The Great Salvation
Notes
Transcript
"The Great Salvation: Don't Drift Away"
Text: Hebrews 2:1-18
Introduction
Introduction
Illustration: When I was in the Army one thing they highly emphasized was land navigation. One specific thing stood out that I remember about it was shooting an azimuth, what that simply means is you find spots that you can see on the map, that coincide with what you see when you look out in front of you. Then you take your compass and measure those two points, some quick calculation and you will soon pinpoint your location on the map. Once you have that then you can measure to the point in which you want to go, then you will point your compass in that direction. It all sounds good until you realize there is a thing called drift, where if you are not exactly on the entire time with your compass, even a half of a degree, eventually over a long distance you will end up several degrees off, missing your point entirely.
In naval operations they have something that is similar as well, that is where a boat anchors but the anchor may not catch or be heavy enough to hold the boat in place. Then the boat will move ever so subtly until soon the boat could be miles away from where it was originally located.
Context of Hebrews 2: The writer of Hebrews emphasizes the superiority of Christ over angels and how crucial it is for believers to pay close attention to the salvation offered in Jesus. He addresses the risk of spiritual drift and the necessity of staying anchored in Christ’s work.
I. Pay Attention to the Great Salvation Hebrews 2:1-4
I. Pay Attention to the Great Salvation Hebrews 2:1-4
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
First thing is this word therefore, which starting on a therefore is the equivalent of your wife starting a conversation with are you even listening to me? Meaning we need to rewind a bit come back see if you were listening to what she was saying, see if it registered or not, or in this case we need to come back to what the writer was saying just before this. I would encourage to go back and read this, not right now, but later on take out your Bible, knock the dust off of it, and read the book of Hebrews, it explains a lot about how the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus, and this is the case the writer starts off making, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ and all of scripture was pointing to him.
Now to this therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it? We know that passage from Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
What is it that we have heard? Well that Jesus is the Christ, he has died for our sins, to give us the forgiveness of those sins, then three days later rose from the dead, proving He was God, the second person of the Trinity and that his coming again to judge the living and the dead. The gospel, the good news that when we believe in Him the only begotten Son of God, that we are saved, and will be saved, and now that we have heard this good news, when we have believed we now need to pay attention unless we drift away.
That drift like we just talked about is so subtle sometimes that we do not even notice. Sometimes it happens so slowly that we tend to not even notice. Have you ever noticed the incredible enthusiasm that someone has when they first believe, or first come to faith, or for the first time really hear the gospel and how it really becomes good news for them? They are usually on fire for the Lord. They go out and want to tell everyone they meet this great thing they have discovered, but then something happens, and may be even where you are at today, where you on fire and soon you look around at church, or places you go, and you meet fellow Christians and they do not have the same enthusiasm.
Then next thing you know you come to church Sunday after Sunday, and pretty soon start to look like just like everyone else, hands at your side when we sing songs, you repeat the words on the screen or in the bulletin, you probably even know them word for word, having them memorized, then next thing you know you say the words, but do not even think about what they mean anymore. You confess your sins, but then act like they were not forgiven, soon you become one of the frozen chosen.
What happens between the enthusiasm and the freezing? Drift, and the best way to counter drift is to return to where you started. On a boat you will pull up the anchor turn the boat around and go back to where you were. In land navigation you simply turn around, walk back to where things went off and start again.
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? 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 Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
II. Jesus as the Founder of Our Salvation Hebrews 2:5-9
II. Jesus as the Founder of Our Salvation Hebrews 2:5-9
Hebrews 2:5–8 (ESV)
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
We come right back to the message to the root of it all, that simple faith that we had when we first believed. That faith of a child, or childlike faith, where we just trust in that simple truth, where Jesus saved us, not by anything we had done to deserve it, but because of how great his love is for us.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.
I love that last line there, things that belong to salvation. There is nothing else that matters, no other message that we need to proclaim, just simply Jesus, how he bled and died for our sins, suffered as we should have, yet he took it all. He saved us in our weakness, in spite of our weakness.
III. Jesus as Our Perfect Brother and High Priest Hebrews 2:10-13
III. Jesus as Our Perfect Brother and High Priest Hebrews 2:10-13
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Can we even grasp this, Jesus, the second person of the trinity, Fully God, fully man, from whom and by whom all things exist, in order to save us, who is the founder of our salvation, has done it through suffering.
When we think of suffering, we tend to think of it is a bad thing, we grown under the miseries that we suffer in this life, we complain, and not many of us have really faced terrifying experiences in which we really suffer, to which I believe is one of the main causes of the lukewarm, or even frozen chosen Christians. We have not suffered to the point of death, nor do even think about it, in fact we whitewash it, we clean it up, we let the funeral home deal with death and clean it up for us. Putting it away from our sights, we send people to the hospital when they are ill, at crime scenes or accidents they put up blinders and only in the movies knowing it isn’t real do they ever show anything scary or frightening. No the reality is that death is ugly, bloody and messy, its not how we want to see Jesus our savior. We want a loving tame God, who we can manipulate to look like us, act like us and accept us the way we are.
We don’t want a God that call us sinner, in fact that God we will crucify on a cross. We will make him suffer, mock him, spit on him, because that is a dangerous and exclusive God. One we cannot tolerate or accept, we want a god after our likeness our image.
For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,
Even after being whipped, a crown of thorns put on his head, a purple robe put on his back, mocked, spit upon, and now nails being driven through his hands and feet Jesus says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Through his suffering, pain and death we are sanctified by the one who is sanctified by his suffering, and therefore he is not ashamed to call them brothers.
Hebrews 2:12–13 (ESV)
saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.”
And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
IV. Jesus as the Destroyer of Death and the Devil Hebrews 2:14-18
IV. Jesus as the Destroyer of Death and the Devil Hebrews 2:14-18
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
Jesus, fully God and fully man, flesh and blood, suffered the same things we suffer, tempted as we are and yet without sin.
and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Jesus did what no one else was able to accomplish perfection in the Law, then not only that he faced every temptation, every suffering, every pain everything we experience as humans and now we have a great high priest who has been through it all, we have a God who has suffered in every way we suffer, and then laid down his life and took it back up again, paying our penalty, giving us a promise and hope that is sure and certain so that we are no longer slaves to sin and death, but now live in a promise of eternity.
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
We are then anchored in Christ Jesus, he is sure to hold us, to keeping us from drifting away when we stay in his word and promise. Romans 8:38-39
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen
