We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

So we have a “therefore” which means the point the author is making is referencing something earlier. There should be flashing red and blue lights every time you read a “therefore” in the Bible. You need to pull over and say to yourself, “What is this Therefore? What was just said that brings us to this point in the train of thought”. If you don’t do this, you aren’t reading carefully enough. You risk getting the wrong idea, or coming to the wrong conclusions, or not understanding why you believe what you believe. So what was said in Hebrews 1? If you read my last sermon, I covered Hebrews 1. This is a good chance to do a quick review. There were lots of footnotes and references from the old testament. But here is the quick rundown. The first chapter compared how God used to use prophets to speak to us, but how He now speaks to us through his Son. Jesus is the word that was with God and that Was God. From the Beginning. All things were created through him and by him and for him. The creation is sustained through him. Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory. Jesus inherited the name Son, and along with that name, Jesus inherited the status that comes from that name, Jesus inherited all of God’s Creation. It is all his. Jesus is the eternal King from the line of David whose throne will last forever and ever. When God brings his only begotten son into the world, he commands the Angels to worship that Son. For those reasons, Jesus is superior to the prophets, and Jesus is superior to the angels.

Therefore! Because of all we know about who Jesus is, the author of Hebrews calls us to action and gives a command. This is the first command of the entire book of Hebrews. What does the author say? Pay the most careful attention. We must be alert and aware. There is no going through the motions, no half-hearted attempts. No multitasking or having this Christianity thing on in the background of our lives. The study of God’s word; the Study of Jesus Christ, these things deserve our best. The Gospel isn’t a commercial break to fast forward through, this isn’t even on the level of regularly scheduled programming or even a feature presentation. This isn’t just entertainment. This is serious stuff. This is “why do you exist”, why are you here, what is life all about?”! More serious and worthy of careful consideration than anything else you will ever hear. We are giving our most careful attention to God. Scottish theologian, author, and teacher, Oswald Chambers, wrote a devotional called “My utmost for His Highest”. The idea of that day’s devotional, who’s title became the title of the book, was to give your best or “your utmost” for God. Strive to give him your very best, simply because God is the highest and most worthy of our best. We give God our best, not to earn salvation or favor or anything else, but simply because He is worthy. He alone deserves it. It’s with that heart and that mentality that we should approach the things of God. So up until now the author of Hebrews hasn’t given any commands, and now he makes his first command, but he doesn’t ask for us to DO much of anything. The command, instead, is to pay attention. Carefully. Not just kind of careful, but pay THE MOST careful attention to what? He says to what we have heard. What has this author heard? He’s talking about God’s word. Don’t just hear God’s word. Listen carefully. Don’t just read God’s word. Pay the most careful attention and Comprehend. Wow. Today’s modern Christians have a big problem here. Most people don’t bother to even listen, let alone to actually hear. Most Christians don’t bother even reading God’s word, let alone to actually keep reading until you reach comprehension and understanding. Once you comprehend and understand on one basic level, try and understand deeper or more complex. Compare it to another verse or book that you understand deeply. The author here says to Try! Then after you try, Keep trying. Repeat. For me, Sometimes it’s just easier to have a list of things to do. Right? Open the can of paint. Stir. Dip brush into can. Use brush to spread paint evenly on wall. Then I think, this many square feet took this many minutes, so “How long will this take?” “When will I be done?” Empty actions and busy appearances can sometimes take the place of real careful attention. Going through motions and keeping busy can sometimes look impressive, but can easily lead nowhere. And when you read the Bible carefully, it’s hard to say exactly how long it will take, because stopping to think and re-read, or cross reference another verse. All those things take an indeterminate amount of time.

There’s another point I’d like to make about studying scripture. Maybe for some people it’s intimidating, because there are various interpretations and various ways to read things. I think there are right interpretations and wrong ones, but when you are reading carefully, you will end up thinking about a verse a number of different ways. It’s not bad to read something and say, “well what if this means that?” let’s think this through. Having read the Bible, I know there are verses that sound like salvation is by certain works (whosoever believes shall have eternal life.  Is “Believing” a work??) . I know other verses that sound like we can lose our salvation. I have read those verses carefully and thought, well this seems different than what everything else is saying.  Some verses seem to mean that I make a choice. Does that make sense? Is there free will or predestination? In life, am I able to make some choices (like how to respond when I am asked a question), but not others (like choosing Jesus as my savior)? Can salvation be by both grace and works? How would that look? When you start to think that way, it might sound like you are entering into dangerous theological territory, but a really careful reading of the Bible will make you ask and confront certain questions. And when you are careful, it’s fine to think about all these questions and consider what they mean, because you will come up with Biblical answers to those questions.

So with the command, the writer also describes a consequence for not following the command. “So that we do not drift away”. Lest we lose our course. Merriam Webster says drifting is “a slow and gradual movement or change from one place, condition, etc., to another” When things drift we usually think of an inanimate object being moved by a stronger force. It’s usually associated with something light being carried in wind, or something that floats, being taken by a current along a body of water. Drifting implies that the thing that drifts is being carried by a greater force. If you’re standing still, usually you can’t drift. But if you go to the ocean and start swimming, in a matter of minutes, you can end up many meters and yards up the shore. The drifting is dangerous because isn’t something we easily notice. It can feel like it happens gradually. Another definition for drifting is “an aimless course; especially: a foregoing of any attempt at direction or control”. To notice drifting means you are paying attention to a course or a direction.. And how do you notice something is off? You first need a destination, and second you need a fixed, unmoving or unchanging landmark. If you are drifting it means you have a plan, destination or course, and it means you have failed to tie yourself to a landmark benchmark or a desired spot. What does this have to do with Christianity? In our lives, we need to have a destination or goal. The destination for us is Heaven, when we meet God. Paul calls his destination “finishing the race,” pressing on to what’s ahead, in corinthians, “seeing him Face to Face”. Once we know our course, we need to also choose our landmarks. As we press on toward our destination, we need to anchor ourselves to something unchanging. Something fixed. God is never changing, he is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. The Word of God does not change either. Christ is not changing, he said it is finished. Nothing about the Gospel is changing, so the Gospel of Jesus Christ serves as that anchor that we need. Without this anchor, it’s easy to travel a great distance from the truth. Especially if you are unaware of various ways that drifting happens. In our lives, we are prone to drift because there are dangerous currents that can pull us away from where we want to be. You can find these currents in the popular culture, you can find these currents even in a church that hasn’t tied their worship services, their culture, and their doctrine to the Scriptures. That drifting can happen by trying to use dead reckoning. The ways we use dead reckoning are different for each of us. Some try to make a best guess for their path by following their gut or following their heart or even by following their own logic. Using logic and your critical thinking is much preferable to heart or gut reactions, but your logic is still influenced by your own desires. So you are using yourself and your limited view as an immovable, fixed, landmark. You can immediately see the problem here. We know, as humans, that we are moving toward something else, and we hope we are moving towards God, but whether we are or not, we ARE moving, so we can’t be the landmark.. By looking only at ourselves and not to God’s word, we allow for errors to affect our courses. Because of that, drifting is dangerous for people that are introverted when they trust themselves. But Drifting is also dangerous for people who are extroverted because comparing yourselves or your beliefs to another imperfect being will lead to imperfect results. Whether you try to correct your course based on one person, or a group of people, or society at large, you are still trying to use dead reckoning, because you are benchmarking to a moving target.

The drifting can cause serious errors when neglected. When you notice you drift, you need to actively recalculate, you actively re-synch your position. You need to correct. But correction is difficult; drifting needs no work, but correcting means going against the strong force or the strong current. Because of our sinful nature, we are prone to wander, prone to drift, prone to follow our desires, while we don’t want God, or His correction, or to serve Him. By definition, correction requires harder work and effort.

2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,

What was the message spoken through angels? How is it binding? Throughout History, when it was God’s will to rescue and call his people to a relationship with him, he used Angels. When people needed to encounter God, they encountered Angels. Angels displayed a form of God’s radiance and majesty that was not matched until the coming of Jesus Christ. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, an Angel of the lord spoke to him to stop him. Then the angel of the lord spoke a second time. Genesis 22:15-18

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your Seed all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

The message of the angels is first a promise. The promise is that all nations on earth will be blessed by Abraham’s seed. Later, Angels delivered another promise to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. The night before he was going to meet his brother Esau, Jacob spent the night wrestling with a man. It was an experience with the presence of God. Although we can’t see God face to face, people throughout the Bible seemed to have these experiences or encounters with God. Jacob allegedly sees God face to face and wrestles with him. In Genesis 32:20:

So Jacob called the place Peniel, [Peniel means face of God] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

But in Hosea 12:3-4 the same experience is described differently.

3 In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God.

4 He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor.

The Face to Face encounter with “God” was an encounter with an angel who represented God. The message was to guide Jacob to his native land, change his name to Israel, and deliver the promise to make the Israel into people of God. Angels were used as God’s messengers, and their message was freedom. Follow God’s instructions, and He will set you free from what enslaves you. Trust God, and He will be your redeemer. Go along the path that God will show you and He will make you victorious. Seek God and He will be your deliverer. Obey God’s commands and He will bless you. The message spoken through the angels doesn’t just include the promises given to Abraham or Jacob. God used Angels to free his people from the slavery of sin found in Sodom and Gomorrah. God uses another angelic encounter to free His people from Slavery. Moses saw an angel of God in a burning bush and was given the message to lead his people out of Egypt. It’s all in Exodus chapter 3. But the very short summary is in the New Testament, as a quote by Stephen in Acts 7:27-30.

27 “But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons. 30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

Stephen describes the scene when Moses encounters the burning bush. God used an angel who appeared in a burning bush to speak to Moses The bush was effectively the presence of God, but God used an Angel to display himself. What was the purpose of the intervention? A man asked moses “Who made you ruler and judge over us”. It took about forty years for Moses to get an answer. God made Moses a ruler and judge over his people. The goal was to free his people from their literal slavery in Egypt. But the message spoken through the angels didn’t just stop there. It wasn’t just about freeing Moses and his people from slavery. The angels also had another message for Moses. That message occurred when Moses was given the Law through the angels. Listen to Paul describe this in Galatians 3:19

What purpose then does the Law serve? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

Angels made the promise to Abraham for a Seed or offspring to bless all people, then Angels brought the message of deliverance from slavery, both literal and figurative. Then until the Seed arrives, Angels brought about the Old Testament Law. The Law doesn’t just describe what is right and what’s wrong, but what is a fair and just punishment for transgression. The Law outlines how sins condemn us, and what payments, sacrifices, and offerings, are required to cover sins. Every violation and disobedience received its just punishment. Every punishment was outlined. We study the law and we walk away from it condemned. There’s nowhere for us to run. There’s no escaping the judgement that we deserve. But God promised Salvation. God Promised Reconciliation. The law pointed us to another message from the Angels. Years later, an Angel appeared to Mary and said, “Do not be afraid Mary, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” An Angel appeared to Joseph and said “Do not be afraid to take Mary home. Whats inside her is from the holy Spirit”. When the baby was born, an angel then appeared to shepherds in the fields and said, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” Hebrews 2:2-4

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.

The messages of the angels are the messages of God Himself. They are binding, like a contract or a covenant. They are unchanging, and they will come to pass. The omnipotent creator of the World has said it, and has the power to enforce everything in his Commands, every word of his contract. Every violation and disobedience receives a just punishment. I deserve death. I deserve condemnation. That’s Just, that’s Fair. That’s what I’ve sown, and that’s what I should reap. There is no escaping it. But God ALSO announced salvation; God gave us His One Way out. Just so there was no mistaking it, God it clear. God made sure that Angels were announcing it loudly to everyone involved, each step of the way, right through to the empty tomb, when the Angel told Mary, “You search for Jesus, but why do you search for the Living among the Dead?” After that, Jesus appeared in the flesh to his disciples and to others. Jesus gave one last command; He said to tell the good news, to baptize and make disciples of all nations. He said he was going to be with us until the end, and he would send his Holy Spirit to guide us. There were many signs, many wonders, many miracles that occurred to illustrate that God’s law was kept, and that Jesus’s promises were kept. Theses signs and wonders served to prove that Jesus was truly alive and His Holy Spirit was active in the new church. Read the book of Acts. All these things happened in order to testify to this Great Salvation. To this day, we are given various gifts of the Holy Spirit. Any time somebody says “Jesus is Lord”, it’s a form of gift from the Holy Spirit. Our faith is a gift. Our Belief is a gift. All these gifts of the Holy Spirit serve to testify to the truth of the Gospel, and give us a deposit guaranteeing things to come. God made a way for us to escape our just punishment. If we ignore that way, if we ignore that salvation, there’s nothing left for us besides Punishment. God has no other plan for you to escape your Sin, and God has made it abundantly clear that He won’t come up with any additional plan. If you ultimately end up ignoring Mercy, you ignore your only escape. Don’t expect another rescue. There is no other bus coming for you. Instead, you should fully expect to receive the Justice you deserve, which is a terrifying thing.. If you believe you love God, please, heed the warning in Hebrews 2 and Pay the Most Careful attention to His Word, so you don’t drift away. You may imagine yourself to be close, but at this point, only God truly knows your destination. Only God truly knows if you are one of those who persevere. Only when you consult God’s Word frequently, only when you fix yourself on God can you determine whether you are anchored, and whether you have assurance that you are set on a steady course. Pay the most careful attention, So you don’t prove to be aimless and without a destination. Pay the most careful attention, so you don’t end up Ignoring the best thing that God has ever done to an enemy. What does this mean for the world to come?

5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:

“What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their feet.”

All of the footnotes and quotation above are referring to Psalm 8. That psalm talks about the glory and majesty of God. How God created all the heavens and the earth. And how when you look at the stars and the heavens and the vastness of the universe, you feel tiny. How large and majestic is the galaxy and the planets, and we are tiny little specks of dust in that grand scale of things. Angels do God’s bidding and appear powerful, but we are lowly creatures who came from the dust of the earth and end up as dust. Who are we that God is mindful of us? God created all of the vastness of the universe, and yet cares deeply about us. God cared so much that He placed mankind in a position of authority and dominion over this wonderful creation. He placed us lower than angels in one sense, but in another sense, we are like the angels because we are all still under the authority of another.

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Jesus was made lower than the angels. He was with God and was God, but became a lowly human, born among animals in a barn. Jesus suffered death, not just any death, but the lowliest possible death. In verse 9 we read, Jesus suffered that death, but in doing so, he accomplished something and is now crowned with Glory and Honor. He was exalted to the most highest place and the most highest position. Jesus suffered that death so that by the Grace of God, Jesus tasted death for everyone. We no longer have to fear death itself, or the sting of death which is sin. Let’s finish with something from 1 corinthians 15:50-58.

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.