Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How many of you have ever been driving in an unfamiliar city that is undergoing road construction?

Road work has a way to get under even the thickest of skins and if you’re in a place that you’re not very familiar with, it can be easy to drive more cautious than normal.

This past week I was in Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City and like many large cities, Kansas City always seems to have construction work going on!

One of the cool things with the Maps app on your phone is that it will tell you about upcoming alerts on the roadways.

There were several times I’d be driving where my phone would notify me that there was speed check coming up - that’s pretty straightforward as you just slow down a little bit.

There were other times where there was a traffic accident coming up and you’d either take a different route or you’d have to sit in traffic for a little bit.

There were other times, though, where there’d be a sign on the side of the road saying CAUTION: Road Work Up Ahead!

Why do these people put up a large orange caution sign?

Because chances are a lane is closed up ahead and traffic will slow down.

If you are from the area you know to expect construction.

You know to expect delays.

You know to go a different route.

But what if you’re not from around town?

You know where you’re at and you know where you need to go, but chances are you’re not going to know about which tracks of the highway are undergoing road work and have lanes closed.

You don’t know about the trouble until you see the caution sign.

Caution signs are a blessing as there is potential danger up ahead and we need to slow down and consider what’s going on around us.

As painful and annoying as they can be, caution signs can be a good thing.

Just as highways have road construction and caution signs on them, there are times in our lives where we are traveling from one thing to another in the midst of our busyness where something forces us to slam on our breaks and consider what’s going on around us.

Sometimes that can be seemingly bad thing like a difficult conversation, bad news from a doctor, or sleepless night.

Those moments force us to look behind and ahead to see what’s going on and we make sure that we’re still going the correct direction.

The Bible is full of these types of caution signs.

While some people don’t like them and prefer the feel good messages, just like we all prefer a wide open highway instead of one stuck at a standstill, we all need to be reminded of the danger surrounding us.

As much as we hate the stopped road, the caution sign is a kindness because without it we’d find ourselves in even more danger!

Likewise, whenever the Bible tells us to pay attention to the seriousness of our sin and the greatness of Jesus, we’d better treat that just like we’d treat a caution sign on the interstate.

In fact, some of you probably need to treat those caution signs in the Bible with more respect than you do the ones on the interstate!

After the preacher of Hebrews makes his argument that Jesus is greater and the only way that we can be saved from our sins in chapter 1, he immediately begins chapter 2 with a caution sign to slow down and consider what has been said so far.

Today as we study from God’s Word, let’s take our time to make sure that we have responded properly to the good news of what Jesus Christ has done for us!

Let’s read from God’s Word in Hebrews 2:1-4.

Why are we given this caution sign?

Why must we stop and pay attention to this news from God’s Son?

Because we’re tempted to miss the sign and get ourselves into serious, eternal trouble.

Today, let’s pray that God would help us properly respond to His good news!

We Are Tempted to Drift Away (1)

In the book of Hebrews there are 5 warning passages that reveal truths to us as readers that are at times difficult to swallow.

We often like to think of God’s Word as something that is positive, encouraging, and uplifting - so much so that many churches on their website have began to describe their worship experiences in these sorts of terms.

Come to our 10am worship experience and leave feeling better about yourself.

Come to our worship experience and leave encouraged.

I pray that you do feel encouraged whenever we depart on Sunday morning, but I pray that you feel encouraged because of the truth of God’s Word and sometimes the truth of God’s Word isn’t all that positive.

Whenever you study passages of Scripture that talk about loss, suffering, and death it can be very hard to feel encouraged.

Whenever you talk about the fact that our sin makes us deserving of eternal separation from God in a literal place called hell, that’s not very encouraging!

Because of this, many are tempted to talk about other topics that are more positive in nature.

Do you know what you can’t avoid, though, whenever you study the Bible verse by verse?

You can’t avoid the next verse regardless of how hard it might be to swallow!

Church, we need all of God’s Word and in this opening warning passage we see that we must pay attention to God’s Word so that we do not drift away.

There are times where it can be relaxing to drift.

Whenever I arrived at FBC Salem last year the staff kept talking about float trips and how that was the thing to do around here.

Sure enough, in the spring and summer we were able to go as a staff and I think they kept expecting me to fall in the water…?

I’m not sure if they’ve purposely tipped the pastors kayak or something in the past or if they’re just used to people falling in on their own but Lindsey and I love floating and we truly enjoyed those sweet moments with our friends this past year.

Whenever you go floating, regardless of how good or bad you are at it, it can just be really relaxing to not do anything at all and close your eye balls and let the water take you along the river.

Drifting can be enjoyable… but it can also be very dangerous!

David Peterson says that there are times where drifting has disastrous consequences.

Imagine that you are floating not on the Current River but the Colorado River - there’s quite a difference there for those of you who haven’t white water rafted before!

If you don’t paddle consistently when you white water raft and if you just let the water take you and you drift along its power, you’ll probably end up in serious trouble.

In fact, nearly 4 people on average pass away in the state of Colorado while floating or white water rafting.

As fun as it might be to drift and go with the flow, drifting can lead you to danger and drifting always leads you astray.

The word in the Greek for drift away is the same word used to describe a ring slipping off of a finger!

Have you ever had that happen in your life?

Maybe in today’s terms it’s a ring or possibly a phone.

We drop things.

We drift away from things.

Unless you’re anchored to the bottom of the river, lake, or ocean, you’re going to drift away from the shore and out toward danger.

This isn’t what we’re supposed to do, yet we’re all tempted to do it!

Why are we tempted to drift away from safety and out towards danger?

Because we often fail to pay attention to Jesus and His Word.

Because of our sinfulness, we never drift towards Jesus… we drift away from Him.

You don’t usually notice yourself drifting right away.

Very few people set out on a journey to stop coming to church or to do something bad or to drop the ball.

Have you heard the statement that the pathway to hell is filled with good intentions?

That quote is nearly 1,000 years old and its as timely now as ever!

We are living in a world where people are looking around and wondering, how did things get to this point?

How did we arrive at a point where some humans matter and others don’t?

How did we arrive at a point where it’s celebrated to terminate the life of a baby?

You know that those 2 things aren’t new, right?

They’ve been around for thousands of years… But today they are so prevalent.

According to Gallup, did you know that 20% of Gen-Z identifies as LGBTQ?

We’re not talking about 1-2%… We’re talking about 1/5 kids!

Why is this a growing number?

Because we’re drifting away from God’s standard and Word!

You know that this isn’t just true in our community, though, right?

I love you all enough to be honest with you that this is a temptation in the church as well!

This is a temptation in our church too, to drift away from God and His Word.

Dr. Steven Smith shared in my seminar this week that the church that he pastors uses a church management software similar to ours and he pulled some data up for us concerning the pre-schoolers that attend the church he pastors.

There was a pie chart and we didn’t get overall numbers, just percentages.

September had 4 Sundays and there were 4 options: kids that came 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and all 4 weeks.

Nearly 40% of the kids came 1 week, nearly 33% came 2 weeks, nearly 25% came 3 weeks, and a sliver came all 4 weeks.

A generation ago those numbers would’ve been flipped.

I grew up in Ozark with James River and its 15,000 attenders down the road - all 1,500 students at Ozark high school went to James River.

If you asked them when the last time they went there they’d say Easter or Christmas… but they claimed James River as their church.

I triple checked this number a few weeks ago: Did you know that our church has over 1,300 members?

Where are they at?

Do you think that people set out in their mind that they’re going to be a Christmas and Easter church attender?

Do you think that our culture that once viewed 100% church attendance as normal suddenly viewed 50% church attendance as the norm?

Absolutely not!

What happened?

We’re tempted to drift.

If your toes hurt, I’m sorry… but I’m grieved because we’re living in a culture of churchgoers who don’t understand the fundamentals of the faith and in a culture of non-Christians who are basing their perception of Christians on Christians who don’t know what to believe in the first place!

What do we have to do?

We have to go back to God’s Word and we have to apply it to our lives.

If you’re a genuine Christian, you should desire to not only come to corporate worship but you should desire in serving, giving, and worshipping in your local church.