Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro to series

Before we begin this week I wanted to take a few minutes and introduce Robin, myself, my family and a little bit of what I am hoping for this week is to look at all the things we have going on in our world and through all of them see Christ as the largest and greatest.

As missionaries and leaders in the church, you are on the front lines of most everything.

You are on the front lines to see and experience both incredible joy and incredible sorrow.

And being on the front lines of anything allows us the experience of that thing but without the benefit of understanding it or reflecting on it.

Pastors and church leaders stand on the line of experience and don’t often have the benefit of understanding the depths or meaning of those experiences because the next one is just down the lane.

The real problem isn’t therapeutic it is spiritual.

Because when we face this constant onslaught on things, big and small, we easily miss what is most important.

In our work, easily the closest thing in our lives is the biggest.

And the constant struggle is knowing where we stand and how to know Christ as the greatest and closest in our lives.

When we moved from Oregon in the Nw to Mass in the Ne we took a long 2 week roadtrip across the entire us.

You could not do a more coast to coast move.

If you folded a map of the us in half the two places we were moving to would meet.

But instead of going directly east we went south through California and then through Texas and north to WI and then to OH and PA and then finally Ma.

We were in Alberquerqe NM and we were leaving the hotel and my wife saw a huge chunk of tire missing from the front tire.

So we stopped by a tire center and were talking about what tires we need.

WE mentioned getting snow tires because we were moving to NE from the NW and he gave me a strange look.

Do you know where you are? he asked.

He was kidding but he was trying to get some more information about why we were so far south.

That question, do you know where you are, seems to be what the writer of Hebrews is asking.

He addresses old systems of trust and current circumstances of struggle and trial.

And he weaves through it an ongoing invitation to see Christ as closer and better than anything we could encounter or trust in.

While the author is unknown, we do know that he understood the context of the current Christians and the Old Testament well.

He threads the entire letter by showing us the supremacy of Christ in everything.

The author takes incredible pains to show Christ is eminent in everything.

We will see the many times and many ways God has used and then the many time and many ways we have tried to see Christ.

Because the author realizes that there is dissatisfaction with life as it is.

A discomfort.

A lack, as he spends chapters talking about, rest.

And the question, do you know where you are is helpful for us as ministers of the Gospel and is a helpful tool for diagnosing the cultural realities we are seeing in people’s lives.

To remedy discomfort, or a lack of rest, we are given Christ.

The author of Hebrews is continually putting everything he comes by on a scale compared to Christ to ask what is closer and what is greater.

So we are going to look at passages and see Christ who is greater than all we can ever know and imagine.

My hope this week is we would discern the road we are on and respond to the Spirit who continually calls us back into Christ who is beyond and better

JRR Tolkien was an author in the early 20th century.

He wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy and was a soldier in WWI.

Most of what he writes as a Christian is in response to his time in the war and the atrocities he experienced.

He then wrote LOTR after experiencing WWII as a civivilian in the Uk.

And here is what is summed up about his and CS Lewis, his contemporary, writing

“Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.”

― Joseph Loconte, A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

I can’t think of a more apt quote for 2022 end pandemic need for our world.

We need a reintroduction of our Christian vision of hope.

So let’s begin by looking into Hebews 2. We will be looking at this idea for this morning.

While the world drifts the Gospel grips.

The writer of Hebrews is always seeming to call us to attention.

Remember and pay attention and don’t forget!

So let’s just get this out of the way.

Nothing I’m going to say to is new.

It’s not revolutionary.

But it is expansive.

I will elaborate on what we know be true and try to find some new nooks and crannies where the Gospel can be applied.

But even this first reality sets up a contrast that the book of Hebrews wants us to understand

Teh writer uses this word, “drift.”

And it means just that.

it is not a strong word but means that something slowly being washed away, gradually moving a distance away from you.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

You look up and all the sudden it is gone.

My mom has six siblings who all mostly still live near the town where we grew up near Milwaukee WI.

So there were always cousins younger than me running around.

My grandpa owned some land with a small cottage and a man made pond.

The pond was maybe 2 acres.

Not that big.

But we could swim in it and growing up we spent our summers at the pond celebrating whatever we could.

Like I said my mom had a big family and we all lived near each other so we would gather and there would automatically be 30 to 40 of us, kids to adults.

The kids loved to swim and the parents loved to let the kids swim.

One sunny afternoon my cousin Teddy, who was maybe 3 at the time, was placed into a inflatable raft at the edge of the pond.

We set him adrift and weren’t too concerned until he drifted into the middle of the pond.

Not too far for an adult but all the adults were otherwise occupied and the kids were watching my 3 year old cousin drift into uncharted waters.

We finally told the adults what was going on and they went into action.

Someone jumped into the pond and someone else caught it on an 80s video camera.

You can see my cousin just sitting on the raft not really sure what to do.

not afraid but not letting his guard down.

And in the camera you can see one of my uncles finally make it to the raft and in a moment you see his hand grip the raft.

My cousin is finally safe.

And we are in big trouble.

I think the last two years have felt just like that.

Drift.

While it was sudden in march of 2020, the last nearly two years have felt like drift.

Like things and people and ideas and even faith is kind of drifting.

Everything seemed to be capable of drifting.

I started counting and paying attention to the stuff that didn’t drift.

To the things that didn’t float away.

And wanted to figure out why.

this is a thesis for the week.

Why drift and how grip

What remained gripped and safe?

What drifted?

I imagine there are drifts and grips in your own life as well.

Where some things that you were sure would remain drifted and other things you weren’t sure about gripped.

As we go through this week it can be a helpful inventory to pay attention to what is drifting and to what is gripped.

Hebrews 2:1-4

The Gospel is more trustworthy than trials or struggles

We are warned right away to pay attention, in fact that will keep coming up.

Not as a warning but as an exhortation.

As a reminder.

Because we drift.

We get distracted.

And so a lot of Hebrews is reminding us of what can be trusted.

The Gospel message is proved to be reliable, meaning it has been tested, it has been held up.