Good morning!

I hope all of you got plent of rest last night.

Today we are going to talk about something that we all experience, but I don’t think we ever give it much thought.

In our lives we face many different scenarios that tempt us to turn away from God because things get difficult.

Today I want us to see in our passage from Hebrews, that the author is addressing that tension and giving us the tools to deal with it.

Why it is important to deal with it is also addressed, but we will talk about that next week.

Today I want us to key in on one idea.

Tension Tempts Us To Turn Away

Sitting in the class on driver safety at PEI and hearing the testimony of a father that lost his daughter because of distracted driving.

I cried in a room full of men as the presenter tore open the wound that was left because of the death of his daughter.

I thought of my kids, my habits, and how it would feel if I caused a loss or experienced a loss myself.

I know the consequences of distracted driving. I don’t want to experience them, yet I often find myself being wreckless not only when I’m alone, but also when I have my family in the car.

There is tension in me when I get a notification on my phone.

I’m not justifying, just identifying the sense of urgency that rises up in me when I hear that ding.

What if it is a client that needs my help?

What if it is a church member?

TRANSITION!

Follow me here.

At that moment, there is tension between what I know I should do, and what I want to do.

That tension tempts to me turn away from what I know to be true.

Tension is pulling me from truth toward perceived importance.

We all experience the struggle between truth and our desire to please ourselves or others.

The root of what we are dealing with is a desire to make ourselves happy or responding appropriately to others so that they are happy with us.

I know we all struggle in similar ways...

For some people that tension is felt with family or friends.

We make a decision to follow God and people we love and respect disagree with.

We know that God has spoken, but they don’t understand that.

The tension is felt between listening to God or pleasing others.

Ashley and Levi...

Sometimes we feel the tension when God tells us to do something difficult.

The cost of obedience just seems too high.

The desire to do what we want feels greater than our desire to walk in obedience.

While we know the long-term benefits of listening to God, what we are being asked to do just seems too painful.

We can experience tension when we compare our lives to someone else's.

The grass is greener on the other side.

We look at the lives of the people around us and think that their lives are better than ours.

The desire for a better life pulls at us, creating tension.

Where do you experience tension in your life that tempts you to turn away?

How did you deal with the tension?

TRANSITION!

You may be realizing now that none of us are alone in feeling this tension.

Tension tempting us to turn away from God is not new.

This tension is something that every living person has experienced every day of their life.

In fact, this tension has existed since sin entered the world.

Adam and Eve felt this tension and failed to stand with resolve.

Cain and Abel felt it too.

This tension is the focus of what the author of Hebrews calls our attention to in chapter two verse one.

Look at it with me.

Hebrews 2:1 CSB

1 For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away.

What is he referring to by saying, “For this reason”?

We talked about this last week.

The religious leaders in the Jewish community were trying to convince Jesus’ followers that Jesus wasn’t the son of God.

They were building a case saying that he was just an angel.

The temptation for the church was to accept this lie so that they could return to their families, jobs, and community.

There was a HUGE amount of tension in their lives.

They had literally given up everything in order to follow Christ.

The weariness that comes from losing so much was eating away at their resolve.

That tension was tempting them to turn away from Jesus.

We experience tension just like they did.

We are in danger of drifting away if we give in to the tension.

How do we keep ourselves and one another from drifting away?

God has given us tools to deal with the tension and temptation that we face.

The author of Hebrews is showing us two of those tools.

The first way we deal with tension by paying attention.

One of the ways that the enemy pulls at us is by making the tension seem normal.

There is a great example of this in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters in which Screwtape tells Wormwood to keep the Patient at odds with his mother through “pinpricks”.

We weren’t created to live in the tension, but he tries daily to convince us that we are.

Paul addressed this tension in 1 Cor 9:24-27.

1 Corinthians 9:24–27 CSB

24 Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. 25 Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown. 26 So I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. 27 Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

We fight the tension by paying attention to it and working against it.

We are not passive in the process.

Passivity will eventually cause us to drift away.

When we make the decision to fight against the tension, we are pursuing God’s desire for us and his Holy Spirit that lives in us will empower us.

We are not able to do this alone, that is why Jesus told us that he would send a helper.

We deal with the temptation by surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit and letting him fight on our behalf.

This isn’t automatic for us, we have to be intentional.

The second way we deal with the tension is by remembering what God has done for us.

The very first thing that the author of Hebrews does is to remind the hearers that God has always spoken to his people.

God’s desire is to reveal himself by being active in their lives.

When we meet that tension that tempts us to turn away from the truth, we remember how God has revealed the truth to us in the past.

There are other specific examples of this in scripture.

Look with me at one that is cross referenced in Hebrews 2:1.

We see a note to look at Joshua 24:27

Joshua 24:27 CSB

27 And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone—it will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the Lord said to us, and it will be a witness against you, so that you will not deny your God.”

Joshua is in the process of leading the Israelites into the promised land.

He knew, by experience, that his people felt an ongoing tension to turn away from God and worship idols.

So, Joshua gives them a way to deal with the tension.

Josuha reminded the people of all that God had done for them and asked them to make a choice. Who would they worship? They set up stones as a reminder to one another that they chose and committed to worshiping God alone.

How does remembering God’s past activity help us persevere when we are struggling?

TRANSITION!

Stack the stones around the alter as I explain the value of a visible reminder of a commitment.

Every one of us is going to face the temptation to turn away from the truth in an attempt to make our lives easier.

What do you do when we begin to feel that stress and tension building up?

Scripture has given us great tools.

You engage our minds and pay attention.

You use the power of God’s Holy Spirit that lives in you.

You remember what God has done in your past.

You gather with your community of believers and remember together.

Tension and temptation cannot be escaped from while we live in this world.

But, God has placed his Holy Spirit inside of each of us.

One of the most significant reasons that God asks us to live in community is so that we can work together to deal with the tension that we face.

Talking about our struggles allows us to release some of the tension by simply saying it out loud.

It also gives us the opportunity to encourage one another and to remember together what God has done in our lives.

If God spoke for you to take a job and then you find it to be difficult, that tension tempts you to turn away from what God spoke.

The desire to release the tension can become greater than the desire to follow God if you allow it to build up in you.

Talk about that tension with your life group.

Allow yourself the opportunity to release the tension in a good way by addressing it.

Receive the reminder and encouragement from your group as they remind you of what God has spoken.

TRANSITION!

As I said earlier, you are not alone in experiencing this tension that tempts you to turn away.

We all feel this every day.

Each and every one of us face the temptation to take the easy road rather than the one that will lead us to greater knowledge of God by experience.

None of us are alone in experiencing tension in our lives.

How does it make you feel to know that you aren’t the only one that struggles with tension in your life?

Is there any tension in your life that you would like to talk through with the group?

The enemy wants us to feel like we are the only ones.

Gathering together and discussing it breaks that lie and helps us to cope.

You can deal with the tension by paying attention to where you are feeling it and by remembering what God has done in the past and promises for the future.

All of us are going to face tension that will tempt us to give up on what God is doing in our lives.

Rather than running or giving in to the tension, we can face it.

With the power of the Holy Spirit, we can see the tension and let God deal with it.

This is one of the reasons that our life groups are so important in all of our lives.

We can’t experience the level of comfort on a Sunday morning as we can when we gather with our LG.

We get a couple of hours each week in which we can discuss what God is doing in our lives and how we are responding to that work.

God has set us up to have regular intervals in which we can be encouraged and uplifted.

Tension tempts us all, but it doesn’t have to turn us away from God.

Tension tempts us to turn away, but if we can learn to recognize it for what it is, we can also learn to let God dissolve it.

Tension doesn’t have to control our lives and be a source of temptation.

If we can learn to recognize the tension, instead of being a source of temptation, it can become a marker in our day that reveals God’s activity.

Tension can become the catalyst that leads us into an opportunity to experience the power of the Holy Spirit and to share our story with others.

When we begin to see that tension as an opportunity to pursue God and understand why we should, everything changes.

You’ll have to wait until next week and we will talk about the why.

Let’s pray.