Remain Between the Flags
"We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away." Hebrews 2:1
Main Readings: Deuteronomy 8 & Hebrews 1:1–2:4
Supporting Readings: Psalm 89 & Acts 7:1–40
I hope we all enjoyed chapter 1!
Which Christian wouldn’t, right?!
Because, in verses 1 to 4 we saw the greater brilliance of the nature, position and function of God’s Son – Jesus Christ.
And then from verses 5 through to 14 we saw that even angels in all their radiant splendour – flames of fire! (V.7) – can’t compare with the Son in his divine being, or his position, or his worthiness, or his kingship!
And so, we’ve been blown away by the person of Jesus in chapter 1.
But chapter 1 is not in the author’s sermon to simply point Jesus up, because right from the get go, he told us what his purpose was, didn’t he?
He told us how he wanted to compare ways that God has spoken.
In the past God spoke by the prophets. But now, in these last days, he’s spoken to us not by his prophets, but by his Son.
And so, we are meant to read all of chapter 1 in light of that fact.
And conclude at the end of it: the Son of God is so awesome; so superior, that we must, surely, listen to him above all!
I think that is the logical, and intentional purpose of everything in chapter 1, from verse 2b through to verse 14.
And now, as we move into chapter 2, we can sense even morecertainly that he was driving at that goal with all he wrote in chapter 1, because in verse 1 of chapter 2 he takes us back to God speaking.
He says, ‘We must pay more careful attention therefore, to what we have heard’.
Why? Because he’s pointing back to the fact that he’s been saying to us, God has spoken.
So, there’s a word from God in the past that came through the prophets. There’s a word from God in the present that has come through Jesus – the Son.
And Jesus is massively superior to the prophets.
Therefore…
what we have heard we must pay the most careful attention to.
Surely, that is his big point: we must listen to the Son over against the prophets, since the Son is so much greater!
I think that is plain and obvious. Otherwise, the way he started out his sermon and the word ‘therefore’ he now uses in chapter 2 verse 1 make no sense.
He says: ‘Therefore, in light of everything I’ve just told you about the Son - in light of the contrast in verse 2: “but now he has spoken by his Son”; in light of the contrast in verse 8: “but about the Son he says your throne, O God, will last forever and ever” – THE conclusion we must arrive at is: what Jesus has said, is what you must listen to’.
Now why would he need to say that at all?
Well, surely it can only be, that the congregation – if I can call them that – were in danger of preferring what God had said through the prophets to what God has said through his Son.
In other words, the question becomes, ‘are you saying that God spoke something different through the prophets than he spoke through the Son?’
‘Is it more than God simply switched spokespersons at a point in time?’
‘Is it actually that the content the prophets spoke was different to the content Jesus has spoken?’
And the answer appears to be ‘yes’.
It’s not that God simply spoke a message through the prophets and then introduced Jesus to speak that same message.
It’s that Jesus has spoken another message altogether. And since HEis the one who has spoken, we had better pay careful attention to what he has said over and against what they said in the past.
We can be confident that this is the case, because in chapter 2, verse 2, for the first time, what has been spoken is referred to as a ‘message’.
You see, the author knows that his congregation, with their Jewish background, understand exactly the distinction he’s making between these two revelations of God – one by the prophets and one by the Son.
But maybe, it’s not so clear to us.
When, the author talks about a ‘message spoken’ in verse 2, can you see that he identifies that message with angels.
He says, it was ‘spoken by angels’. And yet, he has just been at great pains to show us how much greater Jesus is than angels.
Therefore, it should be clear to us that he is not referring in verse 2 to the message that God has spoken in these present times by his Son Jesus Christ.
No, Jesus is greater than angels and therefore God hasn’t used angels to speak the message to us that we have received – no way!
That message – that we heard - has come through the Son – through Jesus Christ.
So, that means that the message spoken of in verse 2 is the message not only spoken by angels, but also spoken by the prophets – chapter 1, verse 1. They are one and the same message.
Jesus is greater than the prophets. Jesus is greater than the angels. Chapter 1 laboured to tell us that. Therefore, chapter 2, verse 2 refers to a message of the past.
And that leaves us asking the question: ‘what could this message of the past be?’.
Acts chapter 7 helps us to identify this message ‘spoken through angels’ because Stephen mentions it twice in his speech.
Stephen’s speech is a rundown of the history of Israel designed to show how unbelieving Israel had treated God during that time – and it wasn’t well!
And, ultimately, it’s so indicting on the Jewish leaders of his day, that they wind up killing Stephen for it.
But, before they do, when Stephen gets to the part about Moses, he says this: ‘Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One[namely Jesus].
And now you have betrayed and murdered him – you who have received the law that was given through angels, but have not obeyedit’.
That’s super important for our understanding of Hebrews 2:1-4. The message spoken by angels, verse 2, is clearly the Old Testament lawgiven on mount Sinai to Israel through the prophet Moses and via the agency of angels.
So, we now know what this message spoken by angels (chapter 2, verse 2) and through prophets (chapter 1, verse 1) is: it is clearly the Old Testament law from Mount Sinai.
It's so crucial we grasp this! Because of what is coming.
If we don’t understand this, we won’t understand the argument he is making to us.
So, let’s go now to chapter 2 and let’s follow that very argument because, what he has to say to us is so necessary for our Christian lives and such a gracious provision from God to us for our immediate and long-term futures!
Verse 1 is his appeal to us.
In light of what we have heard about Jesus from chapter 1 ‘pay morecareful attention’.
It’s not clear - to me at least - whether he means we must pay more careful attention than we have been. Or, whether we must pay more careful attention to what Jesus has said, than to what the prophets said.
You can see from verse 1, that his burden is that ‘we do not drift away’.
And given everything we’ve seen, surely, he means ‘take care you don’t drift away from Jesus and re-centre on the message spoken by the prophets and angels’.
So, with that in mind, it seems like he’s saying both – more careful attention than we have been giving. And more careful attention to Jesus’ message than to the prophet’s message.
Now, just to be clear, the message we have heard, in verse 1 -in case we’re wondering - is the message of salvation through the Lord Jesus.
And we can see that because the opposite of ‘paying attention’ in verse 1 would be ‘ignoring’ it. And he says in verse 3, ‘how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation’.
So, the message they had heard – that we have heard – is the message of Jesus and it is the message of ‘great salvation’. Which, we must note, is also the Lord Jesus.
It is not just that Jesus brought a message of salvation from God. But it is: that he himself is that message!
We saw this in chapter 1 – verse 3, ‘after he [that is Jesus] had provided purification for sins’.
That is Jesus’ salvation work – by his death he provided for all who believe in him, purification from their sins; thereby making them right with God.
So, verse 1 is an argument, put to us, that there is a temptation; there is a real and present danger, that we will drift away from Jesus – who we have seen is more wonderful and precious than all – and exchange him for an inferior message, if we are not careful.
So, what’s the antidote for this inevitable temptation which is coming – and I would argue is already here for each and every one of us?
It is to listen most carefully and attentively to Jesus.
That’s the positive way of saying it.
Let’s hear it the negative way also:
If we are not careful to pay the most deliberate attention to Jesus, the ever-present temptation to listen to another message will prove undetectably influential in causing us to drift from Jesus.
In other words, when we become passive to Jesus, it is not simply that we have stopped listening to Jesus who is better than everything else, it is that we have exchanged him for a new centre of attention in our lives!
Imperceptibly, we have given our hearts to something other than him!
And let me say, the word ‘drift’ does not imply a deconstructing of our Christian faith.
It does not imply a public renouncing of Jesus.
Don’t think to yourself, ‘this can’t apply to me – I haven’t abandonedChristianity!’
That’s not what the word ‘drift’ implies.
The word ‘drift’ implies a subtle, indiscernible, innocuous movement away from Jesus by a new and fixed gaze on quite simply anythingelse!
I want us to go away from here this morning not only thinking ‘that could be me someday’, but examining ourselves right now to see if that is us today!
Ask yourself, ‘has my attention this week been consciously and regularly on Jesus, or mainly on other things’.
You know, this is so important that I’m going to pause here to give you an example, because I think it will help us to grasp the idea.
Luke, in his gospel, records Jesus coming to a village where a woman called Martha opened her home to him and his disciples. A great example of good hospitality - for sure.
Luke says that Martha’s sister Mary sat at the Lord’s feet ‘listening to what he said’. So, this is exactly the posture the author of Hebrews wants us to adopt.
Luke also says that Martha was ‘distracted by all the preparations that had to be made’.
And so, she came to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’
And Jesus responded in this amazing way:
‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her’.
And what I take away from this is that Jesus recognises, in Martha, a heart that has got distracted with work instead of being smitten with him.
It’s a heart that has drifted to some extent.
Mary listened intently whilst Martha worried, and felt sorry for herself, and got upset intently.
I don’t think Jesus makes light of Martha’s work – he calls his people to work for the kingdom, make no mistake.
But Martha could have done what was necessary with delightbecause Jesus was in her house. And strained her ear to listen to everything he had to say.
Because there is only one thing that is ultimately necessary and that is to hear the voice of Jesus!
And this is so useful for our lives. We all recognise work has to be done – but with what heart? With a heart fixed on Jesus, right?
And when ‘what is necessary’ is done, we all recognise that we can ‘choose’ what to do with our time. And the example Mary gives us is – choose to sit at the Saviour’s feet and listen.
I mean, I don’t think that if Mary had lived today, she would spend quite so much time choosing to look at facebook, as she would spend gazing at Jesus in his word.
In light of this appeal from the author of Hebrews, we need to examine our hearts I think.
Because, if there is drifting that has been happening already, this is the word that could awaken us to it!
And if there is drifting, and if this does awaken us, then we can do something about it today! Whilst there is breath in our lungs we can flee to Jesus!
Now, verse 2 & verse 3 are really about two things. Verse 2 is to alertus. Verse 3 is root us.
Verse 2 is to warn us against drifting from Jesus. Verse 3 is to give us confidence to remain convinced by Jesus.
The author is giving us help to heed his practical appeal in verse 1 here.
So, if you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I need help to see the significance of Jesus even more than chapter 1 just gave me, so that I can heed the appeal of verse 1’, then verses 2 & 3 supply that.
He kicks verse 2 off saying ‘for’ which means he’s now going to give a foundation for the appeal of verse 1.
‘For if the message spoken through angels’ – which we saw was the Old Testament law from Mount Sinai –
if that message was ‘binding [he says] and every violation and disobedience received it’s just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?’
That’s a very sobering verse. It indicates to us that drifting leads to places that are very consequential.
In fact, this word is almost identical to the last warning word in Hebrews - chapter 10, verse 28.
And there it says it clearly: ‘Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses’.
What the author appears to be saying is:
if the message that came through inferior prophets, when rejected, was met with just punishment, how can we expect that the rejection of the superior message that is in Jesus, will result in better things?! It won’t!
He says it will be even worse!
Back then, they died without mercy, we just heard. ‘How shall we escape, then, if we ignore such a great salvation’ – namely the Lord Jesus Christ.
This isn’t about a hardened unbeliever who has the gospel preached to them and rejects it!
This is about people who have ‘heard’ verse 1 – that means who have received Jesus; and are now drifting from him.
Where will that drifting take them? And how will they escape?!
The law spoken through angels, according to verse 2, was binding, and violation of it, and disobedience of it, resulted in a just punishment.
The comparison he is making is that Jesus is not take or leave it.
He is binding on our lives. He will not be violated by being exchanged for something else.
Every aspect of what it is to be follower of Jesus has a bearing on our lives.
The comparison means, that if we drift from Jesus, we’re in realdanger of winding up cold and indifferent to our very saviour!
There is a punishment coming for that! And it will be a just one.
I don’t know how else to say it.
The warning is for you and me.
Divert, re-centre, reject, drift from Jesus at our peril, is the how the author wants the warning to land on us.
I know it’s not popular to talk this way, but I can only give you, and myself, what the word says.
Let me ask you: what is this salvation we have heard and received?
Is it not the most incredible gift ever given?
It surely is!
How then, can the author not worry that his hearers might be neglecting it by forgetting how incredible it truly is, and not responding to it with worshipful obedience?
Surely, such a rejection, he fears, will be met with the most severe punishment.
Is that us? Are we forgetting Jesus and all he means to us? We neglecting to respond to him with worshipful obedience?
The author gets under our skin a bit.
So, this is a sober warning – one that is designed to wake us up from the kind apathy about Jesus that has him as a mere supplementamongst all of life’s equal, or even greater, interests!
But, that’s not all the author’s got to say. Because now he wants to positively show why they should trust the message they heard about Jesus and not drift from it.
And that’s where verse three comes into play.
He says, ‘this salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him’. And then he goes on in verse 4 to talk about more ways it was testified to.
Remember that these hearers are similar to us, in the sense that, they were neither first nor secondhand witnesses of Jesus.
So, to strengthen theirs, and our, confidence, he sets up a kind of ‘chain of authenticity’ that is designed to confirm us in our belief that Jesus really is the salvation we have come to believe him to be.
First of all, he says, the salvation we came to believe was announcedby the Lord Jesus.
In fact, just as the law of Moses had its authenticity stamped by the presence of angels; this new and better message of salvation in Jesus has its authenticity stamped by Jesus himself.
This word ‘announced’ is another instance of the word ‘spoken’ if we think about it. It means the same thing. The law-message was spoken through angels. This salvation-message is spoken through Jesus.
And of course, Jesus did not only speak about it with words, but with accomplishments, right?
This salvation is announced, most powerfully, through his death, and resurrection and exaltation, and all that they mean for us!
But then secondly, and linked to it, those who actually heard him speak, and saw those living words in action firsthand, they confirmed to the writer, and other secondhand spokespeople, the veracity of those things.
They confirmed what it was that Jesus had first announced.
Luke, writing to Theophilus in his gospel account of Jesus, starts by saying: ‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word’.
Luke wasn’t an eyewitness, but he heard from those who were, and he became a reliable witness to Theophilus, who, like these Hebrews, Luke expects to have confidence in the message about salvation through Jesus.
But then thirdly, God also testified to this salvation, verse 4 says, ‘by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit’.
And since these were distributed by God, ‘according to his will’, they were designed perfectly, by him, to corroborate the genuineness of the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Especially, that the salvation of Jesus is a supernatural salvation.
In other words, they weren’t random signs and wonders so that they could just as easily have served to verify any message.
No, these were distributed by God according to God.
And since Jesus is God’s Son - who he has chosen to speak through in these last days - these signs and wonders exist to corroborate one message alone: namely salvation through Jesus.
Acts 14 says it like this: ‘So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed their message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders’.
You see, God established their message by the signs and wonders.
There is, then, a golden ‘chain of authenticity’ that God has given to us to confirm in our hearts that Jesus is the real deal.
It would therefore, quite simply be, complete madness - of the highest order - to drift from this Jesus.
Rather, the consequences and evidences, compel us to fix our minds and our hearts continuously on him.
Perhaps, we used to really be wary of anything that might hinder us from focusing on Jesus. But now that’s gone.
Perhaps, we used to ask, how can I bring this thing under the lordship of Jesus? Or how might this fit with the kingship of Jesus? But now we don’t ask those questions anymore.
Maybe, it’s just that something in our lives has become so all-consuming that we’ve forgotten who, alone, should be all-consuming.
The writer wants to set us straight, for our good.
For these Jewish converts to Christ, their interest appears to have been turned to the law of Moses.
Let me remind us: the Law of Moses had its origin in God too!
Chapter 1, verse 1 says ‘In the past God spoke’…the Law of Moses. Not somebody else!
God did not speak a bad word in the past! I hope you believe that!
His word by the prophets and his word by Jesus are not opposed to each other.
It was that the first message could never take away sins. That was the problem.
But the second one - the word from Jesus – absolutely does take away sins, and thereby, bring peace with God.
So, my point is this. If the author is warning and encouraging these Christians in such strong terms, because they are turning back to a word that did also come from God, how much should we heed his warning when we are not tempted to turn back to a message from God, but to messages from this world!
This world communicates a thousand competing messages, doesn’t it? Think of all the messages we encounter every day as we interact with people, and media, in particular.
From friends, from politicians, from influential sources.
Therefore, we should also pay more careful attention to what the author has said!
Certainly, the emphasis doesn’t land on us with any less force than on these Hebrews.
At least they were turning back to a word from God.
And the author says it is death to them!
Let’s not fail to take the exhortation and examine ourselves to make sure we’re in the faith.
And let’s allow the warning and the evidence both to arrest us and embolden us to press in with Jesus all the days of our lives.
Let’s finish with Jesus - who was confronted with competing messages when he was tempted in the dessert.
His response was this: ‘It is written: “man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’.
Jesus remained centred on God’s message when confronted by Satan with competing messages.
The author wants us to be like Jesus.
So, let’s give thanks to God for a word that serves to help us make sure we’re aligned, as we should be, with Jesus. And not drifting from him.
