Pay Close Attention
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
When do you pay more attention? When there a greater stakes!
I pay much more attention to the location of my children when I’m moving a vehicle around the yard, because the stakes are higher. You pay much closer attention to the words coming out of your mouth when you’re having a hard conversation with someone, you pay closer attention when you’re chopping veggies with the sharp knife, as opposed to using the butter-knife. You will pay much closer attention to the sky-diving instructor just before you jump from a plane, than from the dentist telling you to floss your teeth yet again.
Higher stakes means more to loose. The increased risk means higher need for focus and attention.
For humans, we’re playing a high stakes game with eternity. We have one short life to live and then it is all finished. Everyone dies some-day. But what happened after that? Most people around the world believe that there is some kind of afterlife where you will exist, with either paradise or damnation as your final destination. There is a group of materialists (like atheists) who think that once you die you’re just completely ended forever, but I would like to remind you that despite their very loud voice, the materialists are still a small minority. Humanity has within an inescapable longing for a joyful eternity. Eternity is hidden in our hearts you might say.
Because eternity is a long time, and what we do in this life determines our eternity, then we have a high stakes issue to deal with. We need to pay close attention to what will secure our eternity. It is much higher risk than anything else we can do with our lives!
Recap:
Book written to early church Christians, many of whom had Jewish background. This is written in the years after Jesus death, burial & resurrection as the Church was growing and where there was a temptation to leave Christianity and go back to Judaism or paganism. Paganism is just a catch-all term to refer to false-religions, usually polytheistic and superstitious.
Hebrews
Firstly we established that Jesus is the Supreme Son of God
Heir of all things
World was made through him, he upholds the world
He is the exact imprint of God and radiance of His glory
He made propitiation for sins, and is now seated at the right hand of the father
Then the auther went on to prove that Jesus is greater than Angels
Not a big deal to us, but important to get it right.
God has a special relationship with Jesus the Son
The angels do not get the same attention and honour. They are servants of God, a lower rank.
They are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation”
So, what are we to do in light of this news?
1) Closer Attention
1) Closer Attention
Therefore we must pay close attentions to what we have heard. This is the first of 5 warning passages in Hebrews, and the main point that you need to hear today!
Now when we’re interpreting the Bible, we next to pay attention to things like audience and context and genre. When we’re reading God’s word in the OT, we need to understand how the message applies to us through Jesus in a different way than it would to it’s original hearers. On of the great things about the NT letters is that they are all written to the Christian church, after Jesus has come, and so it is a lot easier to understand how the text applies to us. The words we’re reading apply to us in a very direct way.
Pay close attention to what you have heard!
Look at v 1
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
Lets break it down.
Therefore?
Because of what? - Because Jesus is greater than the Angels. Because Jesus is the Supreme Son, therefore we must pay closer attention. We will get into why this is significant in a minute, but for now, just note that the reason for paying closer attention is that Jesus is Supreme.
Closer attention.
What do we need to pay closer attention to? What you have heard. This is a round-a-bout way of saying you need to pay close attention to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
<joyful> It is what we have heard - the messages that Jesus came into the world as a human child, that he came from the father to preach the Good News and to bring the Kingdom of God. He won this kingdom by overthrowing God’s enemies, Satan, Sin and Death. And he did that though a propitiatory sacrifice of himself to pay for sins, clear us of guilt and to justify us with God. Now all who trust in Jesus by faith will have their sins taken away!
We hear the Good News that:
...that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Now the Christians of the first century, and us, need to pay closer attention to this message. It ought not be something on the periphery of our life as if I have my job and my family and my hobbies, oh, and I have a little religion in there too. No! This is the greatest message every declared in the world, and we are called to be concerned about this, to be aware of it, to heed this message.
We have heard it from the scriptures recorded for us (& thus the apostles), we have heard it from our pastors & teachers, we have heard it from our parents, perhaps it was a close friend who first shared the gospel to you. We have heard it from books and articles and blogs and podcasts. It is the message that we have heard, and we must pay close attention to it!
So that… we don’t drift away <click back slide>.
This highlights to us that there is a danger of drifting away, of turning our back on faith in Christ.
This would be disastrous, because eternity is at stake. Eternal blessedness or eternal damnation. Eternal life or eternal death.
Not a matter of people coming in and out of salvation. The Chosen (elect) are God’s people whom he will save no matter what, but that’s a top-down view. From the experience on the ground it looks like people get saved, but then leave the faith. Jesus describes these people like seeds cast on rocky ground, or choked out by weeds.
There are those who will appear to belong to Jesus for a time, and then drift away.
I’ve seen them - those who have a burst of faith and passion and it withers within a few years. I saw one become a Pastor!
Those who have grown up in their faith and then been distracted by the trinkets of the world, more concerned with the creation rather than the creator.
Those who have pulled away from church and been deceived by online heterodoxy, shipwrecking their faith.
The Gospel is of first importance, and we must pay close attention to it, lest we drift away in to vanity!
Why? We will answer it in the following sections!
2) Greater Salvation
2) Greater Salvation
In this next verse, we’re going to see that this Gospel, what we have heard is compared with what had come before. Read it with me.
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?
The Message declared by Angels
What on earth is that? Old Covenant. The previous testament from God at Mt Sinai.
Where do the angels come into it? the Jews believed based on passages like Deut 33, that angels were the ones who passed on God’s law at Sinai. It was from God, but came through angels, the messengers of God.
This is mentioned a couple times in the NT like here:
[the Law] was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
SO the message put in place by angels was the previous covenant. Sometimes called “the Law” - Torah
<click back> It was a trustworthy message - it was true, and it was good. It was reliable.
It also had blessing and curses - blessing for obedience, curses for disobedience.
There were particular punishments for particular transgressions - such as… death, exile, atoning sacrifices, restitution, etc. There was just retribution, just rewards: punishments for evil, blessing for good.
Reliable & with punishments
So, the implication here is that the previous message to the Gospel that we have now heard, was a weighty message. There were obligations, there was requirements, there were consequences for failing to listen to the Torah.
Now a greater Salvation, a greater message has arrived, and therefore the obligation, the weight is greater. There are higher stakes!
This is classic Jewish argument from the lesser to the greater.
Neglect and you will not escape
We cannot escape God’s wrath if we neglect the Salvation he has provided.
You couldn’t escape the just retribution under the Old Covenant, now how can you expect to escape just retribution under the new, with a message declared by God himself in the flesh?
The salvation from Slavery to promised land was great! Salvation from death to life is GREATER!
Pay close attention, and do not neglect your salvation in Jesus Christ!
Neglect by lack of faith, or by disobeying the commands of God.
3) Better Declaration
3) Better Declaration
The author now explains a little about how this message was delivered. there’s three areas of transmission that he highlights. Unlike the angel intermediaries, this time the message has come directly from God through the Son.
a) Declared by Jesus
a) Declared by Jesus
It was declared at first by the Lord...
the “lord” kurios, refers here to Jesus.
Jesus preached the message
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
b) Attested by Eye witnesses
b) Attested by Eye witnesses
...and it was attested to us by those who heard,
Apostles
Other eye-witnesses, or more to the point, “ear-witnesses”
Transmitted, written and preserved through history
c) Testified by God through Holy Spirit
c) Testified by God through Holy Spirit
while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
HS signs are to validate the message
HS miraculous things happen
Not for us to demand or expect, sign of Jonah.
Gifts - God gifts his people through the HS
You gifts are not for your personal pleasure, but for bearing witness to Jesus.
So What?
So What?
Pay closer attention!
Do not neglect your salvation!
