by Unitarian churches here in New England, and do a little research, and you'll find out they started as congregational churches upholding
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Christ Jesus, and now they deny the Sonship of Christ Jesus and His Deity. Families drift,
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Eli was a man of God, and look at his sons. Samuel was a man of God, and look at his sons.
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David was a man of God, and look at his sons. Look at Francis Schaeffer's son, look at Charles Fuller's son.
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Seminaries drift, churches drift, families drift, and individual Christians drift as well.
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R. Kent Hughes laments, that church's experience 2 ,000 years ago intersects our lives in this way.
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Drifting is the besetting sin of our day. And as the metaphor suggests, it's not so much intentional as from unconcern.
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Christians neglect their anchor, Christ, and begin to quietly drift away.
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There's no friction, no dramatic sense of departure, but when the winds of trouble come, the things of Christ are left far behind, even out of sight.
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Please turn your Bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter 2, and the message is, don't drift.
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Everything in Hebrews 2, 1 to 3, and even verse 4 speaks to this very issue, don't drift.
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These Christians have learned of Christ Jesus and His exalted state, so don't drift away.
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As you know, this letter was written for a couple different reasons. In the book of Hebrews, the writer wanted to have his listeners and his readers not go back to Judaism, not to go back to the temple, and not say to themselves, well listen, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus doesn't matter, we'll do things like we used to.
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He wanted to prevent that. And he also wanted to encourage them to stand firm, to fix their eyes on Christ Jesus.
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As you know, with a little bit of review, since it's been quite some time since we've been in the book of Hebrews. We don't really know when it was written, but it was probably written before 70
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AD, because remember that tumultuous historical thing that happened in 70
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AD. Titus comes, and he destroys the temple in Jerusalem.
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The writer here doesn't make any mention of the destruction of the temple, and you think he probably would have if it had happened.
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Because as the writer says, don't go back to Judaism, don't go back to the temple, don't go back to the old covenant when you have
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Christ. It would have been easy for him to say, and by the way, did not in fact God with a punctuation mark say, with an exclamation mark say, the temple's done, because you can see the rubble of the temple over there.
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But he didn't say that, so we think the temple is still up. And you can just imagine the siren song of the temple, with its smells of incense, and the sacrifices, and the trumpets, and the choirs, and the priests, and the vestments, and the robes, and the marble, and the gold, and the awe, and the majesty, is just beckoning people to come back to this great place of worship.
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Especially when you're running now from the Jews persecuting, the Romans persecuting, secular people persecuting, why run when we've got
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Jesus? And the writer of Hebrews says, you know what, if you've got
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Jesus, you've got it all. Don't go back. You have a high priest, and the focus of Hebrews is the high priestly nature of Jesus.
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Jesus is the high priest. Oh, he's a prophet, yes, he's a king, yes, but he's the high priest.
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And did you know every chapter in the book of Hebrews talks about the priestly nature of Jesus? Someone to intercede between God and man, you need a high priest.
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There's no high priest in Buddhism, there's no high priest in Islam, there's no high priest except through this great, what we call religion, maybe the world calls it that, but through Jesus Christ and him alone.
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He is the high priest. Don't go back. That's the message of Hebrews.
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He says even in chapter 8, verse 1, remember you can look if you like, you don't have to. Now the point of what we're saying is this, we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
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You say, well, who wrote Hebrews? And remember, there's probably three main kind of thoughts that flow out of who wrote
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Hebrews. Paul, somebody that knew Paul, or we don't know. And those who think
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Paul wrote it, he doesn't write like Paul would write with a self -identifying greeting or ending.
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Hebrews is anonymous. The writer separates himself from the original eyewitnesses in chapter 2, as we'll see next week.
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I don't think Paul wrote it. If you do, we'll still have fellowship. It's funny when you prepare a sermon, you never think you'll get a response from that.
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When I want a response, you're just looking. Some people think an associate of Paul wrote it.
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Maybe Barnabas, that might be a good guess because he was a Levite. He would understand the priestly details.
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He was called Son of Encouragement. And this letter is actually called the Word of Encouragement, Hebrews 13 .22.
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So that's why some people think Barnabas wrote it. Maybe Apollos wrote it. He was educated, knowledgeable in the scriptures.
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Luther thought it was Barnabas. But probably the safest way to go is to say, you know, we don't know who the human author was, but we know the divine author.
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And even in the book of Hebrews, there's not a lot of quoting of David, of old prophets.
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It's just God says, God says. And so this book, out of any of the books in all the Bible, focus on the author
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God who wrote it. And, of course, as you read the book of Hebrews, you will recognize how sufficient it is and how authoritative it is.
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You don't need to know who wrote the human, from the human perspective, but you do need to know that God, in fact, wrote it.
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Well, what's chapter 2 about? Remember, you should often draw a line from the last verse of the previous chapter to the first verse of the new chapter, and this is the exact same.
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What's the last word in Hebrews 1? And that will give you an idea what he wants to talk about.
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And that word is salvation. Hebrews 1 .14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who inherit salvation?
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That's the hook word. That's the segue word. That's the transition word. He's been talking about Jesus is greater than angels, and he's going to talk a little bit now about salvation.
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And we come to the first warning passage. This is the warning passage.
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And so what the writer of Hebrews does, very pastoral way, he'll teach truth, and then he'll give some warnings, five warnings.
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But I'm telling you, these warnings are kind of shock and awe warnings. These warnings give the biblical reader pause, because here's how you begin to think.
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If you're studying, you'll say to yourself, wow, that was an intense warning.
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That means I could lose my salvation? This is almost overboard.
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He's talking to Christian people like that? Am I secure? They're that shocking where you'll think, can anyone lose their salvation?
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But remember, this is a sermon. Hebrews is a sermon. And as I preach to you,
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I preach to you knowing in the congregation even today, some are probably Christians, let's hope most are, and some are probably not.
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So when I'm preaching, and I would say to you, beloved, I'm thinking Christians, but I know there are unbelievers in the congregation.
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And I think the same thing is happening in the book of Hebrews. Of course the writer knows and would agree with Paul.
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Because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, you have peace with God. You have standing with God as righteous, declared by God as righteous based on the work of another.
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There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. The writer of Hebrews would affirm all that.
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But he uses these warnings to kind of sniff out unbelievers, and he uses warnings for Christians to keep them going on the straight and narrow as you were.
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There are warnings for the whole congregation. As the author knows, believer and unbeliever are there.
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And the first warning is don't drift. Let's read verses 1 through 4, or let me read them.
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And you're going to see the intensity of the writer as he's preaching this sermon.
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Hebrews 2. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
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For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard. While God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the
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Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. Chapter 1,
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Paul's been talking about the deity of Jesus. And he's on his way in 2 .5
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to talk about the humanity of Jesus. The deity of Jesus, and he's on his way.
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Next stop, Jesus is fully human. He destroys death. He can identify with us as a representative.
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He destroys sin. Jesus is human as well. That's the next stop.
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But if you've ever taken a train and you've got to stop and change tracks, you have a little bit of waiting time, a little layover time.
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And so this is like the layover. We've got Jesus as God, Jesus as human at the end of the chapter.
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Layover time is, let's make sure we just don't think of things, ponder things, memorize things, but let them have no impact in our hearts.
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Jesus is greater than angels, and if angels received, delivered the law, and they were very authoritative, how much more
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Jesus and his word. When I was a kid, I grew up, and I remember watching that show,
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Truth or Consequences. Remember that? Some of you don't remember, but it was this trivia show,
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Truth or Consequences. And so I typed in Google a couple days ago, and I just wanted to make sure I explained the show,
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Truth or Consequences, rightly. And when I pulled it up, what's the number one Google search in Truth or Consequences?
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A city in New Mexico. How would you like to write that down every single time?
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Your address, Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. The writer is writing, there's truth, and if you ignore the truth, there's consequences.
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And the main issue is, don't drift. So we're going to look in the next three weeks, how to avoid spiritual drift, safeguards from doctrinal drift.
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And this will help you in your marriage, work, the church, and at a personal level, so you just don't kind of drift away.
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I'll never forget the time when, the first time I swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, to the proper
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San Francisco, it's like a mile and a half. And they had this big, huge, instructional pep talk that they gave us.
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And so you had to get there at seven in the morning before you'd swim, and everybody was required to go to the safety meeting. And here was the safety meeting.
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This is what I remember, besides it being cold and I was super scared. They said, when you jump out of the boat and start swimming to the land, if you decide not to swim and you just float, you're going to drift out because of the currents underneath the
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Golden Gate Bridge and out into the Pacific. So swim like mad. So you had to aim at certain places because the current was going.
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The current was going to take you, and if you're just going to kind of just go floating, you were going to be in big trouble.
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By the way, we had these yellow caps on, swimming caps, and if you got too scared, you could do this to tap out.
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And I was so scared, I thought... My kids were little at the time, and I thought,
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I've got to make it back because they think I'm super dad. They think I'm like, dad, dad.
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And they're going to go, what's dad doing coming back in the lifeboat, tapping out?
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And I thought, you know what? But for safety's sake, I'd rather live and be humbled. No, no,
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I'd rather die and be prideful. So I just swam. Doing nothing is doing something.
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And you can just get the idea, not just for them, but for you as well, the currents in society of secularism, of paganism, of hedonism, of materialism, of tolerance, the way the world just educates you.
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If you do nothing, friends, you're going out past the golden gate. Doing nothing isn't going to work.
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So we're going to look at how to avoid spiritual drift this week by paying attention to Jesus.
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Next week, by acknowledging that the ultimate drift is hell. You don't want to go there.
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And then in two weeks, how to avoid spiritual drift by hearkening back to the
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Word of God and its sufficiency and its veracity. But today we're going to talk about avoiding spiritual drift by looking to the person and work of Jesus.
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Do you notice again in chapter 2, verse 1, lest we drift away from it.
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That's the issue. Lest we drift away. This is what we don't want to have happen. Drift away, it's a nautical term.
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Makes it very simple. There's currents in the river and you just drift. There's currents in the ocean and you just drift.
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It's also been used of other things. A ring slipping off your finger.
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It's been used of... I was just talking to Lisa Huber earlier today. And I was in the middle of talking to her.
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And Flo and all of a sudden I just go, I completely forgot what I was saying. What was I saying again? They said, we don't know either.
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It's that idea. You have a thought and it's just like you're over 50 and it just goes.
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It's just drifted away. It's gone. Kind of just happens to you.
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You sleep at the wheel. And again, this is not I'm going to go do this awful sin. This is just kind of doing nothing.
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Carelessness. Neglect. Sleep at the wheel. It's a song written in 1972.
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And I'm going to try to redeem that song for you. From now on, every time you hear this song written by Mentor Williams, originally recorded by John Henry Kurtz, I want you to think of Hebrews 2 .1
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and drifting away. This song actually was covered by Dobie Gray.
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And it became number five on Billboard's Hot 100 Certified Gold. Do you know what song
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I'm talking about? I'm here to redeem pop culture for all you, especially the cranes.
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Day after day, I'm more confused. Yet I look for the light through the pouring rain. You know that's a game that I hate to lose.
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And I'm feeling the strain. Ain't it a shame? Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul.
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I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.
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Roy Orbison covered that song. Ike and Tina Turner covered that song. Humble Pie. Rod Stewart.
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Waylon Jennings. Ray Charles. The Neville Brothers. Michael Bolton. The Rolling Stones. Ringo Starr.
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Bruce Springsteen. And Doobie Brothers. And what you don't want to do is to have your life be a spiritual cover of that song.
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You don't want to cover that song. The glories of Christ. Think about when you were first saved.
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Forgiveness. Acceptance. Justified.
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Redeemed. Reconciled to God. And man, we were hot for God in those days.
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Hot with thanks and joy and evangelism. Those were the days.
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And then without concern, without care, without any kind of aggro sins, it is so easy to just slip away and drift away.
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And the writer doesn't want us to do that. And the writer is God Himself. This gradual, unthinking movement away, it's imperceptible.
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It happens slowly, gradually. And I could ask you the question to make it very personal.
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No one's just neutral. You're either drifting toward the Lord or you're drifting away.
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Today, I wonder which one describes you more. That you're drifting more toward the
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Lord? As the writer of Hebrews says, consider Christ, chapter 3.
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As the writer says, fix your eyes on Christ Jesus, chapter 12.
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Or are you the one that's kind of drifting away? We have kind of a Christianese slogan for this.
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It's not really a biblical New Testament word. And we just say we're backsliding.
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Are you going toward God today? Or are you going away from God? And I have great news for you.
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Really good news. Things in life are very complicated. True.
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I mean, yesterday I'm thinking, I've got to download this manual on PDF on Google.
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Because I'm trying to figure out what this particular thing is in the motorcycle. I don't even know what it is. I'm looking around for my dad.
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He can't help. Nobody's around. I need help. What is it? I'm downloading this manual. And I'm thinking,
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I have several college degrees. I cannot figure this out. It's so complicated. This gadget and this gizmo and this what -you -call -it and all these other things.
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I have no idea. It's like an oil dipstick. I don't know what to do. So complicated.
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Computer programming is complicated. Government is complicated. But here's the great news.
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The solution for every aspect of drift, marriage, church,
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Christian, seminary, every answer revolves around the person and work of Christ.
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You don't need to know Greek to know the Lord or be known by Him. You don't need to know all the details. You don't need to know anything except here's a good look at Christ Jesus.
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I do believe Spurgeon said we slander Christ when we think about drawing people to church by something else than the preaching of Christ crucified.
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We know that the greatest crowd in London has been held together these 30 years. He's talking about his own church. By nothing but the preaching of Christ crucified.
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Where's our music? Where's our oratory? Where's anything attractive of our architecture, our beauty, our ritual?
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Where's our nice parking lot? Oh, he didn't say that, but I was thinking that. A bare service, they call it.
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Yes, but Christ makes up for all deficiencies. Who is
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Jesus and how often do we think of Him? And friends, I know because I'm one of you.
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I'm just a fellow believer, fellow sinner. Yes, we know all about Him and our eyes are fixed on Him unto salvation and soon after that, but then it's hard to keep going because we're sinful, we're lazy.
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And so the writer of Hebrews says when you're slipping away, when you're drifting away, there's one response and look at Christ Jesus.
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And by the way, didn't He just do that with us in chapter 1? Some of you probably were asking the question, why is
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Abendroth preaching 20 sermons on Hebrews chapter 1? I know your kind,
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I know what you're like. I know you think there's 13 chapters and 20 sermons for the first chapter and that is 13 times 20.
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I know you're thinking 260 sermons and He's never going to live that long. I know you think that.
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He goes through chapter 1 so you just focus on the person and work of Jesus to the extent that when people talk about Yahweh, you should be thinking
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Jesus, the triune Father, Son and Spirit. Greek writer
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Xenophon used this word drift away, picturing the snow slipping off soldiers' bodies as they went out to war.
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And again, the issue here is not in your face disregard. It is apathetic, kind of no attention given to it.
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I read this week, how cows get lost. Maybe this was part of my Nebraska upbringing.
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Got a lot of free time. How do cows get lost? Here's what one rancher said.
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Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass and starts nibbling on that one.
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And then it nibbles on a tuft of grass right next to a hole in the fence. It sees another tuft of grass on the other side of the fence so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next tuft.
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The next thing you know, the cow has nibbled itself into being lost. Sports are fine, but we become obsessed with sports and it's just this little tuft of grass.
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Family's fine, but our focus is on the family, to worship the family and then it's just one tuft to the next to the next, let alone all kinds of the secular issues.
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Do you notice in chapter 2, verse 1, it says, Therefore, tying what we have heard in chapter 1 and what we will hear in the next chapters, therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.
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Remember, it's a sermon, he's preaching it and they're listening to chapter 1 and they're going to listen to the other chapters.
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Remember, he's been preaching chapter 1, that there's seven Old Testament passages that all scream,
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Jesus is God, Jesus is greater, Jesus is better than the angels. What we have heard is chapter 1.
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Do you notice in chapter 1, verse 5, to which of the angels did he ever say, You're my
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Son, today I begotten You. He's trying to get them to be moored up and to not drift away by focusing on who is
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Jesus and He's the Son of God. God's His Father at the end of verse 5.
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The promised Son of David is Jesus. Angels worship Him, chapter 6, as Yahweh.
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His ministry doesn't come and go like angels, verse 8 and 9. He's got the ultimate worship, the throne.
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And He's a creator in chapter 1, verses 10, 11, and 12. He never changes, He's the creator.
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And this writer, Hebrews, wants to make sure there's no drift. So he takes them to the Old Testament, Psalm 2, 2
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Samuel chapter 7, Psalm 104, Psalm 45, Psalm 102, and Psalm 110.
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Here are these stakes in the ground. Don't drift away from these things. And remember chapter 1, how interesting it was?
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It's like we're getting to hear, we're getting to eavesdrop, the Father talking well of the
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Son. What does God say about the Son? How is God, as it were, righteously bragging on His Son, giving
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His Son a place of honor and worship and glory? By saying He's the
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Son of David, by saying He's worshiped by angels, everything in chapter 1. The preacher described
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Hebrews 2 like this. Seeing Christ is so excellent in His person, and seeing the
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Gospel has such a glorious author, let us take great care that we esteem
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His person, revere His authority, reverence His ministry, and believe His message.
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And let us take heed that our memories be not like leaking vessels, suffering the Word at any time to slip or run from us.
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We have heard them, do not let us forget them. Let them not be like the driftwood which goes floating down the stream.
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Let us make a desperate effort to retain them in our memories, and above all, to ponder them in our hearts.
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He's saying when it comes to drifting, the answer, the solution is, focus on with careful attention who
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Jesus is. And He's actually been doing that very thing. Chapter 1 verses 1 -3 and verse 4.
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Jesus sacrificed for sins and is raised and then seated at the right hand of the
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Father. Side note congregation, I know you know it, but I want to repeat it.
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Theology matters. Theology matters. Right thinking about God should determine what you do.
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And what you don't do is just go, Jesus is God, you know, come see, come see. I learned that already in Iwana.
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My Bible is full of trinkets and verses and patches and everything else. I've got all that down.
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I've got it all mastered. Theology matters because when you see Jesus, then you could say, you know what,
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I remember my life is to be one of faith and walking by faith. I need to remember today that, you know, there was enough sin in me on the first day that I was born to damn me to hell and then
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I lived to be 29 years old before God saved me and he rescued me. I was an enemy, he made me his friend.
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He punished Jesus in my place and I stand free. I thought
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I had to work my way to heaven. Can you imagine if you take every righteous thing you've ever done in your life, so -called righteous, and add it all up, it doesn't give you one step towards earning heaven.
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It gives you 50 steps saying, you know what, I'm on my way to hell and God interrupted, God saved,
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God did this for me and I have hope in heaven and I need to be arrested to that.
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I need to be woken up again. My mother, when I was growing up, would have to come wake me up to get ready for school and I tried everything.
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I had the alarm by my bed. That didn't work because you can hit snooze. I put the alarm across the room except that didn't work so well because sometimes my leg falls asleep when
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I am sleeping and so I jump up to turn off the alarm and then it is like, you know, slain in the spirit, down on the ground
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I go trying to get to that thing because my leg is not working. That didn't work. So mom's like, you know what, you're getting to be older, you know, you're 24 years old.
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And so she gave me what she called the dreaded water treatment.
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She just got a thing of water, put her hand in there and started just flicking it on my face. Hated that.
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The water treatment. You think, you know what, she wasn't very nice.
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It's not very kind of this writer to somehow assume, you know, faith in Christ is not enough and they have to work out their salvation, they have to live it out, they have to be arrested.
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I mean, we're all about grace and hyper -grace and all grace is hyper -grace. It is only what you know.
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There's a real motivation here by the writer to say you are responsible for what you've learned.
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You're responsible to respond to the gospel rightly. Not just initially unto salvation, but today.
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There's a response to what you know today. Theology matters. And might I say sub -point, theology is never neutral.
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This is not a neutral truth. Just chalk this up and kind of memorize it, catechism, this, that and the other.
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One day you won't need it. I mean, my kids are in school now. I'm like, Dad, are we ever going to benefit from geometry?
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When will we use geometry ever again in our life? I thought of that when I was in college and I'm learning
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BASIC and BASICPLUS and COBOL and FORTRAN languages.
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I will never use them again in my life. It's just data. You can never say regarding Hebrews chapter 1 and following, ah, never going to make a difference.
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It's just learning to learn. Some people who got this from the author, they were in danger of drift.
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They're drifting off. They're wanting to go back to the temple, Old Testament worship. Why bother getting persecuted?
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And He appeals to them, therefore what you know. You've got to do something. You've got to respond. The word therefore could mean for this cause.
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Jesus is such an excellent teacher, an excellent prophet. You need to respond rightly.
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And so what does He say, verse 1? How do you avoid a doctrinal drift? Pay much closer attention to what we have heard, to who
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Jesus is. Pay close attention. Notice He says now we.
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He puts Himself right in the middle of it, very pastorally. Pay attention. This is urgent.
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This is very direct. Turn your mind to something. This word pay attention, pros echo.
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Pros means toward. Echo, to hold. To hold toward. You can almost imagine a dad holding the son or a daughter, and the kid's talking to him, and he's busy doing something else, talking, and the child's asking questions, and he's answering but still looking.
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You can just imagine the kid grabbing the face and turning the face towards him saying,
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Dad, I want to see your face. Look at my face. That's the idea here, to hold toward something.
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And then it becomes to put your mind into it, to put your mind on it, to look out, to be alert.
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Apply your mind to something. That's what it means. And the cool thing, like drifting is a nautical term, this too is a nautical term.
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Bringing a ship to land. How do you bring a ship to land and moor a ship?
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You've got to be careful. You've got to be careful when you just take a ship to land.
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You've got to calculate currents and depth and coast and all kinds of other stuff that I don't know of.
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This word is used in the New Testament, I believe, over 20 times. Sometimes it's even used of the word beware.
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Translated in English, beware. You've got to take a good look. Beware, Jesus said, of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.
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That's the word pay attention. Be careful that you don't do that. This is a word used by Jesus in Matthew 7.
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Beware or pay attention to false teachers. So you know what they teach and you run.
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Paul said this to Timothy negatively. Nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies.
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Acts 20, it translates it this way. Be on your guard for yourselves and all your flock. Give attention to public reading.
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Pay attention. Be careful. Watch out. You're being assaulted.
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You might not think so, but your mind's being attacked, so be careful. Therefore, in light of what we know, we must pay much closer attention.
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I like the way the English translates that single word, pay much closer attention, but if I was just parsing out the
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English, it could just say pay attention, pay closer attention, pay much closer attention.
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Just trying to think of a word picture or an illustration. When I was trying to figure out how to fix that motorcycle yesterday, I finally thought to myself, all right,
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I'm going to get my glasses and I'm going to get down on my knees and get a flashlight and look at that thing.
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And I'm going to take a picture of it and I'm going to send it to one of my friends saying, help me. Well, I've got to get down there and examine.
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I mean, I'm too old to get down on my knees now. I can't get back up. And when I do get up, then I'm dizzy and stuff and see stars.
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I've got to pay attention. The best sermons are the sermons which are most full of Christ.
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A sermon without Christ is an awful, horrible thing. It's an empty well. It's a cloud without rain.
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It's a tree twice dead plucked by the roots. It is an abominable thing to give men stones for bread and scorpions for eggs, yet they do so who preach not
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Jesus. A sermon without Christ is as well talk of a loaf of bread without any flour in it.
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How can it feed the soul? Men die and perish because Christ is not there, and yet His glorious gospel is the easiest thing to preach and the sweetest thing to preach.
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There's the most variety in it. There is more attractiveness in it than all the world besides.
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Charles Spurgeon. Do you ever wonder why the writer of Hebrews is talking to persecuted
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Christians who have all kinds of trials? And he essentially does nothing except say to them, I just want to talk about Jesus.
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Yeah, but we're getting thrown in jail. And soon we're going to be persecuted unto death.
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And we're running. And we're kicked out. We're unsynagogued. If you've got Jesus, you've got it all.
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That's his answer. If you've got Jesus, you've got it all. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
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So let me end with a few questions. A series of questions. You can use them as self -diagnostic if you'd like to see if you're drifting.
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And here's the good news. The solution for all drifting is to go back and just remember who
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Jesus is. I read through all of Hebrews this week. One setting, it probably took me 40 minutes.
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That would be a good reminder. You say, you know, I'm drifting. In my first love, I'm kind of fading away.
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And I'm just getting taken down the current of secularism and every other ism that's out there just to remember who
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Jesus is. You don't have to go to seminary for the solution. You don't have to know
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Greek for the solution. You don't have to read the latest great books for the solution.
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This is the solution that gets rid of all the how -to books in Christianity. Who is
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Jesus? So let me ask you a series of questions. If you diagnose yourself, yes, this is true,
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I'm drifting, then you know the answer. Hebrews was preaching
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Christ. I need to remember who Jesus was. Question one. Am I put off by calls to personal holiness and commitment?
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Am I put off by those? There's a lot going around Christianity today. And it's all focused on who
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Jesus is and not kind of response. And some call it hyper -grace.
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Some call it other things. It's within the sanctification debate. But right here, He does that very thing. Calls for personal commitment and responsibility.
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And when you think of Jesus, I'll read for you Titus 2, 11 and 12. For the grace of God has appeared, that is the incarnation, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.
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When you think of Jesus, you should think of the grace of justification, the grace of I'm no longer damned, the grace of substitutionary atonement.
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And you should also think about Jesus' transforming grace where He transforms His people.
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Question two, very simple one. Am I neglecting the Word of God? Am I reading the
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Word of God? Some people say, well, you know what?
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This New Testament church, these people here, they didn't have any Bibles. It was too expensive to have Bibles. They kind of get through without Bibles.
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And we don't really have to read our Bible as much. And it's a good thing, yes, but show me someone who's not in the
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Word and I'll show you someone who's drifting. Because, friends, Jesus is seen in the Word, isn't He? When you read the
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Old Testament, you think Christ Jesus. When Jesus is on the Emmaus Road, He's saying, you know, Moses and Law and the prophets, they all spoke of Me.
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And when you're reading the Bible, you're seeing Jesus. How can you see Jesus? Well, you say, well, every morning when
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I get up to shave, Jesus appears to me and talks to me while I'm shaving. Actually, somebody actually said that once.
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And Jesus is just there. God is kind of a hand on my shoulder as we shave, or as I shave.
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The response to that is several, but it's not true.
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Because if you kept shaving, it's not Jesus, because you would be like Peter in the boat.
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Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, when you recognize Jesus is in the room. But Jesus doesn't talk outside of His Word.
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The canon's finished. We're not Roman Catholics. We're not crazy enough to believe that the sufficiency of Scripture is compromised.
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Three, am I neglecting prayer? God only talks through His Word specifically.
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And the only way we are to talk to Him is through prayer. And of course, the more you pray, the more you realize,
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I am thankful that Jesus, in Hebrews 7, is the one who makes intercession for me, because I'm having a hard time praying.
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Question four, am I neglecting ministry and fellowship? Am I neglecting ministry and fellowship?
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Every one of these could be a sermon. I'll just make this brief. It's hard to serve other
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Christians because they're sinful. I'm sinful. And so we are off -put by someone at church, or there's a rub with someone at church, and we're not going to do that for somebody at church.
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And then you think, how do I then solve the problem? I have to think about who Jesus is, and that's
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Jesus' bride, and Jesus loved them. Jesus gave His life for them. And Jesus says, if you love
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Me, you serve them. Okay, I'll think things through thinking about Jesus rightly.
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Number five, am I anti -doctrine? That's a great way to drift. Am I anti -doctrine? You know, doctrine is divisive.
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All this dogmatism that's out there divides people up. Friends, Jesus was a doctrinal preacher.
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Every one of these questions, should I read the Bible? Should I pray? Should I be involved in a local church?
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What about doctrine? Jesus was a doctrinal preacher. Every one solved when you look at the person of Jesus.
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Mark 1 .22, they were astonished at His doctrine when He preached. Mark 1 .27, they said when
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Jesus preached, what new doctrine is this? Jesus is a doctrinal preacher. Number six, question six, am
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I drifting? And the solution to every one of these is the person of Christ. Am I drifting?
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Question number six, do I say things or think things like this?
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Can't you really go overboard on this whole discernment thing? This ties into the doctrine one. What about all this discernment?
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Too much discernment. I don't want the discernment. Trick question, congregation.
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Solomon prayed for what? God says you can have anything you want.
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Pray for one thing, I'll grant it. And Solomon prayed for? And if you said wisdom, you should have heard what
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I said earlier about trick questions. Ask what I shall give you.
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Solomon said you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David, my father, because he has walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you.
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You've kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day.
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1 Kings 3 .9, Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?
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I'd like to have understanding so that I can govern and then I can discern. And then it says, the text, amazingly, because you did not ask for long life, our riches are the life of your enemies, but you ask for understanding to discern what is right.
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Behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind. He asked for understanding to discern what is right.
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Next question. I've got to land. I've got to land this plane. Can truth really be known? Do I ever ask that question?
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You're drifting if you say, can truth really be known? Jesus is the truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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You're drifting if you say, isn't it about time we reexamine key doctrines like women's roles and homosexuality?
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Friends, you're drifting. You're drifting if you ask this question to yourself.
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Since God is so merciful, don't you think there could be more ways to heaven than one? You're drifting.
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You're drifting when you say, you know what? I know God's sovereign salvation, but what about?
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You're drifting. And then lastly, you're drifting when you say something like, are we really sure that the
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Bible is inerrant? I have a new approach now. I think
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I've told you the approach when a young man or a young woman who's been trained in the faith says to me, or even when they're older,
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I'm not quite so sure, Pastor, about inerrancy any longer and infallibility. I think there's a few errors in the
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Bible, and I'm really working through those issues. My response now is always the same. If I'm talking to a young man, here's my response.
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What's her name? Because in your mind, you've got to create new categories, and you know fornication is sinful.
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And so for you to be able to do what you'd like to do in the flesh, you've got to have a new category, and that category you know is in the
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Bible, and so you've got to get rid of the Bible. People do things for reasons. Jesus is a high priest.
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We know it. We believe it. We've trusted in him. But it's sometimes just so easy to do nothing except just kind of float down.
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In the summer, we lived on the Missouri River growing up, and so Dad would drive us four miles up the river.
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We'd all get in inner tubes. And Mom liked it because we would all swim around, and she could just be on the inner tube and just float down, just floating.
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You don't have to do anything. It's just so easy to float. And the writer of Hebrews is saying,
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You know who Jesus is. Floating isn't an option.
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You can't just float because Niagara Falls is right over there.
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That's next week. Let's pray. I thank you, Father, for the Word. Help us to pay closer attention.
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We cannot do it on our own. We are drifters. So easy to drift.
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We confess that we've drifted. And Father, we know you're faithful and just to forgive sins.
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And we look to the one who never drifted. Jesus never wavered in his love for you.
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He never drifted. He was paying close attention all the time. And we are thankful we stand in him today before you.
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And for anyone who's here today who's not a believer, I pray that this week and next week would be sermons that would challenge them, and you'd use them to save them and grant them eternal life.