2007 Book of Hebrews Series – “The Four(teen)-Letter ‘R’ Word”
Hebrews 2:1-4
Sermon preached at Curwensville Presbyterian Church – January 28, 2007

Prayer Introduction: There are a number of Four-Letter words that we do better not to speak. There is also Four(teen)-Letter Word that people tend not to speak these days: “Responsibility.”

            Today’s consumer culture means constantly shopping for something new. People’s commitment to products, institutions and values last only as long as they fulfill needs for the moment. The constant search for “something new to meet my needs” is seen in today’s lack of commitment and a lack of responsibility.

            Gary Jewart calls it the “WIIFM’s” – the “what’s in it for me” attitude of this culture, which runs counter to the Christian call for commitment and responsibility.

            This country began to witness this happening years ago as John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” This morning’s passage from Hebrews 2:1-4 similarly asks, “Ask not what God and the church can do for you, but what you can do for God and the church in response to His saving grace.”

            We miss out on the fullness of God’s grace, when we fail to take responsibility. We have all determined that we are victims; so that we are owed something. It’s our parents fault. It’s our boss’ fault. It’s our society’s fault.

            If someone drifts away from the church it is the fault of the pastor, the Sunday School, the teacher, the music, or difficulties at home or work. We reason, “It cannot be our fault. It cannot be my sin.”

            Phyllis McGinley writes, “[Sin] has been made not only ugly but passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.”

            Today’s sins are called sicknesses (addictions, behavioral issues, etc.). Political correctness has taken this to a whole new level. I saw a cartoon this past week in which a group of parishioners was in the pastor’s study saying, “Instead of sin, could we call it morally challenged”

            Is it any wonder that we don’t like to talk about our sins? The world continues to tell us that we are not responsible for anything; therefore, nothing is sin. If we lash out in anger, it was our co-worker’s fault. If we have an affair, it was our spouse’s fault. If we drink, it is our parent’s fault.

            If we never take responsibility, we never see our sin. If we never see our sin, we never see God’s grace in Christ. If we never see God’s saving grace, we are never set free from sin’s chains.

We may re-name sin as sickness, but then we never lose it. We may medicate it, but then we never get rid of it. We may shift the blame, but then we never find freedom from it. Would you not rather be set free? Would you not rather be saved from your sin – not just forgiven, but free?!

Hebrews 2:1-4 exhorts us not to ignore God’s grace and live in misery. His Word is true and the Holy Spirit is here, today, to bear witness to its truthfulness in our minds, our hearts and our whole lives. So let’s pray…We pray now for the preacher in the pulpit. He is not worthy, but by your grace he is able. And so it is through Jesus Christ that we pray – Amen!

READ Hebrews 2:1-4: From these verses I would have you see The Warning; The Motivation and The Message.

I. The Warning (v.1)

First, I would have you see The Warning from verse 1. Last week we looked at this first verse, which implores us to “pay more careful attention;” and it is the kids of the congregation that helped us to understand this. Do you kids remember? The reason you have a hard time paying attention in worship isn’t because the words are too difficult or because you just have short-attention spans. The problem is a heart problem – if you don’t desire to be here with all of your heart, then you won’t be able to hear God speak into your heart. To pay more careful attention means to make Jesus the desire of your heart.

            What happens when we don’t have Jesus as our heart’s desire? We will “drift away” from Christ and from Christ’s church. We have seen too many people drift away for just this reason; and we see in this first verse the key to bringing God’s people back to the church: “Make Jesus the desire of our heart.”

            This is the reason behind the proposed new Sunday morning schedule. Starting earlier, and being more purposeful, in focusing our hearts on Jesus – rather than on the things of this world.

            Last week we also talked about the problem of moralistic preaching, where the preacher simply says, “Thou shalt and thou shalt not” but doesn’t point you to Jesus, where you find the desire and power to do the shalts and resist the shalt nots.”

            If this were a morality sermon, I would simply tell you to take responsibility, to be responsible – short and too the point; but then no one would change, because Christ was not presented – the one who gives us the desire and power to change.

            Many of us have grown up with this kind of morality preaching, that was not Christ-centered. You got so used to this preaching, which didn’t affect your whole heart and your life – that you wanted the sermons to end as quickly as possible. You joke about making my sermons shorter [the coffee mug]; but so many of you have told me that that’s not really true. You have come to hear God’s Word read and proclaimed so that you can understand and apply it to your life.

Asking for a shorter Christ-centered sermon is like asking for the football game to be done after one quarter; the baseball game after three innings. Nobody opens the bag to eat one M&M. Nobody hears the gospel and says, “Stop there, I’ve heard enough; I don’t really want to hear anymore about how to receive eternal life and how to begin having God working in my life right now.”

            This is the problem in much of today’s evangelism. Last week a fellow pastor illustrated this well talking about a plane stewardess coming to a passenger with a parachute in hand. She said, “If you put this parachute on you will enjoy the flight so much more. It will make you more comfortable.” He put it on, but it was awkward, and he noticed that other people on the plane were pointing and laughing at him. So he took off the parachute. The stewardess came to a different passenger with a parachute and whispered, “This plane has major mechanical malfunctions and it is going to crash.” The man immediately put on the parachute. We try and tell people that believing in Jesus will make you more comfortable; but that isn’t true (Jesus came to be our comfort) and so people drift away from Jesus as soon as their life gets uncomfortable. Instead, we need to tell them that Jesus came to rescue us. We have a major malfunction in our heart and we are going to crash.

            Pay more careful attention – make Jesus the desire of your heart. Don’t look to sinful, worldly desires, to help you cope; look to Christ as your only hope.

II. The Motivation (vv.2-3a)

And so I would have you see not only The Warning, but also The Motivation. Verses 2-3a says, “For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

            The message of the law in the Old Testament was spoken by angels. It originated with God, of course, but the messenger was the angels. Can you imagine if an angel of the Lord came and spoke to you? Wow!

            How much more awesome is the message of the gospel that was not spoken by an angel, but by the Lord himself – in the flesh – Jesus! This is the point we saw in the Gospel reading this morning from Matthew 12:38-42 about the sign of Jonah. People listened to Jonah, how much more should they listen to Jesus. The Queen of Sheba traveled at great length to hear King Solomon (this morning’s Old Testament reading from 1 Kings 10:1-10), how much more should people listen to King Jesus.

            What an awesome gift that God gave us His message of the gospel? How much more awesome that the message was delivered by His Son? We often fail to appreciate what a gift this is.

It reminds me of the movie Back to the Future – part 2. Old Biff brings young Biff a sports’ almanac from the future and young Biff says, “Yeah, thanks old man – and tosses it in the back seat” with no understanding of what he has just received. Old Biff exhorts him, “With this, you will know the outcome of every major sporting event before it happens. Bet on the winning team and you will be rich beyond belief.”

            You have been given the answer for how to receive the salvation of your soul. You will receive the “riches of God’s glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). You will receive eternal life in the Kingdom of God and be saved from everlasting damnation. Do you understand? How can you ignore that? How can you throw the gospel in the back seat?

Worse than rejecting the gospel is ignoring it. People drift away from Christ and his church because of their apathy. They ignore the gospel, rather than paying more careful attention to it. Apathy is the great sin of today’s professing Christians. In Revelation 3:16 God says to the Church in Laodicea, “So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot or cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

As bad is the apathy of those who ignore the gospel is our apathy in pursuing them. I think the reason we don’t want to pursue those who have drifted away is that we want to have the false sense of confidence that their salvation is secure. It is not – and it is incredibly selfish of us to say and do nothing because we want to feel okay about it. They may be going to hell, and we want to feel okay about it.

            I know this is talking about family members and close friends – for me too. There are people in my family and some of my closest friends who are ignoring Christ. It grieves me deeply. We often cannot help our own family and friends, and are dependent on others to do it.

            Will you love the people of this church and go to them; going to someone else’s family members – knowing that we are really all part of God’s family?

III. The Message (vv.3b-4)

What do we say to those who have drifted away? Well I would have you see not only The Warning and The Motivation, but also The Message. The message that we need to share is the message of salvation.

            We are not that different, today, from the “Hebrews” – the original recipients of this letter that we are reading. None of them had heard Jesus. They were 2^nd generation Christians. The author of this letter is telling them that the message of salvation, “which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”

            They, and you, must first be convinced that this message of salvation is true – and that it really is the from the Lord. Do you really believe that the gospel message can save people from eternal damnation?

            In my preaching class in seminary, people noticed the smile on my face whenever I preached and someone said, “Dan I don’t know how you will ever be able to preach about hell.” And someone else said, “Dan will be able to preach about hell perfectly.” I have the smile on my face, because I know the way out. I know how to escape the fires of hell. I know the message of salvation and I desperately want to share it with everyone that I can.

            Do you know the message, first announced by the Lord, confirmed by those who first heard it, testified to by signs, wonders, miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit? Do you know this message? Do you know that this message saves souls for all eternity? Then why would you not be sharing it?

            Perhaps you don’t feel that you know it well enough. Why would you not be doing everything you could to know it well enough to share it? Perhaps you do feel like you know it well enough, and have shared it, and nothing happened. Are you sure you shared the whole gospel, and not just part of it?

            Did you share all 4 parts of the Gospel [God, sin, Christ, response]. (1) The perfect holy God created this world good, in order for us to live in his love and to glorify and enjoy him forever.

            Some people only hear this and believe only in the Creator God.

            (2) But sin entered the perfect world God created and caused its ruin. Sin entered us, we were born with it.

            Some people get this far, and believe that there is no hope – that they are just stuck. They will always be angry, a drunk, a glutton, miserable, guilty.

            (3) But God didn’t leave us in this condition. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life we failed to live; and by his death and resurrection takes the punishment for our sin and gives us the credit for His righteousness.

            Some people get this and believe that Jesus was born at Christmas and rose at Easter – and that’s the only time they come to church.

            (4) But we must respond to this message of salvation. We must ask Jesus to be our Savior and surrender to him as Lord with a desire to repent of our sin and follow him with all our heart.

            Have you done this? Have you made Christ your Savior and Lord?

            The communication of the gospel is not just speaking it, but having it heard in the inner heart such that a response is produced. Just as we can tell our kids to clean their room, but the message hasn’t been communicated until they respond – and are cleaning their room – so we can tell people about God, sin, Christ, but the message hasn’t been communicated until there is a response.

            In 1 Timothy 1:5 the apostle Paul says, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full ACCEPTANCE: Christ Jesus came to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.”

            Someone may be thinking, “Yeah, but a person will only accept the message if it is God’s will” – and that is certainly true; but they cannot accept the message of salvation until they hear it.

            Romans 10:14-15 – “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

            If you have been drifting away, hear the message of salvation and respond to it. If you know someone who has been drifting away, share with them the message of salvation and call on them to respond to it.

            Take responsibility so that you can see sin for what it is; then you can know of God’s forgiving grace in Christ, and make a commitment to Him; then you can be free – and see others be made free.

MAY THE TRUTH SET YOU FREE – AMEN!