Pay Attention!

Introduction

Main Point: Pay Attention

The beginning of chapter 2 is a forceful warning and yet rings with an elequent stye of a skilled speaker and writer.

“Therefore”

Our text begins with the word therefore. A very important technique to learn when interpreting the Bible is that, when you see words like thereefore that are obviously refering to something previous in the text. If we do no take that context into account, we are likely to take the passage out of context and make it say something it isn’t. In this case, if we are to take the warning seriously and know what it is we are to pay close attention to, we have to keep the previous chapter of this sermon in mind.

I think we have studied this chapter enough to get the general picture. The author has shown us that, while God revealed himself in the past in pieces of his speech through prophets, now God has completed his communication to humanity with the coming of the Son of God. The Son’s position is than shown to be of such quality and loftiness that there is no better possible method for communication from God than through Him. He is God the Son from eternity past, having the worship of angels and having created the universe, and he is the Son of God as a human decendant of King David.

His position above the Angels, even being their object of worship, shows us his divine status as well as the hope for those who recieve God’s communication through the Son. While Angels are great and powerful heavenly beings, their ultimate purpose is to serve for the sake of those whom the Son has called to salvation.

This salvation is the ultimate purpose of God’s revelation and speech. God has spoken through the Son so that sinner may be brought into a relasionship of reconciliation and salvation through the payment for sins made by the Son.

The author spent all this time from verse 5 till now convincing us that the Son is greater than the Angels, and we will soon see why this is so important. While the angels serve God by serving the inheriters of salvation, the church being addressed here seems to be in danger of falling away from the salvation.

One commentator writes:

“The angels may have been attentive to God’s Son and to the needs of his people, but the people are in danger of becoming inattentive to the message Christ brought.”

So our text transitions us from a theological treatise to a very practical caution. It becomes clear that the author of Hebrews is not primarily motivated by theological rhetoric, but rather the rhetoric is motivated by a very real need in the church he is addressing. He is developing their view of the Son so that they will take the action he is warning them to take. The logic is something like this:

God revealed himself in the past (through prophets and angels).

When God’s revelation was rejected, rebellion was punished according to what was rejected. The clearer and more lofty the messenger, the greater the rejection and following punishment.

People in the OT still drifted away from God’s Word and were punished.

The Son of God is greater than the prophets and angels, and therefore brings a greater and more perfect revelation of God.

Rejecting this revelation will have consequences just like they did in the OT.

Therefore, we must pay close attention to what we have recieved from God by the Son.

Pay More Attention

Pay more attention than what?

Here, the warning is given in a bit of a softer way than later on in the letter. He isn’t specific in the problems of the church and he uses the inclusive “we” instead of “you”, whereas later he will be more direct in his warnings. Again, as a skilled communicator, the author does not want his audience to initially be overwhelmed with guilt or fear. Instead, he wants them overwhelmed by the glorious exaltation of the Son, and as a result they should develop a great care to pay attention.

So pay more attention probably doesn’t mean he is accusing them of not paying enough attention, although this may be his fear, but rather that more attention should be given to the gospel than to any other revelation of God, whether through angel or prophet. In other words, if there is one thing that we ought to pay attention to, it is what has been revealed through the Son.

Paying attention here is more than the kind of attention you would pay in school, making sure you adopt the relevant information for the class so that you are able to reproduce it on a test or in the field. The Greek word here is prosechien which literally means to have or to hold onto something. Idiomatically, it means to be concerned about something and to take great care of it, or to guard yourself lest you should lose hold of it. This translates into the idea of paying attention when the thing being held onto is an idea or teaching which has been passed along to you. Paying attention means to take what you have been taught, what you have heard, and guard it. It means to hold it as dearest to us, as most central to who we are, to make it the centre of our thoughts and actions, to meditate on it and digest it. It means to face and combat lies that set themselves up against it, again all because of who it comes from.

To What We Have Heard

What is it exactly we are holding on and paying extra attention to? It is what we have heard. Now, of course this isn’t broadly speaking of everything we have ever heard, but specifically what we have heard revealed from God through his Son.

Again, while God has previously revealed himself, both through general revelation in the created world and special revelation through the prophets of the OT, the fullness of God revealing himself has come through his Son. As we’ve seen, the author has successfully argued that there is no better avenue for God to show himself to us, which is why we ought to pay such close attention.

But what exactly is it that the Son has revealed? It is the message which the NT consistently calls the Gospel, the good news which Jesus came to give us (Mark 1:38; Matt 11:5). What does this include? Jesus, in his ministry, revealed the Gospel little by little, sometimes certain parts only to his disciples, but from our perspective we can look back and see what it contained:

The Kingdom of God (and its King) had arrived.

Along with this, God has come to dwell with his people through this King.

God’s people would be healed, restored, and cared for, as was evident in Jesus’ miracles.

Evil would be defeated and subdued, as was evident in Jesus’ command over natural and spiritual forces.

The sins of God’s people would be forgiven.

All this would ultimately be accomplished by the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

Whoever believes on the Son of God will be saved.

The Gospel is this, along with all it implies in the Christian life. For example, to believe the Gospel seriously means to join yourself to Christ and his church visibly through baptism, worship with his people, take of his Table rightly, and of course taking up the cross and follow Jesus obediently and faithfully.

Now, we will see in the future that, although it was Jesus who came and delivered this message, it was not to the Hebrew Christians directly, and maybe not even to the author himself (as we do not know who he is). This is where the witness of the Apostles is key, and is the foundation of the authority of the NT. But we will get into that more next time.

Lest We Drift

This text ends with the danger which this warning would have us avoid, a drifting away.

The word behind drift here can refer to a boat floating out to sea because it is not anchored, or a ring slipping off of one’s finger. It has the idea, not of an abrupt and sudden apostacy, but a slow drift away from faith little by little.

This finally brings out the purpose of this letter, a theme that the author will return to several times throughout this work. He is writing because of his fear that some of the readers may be in danger of falling away from the faith. Not that they have yet, as he seems to make clear in 6:9, but he fears that it may be easy for them, in their current situation, to do so. The reason is never spelled out, but we can arrive at some educated guesses that it had to do either with persecution from the Roman world, pressure from their Jewish background, or both. Whatever the case, the author of Hebrews found it necessary to write this letter, not as a scathing rebuke like Paul with the Galatians, but as a strong yet kind reminder of who Christ is, what the Gospel they believed is, and what it means for us. He was showing them what they had to lose and what they had to gain depending on whether they continued their Christian walk or not.

The danger here is that if they lose sight of what they recieved from the Son of God, the Gospel that saves, they will slowly drift away from it and from the faith entirely. This is why the book starts with such lofty rhetoric about the Son; once we lose sight of the exaltation of Christ, there is little reason to be a Christian at all, especially when those around you are hostile towards the faith.

As we saw earlier, Christians are held to greater account than the OT Israelites since we have such a greater salvation and revelation of God delivered by the Son of God himself. The glory of the Son draws our hearts as those who have been created for this end, and the consequences of rejecting it remain a warning for us.

The danger is our own hearts. In chapter 3, the author will go into more detail as to why some in the OT failed to recieve God’s promises, and it was because of unbelief that led to disobedience. He warns the readers in Heb 3:12

Hebrews 3:12 ESV

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

Again, the danger here is not a sudden departure from the faith, but a slow drifting. This is far more insidious because it happens over time. Someone may announce that they are leaving their faith, but such a decision takes months or years to take place, where the foundations of faith are worn away, little by little, until the final straw causes the house to fall.

What causes such erosion of faith? Many Christians have debated this, especially over the last thirty or so years as less and less people are going to the churches they were raised in, and I’ve heard every theory there is. Some say it’s because we aren’t homeschooling. Some say it’s because children are being taught evolution. Some say it’s because we don’t teach our kids apologetics. Some say it’s because youth groups are not good enough, and some say it’s because of secular music and movies. None of these are the reason people leave the faith, whether they were raised into that faith or not.

The reason anyone falls away, or drifts away, from their faith is because they loose sight of the glory of the Son of God; perhaps they never saw it to begin with. Because they did not see his glory, they did not see the perfection of his Gospel, and so they did not take care when their heart began to fall in love with promises of sin and the comfort of worldly lies. At this point, they begin to drift. They do not reject the faith, maybe for years, but it begins to play less and less of a role in their lives. Like the seed scattered among the weeds, worldly things choke them out. Like the shallow soil, the seed is scorched by conflict. Why? Because they lost sight of the glory of the Son of God. There is no other reason, though other factors may push someone along.

Conclusion

So the author of Hebrews seeks to resurrect the faith-filled view of the glory of Christ so that his readers will be motivated to take care that they are not drifting in their faith. Whatever this church was going through at the time, the author knew it was likely going to test just how closely they were tethered to their faith, and so this warning was necessary. Like a storm may test just how well a boat is tied up to the dock, the pressures this church is beginning to face will test how firmly they are tied to Christ, and this will be determined by how they view his glory and the glory of God’s Word revealed in Him.

How does one gain such a view of faith, such an appreciation for the glory of God? This is the ultimate purpose of theology. Theology, when used poorly, becomes a simple intellectual pursuit. But when used correctly, theological study is a pursuit of the glory of Christ. We study to reflect and meditate on the glory which grabs out hearts and draws us into deeper communion and faith in the Son of God.

This study of theology must then be followed up by prayer and meditation. Times devoted to thinking upon these great truths and and using our lips to praise the Lord Jesus for who he is and for what he had done.

This also must be fortified by fellowship in love with the church. The church is meant to be the environment in which our faith is strengthened. That is the whole point of me preaching to you week after week, but it isn’t limited to preaching. Church membership is vital to your Christian life because you get the accountability of the church, which we see in Hebrews 3:13

Hebrews 3:13 ESV

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

If you do not think you need church membership, consider this. We cannot hold you accountable in your Christian life if you have not allowed us to do so.

Finally, the greatest takeaway from this text is simple. There needs to be a regular, soberminded examination of ourselves. This doesn’t mean constantly questioning your salvation, but rather testing your attention. How much attention are you putting on Christ lately? How much are you rejoicing in the Gospel? How much are you meditating on the glory of the Son of God? How much are you finding joy in serving his people in love because you love him so much? How much do you take joy in prayers of praise to the Lamb who was slain for your sins? How much do you study in wonder at the way Christ was revealed, little by little, in the OT and then fully unvailed in the person of Jesus? What does repentence from sin look like in your life? If you are drifting, are you getting other Christians involved in your struggle, your fellow Church members who are in covenant with you to love you and support you?

Let yourself question these everyday, and you will keep yourself safely moored for the day of the storm and from the drifting of a sinful heart. We have everything to lose and everything to gain, so we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard about salvation from the Son of God so that we do not drift away from it.