The Danger of Drifting

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Most of you have probably seen the pictures of the devastating condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida in June of this year. While the collapse occurred suddenly in the middle of the night, the underlying causes of the collapse had been happening little by little over many years. While the exact cause of the collapse has not been officially determined, there is good evidence that water penetration and erosion of the reinforcing steel in the ground level parking structure under the housing units was a major contributing factor. That degradation had been happening over a long period of time before it finally became so bad that it caused the entire structure to collapse.

Tension

Unfortunately, it is possible for the same thing to happen in our walk with Jesus. We can begin to drift away from Him in such small increments that we don’t even notice. But eventually some crisis or trial comes into our lives and because we’ve allowed our spiritual foundation to deteriorate little by little, our lives come crashing down.

As we continue our study of the book of Hebrews this morning, we’re going to see a warning about drifting away from Jesus like that.

Truth

Originally I planned to cover the first 13 verses in chapter 2 this morning, but as I began to study the passage, it became apparent pretty quickly that the first four verses merit a closer, deeper look. And verses 5-13 really fit better with the last part of the chapter anyway. So this morning, we’ll cover verses 1-4 and then next week, we’ll finish the rest of chapter 2.

Before I read our passage, I need to take a few minutes to give you some important background information.

This is the first of five “warning passages” we will encounter in the book of Hebrews. And there is little doubt that these passages are by far the most difficult to handle in the entire book and are the reason many consider the book of Hebrews to be the most difficult books in the Bible to understand.

So I need to let you know right up front that there are a number of different ways to interpret these passages, and not surprisingly there is quite a bit of contention between various theological camps on how to approach these passages. I am going to approach these passages from a perspective that is consistent with my overall understanding of the Bible, but I want to make it really clear right up front that there are other approaches and I don’t want to in any way leave you with the impression I have this all figured out.

There are numerous ways to understand these warning passages, but they basically boil down into four predominant approaches. I’m not going to go into those approaches in any detail this morning, but I do want to focus on the important questions that each of those approaches attempts to answer:

APPROACHES TO THE WARNING PASSAGES IN HEBREWS

Question #1: Are these passages addressed to believers or unbelievers?

Whoever the author is, he frequently uses the pronouns “we” and “us” when giving these warnings, although in at least one of the warnings, he does use third person pronouns. He also refers to his audience using terms like “holy brothers”. So it certainly seems that he is writing primarily to his fellow believers.

However I do think it is at least possible that he is writing to a specific local congregation. And just like we find in churches today, it is likely that the congregation contains both genuine believers as well as those who might look like disciples of Jesus on the outside but whose faith is not genuine.

It seems pretty clear here that this is not intended to be an evangelistic letter addressed to unbelievers.

Question #2: What is the penalty for not heeding the warnings?

This is probably the point of greatest contention among the various views. There are some who teach that the penalty is a loss of one’s salvation. And in fairness to those who hold that position, some of these warnings certainly do appear to be suggesting that is a possibility.

From my perspective, the idea that a genuine believer can lose his or her salvation seems to contradict many other New Testament passages that seem to teach just the opposite. It is also important to note that the book of Hebrews is filled with passages that emphasize the confidence that should accompany our salvation and reminders about God’s promises and faithfulness to His children. So I don’t believe that is what the author is teaching here.

To me, the warnings seem to me to be more of an encouragement to not just hang onto Jesus, but to take their walk with Him to an even deeper level. Ultimately that is going to be what will keep them from returning to their Jewish religion and abandoning Jesus.

Although I have certainly seen Hebrews and other Bible passages used like that to basically “scare” people into obeying Jesus because if they don’t they might lose their salvation, I don’t think that is what the writer of Hebrews intends to do here. If that was his intention, I think he could have certainly made that point much more directly.

So if the penalty for not heeding these warnings is not a loss of one’s salvation, what is it? While I’m not sure I can answer that question definitively, I think it is helpful to consider...

Three tenses of salvation:

Past - justification. I was saved and made positionally right with God the very moment I placed my faith in Jesus. Because that aspect of my salvation is 100% the result of what Jesus did for me and not because of anything I did to deserve it, I am confident in saying that I can’t do anything to lose it either.

Present - sanctification. I am being saved right now in the sense that I am growing in my walk with Jesus and becoming more like Him. Ignoring the warnings in Hebrews can definitely cause me to lose out on that aspect of my salvation.

Future - glorification. This will happen at Jesus’ return when my resurrection body will be united with my soul and spirit and I will live eternally in the physical presence of Jesus. There are several places in the Bible where we are told that genuine believers will face a judgment - not for the purpose of determining their eternal destiny since that was established once and for all when they put their faith in Jesus - but rather for the purpose of receiving rewards based on their fruitfulness for Jesus and His kingdom here on earth. It seems that a failure to heed these warnings will also impact that aspect of our salvation and we might possibly lose out on rewards that we might have otherwise received.

Question #3: What is the purpose of the warnings?

Based on the answers to our first two questions, I don’t think the purpose is primarily evangelistic. The author is not trying to convince those who might be on the fence to go ahead and put their faith in Jesus for the first time.

I also don’t think he is trying to scare these believers into sticking with Jesus by getting them to worry about their salvation. He is not saying, you better do what I’m telling you because if you don’t you’re going to end up in hell.

I think his purpose is much more pastoral. He wants his fellow believers to mature in their faith and take their walk with Jesus to an even deeper level. That is ultimately what will keep them from returning to their Jewish religion and abandoning Jesus. The more they understand Jesus and the gospel, the less likely they are to leave Him for something far inferior.

I know that’s a lot before we’ve even read our passage, but I think you’ll understand in a moment why I’ve spent so much time setting the stage. So let’s go ahead and read our passage:

Hebrews 2:1–4 ESV

1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 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, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Here is the main idea we’re going to develop from this passage.

In my walk with Jesus I will either drift due to neglect or grow because of deliberate attention

Back when I was in college, I used to go fishing at Reservation Lake with some of my buddies as soon as the spring semester ended. Much of the time the water was fairly calm so we could pretty much just float around wherever we were catching fish and our boat really didn’t move around a lot. Many times we wouldn’t even drop an anchor.

But on one of those trips we were in the middle of the lake when a storm blew in and the wind really whipped up. So we had two choices. We could either just let the wind push us to the opposite end of the lake from our campsite or we could row against the wind and try to get back to our campsite. Since we were afraid to switch who was rowing because we would lose much of the progress we had already made, I ended up rowing that boat for what seemed like an eternity, even though it was probably only 10-15 minutes.

I think that is a pretty good illustration of our walk with Jesus. If we just drift and let our culture and others to determine our destination, we’re going to end up a long way from where Jesus wants us to be. But if we’ll persevere and give deliberate attention to the things that really matter, we will stay much closer to Jesus and live a life that is pleasing to Him and brings Him glory.

Let’s begin with a look at the overall argument that the author is making here and then we’ll dig into some of the details.

The author of Hebrews frequently makes use of the Hebrew practice of arguing from the lesser to the greater. Here he argues that if there were severe consequences for the Israelites who neglected the Law in the Old Testament, the consequences for rejecting Jesus, who is far greater than the Law, must also be much greater. Notice that he really doesn’t go into detail about the exact consequences they will face, but the implication is that they will be severe.

The connecting word “therefore” is crucial here because it points us back to what we learned about last week, that Jesus is God’s final message. Therefore He is far superior to the angels who declared the Law and to the Law itself.

I don’t want it to distract us from our main focus here, but the idea that angels were involved in the declaration of the Old Testament law is really interesting to me. We’re going to pursue that idea in more detail in the Bible Roundtable.

The English translation really can’t capture the urgency of the author’s exhortation here. The word translated “must” is a present tense verb that means that this is an urgent obligation and not merely an option. Every single one of us must take deliberate action to prevent it or we will drift in our relationship with Jesus.

Application

In our remaining time, I want to briefly talk about the three main reasons that most Christians drift and then end by talking about the antidote to that.

THREE REASONS MOST CHRISTIANS DRIFT

Time

In almost every area of our lives, unless we take deliberate action to prevent it, we are likely to drift. If you doubt that watch a child who gets an expensive new toy at Christmas, plays with it for a while and then finds that the box that it came in is a lot more fun. My guess is that many of you have something in your house that you really enjoyed at first, but quickly tired of and no longer use. Over time, your desire for those things that once seemed very important tends to wane.

The same is true for our walk with Jesus, If we don’t take deliberate action to prevent it, our love for Jesus will wane over time. Think about when you first put your faith in Jesus or about what you have observed in the lives of others when they made that decision. When a person first becomes a disciple of Jesus, he or she is usually on fire for Him. They can’t wait to tell others about Him. But over time that enthusiasm slowly diminishes. And unless we take deliberate steps to prevent it, we are likely to do the same thing.

Familiarity

Familiarity with the truths about Jesus can often lead to a lack of awe and wonder. If we’re not careful we can begin to take the idea that God loved me enough to send His Son to die in my place for granted. We can easily forget that without Jesus we would all be facing the wrath of God that we deserve. So again, we need to intentionally take steps to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Busyness

We all have a tendency to get caught up in matters that we view as urgent, but which are not actually all that important in light of eternity. Usually that doesn’t happen all at once. We drift and before we know it, we have let the urgent crowd out the things that really matter when it comes to our relationship with Jesus.

We figure it will be OK if we just miss a day of Bible reading. And then it’s two days, and a week, and a month and before we know it, we’ve drifted away altogether.

I’ve found that there is a really practical way to know if I’ve drifted away from Jesus because of busyness. If I ever find myself saying something like, “I’ll get around to that when…when things slow down at work, when I’ve paid off my car loan, when I finish my class, when my kids leave home...” then chances are I’ve allowed the busyness of my life to cause me to drift away from Jesus.

Fortunately the writer of Hebrews makes the antidote to drifting really clear:

THE ANTIDOTE TO DRIFTING

Pay attention!

The verb translated “pay attention” here literally means “to hold to”. Interestingly, it was used to describe mooring a ship, which is exactly what must be done to keep it from drifting. It is also a present tense verb which means that it is something that we have to continue to do on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis.

In particular, the author exhorted his audience to pay attention to what they have heard. No doubt that he is calling their attention back to chapter 1 where he had proclaimed the superiority of Jesus over the angels and made clear that Jesus is 100% God.

It is interesting here that the author doesn’t claim to have heard Jesus directly. So in that sense, He is a lot like us. But, as we see in verses 3 and 4, there are a number of reasons we can be confident that the Scriptures are a reliable account of the person and ministry of Jesus:

Jesus declared it

Eyewitnesses attested to it

Signs and wonders confirmed it

Gifts of the Holy Spirit confirmed it

For us, the main way we hear Jesus is through His Word - the Bible. And we can be confident that the Bible is reliable and true because of those same witnesses.

I will readily admit that there are times in my life when I haven’t paid attention to Mary as much as I should, almost always to my detriment. I can think of at least one time in my life where I had already made up my mind what I wanted to do, so while I heard what she said, I didn’t really listen and take it to heart. There have been other times when I’ve listened to her, but to be honest I’ve been distracted by a notification on my phone or what’s on TV or even just absorbed in my own thoughts.

Last fall we took a few days off and headed up to Oak Creek Canyon and stayed in a cabin that had no phone, no TV, no cell phone service, and no internet. And free of those distractions we had time to really sit down and talk and, free of all those distractions, I was an attentive listener. I need to do that more.

I think that’s a pretty good illustration of the different ways we can approach the Bible. If we merely read our Bibles out of a sense of obligation rather than because we really want to know Jesus better, we probably won’t pay close attention to what we’re reading. We’ll see the words on the page, but we really won’t take anything away from what we read. Or we come to it with the mindset that we’re going to do what we’ve already decided to do regardless of what we see in the Scriptures. Or maybe we come to church and listen to a sermon, but frankly we’re thinking more about where we’re going to eat lunch today or we’re thinking “I already know that” or “I’ve heard that before a hundred times” so we really don’t really listen. And therefore we don’t do anything to change our lives in response to what we’ve heard. And so we drift.

In my walk with Jesus I will either drift due to neglect or grow because of deliberate attention

When it comes to my walk with Jesus, there is no such thing as standing still. Life on this earth is a lot more like a river than a calm lake. And it is a river that is flowing to destruction, both in this life and in the one to come. So there is really impossible to just stand still. I will either take deliberate steps to go against the flow in this world so that I can remain close to Jesus and grow in my relationship with Him, or I will drift and go backwards. Those are the only two options.

Action

So here is what I want to ask everyone to do this morning. I want you to make a quick evaluation of your walk with Jesus by answering these questions:

Have I put my faith in Jesus alone?

The author of Hebrews is writing to those who have already done that. But, as I’ve suggested, I think it is very possible that he is also writing here to those who say they have done that, but whose lives give no evidence that their decision was genuine. So in answering that question, you need to evaluate whether your life shows evidence that decision is real. And if you haven’t already made that decision, we want to urge you to do that today. And we’re here to help you take that step.

In which direction is my life going right now?

Am I drifting away from Jesus and toward the world, or am I growing closer to Jesus? As we’ve seen this morning those are really the only two options. If you can’t see any difference in your relationship with Jesus than where you were at a year ago or five years ago, then chances are you are drifting away from Jesus and toward the world.

What deliberate disciplines have I built into my life to keep me from drifting?

At a minimum that ought to include things like reading your Bible on a systematic basis, regular prayer, corporate worship, serving others, and good stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to you.

What is one thing I could do in my life to give more deliberate attention to my walk with Jesus?

Perhaps that is one of the disciplines I just mentioned that you aren’t currently practicing. Or maybe it’s committing to being part of a small group Bible study or finding a place of service here at TFC.

As you answer those questions, I just want to let you know that we’re here to help you take those next steps. You don’t have to do that on your own. But we can’t help unless you ask.

Inspiration

My prayer for all of us this morning is that we wouldn’t be like that condo building in Surfside, that we wouldn’t allow years of steady drifting and deterioration undermine our lives to the point that they come tumbling down. The good news is that we don’t have to let our lives crumble like that. Jesus truly is “greater than” anything or anyone that could undermine our lives and if we’ll just moor our lives to Him so we don’t go drifting away, He will keep us standing through whatever difficulties and trials this life might bring.