Dangers of Drifting

Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.

You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.

We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the

cross. Now let's join the service.

God is good, isn't he? If you discourage, read the back

of the book. If you worry about what's going

on in the world, read the back of the book.

Read what happens in the end, because in the end we win.

And when you understand that in the end we win, you can make it.

I was going to preach this morning.

If you can take it, you can make it.

That's a good. That's a good thought, isn't it?

If you can take it, you can make it.

But good to be in the House of the Lord today.

Good to be in God's presence, good to be with you.

Always a delight to to come into to be in service with you was

was here just few weeks ago. Glad to be back again and good

to see you and thank God for his presence.

Thank God for this beautiful singing this morning that leads

us into the presence of the Lord.

We have a friend in Jesus today and we can make it and we can

overcome no matter what's what's come our way and what we're

facing and what we're going through.

Heard about an elderly man, He was feeling his age.

Anybody ever feel your age? And he's complaining about it

now? Me, I'm not going to ask you if

you complain about it, he said. I sure have gotten old.

I've had two bypass surgeries, so I had a hip replacement, 2

new knee surgeries, I fought prostate cancer, diabetes, I'm

half blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine take

off, he said I'd take 40 different medications that make

me dizzy, winded, subject to blackouts I have bouts with.

Dementia I have. Poor circulation, can barely

feel my hands and feet anymore. I can't remember if I'm 85 or

95. I've lost almost all my friends

and my teeth, but thank God I got my driver's license.

See. See some of you laughing because

you're that's a little too familiar.

Well, I have crossed a threshold in my life that I'm not too

happy about. Just celebrated a 60th birthday

and I know I only look 40. I know it.

I know it. You're you're amazed.

You just Yeah, I saw your draws jaws drop and you just this

What? Yeah, that's that's how I feel

about it. But I'm still not as old as my

wife. So is there a greyhound around

here somewhere? Well, I have found out that it's

it's a good to have birthdays and I'm glad to be able to

celebrate them and thank God for his blessings have been blessed,

our lives have been blessed and thank God for his favor and

grace is mercy and love upon our lives.

Amen. If you have your Bibles, you

want to turn with me. I'm going to read just one verse

of Scripture from Hebrews chapter 2 felt very compelled

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

and directed to share this thought with you this morning.

Hebrews 2 verse one says reading from the new living translation

says, so we must listen very carefully to the truth we have

heard or we may drift away from it.

The writer saying and he's talking about the word of God.

We have to listen very carefully.

To the truth. I mean, I know there's a lot of

lies out there today. There's a lot of misconceptions

and mistrone theories and and philosophies, he said.

We must listen very carefully to the truth we've heard, or we may

drift away from it. I want to talk to you this

morning about the dangers of drifting.

The dangers of drifting. April 14th, 1912, Maiden voyage

of the world's greatest ship, the Titanic.

Speed through the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

And if I could get a little monitor on this to help me, it

was a floating palace, 882 feet long, 92 feet wide, 46,000 tons

of steel, powered by the most and the latest technology of the

day, crewed by experts and praised as unsinkable.

The pride of the Seas. The marvel of engineering.

The largest moving object. Humans had ever created.

But none of that mattered because it ignored the warnings

history records that the Titanic had received by radio.

Message 7. Warnings 7.

Different. Warnings some came from other

ships that had. Been in the area that had

already. Crossed the same path others.

Came. From, from signals and.

Radio warnings that there were icebergs that night.

Not one. Not 2, not 3.

Seven different warnings. They didn't pay attention.

They didn't heed. They didn't slow down.

They didn't change course. They.

Didn't take the warnings seriously.

Why they thought they? Were too big, they thought.

They were too strong, they thought.

They were too secure. They thought they were, too.

Advanced. They thought they were, too.

Big to fail, but hear me. Pride makes you deaf.

Arrogance makes you blind. Overconfidence.

Makes you stubborn and. The ship that couldn't sink

sank. In less than 3 hours because.

Someone failed to heed the. Warnings.

You know where I'm going the. Danger wasn't the iceberg.

It was their attitude. They weren't.

Destroyed by what? They hit.

They were. Destroyed by what they ignored.

They didn't perish because they lacked information.

They perished because they lacked attention.

They didn't pay attention, the writer says.

Pay careful attention to the truth, lest you drift away.

From it. They didn't go down because

there was a storm. They went down because of their

failure to heed the warnings. You know the Bible's a wonderful

book full of beautiful stories and the romance of.

Redemption and and miraculous moments and.

Life giving. Lessons and all.

Kinds of spiritual truths and wisdom that is giving to.

Us and A. Wellspring of knowledge and a

repository of wisdom we have in the Word of God.

But within its pages it we see faith that moves mountains, and

grace that saves sinners, and mercy that restores lives and

promises that give hope. But the same Bible that inspires

us is the same Bible that warns us, the same Bible that that we

read. And we, we, we can enjoy the,

the stories that gives to us. But these warnings that are

given, they're not to scare us. They're to prepare us and to

inform us and to spare us. God warns us because he loves.

Us he. Cautions us because he cares for

us. He alerts us because He wants

our walk to be in alignment with His will.

So the word that I heard in my spirit coming for today was this

in Hebrews 21 is the word drift. That word drift just jumped out

at me and, and, and I felt the spirit say that, that we need to

sound the alarm, that if we're not careful, we will drift.

Now there's there's different meanings and different

applications to the word drift. It was first of all used as a

nautical term. You know what it means for a

boat to drift if it's unanchored and it it begins the the current

underneath and the tide or whatever.

The situation. Or gentle winds or can cause the

boat to float away from from its intended desired location and it

begins to drift. It's a nautical.

Term. But it's also an aerodynamic

term or aeronautical term, meaning pushed off course by a

cross wind. A cross wind can push a plane

off of it's a intended or desired location if it's not

corrected. But it's also a Motorsports.

Term. TikTok, Facebook reels, YouTube

videos. I, I, I, I see a bunch they come

across cross my reels all the time of of of sports cars or

driving enthusiasts who have who have learned the skill of

drifting now now it's usually spoiled rich kids who's who

don't. Have to pay for anything that

get these fancy. Cars that they're messing up and

some it's some it's it's part of a new racing sport of actually

drifting and using skill. I remember drifting before I

even. Had a license taking the car.

Or the truck down a dirt Rd. when I wasn't supposed to and

going around a dirt Rd. corner fast enough and pulling the

handbrake and sliding around the corner.

That's drifting. That's drifting.

That's fun. Do it in a do it in a go Kart or

whatever that that was drifting. But now it's a sport and, and

and and there's all kinds but it, it's losing, losing traction

and losing control on purpose. Well, there's a biblical

definition of drifting and the biblical definition is a

warning. It's a spiritual warning to pay

attention that we don't drift because to drift it's subtle,

it's slow, it's unnoticed. Jesus warned about it when his

disciples asked in Matthew 24, when Jesus on the Mount of

Olives and he, they begin to ask the question, what are the signs

of your coming? When shall the end be?

And Jesus began to give 7 distinct warnings.

I don't have time. You could you could lay the

seven warnings that were given to the Titanic on top of Matthew

24. And he began to give them

warnings about deception. He began to give them warnings

about destruction. He began to give them warnings

about increased iniquity. Lawlessness shall abound.

But this is what he said in Matthew 24, verse 12.

Matthew 24:12

He says as sin becomes rampant, as lawless, this increases, As

iniquity abounds, so shall the love of many begin to wax.

That's an old, old King James word.

Wax a cold or or begin to grow cold.

That is really the definition of drifting.

It is a slow, gradual becoming cold moving off center.

It's slow, it's subtle, growing cold.

It's the Greek word sukko, which means it's like what you do in

the morning when you got a hot cup of coffee and you go to sip

it and you blow on it. You put a cool breeze upon your

coffee to take a sip of it. Or you blow your, your, your

spoon or with your with your hot chicken noodle soup or, or your

hot chocolate or hot tea or whatever it is that you've got,

or a hot bite of lasagna that just came out of the oven.

You blow on it to cool it down. That's what growing cold means,

that Jesus said. We know that this is a sign of

the last day. It's a warning of the last day

because many will grow cold and many are growing cold and they

don't even. Realize it.

They're not heeding the warning signs.

They're not heating. They don't.

They don't understand. Nobody just wakes up and say I'm

quitting God. They don't.

They don't just wake up 1 morning.

Nobody rolls out of bed one morning and just says I'm

getting the divorce or we're getting the divorce.

Nobody just gets up 1 morning and becomes an alcoholic, or

becomes an addict, or destroys their integrity, or loses their

faith or abandons their calling. People don't leap into

destruction, they drift. Into it, people.

Drift. Into divorce.

People drift into addiction. People drift into losing their

integrity. People drift into walking away,

people drift into abandoning their calling.

It's little decisions, it's little compromises.

It's little neglect here and a little neglect there.

You want to know what a good definition of drifting is?

It's doing nothing. It's simply doing nothing.

Nothing. Neglect.

You Neglect prayer. You're drifting.

You neglect worship. You're drifting.

What are you doing? You're doing nothing.

You're doing nothing. You neglect church, you'll

drift. You neglect fellowship, You'll

you'll drift. What are you doing?

Nothing. You're doing nothing.

No spiritual disciplines. You're doing nothing.

People don't leap in. They drift.

They don't fall in a day. You.

Fall by degrees. You don't break in a moment, you

break over time. You don't collapse in an hour,

you collapse through neglect. You drift inch by inch, mile by

mile. You see what if a plane, if a

plane starts off course by 1° over a couple 100 miles, 1° off

course could put them hundreds of miles off course.

It happened in 1983 to A to the Seoul, Korea plane flight 007

that left Anchorage, AK going to Seoul Korea Korean Airlines and

by some navigational error, computer error, the the plane

was 1° off, but as it traveled out of Anchorage mile after mile

after mile, that 1° put them into Soviet airspace

accidentally. And they shot it.

Down and killed 293. People, I remember it.

One degree, 1° off 1° unchecked 1° without, without correcting,

without correcting course we by inch, mile by mile until

suddenly we're in enemy territory and we're wondering

how do we get here? How did our marriage get here?

How did, how did, how did we get here in our life?

How did how did we get here spiritually?

Inch by inch, little by little. But you see, God sends warnings

through his Word, through his Spirit, through the preaching of

the Word, through friends, through people.

But if we don't heed them, we drift into destruction.

We drift into the enemy territory.

And just like a ship that refuses or an airplane that

doesn't change direction, we find ourselves drifting away,

unanchored, slowly, allowing the tide of the world to pull us, to

pull us away, to cool us down. You see, a drifting heart

becomes distant. A drifting heart becomes

deceived. A drifting heart becomes

distracted. A drifting heart becomes

disobedient and deadened and divided and eventually

destroyed. Drifting is the slow death of

devotion in the soul. You know, the Bible doesn't show

us, doesn't just show us people who stood strong.

The Bible shows us people who slid slowly away, people who

wandered quietly, who drifted gradually, not overnight, not

intentionally, not loudly, but slowly, silently, subtly, by

small degrees, little compromises and casual.

Decisions. Think about Samson.

He drifted until he couldn't feel God.

David drifted until he couldn't hear God.

Solomon drifted until he didn't obey God.

Lot drifted until he didn't. He didn't.

Fear God. We talk about Demas who drifted

and didn't didn't follow God at all and Peter who drifted and he

didn't stand. Ephesus, the church that drifted

that didn't love God and soul that drifted until he didn't

want God. And Jonah that drifted until he

didn't go where God wanted him to go.

The Bible doesn't just tell us of all those that were strong

and stood in faith and obeyed everything.

No, the Bible lets us know that there are those who drifted.

I think about, I think about Judas.

I think about somebody who walked with Jesus, talked with

him, stood side by side with him, saw the miracles that he

did, physically, physically slept in the same room and, and

and lounged at the same table and and and and talked and

laughed together, the same one. But yet he drifted.

You see, you can be close and still drift if you don't guard

yourself. If we don't guard.

But the gospel is good news because the drift is reversible.

Coldness is curable. There is a cure for the common

cold of Christianity. Christians can become cold.

Jesus said. This is what he said to the

church in Revelation too. He said, I wish that you were

either cold or hot, but I despise you if you're lukewarm.

I despise you if you're pretending like you're good.

I despise you if you're pretending like everything.

You got it all together. And but he said, I worried that

you were either cold or hot because if you're cold, I can

get you back on fire. If you're cold, I can get you

turned around if you're cold. I got the cure for the common

cold and the Holy Spirit has got a fire that he.

We can relight in our souls that can cure us of the coldness of

our heart. Distance is bridgeable.

Numbness is healable. Jesus didn't condemn Drifters,

He welcomed them back. Oh the the the welcoming back of

the prodigal. Come home.

You're cold, but you can come home.

The good news is, if you've drifted this morning, you can

return. If you've gotten cold, you can

be warmed. If you've lost the fire, it can

be reignited. If you've wandered, you can come

back. If you've fallen, you can get

up. If you've drifted 1000 steps

away. It only takes one to turn around

and come back. Just one step can change the

course. You can be 1° off.

You might have been 1° off for the last six months.

Maybe you've been 1° off all year.

Maybe you've been 1° off for a while.

But guess what? There is a course correction.

You can change course. You can come back.

You can turn back to the Father. You see a.

Fireless believers a defeated. Believer, A fireless church is a

powerless church because when the fire goes out.

The enemy comes in. When the fire goes out, the

wolves show up. When the fire goes out, the

lions come in. True story.

Family had gone to to Africa and they were touring and they

wanted to go into. To to the reserve.

And and. There there are some.

Places in different parts of Africa where you can actually

stay and spend the night in, in the jungle, in the reserve.

And, and that they'll take you and you can, they'll drop you

off and they'll give you instructions and say, you know,

you can do this and do this. And but one thing that you have

to do is that you have to make sure that you tend your fire.

Don't let the fire go out before the, the, the, the warden leaves

you or the whoever's dropped you off.

They will tell you don't let the fire go out.

But the cold night. Sets in the black.

Sky, the stars, the sounds of the.

Jungle can be mesmerizing. And this particular.

Family they they were. Enjoying the sounds and the

sights and the darkness and they got.

Sleepy and. They forgot to.

Add more wood to the fire before they fell asleep through the

night. The fire went out and the lions

came in. It's a tragic.

Ending If the fire goes out, the enemy comes in, Peter said.

The enemy like a roaring. Lion.

Seeketh whom he may devour. You'll be devoured if your fire

goes out, you're you're in predatory territory.

You're praying for the enemy. When you drift, when you drift

to sleep, when you drift off, when you drift away from the

word, when you drift away from prayer, when you drift away from

your relationship with the Lord. If the fire goes out, and often

times the fire goes out slowly and then just go out all at

once. It goes out slowly and when the

fire goes out, it comes in. No matter what happens, no

matter how tired you get, no matter how weary we get of this

world and the stress of life and the the, the opposition that

comes against us and all the forces of life that squeeze us

and put pressure on us. And it comes from here and it

comes from there and comes over here and comes there.

Life can wear you down, but no matter how weary you get, you

got to tend the fire. Fire.

You can't let the fire go out. The night grows long, the air

grows cold, your eyes get heavy. Is he coming?

Is he really coming? Is the Lord really coming?

Is it? You know what?

What? What if what we're hearing isn't

true? The writer said.

Pay careful attention to the truth.

You've got to hold on to the truth.

You got to hold on to the word of God.

Heaven and earth is going to pass away, but Jesus said My

word will never pass away. His word is true.

Leviticus 13 The fire is ever to be burning upon the altar.

The fire is never to go out. God lit the fire in the

Tabernacle. The first fire was lit by God

himself. God lights the fire, but we're

responsible for tending it. God sets a fire down in your

soul. He ignites you with joy and love

and passion and devotion for Him.

But then it's our responsibility to keep it tended.

You got to tend to fire. It doesn't stay burning by

itself. You got to add wood, you got to

stir the ashes. You got to remove the old.

You got to tend to it. That's what's happening too many

today. That's why Minnies love is

growing cold. It's because they're not tending

the fire. They're not tending it.

They're not watching over the fire.

You've got to tend the fire. You can't let the fire go out,

because when the fire goes out, the enemy comes in the pro and

prayer dies. The enemy prowls.

When the fire worship phase, temptation enters.

When the fire of holiness cools, compromise creeps in.

When the fire devotion dies, destruction begins.

You don't have to be food for the lion.

You don't have to be lions prey because.

Greater is he that's. In us than he that's in the

world, if you'll just tend the fire.

That's what we're doing this morning.

That's why we've come on on this first day of the week, and we've

sung songs and we come into the sanctuary and we come to lift

holy hands and we come to offer our lives and our bodies again

as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.

We're tending the fire. But guess what?

Tomorrow you got to tend the fire again.

Tuesday you got to tend the fire.

Wednesday you got to tend the fire.

Thursday you still got to tend the fire.

Friday you got to add wood to it.

Saturday you got to add wood. We can't be one day, one month

Christians. We can't just be Christians on

Sunday only because if we are, we're cold, we're called, we've

drifted. You've got you've got to be in a

relationship with the Lord every day or we become pray for the

enemy, the Holy Spirit sounding the alarm.

Draw near. Tie your soul to the anchor of

the word of God. Feed the fire, add wood for

what? What if what if you're drifting?

What if you've drifted? What if this morning the holy.

Spirit is nudging you. And prompting you and.

Speaking to you and say. Yeah, maybe I have drifted,

Maybe I'll maybe my devotion isn't as passionate.

As it should be. Maybe my service to the Lord,

maybe my worship isn't. Maybe my prayer life.

Maybe maybe my devotional time isn't what it ought to be.

Just tend the fire. He's not here to.

Condemn us. He's just here.

He just, he just sent me from Fort Worth just to say tend the

fire today. He loves us and us to send

somebody with a warning to say, hey, check the course, check to

make sure you're not drifting, check to make sure you're not

off course. Today.

Just tend the fire. Just lift your.

Hands in his presence. Say, Lord, I love you, I want to

draw near, James, 4 says. Draw near to God.

And he'll draw near to you. Resist the devil and he'll flee.

You see it? That's what it's all about.

The The enemy wants you drifting.

He can't. He can't destroy you.

Did you know that the. Enemy can't destroy you, Jesus

said. No man can take you out but what

he can. Do is lie to you.

What he can do is distract you. Distract you from the truth,

Distract you from your identity, distract you from your calling,

distract you from your passion. So resisting, resisting, kindle

that fire. Let the fire burn in you today.

Just get. Renewed in him today, renewed by

the, Paul said. We're renewed by the renewing.

Of our minds, the word of God. Just start.

If you, if you haven't, you haven't been reading your Bible,

just start. Just start.

That's all you got to do. Just start.

If you haven't been praying, just start.

Just start. If you haven't been coming to

church in a while, just start. Just start being regular.

Just start being consistent. That's how you tend the fire.

And it'll grow. And one log on, fire catches

another one. One coal, 1 coal hot starts

another one. You see, that's why we that's

why we don't forsake the fellowship.

That's why we don't forsake the assembling of ourselves

together. Because one can start a fire in

another. Your fire can ignite fire in

somebody else. Your passion, your devotion can

spark. That fire and somebody else.

Let's stand together, please, Hallelujah.

Before we do anything else. We're going to.

We're going. To pray, We're going to pray.

We're going to come to the altar.

In just a moment, but before we do anything else, let's just

lift up our. Hands and acknowledge His

presence, Lord. We acknowledge your presence.

We praise you right now. We honor you.

Lord, we thank you for your goodness.

Thanks for listening to the Cross Power Church podcast.

May you know that true hope, peace, and salvation can only be

found in Jesus. If you're near Campbell, TX, we

would love for you to join us in person.

You can find service times at crosspowerchurch.com.