Sermon Tone Analysis

Warning

Every day we all give and receive warnings.

There are all kinds of warnings, your phone warns you to charge it, your GPS warns you to turn left, or we might warn each other “the road is slippery”.

A police officer may warn you that you are going too fast.

We warn our kids to stop playing with their food during dinner, etc.

One thing you might notice is that often warnings are followed by a short description of the danger if you don’t listen to the warning.

If you don’t charge your phone it will die.

If we drive too fast we will get a ticket.

If you don’t stop playing with your food you won’t get dessert.

Last year at the Crawford fair Byron was putting his finger in the chicken’s cages, we told him: don’t put your finger in there, a few minutes later he was crying holding his finger not sure what had happened.

The seriousness of the warning also can be told by the tone of voice and the description of what might happen if we don’t listen.

Let’s imagine for a second that a child is on top of the house telling you I’m going to jump, you don’t say in a calm voice don’t do it or you won’t get dessert today.

You would instead use a loud voice, and short sentences and tell what will be the consequence of jumping.

This section of Scripture that we are going to study today also gives us a warning.

Because of the seriousness of the warning, it has strong language, so strong that some take these warnings to say one can lose their salvation.

I don’t think that is the case, rather it is using such strong language because of the seriousness of the warning similar to how we would use strong language if we would see someone in great danger, like a child about to run into a busy road.

Therefore

This serious warning starts with the word, therefore.

Before we go any further we need to stop and consider what is the “therefore” referring to, because the author is saying that he already gave the reasons or the grounds for this warning.

The “therefore” cannot be referring to the previous few verses because the logical argument started in v1.

Therefore, therefore is referring to the whole of chapter 1 where the author shows that Jesus is much superior to angels and that He is God, therefore ignoring Him or His words is not without consequences.

Therefore we need to take it seriously.

That is what Heb 2:1 says “Therefore we must pay much closer attention” or pay more careful attention.

What do we need to pay much closer attention to?

It says to what we have heard, that is the word spoken through the Son.

The phrase “what we have heard” indicates all of God’s word, not just chapter 1 of Hebrews.

His whole argument you will remember was just this don’t ignore the OT or the NT.

The way the author wrote this phrase in its original language is very similar to Deut 32:46 where Moses said to the Israelites “Take to heart all these words”.

Moses was telling the people to pay attention to God’s command and teach our children to be careful to obey God’s word.

The same Greek word, prosechein pay attention, is used only one other time in the NT in Luke 21, where Jesus was telling his followers to pay attention to His words after he said the following Luke 21:33 “33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

You might notice that there are some similarities between what Jesus said and Hebrews 2:1.

What both are saying is what God said is more sure and stable that the world we see and observe.

The world might fall apart but if we trust and pay close attention to what God said we are going to be safe and secure in His hands because what He said is going to happen no matter what it might look like in the moment, if we look at the waves we are going to sink, drift away, but if we keep our eyes fixed on Him, on His word, He is going to carry us through whatever it might come our way.

What we have heard is all that God has spoken in the Old and New Testament, whether through Moses and the prophets or through God’s Son and His apostles.

The core of this message is the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Riggans says we need to pay close attention “to the word of God brought to us in Jesus because otherwise, we are in danger of missing our only hope for salvation.

If we don’t anchor ourselves in the word of God then we can miss the only safe haven there is—namely Jesus himself.

I think one of the lies this world tells us is that you can have Jesus and at the same time not be fully obedient to God’s word.

The world tells us we can put more emphasis on the emotions and experiences than on what God has said or the standard He calls us to live.

I’m not saying that emotions and experiences are bad, it is however bad if our faith is based on these instead of a sure foundation of God’s word.

For example, let’s imagine that for a period of time at our church we would experience a season of miracles.

A time where God is doing amazing things in our midst maybe bringing healing and answering audacious prayers, then followed by a time where it seems that God is silent, a time where we don’t have many visible and tangible experiences or emotions at encounters with God’s handiwork on display.

Our confidence should remain on the Truth, that is what He said.

Our faith should rest in the person of Christ and not on our emotions and experiences.

These emotions or experience have their place, they often drive us closer to His Truth, or confirm a step of faith, but as we mature one could argue that God expects more of us to trust Him and obey Him, despite our emotions.

Back to the purpose of warnings.

Warnings are typically followed by possible consequences for not listening to the warning or are so detailed we can outline the implied consequences.

We see this as well in Scripture.

In the first verse, it says we must pay much closer attention, lest we drift away from it.

We might ask what is it?

the word “it” is referring to what we heard, the core message of God’s word is salvation through Christ.

If we don’t pay closer attention we will drift away from the Lord.

Drifting away has a nautical tone, it brings to mind the image of a drifting ship not holding fast to the anchor of the word.

The only kind of boating I know it’s just taking our inflatable boat and going down the river, therefore I’m not an expert like some of you.

But what I can tell you is that the language of drifting away connotes the idea of a ship missing a harbor because of unexpected strong winds and currents.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, what kind of wind and strong current we will have to face.

We will not be ready if we are not paying attention to God’s word.

Practically if our attention is only on the daily demands and cares of this life when the storm comes we will be tossed to and fro and carried away by deceitful schemes, losing the comfort, peace, and security that only Jesus can give us.

We might wonder what kind of storm the first readers of this letter had to face.

During the first few centuries, the official religion was Roman polytheism, which means worshipping many gods.

Therefore it was illegal to worship only one God, except if you were a Jew since there was an exception in the law for Judaism.

For the first readers of this letter, it was illegal to be a follower of Christ.

That meant there was a risk to be put in prison and losing any property you might have, you could be rejected by your family, and there was also public shame.

You would have been viewed as someone who is an anarchist and as someone who wanted to destroy society.

You would be considered a traitor for being a Christian.

It would be a similar situation during WWII in America to say that you attend a Nazi group meeting every week.

This is how society would view you as a Christian.

So we can see why the author of Hebrews gives such a strong warning against not paying attention to Christ.

They were tempted to put more emphasis on the Old Testament and in the end, it was much safer to just be a Jew.

However, being safe in the moment is not always safer for eternity.

Society, in general, was giving a different message “worship all the gods, including your emotions and sinful desires.”

It took conviction and commitment to follow Christ in a world of strong currents and unexpected winds pulling them away.

The circumstances for us right now are different.

We cannot ignore the fact that in our world today there are many places where becoming a follower of Christ comes with a high price.

But for the most part in the west right now we enjoy safety and freedom and even some tolerance.

So how are we tempted today to not pay much attention to God’s word and drift away?

What are some of the strong currents and high winds we and others face today?

Without strong opposition to following Christ and having all the freedom we want, we have not only one copy of God’s word but each one of us has a least a few.

No one will stop us from reading the Bible.

However, we are bombarded every day with subtle demands and distractions.

Entertainment, recreation, sports, and comfort are the gods of this world.

These things are not bad in and of themselves, but they can easily become the highest priority in our lives.

Our phones and the internet can be helpful and at the same time, we can waste so much time on them.

When all of our time is spent on other things we “just” won’t have time to read or think about what God says.

When we do so we are literally not paying much attention to what we have heard.

I’m not putting down rules for us that God has not said, but each of us needs to consider how we are spending our time.

Someone said that time is the most valuable commodity that there is, you cannot increase it and we can easily waste it.

The worse thing about the time we are currently living is how easily we can be distracted by entertainment or social media.

A lot of people nowadays have greater difficulty focusing and concentrating for longer periods of time.

Research shows that this is due to the use of smartphones and social media.

There are studies that show that the more you use social media the more likely you are to have negative feelings.

I’m not telling you to break your phones or tv, I’m asking that we all consider and evaluate how we are spending our time and analyze if we are putting God’s word first and making it of foremost importance.

Someone may say that seems a little too harsh, one could have said the same thing in the first century.

Hey, I’m just trying to save my life.

But remember what Jesus said in Matt 16:25-26 “25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

We know the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.

What are we resting our eyes on?

How good for our souls is it to rest our eyes on a screen?