The Danger of Drifting Hebrews 2:1-4

-We must be aware of the danger of drifting away from Jesus.

Some people love them, some people hate them. Worse, a large number of us who receive them on special occasions are indifferent to them, or even forget about them entirely. Such is the sad fate of gift cards – millions of which go unused each year and have a collective value estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Almost two-thirds of American consumers have at least one unspent gift card tucked away in a drawer, pocket, wallet, or purse. And at least half of those consumers lose a gift card before they use it, according to a new report from Credit Summit. The report said there is as much as $21 billion of unspent money tied up in unused and lost gift cards. Of those surveyed, a majority of respondents said their unredeemed cards were worth $200 or less.

Rebecca Stumpf, an editor with Credit Summit, said “Gift cards are extremely popular and almost everyone enjoys getting them. But many people leave them sitting in a drawer to redeem on a special occasion. Use them, don’t save them. If someone has given you a gift card, they want you to spend the money.”

I. Do Not Drift From Jesus v. 1

In our passage tonight, the author gets down to one of his major reasons for writing

After spending a chapter demonstrating Jesus’s superiority as the Son of God, he offers us a warning

His audience is facing a serious challenge: will they or won’t they stay connected to Jesus?

He gives an instruction and a warning

Instruction: Pay close attention to what you have heard

This is actually a nautical picture, of keeping a boat pointed towards the port

The boat is anchored in place, so that it will stay in a position of safety

We do this by settling our minds and hearts on “what we have heard”

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God

Jesus died for our sins and has risen again and is now in the presence of the Father

Jesus has given us salvation as a free gift and we find eternal life through faith in Him rather than through obedience to the Law

Warning: You might drift away

We have to stay anchored in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, because we are prone to drift

The picture here is less of an active departure from the faith than of being tossed around and pushed off of the mark

There are many forces at work in your life that would push you away from that first love and perfect hope

We have a decision to make, on an ongoing basis, to anchor ourselves in Jesus

This is not just the key to surviving as a Christian, but to thriving!

John 15:4–6

[4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (ESV)

II. Do Not Neglect Your Salvation vv. 2-3a

Next, we see the author draw a comparison between the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus

They are given in different times and in different ways

The Law is “declared by angels”

This may seem a little out there, but it is most likely a reference to Deuteronomy 33:2, which indicates that angelic beings “flames of fire” were present with the Lord on Mt. Sinai and that the message of His Law was mediated through them to Moses

God has honored the Law and upheld is portion of that covenant with Moses

When the people disobeyed the Law, God brought a just retribution against the people

There are two concepts of sin that are in question here:

Transgressions- intentional rebellion against God

Disobedience- a failure to listen to what God says

In either case, the consequences were severe

In light of this, we see that we cannot expect to neglect the Gospel of Jesus and the salvation it brings without consequence. There are two primary ways that I think we can view this:

First, if we fail to experience salvation in Jesus, we will not be able to escape His ultimate judgment

There is a little nuance present here. We are not condemned for a failure to believe the Gospel

We are already condemned and the Gospel is the only way of salvation. If we miss the Gospel, we miss the hope of Jesus completely

Second, and I believe more strongly this to be the case, Christians cannot neglect their salvation without consequence

In a generation struggling to stay faithful to Jesus, this matters greatly

There may be a high cost to following Jesus, but it turns out the cost of not following is greater

This is more than just eternal fire insurance, but there are actual tangible losses that we experience if we drift away from Jesus and neglect the salvation that He has given us!

For most of the last decade, Chicagoans who worked in the Loop, the booming downtown business district, could easily ignore the city's budget crisis; Washington's cutback of aid to cities didn't seem to hurt business. Last week, they learned one price of neglecting the underpinnings of all that economic growth. A quarter billion gallons of murky Chicago River water gushed into a 60-mile network of turn-of-the-century freight tunnels under the Loop and brought nearly all businesses to a soggy halt. 

It turned out that a top city official had known about the leak, but, acting for a cash-strapped government, had delayed repairs costing only about $50,000. The final cost of the damage could run higher than $1 billion. 

U.S. News & World Report, April 27, 1992.

III. Do Not Ignore God’s Testimony vv. 3b-4

Third, we see the testimony of God to the Gospel, greater than the testimony of the angels

Jesus declared the Good News to us; in fact, He is the Good News

The Church has affirmed it, from the women at the tomb, to the Apostles, right on down to those whose lives have been transformed by it

God the Father has born witness to it by moving in power performing all kinds of miraculous works

The Holy Spirit testifies to it in the lives of individuals by supernaturally gifting them for the work of ministry so that the life of God is present in a completely new way in His people

This testimony to the Gospel is just as certain as the testimony of the Law; to deny Jesus is to deny what we have seen, heard, and experienced

It is a rejection of a gift that we have received; we cannot do this without consequence!

I recently received a gift, and it means an awful lot to me. It’s a picture of a shrimp boat. Exciting, right? Well, it is if you are a Landry! It’s a picture of the Apache Chief, a boat that my family built back in the 70’s. It was part of a series of boats that were some of the best wooden shrimp boats ever built in the Gulf. Years ago, someone took a picture of the boat coming back into the Bayou and for my father’s 65th birthday, my mother had a local water color artist make a painting from the original. He was so pleased with it that he issued a limited run of prints, so my mom got my sister and I each a print for our birthdays this year. I have this gift and it is intimately connected to the giver. I cannot reject or neglect the gift, without rejecting the giver!