Apostles Church

Pay Close Attention. Heb 2:1-4. This is the first warning passage in Hebrews. The pastor is calling people to stay faithful to Jesus in a culture where faith in Jesus is not tolerated and will potentially cost them, maybe even cost them their life. There is a difference between warning and manipulation. Illus: Manipulating my son with threats about a monster and warning my son about oncoming traffic or arsenic. Warnings are loving if the danger is real. The teaching of the Christian faith is that this life is linear and that it is headed somewhere; what the bible calls the last day where all humanity will have to give an account to God. It is appointed unto us to die once and then comes a judgment, a verdict on our lives from God who gave us this life (meaning he has the right and divine prerogative to evaluate us). The bible tells us that some will be commended and others will be condemned. So the pastor has that in mind and he is constantly calling those people to live with the end in mind. They live their lives on the precipice of eternity and so do we do, so we need to give careful attention to more than just the latest fashion trends, social media buzz, the stock markets, cultural movements. We need to give the most attention to things that are eternal and have ultimate significance, what the biblical writers call the last day. But here is the radical thing about this judgment. Those that are commended will not be commended because of their morality, purity, or good works, but because of their faith. We are justified by faith in Jesus and by faith in Jesus alone. This is the testimony of the bible. Heb 11:6 apart from faith, you cannot please God and be rightly related to him. This faith that saves is a faith that perseveres and produces fruit. It is not as if we are saved by a spasm of faith, or a momentary emotional response of faith, we are saved by a faith that perseveres, that continues until the very end, and that shows its authenticity through action. There is a faith that is momentary, falters at the first sign of difficultly or cost, and proves itself false in the end; and there is a faith that is real, persevering, enduring, and authenticated by action.

In light of that the biblical writers knew they were addressing a mixed assembly when they wrote these letters to the churches. They knew there were people in the assembly who had experienced an internal response to the Gospel; a genuine response that God had brought about in their hearts when they heard the Gospel of Jesus. And there were some who made some outward, external response to the Gospel of Christ (affirm historical facts and ascribe to a moral code). Some had already abandoned their faith and the believing community (Heb 10:24-25). This is not a shock though. Jesus said this would happen. Jesus knew there would be people who showed flashes of faith and spasm of belief, but would not not continue in that faith. They would start the race, but would not finish (because it takes an inward work of God giving you a new heart that has the conviction to continually trust Jesus  and the capacity to increasingly treasure Jesus). So, some who respond will eventually show themselves to lack authentic, persevering saving faith. There are going to be those who profess faith in Jesus but eventually abandon Jesus, fall in love with the world, become indifferent to Jesus and his Kingdom and renounce him with their lives and words. (1 John 2:19) A rejection of the faith either by actively renouncing it or in our passage, gradually drifting away from it so that it no longer matters to them and they become indifferent altogether to Jesus. But it is those who persevere to the end that will be saved - those who continue trusting and treasuring Jesus. We are saved by faith, but this faith that saves us is a persevering faith that continues to the end.  See also Heb 3:6, 14; Col 1:21-23.

So, to be saved in the end requires that we persevere in our faith. If we quit trusting and treasuring Jesus and walk away from this faith, or renounce Christ altogether, our end will one of where we are removed from God and his love that we have rejected. But, what the Scripture tells us is that even the perseverance that God requires, God also works in us; he supplies it for us. Jude 24–25. “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25) to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” God helps us to persevere and run this race of faith. Ses also Phil 1:6.

The pastor is confident true believers will stay the course and keep trusting and treasuring Jesus till the end because of the Priestly ministry of Jesus. Priest make sacrifices for the sins of people and intercede in prayer for the people. Jesus is the ultimate High Priest who makes the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and intercedes for his people. Hebrews 7:25. Jesus, is praying to God the Father for the faith of his people. Peter is an example. Luke 22.31–33  ““Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,that he might sift you like wheat, 32) but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Jesus is praying for all who trust in him. God the Father always answers the prayers of God the Son. Some of you are in a major test right now (trial, suffering, temptation, drifting) and Jesus is praying for your faith not to fail; if and when you do fail, that your failure will not be fatal but that you would return to him and be usefulness to His Kingdom. So, the intercession of Jesus guarantees that all who have had this genuine inward response to Jesus, from the heart, will persevere to end.

What does all this have to do with Hebrews 2:1-4? God brought you to faith in Christ by the use of means; God also preserves your faith by the use of means. warning passages are one of the ways that God preserves our faith; extension of the invitation of the Gospel. When we first heard the Gospel (Jesus was God's total answer to humanity's total need) called to respond "put your faith in Jesus and you will be saved." The warning passages are that invitation continually extended to us - put your faith in Jesus, persevere because there is no salvation outside of trusting and treasuring Jesus. If you do not continue to believe in and look to Jesus, you won't know God's salvation. see also Hebrews 10:36-39. Heb 2:1-4 is the extension of the Gospel invitation. Argument from the lesser to the greater; even greater consequence for rejecting the Gospel. So, keep listening and paying attention to the Gospel. If you neglect it, you will drift away from Jesus (like a piece of wood drifting down a river - life is not a lake, it is a river and if you are not tied to Jesus you will drift away from God and his grace into judgment). NOT "if you adamantly renounce it, but if you become increasingly indifferent to it to the point of it becoming a non-factor in your life, then you have abandoned your only hope for God's commendation and you will not escape his condemnation. So, God preserves our faith by wooing us with a vision of Jesus as Incomparably great (last week) and warning us that there is no salvation and eternal life apart from persevering faith in him. He promises to preserve our faith and warns us to not to abandon our faith in Jesus because we are saved by a faith that keeps believing. The warning helps to bring about the fulfillment of the promise. 

The audience is a mixed assembly, but the application the same: Listen; pay much close attention; don't be negligent. There are some who are:

True believers who are beginning to drift. Some among us. So many other things that have captured your attention and Jesus has been pushed to the margins. God's gracious warnings to you are one of his means to draw your attention back to Jesus. To see the greatness of his salvation and find your life and joy in it. It is a wake up call to you that you will not be saved apart from persevering faith; that there is nothing outside of Jesus that will bring you life and lasting joy and you are jolted back into the race of faith. This response strengthens your assurance because one of the signs that you are truly a child of God and have a heart that God has written on and put his spirit within is that you are pricked by this word and run back to Christ.

The Casual who are called to genuine faith. This message was a clarification that Jesus will not be taken lightly. It is all or nothing. You have to pay close attention to this great salvation that is in Him. You're invited to cross the line of faith, entrusting all of your life for all of your life to him. Being a Christian is about a person that your whole life orbits around. Faith is a holistic response to the greatness and grace of Jesus. So, if you are a person with a casual interest in Jesus, this passage is an invitation to you to push all your chips to the center of the table and settle with Jesus and realize what is at stake here.

God is so good to woo us to himself by showing us the greatness of his love in Jesus. And he is equally good to warn of us of the dangers of rejecting his love and neglecting the salvation he has provided us in Jesus.