Hebrews (3)
Notes
Transcript
13 The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud,
14 and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.
23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches,
24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
14 Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
Therefore. We. Drift.
Therefore. We. Drift.
Introduction:
USHER’ please come up.
Today is the last Sunday to sign up for the Zoo next weekend, as well as nerf war.
Dont forget youth
1st place price picks between $50 bucks or Deciding what we do next month of September for our next adventure.
In a media saturated culture we find it difficult to experience peace, contentment, and a deeper connection with others. When we as the church add spiritual growth into the mix and chances are it finds little room in an otherwise hectic schedule.
Rick Bragg, a writer, said “It is as if we have tried to fill up what stillness there is with all the mindless nonsense we can conjure, as if a little quiet or a patch of peaceful dark is a bug that has to be stomped before it gets away.” At times that is true .
With this type of business i wonder what all is really effected not only physically in our life’s but Spiritually in our new Life’s.
It will be 15 years ago tmrw (August 1, 2007) that the bridge which spanned the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, resulting in the death of 13 and injuring 145. It was a 40-year-old bridge, and quite obviously there were hidden weaknesses that went undetected until it was too late. Sad to know, it can also happen to Christians.
Spiritual growth is your responsibility. As with anything, what you do not actively invest in will eventually deteriorate. If you feel like progress in your spiritual life has stalled, maybe its time to re-invest with intentionality.
We’ve been talking about the sovereignty of God.
If we stay FOCUSED on Jesus’ sovereignty (definition)
Sovereignty - supreme power or authority
Supremacy - condition of being superior to all others in authority, power, or status.
Then
When we fix our eyes upon Jesus
· Were not distracted
· Get stuff done
· Grow
When we focus on anything else in our life’s we
· Become distracted
· Procrastinate
· Become stagnant.
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
TODAY HOLY SPIRIT MINISTER TO EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US! SPEAK TO US AND THROUGH US. ILLUMINATE THINGS IN MY LIFE THAT ARE WORLDLY!
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
So today im going to
teach you about three words.
Preach to you about the application and then we are going to continue to
focus in on Holy Spirit Ministering to Us at the end.
As we lift up our burdens and lay down our life’s again together.
Because sometimes we just need to fall in love with our Heavenly Father all over again Amen.
(Prayer if led)
So our teaching.
There are three words we have to understand in this passage before we can understand the application.
They happen to be the title of this message.
Therefore. We. Drift
Therefore - because of that......
Is a bridge word We go from because of this theres that.
…we are going from a theological break down.
or Exposition of the previous passages.
Exposition is this like comprehensive explanation of some theological truths.
Christology
Angelology
The first Chapter was our call to see what God says of His son. And a look at the authority over in the supernatural That Jesus has inherited rightfully.
So in Chapter one we have this Exposition and
Now in Chapter two we start off with a Exhortation : this persuasive argument .
We call this the application of the theory.
So to make it easy as we see the outline break down of the book of hebrews because it goes like this often.
We have this description and then we have the application.
Therefore is a important word to look out for.
We tend to look towards the red lettering, Yet the therefore’s in the bible do the same things. Our Good God has given us deep descriptions and then tells us how to apply it to our lifes.
The New Testament likes to use the word “therefore” a lot. It’s a pretty simple idea. Something is the case, therefore this is what you should do.
It’s cold outside, you should put on a coat.
South Carolina loss bad at Clemson, therefore you should blame the referee.
Therefore always links two ideas –
something that is true, and something that implies.
For example
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Here is the command. We are not to associate with things like sexual immorality or impurity; no – we are put it to death. Put them to death. Even crucify them. But what is the suggestion that drives to this command of therefore?
That we have already died in Christ and been raised to new life. With a new self. And a new heart.
In this new life in Christ, then, we have been changed to fully embrace who we really are in Him and put to death what remains of our old selves.
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
In the previous eleven chapters, Paul explained the hopeless in the nature of sin.
He gave us the pathway of faith. He told us how we were set free from sin and death by the great sacrifice of Jesus, and that there is now no condemnation for us.
God is working all things together for our good and that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Therefore, "We must pay much closer attention" to the superior revelation we have received from God through Jesus Christ.
The original word for "pay much closer attention," "to hold" t is the sense of to hold "with extreme care." We must hold their minds with much closer attention to the great truth we find in our Great and Good Salvation.
Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) (Spoken, Confirmed, Witnessed: A Great Salvation)
Now this is a sobering word for the world and for the church, because most people do neglect the greatness of salvation.
How many people do you know who give serious, sustained attention to the salvation accomplished by Christ—who love it, and think about it, and meditate on it, and marvel at it, and feel continual gratitude for it, and commend it to others as valuable, and weave it into all the lesser things of their lives, and set their hopes on it? Do you live this way?
Is it not astonishing how neglectful even professing Christians are of their great salvation?Is there a sense of greatness in your mind about your salvation?
When something truly great is happening, there is an appropriate response to greatness. Do you respond to the greatness of your salvation?
Or do you neglect it? Do you treat your salvation the way you treat your will or the title to your car or the deed on your house?
You signed it once and it is in a file drawer somewhere, but it is not a really great thing. It has no daily effect on you. Basically you neglect it
We must hold more dearly our salvation. As you would hold a new born. You would be Joyfully and filled with emotions. After a few hours of hard labor the mother would grab for her child and hold baby tightly to her chest. Crying. Laughing. Calling the baby stubborn for taking so long to get to her.
Same way we should hold tight to our Salvation. A salvation not as fragile as a baby but much more precious. The salvation that brought you hope in a hopless time, The salvation that gave life when there was none!
The Salvation you testified to one day but have gotten all so distracted with the busyness of owning a home, having a spouse raising kids and taking care of loved ones.
That Salvation was brought to you by powerful mighty angels, brought to you by the booming voice of God. By the amazing radical movment of Jesus Christ. That salvation was bought and kept waiting for you!
Our Salvation is so Great because the Author and Finisher is SO great! Come on now someone should say mhmm, amen.
Ill say it again.
Our Salvation is so Great because the AUthor and Finisher is SO great!
Two things
This verse doesnt break down the greatness of salvation but the importance of the faith in your salvation.
That it is not really great, so you neglect it and spend your time and energy on something that you think is really great
Even thought its great, you dont have access to suffiecient evidence that it really is great.
In the first you may know of your salvation but you just dont think its all that great, but the second you neglect it because you dont know the salvation.
Listen
Don’t ignore being loved by God.
Don’t ignore being forgiven and accepted and protected and strengthened and guided by Almighty God.
Don’t ignore the sacrifice of Christ’s life on the cross.
Don’t ignore the free gift of righteousness valued by faith.
Don’t ignore the removal of God’s wrath and the reconciled smile of God.
Don’t ignore the indwelling Holy Spirit and the fellowship and friendship of the living Christ.
Don’t ignore the radiance of God’s glory in the face of Jesus.
Don’t ignore the free access to the throne of grace.
Don’t ignore the inexhaustible treasure of God’s promises.
This is a great salvation. Neglecting it is very evil. Don’t ignore so great a salvation.
It is a great Evil to neglect our salvation. To not think of it and throw it in a closet. The punishment for this disobedience there is no escape from.
But Back to this passage really fast how in the world do we know the author is speaking to us? Our second word is WE
Y'all Say
“WE”
“WE”
Now come one. Put your hands up in the air and say WEEEEE
We have to understand the audience is small, the church is fading they are weak minded. and have gone back to being self sufficient more so then centered on God dependency.
Holy Spirit minister to us with this passage here. look at.
Paul is writing to the church in corinth for lifting up the wrong idea of Church.
This church had found the preacher more sustaining than the Word of Truth the preacher was bringing. Matter of Fact the church in corinth was being arrogant.
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!
9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.
10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!
11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.
12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;
13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
We gentiles and jews are all alike. When we decide we are going to be our own self sufficient God’s thats when we get into trouble.
When we decide to be the remnant the bible talks about we have to check oursefls again.
Just like Paul and Apollos you and i have to understand we Stand with a we.
We are the Church, We are the Body of Christ. And how can we be the body of Christ without him.
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
We must be careful to not drift away.
Drift
Drift
to disbelieve gradually or slowly: as if you were being carried away by a river current
away.....
Now this is the application part. How do we evaluate our lifes and what are the symptoms we are drifting away?
Neglecting the Word
Neglecting the Word
the Bible.
Written over a period of 1600 years by some 40 authors it conveys the heart of God.
We can never understand love, compassion, mercy, grace and other dynamics of the human experience without them framed by the author Himself,
let alone we cant know theological concepts like salvation, or the nature of the church
See we want this growth but we dont want to seek it.
Rick Warren said that spiritual growth is nothing more than replacing lies with truth.
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Time with God is Shallow
Time with God is Shallow
Time spent with God is usually logged into our prayer time, our quiet prayer time. But prayer isnt a one sided conversation with your bathroom wall, or your bedroom window. Prayers is being with God. it involves listening and connecting as much as speaking with.
Its in prayer that not only can we ask for specifics and kneel things before him. But its in prayer in our listening that God shapes our hearts. Our lifes with God can not be solely about our wish list for this world. It aint gonna happen.
Are you tired of asking god for the same thing? We keep crying out more of you God more of you but we dont listen to it at the first place. We want to understand the hard truths but we never learn the simple ones.
Back to the beginning of our conversation. Its easy to be distracted even in the times we are trying to put time into our relationship with God.
Yesterday and Friday i was putting together this very message. and i continued to get text phone calls. I mean it was non stop. I just started thinking God why cant these duties be spread out through the week. And it didnt dawn on me untill i got to this part.
You know the enemy will use your fellow church folks and remind them they gotta call you if its gonna throw you outta time with the Father.
You know what i mean. You can be sitting there in the middle of a prayer and get a ding ding ding. and all of a sudden you are 40 minutes after that text reply went on facebook watching them reels. COme one. I aint the only one thats wasted an hour of my life doing exactly that.
When our minds are consistanly refocusing back on the truth prize then we get distracted.
let me tell you why...
you are His witnesses.
The greatest issue with the Stability of the Church is we have every christian living a life receiving feel good messages not from anointed ministers but from skilled speakers.
yes they are teaching the bible, yes they have successful ministries and yes they are the pastors that are being written about in the book of Jude.
Whom stand with no anointing and arent living a life in the spirit so The book of Jude tells us those Pastors are in Apostasy.
Becareful Church because a pastor can lead you away from the Lord even while preaching mostly word.
There are too many warnings in the New Testament.
Its crazy actually how many people dont like reading the old testament because of the death and mean God they see portrayed however aint nothing change inside of the New Testament. Less death but more judgement on the characters of men.
next thing is.
You aren't in the correct Environment
You aren't in the correct Environment
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.
45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Community
Be the Witness
Be the Witness
All i want to ask here is what story does your recent testimony tell?
Ive wanted to for a long time now tell my testimony. But im like how far back do i need to go? Do i have to tell everything.
I should be able to go back to just last week allowing my testimony not to be of old but of always.
Conclusion:
if we dont pay most careful attention then we will drift away....which there is no escape from the punishment of drifters.
However…Y’all say however....
However if we pay the most careful attention to His Testimony in our life’s. However if we continue to be his Eyewitness account.
However if we continue to have a new adoration for our father. Then Not only do we not drift away.
But we dive into the depths of Spiritual Gifts and Anointing that He has given us!
