"A Warning and A Hope" - Hebrews 2:1-9

Well, about seven years ago or so, my parents did something I thought they would

never do. They got a boat.

We did not grow up with boats. My dad can't really swim that well.

And by can't really swim that well, he just like, he can survive in water,

but it's a survival exercise, right?

And so, like we had a pool growing up.

Dad never swam with us. He would just stand outside.

And so I knew when we got the boat, the boat was not really for him.

It was for grandkids, but we just did not have stuff like that.

And so I had no experience on a boat, but of course I was super confident that how hard could it be?

You know, how hard can a 24 foot pontoon boat be to launch and get in the water?

I mean, it's just a boat. It's got a motor.

I've driven a go-kart. I can kill this thing. So, uh, we get the boat, it's in the water.

And my dad's like, Hey, like, are you sure you just want to take off?

Are you sure you just want to go do that.

And it's me and two friends. And we're like, oh yeah, no problem.

And my friend's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I go canoeing all the time.

And you're like, we are so cocky.

And so we just get in and take off and everything's going really well.

We're cruising around the water. We're getting more and more confident or cocky,

however you want to say that.

And we're on Lake Palestine. And so we hit a stump and the prop spins.

Now, all of you who have boats know exactly what I mean by that.

You know exactly what a spun prop is.

I thought the motor blew up. I thought we were stranded and we're in the middle

of the lake and we don't have any cell phone reception.

And again, we were not prepared. We didn't bring anything with us because we

just assumed everything was going to go really well, right?

And now all of a sudden it's not going really well.

And so we're trying to like flag other boats down. And of course,

when you're on the lake, everyone just assumes you're waving at them.

And so we're like, hey, can you help us? They're like, yeah,

we're having a great day too. And they're just like, no problem.

And what we realized was, again, as we're sitting there, it takes probably 30

or 45 minutes where we like kind of get to a spot.

We get some cell phone reception and can call my dad.

He comes out there with a, well, not my dad, but my mom comes out there on a jet ski.

We have to like tow it in on a jet ski. And it was embarrassing,

but we realized, man, we drifted because where we stopped, I could see my parents' boathouse.

And 45 minutes later, that boathouse was like a speck. I could just barely see it.

And I remember thinking, man, I didn't think we were out here that long and

I didn't think we had moved that far.

But in the midst of everything else that was going on, that we were trying to

figure out what was wrong and figure out if we could get it to move and figure

out if we could paddle it with our hands or do we need to jump out and swim?

Or how is this going to work?

We had just kind of floated slowly but surely further and further away from

where we were supposed to be.

And again, I think this is the warning that we're going to see in Hebrews this

morning is we all take off, especially the second you get saved and you become a Christian, right?

There's a ton of joy and a ton of motivation behind that.

And you are just sure that everything's going to go so well.

I've told this story a bunch of times, But, you know, you go to camp or D-Now

with students or kids camp, or maybe you've had experience with revivals.

You know, when people come to know who Jesus is, when Jesus gives them a new

heart, they're convinced that nothing could go wrong.

I don't know how many students you sit with where they get saved and you can

see the Lord working their lives. And what do they do? They say,

man, I'm so excited to go home.

I'm never going to do that again. I'm never going to sin again.

I'm just never going to mess up.

Everything is going to be so good. I'm going to go home. My parents are going

to get saved. All my friends are going to get saved.

Everyone's going to convert. My whole school is going to worship the Lord on Monday.

And then you get home and you realize that life is hard and things happen.

And like we do in the lake, a prop spins and you don't know exactly how to fix

it and you're not sure what's going on.

You're not sure why people aren't as excited about the Lord as you are and why

people aren't getting on board it and why you struggle with sin so much.

And so I think this twofold kind of warning and hope that we're going to see

in Hebrews chapter two this morning is to answer those questions.

Because regardless of where you are this morning, the writer of Hebrews has

something for you, right?

When we are flying high like we were that day and we think everything is gravy

and we're just cruising right along and life is exactly how we want it to be,

God is a good father and warns us, hey, be careful because that's when you begin to drift, right?

If you're not careful, if you take your eyes off of the anchor that is Christ

the Lord, if you're not careful, you'll wake up one day, 10 miles, 100 miles,

a couple countries over from where you really thought you should be,

where you really wanted to be.

And at the same time, he knows there's people that he's talking to that don't need a warning.

They need some hope because life has been hard and things are not going well.

And maybe they have found themselves a couple countries over already from where

they were supposed to be.

Maybe some things have happened to them that weren't fair. They've felt the

sting of death and the sting of the fall around them.

And he goes, listen, there's hope too.

So if you have a Bible, we're going to again start in Hebrews 2.

And just start with the warning. It says, therefore, now he's just finished

chapter one, where he's talked about Jesus is a better prophet and a better

king, but he's also greater than the angels.

In other words, he's put Jesus on this pedestal that, hey, angels actually worship

Jesus, not the other way around. They're not on the same plane.

Jesus is greater than them. He says, So with that in mind, he says,

we must pay closer attention to what we have heard.

However much attention you're paying to it, you need to pay closer attention

to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it, right?

The warning begins, I think, by saying, oftentimes drifting is not caused intentionally,

but just from unconcern, right?

When we're in the boat and we're drifting away, it's not that we're not concerned

about ourselves and what are we going to do and what happens.

But if we were truly concerned, if we were truly thinking clearly,

then before we got in the boat, we would have maybe packed an anchor,

right? We would have maybe checked to make sure we had some cell phone service.

We would have maybe had a few things available to us to help us along the way,

but we weren't concerned.

We weren't concerned. We didn't have any thought process going into that.

We just wanted to have a good time. We just wanted to have a good time.

And for so many Christians, that's what this turns into, is it's not your intention.

I don't think any Christian wakes up one day and says, you know what I'd like

to do today? I would just love to drift further away from the Lord.

That's what I would love to do.

You know, you wake up and you go, you know what would be great for my life?

If I was further away from the Lord today than I was yesterday.

I don't think any true Christian has ever had that thought. But I think every

single one of us has woke up unconcerned about being truly closer to the Lord

than we were the day before.

And that is how drift happens.

When Christians neglect their anchor that is Christ, they begin to quietly, slowly drift away.

There's no friction. There's no dramatic sense of departure.

But when life begins to happen or the winds of trouble come,

the things of Christ are left far behind, not because we intended them to,

but because we just weren't concerned with them.

Now, there may be a time that comes where there's a dramatic falling out.

There's this flash moment where everything comes together and all of a sudden,

all these things come to light, but it doesn't happen that way overnight.

There's drifting that takes place and carelessness is what does that.

We fail again to consider that we need an anchor.

We need something to tether us. I just wanted to write down a couple of maybe

common pitfalls, and then we're going to go to a scripture in Luke that Jesus

tells us, early points to how drift happens.

I think one would be just familiarity, especially living in East Texas.

You just get familiar with it.

I know some of y'all are not from East Texas, and that's one of the weirdest things about,

talking to you guys or you guys talking to us, or we start talking about what

it's like to grow up here and to have church on every corner and praying in

public schools and all these things, which is a great thing.

And I'm glad we have those things, but it just becomes so familiar that we lose

the fact that this is an awe-inspiring thing that's happened.

I've told the story about how in college I ended up working for the Mavericks and the Rangers.

And I can remember the first time or the first couple of times we got to do that job, we dressed up.

We were 19 years old in college. We did not dress up for anything,

but we like went and bought jeans.

I didn't wear jeans. I literally went to DBU because they didn't have a dress code. The bar was low.

I went to ETBU and they were like, hey, you got to wear slacks every day.

And I was like, this was a great tour. I'm not, I'm not doing this.

It's like, I'm willing to commit my life to ministry at that point,

but not wear slacks every day.

There's a huge, you know, but I can remember the first time I went to that job

and thinking like, man, we're on the floor, right?

Before a game, I'm on the floor. There's Dirk Nowinski, right?

He's just jogging right in front of me.

No big deal, right? There's Derek Rose, who at the time was my favorite player.

And he's, he's just, we're playing Derek. He's just jogging right beside me.

And you're trying to play it cool, but I'm sure I just look like this.

And I'm like be cool man be cool like they won't even know that you're excited,

but it was funny a year and a half into that job it

wasn't exciting at all right I would

be in the press box and someone say hey we need someone to go down to the floor

to work on this side or the other and you're like ah you know you walk on the

floor and you're like dirt can you move dude like I just need to work on the

machine I didn't say that to him okay I'm not saying I'm that cocky But it became so commonplace.

And then every now and again, we would have an extra press pass and we'd bring one of our friends.

And it was like the reminder of, oh, this is weird that we get to do this because

our friends are going, man, can we get on the court early and can we go watch

them warm up? Can we go out there?

And me and my friend Travis were like, no, we're going to press dining,

bro. We're just about to go eat.

Yeah, but we can eat anytime. It's like, yeah, we could or we could eat now.

But they haven't seen it. They don't know what it's like. They've never been there.

And it's just funny how we can do the same thing if we're not careful with Christ,

that he just becomes so familiar.

These things become so commonplace that we lose our sense of awe and we forget

what we've been given in Christ, what Christ has accomplished for us because

we just kind of hear it every day.

So familiarity can be a problem. Busyness, of course. There's been tons of talk

about how busy people are, and I don't need to belabor that point.

But I would just say that if I were to hold a piece of sand in my hand,

it's really not a big deal.

But enough sand can bury you.

And I think that's what busyness does to a lot of people. It's slowly but surely

you keep just piling little pieces of sand on top of you until one day you wake

up and you're like, man, I'm stuck.

I can't get out of here. I've got so many things going on.

How could I ever find time to wake up and consider what the Lord wants from me?

And then the third one I wrote down was just time in general,

right? Time has the effect on us like water over a rock.

If I put rocks in running water and you look at them and you watch them,

you can stand there and look at them and nothing changes.

But if you come back a year later, if you come back five years later,

all of a sudden those rocks start to round off the edges And you can't even

stand there and watch it happen.

It happens so slowly. But just over time, the water has that effect on us.

And that's kind of what life can do. So no matter how strong you are over time,

it can just erode you down.

And every single one of us knows somebody.

Maybe this has been you at times where you wake up one day, maybe you go to

church like you've always gone to church.

You sing the songs like you've always gone to church. And God just kind of taps

you on the shoulder and says, hey, you remember when you actually used to love me?

Remember when you actually used to love me and love my word and love to pray

and love to go to church and you were involved and things were going well and

you were striving forward, you were discipling people, you were making disciples.

You remember what that's like?

Maybe this morning will be that for someone in here. I pray it is just to God

to tap you on the shoulder and go, hey, it doesn't have to be this way.

You don't have to be the rock at the bottom of the river who's slowly getting eroded away.

But that's what time does to us.

I think Jesus makes this point as clear as you can make it.

Luke 14, he's given the parable of the banquet feast, and he's going to send

people out, he's going to send his messages out to invite people to this great banquet.

So he says in verse 16 of chapter 14, you just listen here.

A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet,

he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is ready.

But they all alike began to make excuses.

The first said to him, I've bought a field and I must go out and see to it.

Please have me excused. And another said, I've bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them.

Please have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife,

and therefore I cannot come.

So the servant came and reported these things to his master.

The master of the house became angry and said to his servant,

go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor,

crippled and blind and lame.

The servant said, sir, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.

And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel

people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you,

none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.

All right, now on the surface, these excuses are not bad excuses.

Right? If a guy has just bought a field, he's got a lot of work to do, legitimate work to do.

If a guy's just bought some oxen, I can imagine there's a lot of things that come with that.

And certainly if a man's just gotten married, there's a lot of things that come with that.

The point that Jesus is making is it doesn't matter what is going on in your life.

If you are too busy to heed the call of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, you're too busy.

If you love something more than you love the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,

then you love something more than you should.

If something is more valuable to us than Jesus Christ and his name glorified,

then whatever that thing is, is valued too much.

And Jesus' point over and over again, it doesn't matter what that is.

Imagine someone telling you, well, I am excited about the Lord and I want to

get involved in a church and I want to do the things that God calls me to do.

But you know, I just got married.

And so we've got a lot on our plate. We've got a lot to figure out.

Imagine Jesus looking at them right away and said, listen, you'll never come

into the banquet with that attitude.

The truth is we would all look at Jesus if we didn't know who he was and go,

man, that seems a little harsh.

Like that's a little rude. They just got married. Give them a break.

Like they're easing into life. You don't know where they're at.

You don't know what's going on. You don't know their situation.

You don't know what they've been through.

And Jesus' response would be, it doesn't matter. None of those things matter

because this invitation is the most important invitation in your life to come

and be a part of the kingdom of God.

And so it doesn't matter what else is going on.

Don't miss that. Going back to Hebrews, don't allow yourself to drift away from

that because of the excuses available to you. There will always be an excuse.

Always. I found them when I was 12. I found them when I was 16.

I found them when I was 18. I found them when I was 25.

I find them now, and I'm sure you can all attest, those of you who are older

than me in here, you can find them anytime you want them.

They are readily available, and

the world is more than happy to pat you on the back when you take them.

And then no matter what we do, people are so quick to say, yes,

God understands. He knows. It's okay.

It's like, yeah, God does understand. Of course, He is close to the brokenhearted.

He asks this church to weep with those who weep and to mourn with those who

mourn, and all those things are true, but the point is the same.

Whether it's fields, oxen, marriage.

Kids, jobs, stuff, there is no good excuse to drift from the Lord.

There's not one. And this is not, as we always want to remind ourselves,

a call for you and me to wake up and be more religious.

For you to wake up tomorrow and go, you know what? That's right.

I am going to read a book of the Bible every single day, right?

You know, I am going to, I haven't prayed in four years, but I'm going to start

praying an hour every day.

No, the point is to get your eyes on Christ.

Do not let those good things skew your vision of the one who has given you those good things.

A family is an incredible gift. I love my wife and kids more than I love anybody else in this room.

It's not even close. I love the job that I have, that God's allowed me to have.

I love the people in my life. I love the opportunities that I have every week

to do things that a lot of people don't have the opportunity to do.

But the very second that those things take the place of Christ in my life,

I've begun to do exactly what Romans 1 tells me not to do, which is worship

the created things and not the Creator Himself.

Can tell you, even in ministry, I see this constantly.

Every pastor I've ever known has at least had one season where they're like,

man, I was preaching five times a week. I was at every hospital visit.

I was doing everything God asked me to do. And if you would have asked anybody,

I was the healthiest I'd ever been in my life in terms of ministry.

And yet I could care less about what God wanted for me. I could care less about

what God was doing for me.

It was just a job, and I was just doing what I was supposed to do.

So the question becomes, of course, what's the cure? Well, the writer here is

going to do a lesser to greater argument.

This is a really common way to argue in Hebrew.

So he's going to make an argument that's lesser than the argument he really

wants to make to say, if this lesser thing is true, then this greater thing is even more true.

We should look at it even more closely.

So he says again in verse two, For since the message declared by angels proved

to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.

The point is the law that these words mediated by angels were so binding that

every, he says, violation and disobedience received its just punishment.

The law given by angels to the prophets was a binding thing, right?

That's why there's these hard stories in the Old Testament that you read and

maybe have a hard time in your Bible reading plan about some guy breaking the

Sabbath and being kicked out of, and then eventually stoned.

And you're going, that seems like a small thing for someone to get stoned for,

for breaking the Sabbath.

The issue is not that he broke the Sabbath. The issue is that he broke God's law.

The law is not the issue. It's the one that you're sinning against that is the issue.

But the point that the writer of Hebrews makes is that people were held accountable

to it, but he says the law is a much lesser thing.

A much lesser thing to what?

Verse three, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who

had heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles

and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

So the lesser argument is people were held accountable to the law.

The greater argument is the good news of salvation derives not from angels,

but from the Lord, who we've already said spent chapter one talking about is

greater than angels, who is God in the flesh.

Not in need of angels to mediate for him because he is God and he speaks.

And that is true 100% of the time. And his law is perfect 100% of the time.

1 Timothy 2, 5 and 6, for there is one God and one mediator between God and

man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men,

the testimony given in its proper time.

The writer of Hebrews says it was announced by Christ. It says it was confirmed

by those who were eyewitnesses to it.

I thought this was cool. I've said before, I love church history.

There was a man by the name of Irenaeus that was like a third century church father.

And he writes this, says, as he Polycarp, who died in about 155,

156, says, as he Polycarp remembered their words and what he heard from them concerning the Lord,

concerning miracles and his teaching having received from the eyewitnesses of

the word of life, John, right?

That's the John who wrote the

book of John. Polycarp related all things in harmony with the scriptures.

These things being told me by the mercy of God, I listened to them attentively,

noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart and continually through God's

grace, I recall them faithfully.

So it's confirmed by people who saw it.

And lastly, he said, it's testified to by what? By signs and wonders and various

miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Point is this, if the law is lesser and people were held accountable to it,

the writer of Hebrews warning is, how do you think you're going to escape this great salvation?

How do you think you're going to be above retribution if you neglect such a

great salvation that wasn't delivered to you by angels, but that was delivered

to you by God himself and the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Again, the concern of this warning is for those who have heard, not those who haven't.

He's writing to people who have heard the word.

Even more than that, his concern is not for those who would reject the gospel,

but for those who would ignore it.

And man, if this isn't the culture we live in. Most people have no problem with

the gospel here, but they also have no problem ignoring it.

The concern is not as much for one's actions as it is for one's attitude.

The one who has let the greatness of Christ slip away.

The one who no longer marvels at what Christ has done, at the atonement,

at the justification of sinners.

The one who no longer has a desire for the word.

The one who no longer sees a desire to pray.

The one who is drifting back to where he came from and has little concern about his drifting.

That's the concern of this warning text. He's not concerned at this point with

people who haven't heard, with people that are rejecting Christ.

He's concerned with, for lack of a better term,

church people that would get so familiar with Christ that they might begin to

drift and not even realize it because they're still doing the things they've always done,

but their heart and their attitude towards Christ is completely different than

it was the day they came to Him.

It is more blameworthy to sin against love than to sin against law.

Calvin's point when he wrote about this, that to ignore God's mercy than to break his law, right?

You can break a law, you can break a rule and people understand, well, that's a law.

You don't really understand maybe why it's a law.

And so, you know, I can remember when the seatbelt laws came out,

my dad thought that that was the most unconstitutional thing in the world.

And he was going to fight the power until he got about $2,000 worth of seatbelt tickets.

He wears a seatbelt now. It's crazy how that works, but he didn't understand

why they needed that law. He just thought that was completely unfair.

But to sin against love is a much greater thing.

To sin against mercy that's been shown to you and grace that's been offered

to you, that's a much greater thing.

As if you were to commit the greatest crime you've ever committed and someone

else took the blame for you and took the punishment that you should take,

and then you were to look at them and go, hey, thanks, but I've got it from here.

What's the warning? There is no escape if we ignore such a great salvation. Don't drift.

Don't drift. I'll be honest with you. I was going to stop at verse four and maybe once I get done,

y'all wish I had, but it's been a weird month, but it just seems like every

week I'm at multiple funerals and I'm hearing of multiple people pass away.

I was at the house last night and I got another phone call that somebody I'm

really close to, an older gentleman that his son had just had a heart attack and passed away.

And you're going, man, I'm just getting tired of getting these messages.

It's wearisome to have that. And I think when I was getting ready and kind of

putting the finishing touches on everything yesterday, and then I got that text message,

I had already decided, okay, I'm going to save verse five to nine for next week.

And I was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to save verse five because

I need to preach this to myself this morning as much as anybody else needs to hear it.

And so what is the hope? He's given us the warning, don't drift.

And he's given us the cure for that, right? What's the cure for that?

The cure is to look at the message declared from Christ, to look at the gospel,

to make sure your eyes stay focused on that, to not lose the awe and splendor

of the fact that you were dead and were made alive.

But what if you don't need a warning? What if you don't need a warning?

What if you've just been beaten up?

What if life has not been kind to you, and you feel like you're doing everything

you can to stay as close as you can to the Lord, and you're not at all trying to drift?

You don't need a warning not to drift, because, man, every day you wake up,

you're talking to the Lord, and you're trying to stay close.

You're doing everything that you know to do.

It just feels like every step you take, life is really hard.

I think that's why the writer of Hebrews follows his warning with this.

He says, for it is not to angels that God subjected the world to come,

of which we are speaking.

It has been testified somewhere.

That's the most preacher thing in the world. I can't remember the reference,

so I can just say, you know, the Old Testament says, but this reference is Psalm 8 verses 3 through 6.

Psalms 8:3–6

It says, what is man that you are mindful of him, are the son of man that you care for him.

You have made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned

him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Now, the Psalm's doing two things.

First thing he says, what is man that you are mindful of him? That's you and me.

And then he says, or the son of man that you care for him. And that's in direct

quotation to Christ. That's a name for the coming Messiah.

So he has these two categories. and obviously we see Jesus, we know what Jesus

goes through, but the issue is not first and foremost, Jesus,

we know a lot about him, but what about us, where it says, what is man that you are mindful of him?

But he goes on to say, you have crowned him with glory and honor.

You've put everything in subjection under his feet. He goes on as he gives commentary

in this verse at the end of verse eight.

Now I'm putting everything into subjection to him. He left nothing outside his control.

Do you feel like that? I bet most of you don't.

Most of us most days do not feel like we have a good control of anything.

We certainly don't feel like we're made just a little less than angels.

We certainly don't feel like we've been given this incredible place of honor.

And as far as putting things into subjection under our feet,

it feels like everybody's foot is on top of us and we're in subjection to it.

And he gives you the answer to why you feel that way.

At the end of verse eight, he says, at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

Here's that reference to Christ, verse nine, but we see him who for a little

while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus,

crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the

grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

What is the hope that the author of Hebrews gives after he gives a warning?

What is the hope? The hope he gives is, I know that it feels like you don't

have any control over anything,

that everything in your life can feel like it's spiraling and nothing's going

the way you want it to go. And everything is hard and everything is difficult.

And even when you think things are going well, all of a sudden something happens

and you go, I thought I was getting out of that. And now I'm right back. I feel like where I was.

His hope is twofold. First and foremost, talking about each and every believer,

each and every human, he says, it won't always be this way, that your life is

short and your days are few.

And if you know Christ, the very worst things that will ever happen to you for

eternity will happen in that span of your life.

And then you will spend eternity with him, where you will only know goodness

and grace and mercy, pleasure. That's all you'll know.

Number two, he says, how can you know that? How do you know that things will

get better? Because you can look at Christ.

You can look at Christ.

Listen to how this finishes one more time. He says, namely Jesus crowned with

glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God,

he might taste death for everyone.

Listen, because Christ is who he is and did what he did, there is not one believer

that will taste death the way that he tasted it.

To be hung up and pay for every single one of the sins that they've been paid for.

Every believer, every single one, because of who Christ is and what he's done,

has hope that the day that comes that they meet Jesus face to face, they will rise.

They will be given a new body, that this world will end.

Everything in this world will end. Think back to our warning, right?

The marriage and the oxen and

the fields that were bought, they'll come to an end. They won't matter.

All the wealth, all the time, all the stuff, it'll all end.

It'll all be gone. It'll all be burned up. Nothing will matter.

And by the same logic, every hard thing,

everything that is difficult in our lives, everything that breaks us and everything

that tends to bully us or keep us down, death and disease and broken relationships

and emotions and bullies at school and hard English classes,

everything that does that, there will be a time soon that none of those things

exist anymore, that all those things will be burned up as well.

And all that will remain is Christ and his people.

Jesus's real death procured for us our reign.

Paul says it this way in Romans 5.17, For if by the trespass of one man,

that's Adam, death reigned through that one man,

how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and the

gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ?

Ephesians 2, 6. and God raised us up, right, with Christ and seated us with

him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages,

he might show the uncomparable,

riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. I know you don't see it.

I know you don't feel it. So look to Christ.

Look to Christ and be reminded it.

He has done what you could not do. So I don't know what you need to hear this

morning. I don't know if you need to hear the warning.

I don't know if you're drifting and you're just kind of floating through life

and you don't really care and you're doing church things because,

I mean, you live here in East Texas and you're supposed to do those things and

you're supposed to go to those places, but you don't really love Christ.

You don't really care a whole lot about what He's called you to be as a person,

as a follower of Him, as a disciple maker, maybe you need the warning and you

need to hear, listen, you will not escape such a great salvation.

And if you do not wake up every day, like we read in the Psalms at the beginning,

and remind yourself of that salvation, you will drift.

Think you'll figure it out tomorrow. Don't keep making excuses,

whatever they may be. Heed the warning.

Maybe you don't need a warning. Maybe you need hope.

Maybe you need to know that the reason it hurts so much is because you weren't made for that.

That is not the condition that God made you for.

But if you've placed your hope in Christ, you will one day never experience it again.

That the weight of sorrow and the weight of pain, the experience of life filled

with sin and surrounded by evil will one day pass away and you will never experience it again.

But that in the meantime, the best thing you can do is to fix your eyes on Christ,

to look at his life, to look at how he suffered, look at the pain he endured,

Look at the sin that he bore for you on the cross, and you will find hope and peace.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for today. God, thank you for your word.

Thank you that it's true.

God, I pray that if we need a warning this morning, that we would heed the one

given in Hebrews 2, that we wouldn't drift.

God, that we wouldn't be like me on the lake with no anchor,

slowly but surely moving further and further away from where I was supposed

to be, not because I was trying to,

but because I neglected to do the things that I was supposed to be doing,

to keep my mind and eyes focused on what I was supposed to be focused on.

God, I pray that that wouldn't be true of us, that we would again heed this

warning, that none of us are immune from drifting.

God, I pray for those that need to be reminded of the hope that they have in

Christ, that you would do that for them this morning.

You would remind them that when they read a scripture like Psalm 8 and they

see, well, I sure don't feel like I've been crowned with glory and honor.

And I read Ephesians 2 and don't feel like I've been seated in heavenly places with the Lord.

God, would they just be reminded that this world is not their home,

that nothing that they experience here will be something they experience when

they are with you forever, eternally.

Would you supernaturally give them eyes to see that, hearts to feel that?

God, would you give them comfort and peace?

God, personally, I'm just praying for my friend who lost a son,

that you would be with him and his family.

God, again, that you would remind him and give him hope and peace in the fact

that one day that this will not be his reality, that the time that he's in right now is,

so short in comparison to the time that he will be with you. So you never pray. Amen.