A Better Salvation – Don’t Neglect it! - January 25, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

Well, how y'all doing today?

Doing all right? Okay, are you taking advantage of getting out into the sunlight?

All right, just making sure. Don't want any SAD people around here.

But this is a place to be if you are sad or suffering from the seasonal affective

disorder or whatever they call it.

I hope that's not you today, but if it is, you're in the right place.

But this is a heavy sermon as well, so just get ready, okay?

And I want to start it out by just asking you a rhetorical question,

but I know it's one that you could probably answer.

And that is, have you ever had anyone in your life who professed Christ,

who knew, you knew that they were a Christian?

Ever through the course of your life, have you seen someone like that walk away from the faith?

I can raise my hand because I've witnessed it almost in tears right now because

I think of the men and women who are with Christ, who are on fire for Jesus, who had salvation,

but yet decided that that was not the way they wanted anymore.

It's a tragic story.

Tragic testimony to something that didn't take root fully in their lives,

to other circumstances and other problems they entered in that just did not

go the way it was intended.

And I know in life, maybe you've even been hurt by some of those people.

Man, I grew up in the 80s, right?

Well, 70s and 80s, but more so remembering the 80s.

Yeah, that's right. But along with that came some very high-profile preachers that blew it, man.

I could mention their names, but I don't really want to give them time,

but they'll probably come to your mind.

Some of them were even on television in the fall that even preachers had.

It put a mark upon the church. It put a mark upon pastors.

And we think about this, and in one instance, we're very sad,

we're brokenhearted because the people we love left the God that we love.

And on the other hand, we're sad and fearful because could that happen to us?

And we get frightful in that. And I want to tell you, you don't need to be afraid, okay?

You need to still love those people if they're in your life.

I don't believe as long as they have breath in their lungs, I don't believe

it's too late for them to come back to Jesus.

But it brings about this stark reality of life.

And I don't know about you, but for us, for me, it just wants me to cry out

to God, God, can this be better?

Because I know this isn't what God intended, for people to profess faith in

Christ, to live the way that Christ intended for them to live.

But then whatever happens in life in their own heart and their own mind,

then they walk away from Jesus. They walk away from the church.

They even might walk away from faith, but I don't believe it's too late.

See, this is the heaviness with which I bring you the message today.

Because that's where we find ourselves in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews was written, remember, to Hebrew Christians, those Jewish Christians in the first century.

And the reason for this letter was they were in danger of walking away from their faith,

walking away, turning back to go the way, to go follow all the Jewish customs

and sacrifices and religious rites and rituals.

As a matter of fact, there was a group of people that were following the apostles

around wherever they went and planted a church.

And these guys were called the Judaizers.

And the Judaizers, they were the ones that were walking around when Paul would plant a church.

They would show up on the scene and try to correct everything that Paul said,

because Paul didn't give them the whole truth. You see, they said,

we have a secret knowledge.

And the secret knowledge is, in order to truly be saved, you have to have Jesus

and you have to keep the Levitical law.

You have to keep the Old Testament law.

And this was false. This is not what Jesus had preached. It's not what the apostles were teaching.

And so Hebrews was written because there was a danger of these new Jewish Christians.

There was a danger of them falling back into that, going back into the practices,

even leaving Jesus because they didn't have that security, they thought,

for their faith, because they didn't have the rites and the rituals and this

and the that and the sacrifices.

And so this was the dangerous thing. And so throughout the book of Hebrews,

there's going to be these warnings.

It's a warning to the Hebrew Christians, but I think it's a warning to us as

well, that we need to, as the scripture will say here in just a minute, pay attention.

I'm not trying to scare you this morning. I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable.

But if the Holy Spirit does, I want you to check your heart.

I want you to check your life. Ask the Spirit, say, is there any wayward way

within me? If so, let's correct it.

And this the safe place to do that right here, right now.

And man, it's like, Mike,

Come on, there's playoff games today on TV. The Super Bowl's coming up.

Why are you bringing this heavy stuff to us?

Well, I'm bringing it to you, one, because it's in the text where we're at in

the Scripture as we go through Hebrews, but two, because I think if we can nail

this down and move forward, we don't have to worry about this anymore.

To have that full assurance of faith, not to be afraid that we're going to make

one misstep and then that's it.

That's not where I wanted to lead you to. I want to lead you to a greater faith,

a better faith in Christ, a stronger faith in Jesus.

And so I want you to hear the words of the writer today, of the preacher today,

from the book of Hebrews.

It's in chapter two, and it's only four verses today that we're going to cover.

But here's what the word of the Lord says.

Stand with me, if you would, honor God's word.

Here's what the Scripture says, Hebrews 2, 1 through 4. We must pay more careful

attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience

received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by

those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs and wonders and various

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

Heavenly Father, as we come to this passage, Lord, may Your grace be upon us.

Lord, as we come to this passage, Father, we pray that we will not drift,

but that we will pay more careful attention so that we don't do that.

God, we want to devote ourselves to this great salvation that you have provided for us.

Help us to do so through the movement of your Holy Spirit amongst us in our

hearts today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you. You can be seated. I've got several points that I'd like to make this morning.

When we think about what the scripture told us, we must not drift away,

but we must devote ourselves to this great salvation that we have.

The great salvation that we have is not in our works. It's not in the works

of the Old Testament, but the great salvation we have comes from Jesus Christ

and from Jesus Christ alone, the great faith which he offers to us today to believe in him.

But see, here's the danger. Here's the warning that this writer gives.

The warning is first and foremost, there's a peril of drifting.

That's a scary word, peril.

We can say sometimes that we live in perilous times, right? He's dangerous.

Drifting away from the word, gradually going astray.

It's a nautical term that means, you know, you've got a boat and a captain,

maybe that's asleep at the wheel, and he just kind of drifts by the harbor and

keeps going out and is not even sure where he's at.

It's that nautical term of a boat just drifting by, not moored,

not tied down, not anchored anywhere, but just aimlessly drifting,

led by the currents of the sea.

And it's this term, this drifting term, that's really kind of,

in a sense, I won't say harmless, but unintentional.

You know, when we begin to drift when we're driving, we're not meaning to drift, right?

Maybe we're just cruising down the road and we see something over the side,

and all of a sudden we're kind of looking more that way than what's in front

of us, and the wheel starts going this way.

Or maybe we're not turning to the left, but maybe we're turning to the right

and we see something interesting over here.

Or maybe we don't like the radio station and we've got a car that you can't

change it on the steering wheel, so you have to reach down and change it here.

And as you focus down here, the car drifts this way. You're not meaning to do that.

You're doing something else, but you start to drift away from your intended course.

It's this idea of drifting that is dangerous.

Because even though it's unintentional, it leads us down a path of danger.

It leads us down a path that we did not intend to go down.

Now, if you look at Melanie's truck, if you've seen it before,

that's a testament to a California girl learning how to drive in McCall, Idaho.

A woman who had never been in snow before, but it's not entirely hers as well,

because there's some times that I drifted in McCall when the roads got slick

and when snow was down and you hit some snowbanks.

So it's not entirely all yours, honey.

All right. Just the major parts on the truck.

Sometimes drift leads to damage, even unintentional drift.

It was innocent. We didn't mean to, but we find ourselves there.

Dads, have you ever found yourself after a hard day of work saying some harsh

words maybe to your wife or your kids?

You didn't mean to say those, but man, you were so tired and you're just so

grumpy and you're hungry and those things come out.

You didn't mean to, but you drifted away from what your intention was.

You're excited to get home, to be with your kids, to be with your wife,

to have dinner, but yet something catches you off guard and you drift quickly like that.

There's these mistakes that happen, this gradual going astray.

In our hymn book, and even when we sing up here, there's these words that come up on the screen.

And one of the songs that we sing is, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

Does that song sound familiar?

If it doesn't, look it up online, because I won't sing it for you today.

Someone say amen for that. Thank you. I know my gifts, and I know that singing is not one of them.

I'm more of a joyful noise kind of guy. but the composer of that song,

his name was Robert Robinson.

He was converted, saved under the mighty ministry of one George Whitefield,

but later on, he drifted away from the Lord.

God used him greatly as a pastor.

God used Robert as one that would reach out and would evangelize and would share

the good news and used him to write songs, but he began to neglect spiritual things.

And that neglect of spiritual things led him to drift away from the Lord,

to start to wander off and not really to be a pastor anymore,

not really to write these wonderful songs that he'd written before.

And there was one day as he really knew there was something wrong,

but he didn't know how to fix it. He said, well, I think the idea,

I think the solution is I need to travel.

And so Robert began to travel and he began to go here and there.

And on one of his journeys, he came a cross woman.

And this woman, it was evident that she was spiritually minded,

that she had all things together.

Not only did she have a Bible, but she had a hymn book. We're talking about hardcore now.

If you want to really be spiritual, carry on that hymn book, right?

Well, maybe that day has passed, but Robert found this young lady.

And as they began a conversation, the young lady said, what do you think about

this hymn that I've been reading?

And she took the hymnal and she handed it to Robinson.

And handing him the book, he looked and it was his own hymn that he had written,

published in the hymnal.

Now, mind you, he was not following Christ like he should. He was seeking how to get back.

And he had found the answer, I need to travel. but here he was with this young

lady, and he tried to avoid her question about this hymn.

He tried to change the subject.

Robert Robinson tried to say, oh my, isn't the weather lovely today?

He tried to deflect, but it was hopeless because the Lord was speaking to him at that very moment.

And as the Lord spoke to him, he finally admitted, he broke down and confessed

to this young lady, well, that's my hymn, and I haven't been following Jesus for a while now.

And the conviction of the Holy Spirit was heavy on his heart,

and he just confessed this.

As the lady was listening to Robert's confession, she pointed at the hymn book

in the hymn that he had written, and she said, but look here,

the hymn that you wrote said, these streams of mercy are still flowing.

So, brother, these streams of mercy are still flowing for you.

The woman assured him. And through her encouragement, Robinson was restored again to his faith.

He confessed his sin. He corrected his drift, and he began following Jesus again.

A powerful story of someone who was lost being found again, someone who was

found losing their way and coming back to Christ.

You see, our duty is to hold fast. As the scripture says, we must pay careful

attention, therefore, to what we've heard so that we don't drift away.

Are you paying careful attention this morning? Don't be distracted by other

things, but focus on what God wants to tell you through his word today.

It is our duty to hold fast, to anchor to the words that have been spoken,

that the words of Christ have spoken to you.

Are you anchored to them? Are you holding fast?

When I was a kid, I would help our pastor with the bulletins.

And it was back in the days where it wasn't a copy machine like we have now,

but it's what they called a mimeograph machine.

Anyone in education or in the old school church, you know what those were like.

There's some ink involved.

It's like a purplish blue color and a cool thing that you had to turn like this,

and it printed off all your copies.

Well, we finally got rid of that thing. And so copy machines started coming onto the scene.

And so I'd go down to this place and it became my job as the youngster at the

time to go and get copies for the church.

And so when I went and did that, I saw this one funny poster.

The print shop I went to, they always printed these 8x11 funny posters.

And it was a picture of a rope with a knot on the end and with one guy holding

on with two hands to the rope and the saying on it said, when you're at the

end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.

I thought that was the greatest thing ever. I took it. I don't think I have

anymore. I might because I save everything. So it's probably in a box in our garage.

But just the sentiment of that, that's for believers too. When it seems like

all else is filled, hang on to what Jesus has told you.

Even when it looks like nothing else is going your way or going the way you

thought it would go with Jesus, hang on. Hold fast to the word.

So there's the peril of drifting. We know it's dangerous to drift.

But then let's not forget what the scripture says here. There's the principle of discipline.

When we look again at verse 2, for if the message spoken by angels was binding

and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment.

Whoa, this isn't getting good.

For if, okay, there's some logic going on here, an if-then statement,

just the if statement here.

If the law that was delivered by the angels, somehow you can read in the New

Testament too, the angels were involved in the giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai.

It's kind of a connection between what I preached last week and,

Jesus being greater than the angels, a greater messenger, because he has a greater

message. It's a tie-in to that.

For if that law that was given was binding, that means you're held to it.

It's not just, oh yeah, do it if you want, a great suggestion. No.

The writer here is saying the law was binding.

So if that law the angels had a part in and bringing about to human beings,

if that law is binding and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment.

So a couple of things going on here.

There's the assurance that you've got to follow the law because if you don't, there's a consequence.

I know we live in a day and age where people don't like that word consequence,

where people like to say, you could do it and we're in an age of grace,

so you'll get away with it.

And we see it on the national scale with some crazy things that go on that have

gone on and people doing horrible, horrific acts of violence,

acts of vandalism, and nothing happening to them. And you wonder,

where's the consequences?

Where's the justice? It's not fair. And we get a little perturbed.

Well, the author of Hebrews says there's going to be some consequences.

There was in the Old Testament.

Just think about this.

Think back, Look, the law that was delivered to angels, okay,

the Ten Commandments, and then all the other laws that were made after that

to explain the Ten Commandments, they had some consequences to them.

If you've started reading your Bible in a year, you're probably still in Genesis.

But when you get to Exodus, and when you especially get to Leviticus and Deuteronomy,

you'll see what consequences I'm talking about.

There's some pretty severe things that are going on. Well, the principle of

discipline says that, and we're talking punishment, that if you transgress,

if you step over the line, there's a price to pay.

Think about the Old Testament in Numbers. And specifically here,

the audience again is Hebrew Christians, so they knew the Old Testament.

They knew their history.

They knew the ups and downs of God's people. They knew that the story of in

the Old Testament when the children of Israel left Egypt and they wandered in

the wilderness, that they had a destination in mind.

They had a promised land in mind, and they were going toward that.

And as they left, and God did great things in delivering them from Egypt,

delivering them from their bondage, took care of them in the wilderness,

gave them food to eat, water to drink.

Their clothes didn't wear out in that whole time. Praise the Lord.

All these miracles. But yet the people continued to bicker. They continued to

complain. They continued to grumble.

As a matter of fact, in the passage I was referring to in Numbers,

They get to a place called Kadesh Barnea.

They send spies into the promised land. These spies go in, they spy it out,

and these guys are like, whoa, there's giants in this land.

Giant people, but also giant bounty.

All kinds of milk and honey, giant grapes. I mean, you can't believe what's in this place.

But 10 out of the 12 that went in of the spies that spied it out said,

no, we can't go in because there's giants in the land.

We're going to clean the floor with us.

There's no way we can enter in except for Caleb and Joshua said,

no, we can go. Let's go. God has given us this land.

And then, of course, you know how bad news spreads.

It spreads quickly and inaccurately.

And that's what happened here. And this was the generation called the wilderness generation.

They did not get to enter into the promised land. They came right to the precipice,

right to the door of the promised land, being ready to enter in.

But because of their unbelief, because of their fear, they stepped back and

said, no, we can't do it. There's no way we can do that.

I think the author had this group in mind when he was talking about every disobedience,

every transgression, not obeying the law, not obeying.

God said, you can go in. No, we can't. We're too afraid.

That that resulted in a punishment that they were not able to receive what God had promised to them.

And so there they were, this wilderness.

They disobeyed God. This isn't the only time. Think about when Moses went up

to get the law. What did the people do?

They got this idea. Hey, you know, they had these nice things back in Egypt.

Why don't we have a nice thing? Let's make this cow that we can worship, right?

They took all the gold and they threw it together and they crafted this.

And Moses comes down and says, where'd this come from?

Oh, I don't know. We just threw all this in the fire. Look what popped out, Moses.

Like, come on. You've heard those kinds of stories from your children before, haven't you?

I don't know how it happened, dad. It just was here. Right?

All in on, they had this heart that would not obey, that would not follow God.

So the author of Hebrews is telling the Hebrew Christians and us today,

hey, every violation of the law and every disobedience receives its just punishment.

There's sin and there's a payment for sin that has to be made.

That's the principle of discipline. But there's also the problem of neglect as we look into verse 3.

So if I read verse 2 again, For if the message spoken by the angels was binding,

and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment.

Verse 3, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

How are we going to escape? If we look in the Old Testament and people were

punished because they transgressed, because they stepped over the line,

because they sinned, how are we going to escape?

This great salvation that God has granted to us, it's a great salvation indeed.

You see, the author here kind of turns the corner from, oh, I'm just drifting.

I don't mean to, but I'm just drifting. I'm just going off this way to something

that's more willful, neglect, neglecting to do it.

How can we expect to be saved if we neglect the salvation that's provided right to us?

We're not taking care of something that we should have taken care of,

that we know we should have taken care of.

It's this idea that salvation is so great, why would we despise it?

Think about the salvation we're talking about, a great salvation.

Man, we're talking about cleansing from sin.

We're talking about entrance into the presence of God. God, we're talking about

taking care of a sin problem that from Adam and Eve and their disobedience,

mankind was never able to solve.

But Jesus came along, he gave up his life, died on a cross for every man and

woman, every boy and girl, so that they could have a chance to be right with God again.

And the author's saying, how, what are we going to do if we neglect that?

What are we going to do? Salvation is incredible. Think about it. Your sins are forgiven.

Now, you've had people sin against you. I know because human beings, that happens.

People have done you dirty. They've done you wrong. And it's not a good feeling.

And it makes you mad. And you want to get justice.

But do we feel like that when it comes to our sin and how we've sinned against God? God wants justice.

And God has justice in the person of Jesus Christ, his own son.

Who died to take our punishment from sin.

Every wrong thing that you ever did, every bad thought that you ever had,

ill intent, Jesus Christ died for.

It was placed upon his shoulders, your punishment.

The punishment that was due you was put on Jesus. If we despise that.

What's left? What's left for us? That's another sermon for another day that

we'll get into in the book of Hebrews.

But this great salvation, we've been delivered from evil, delivered from suffering,

delivered eternally from death.

We've been saved for God. God loves you so much. He wants you to be in his presence.

He saved you, saved to God.

We've got a new heaven and a new earth coming.

All this sin and yuckiness and brokenness, gone. History. Something to look forward to, people.

Things working and moving the way that it should. The ease of righteousness

overtakes what looks like now the ease of evil.

Because it's going to be gone. It's going to be history.

We're talking about this great Savior who loves us, Jesus, who wants to give

us reward upon reward, blessing upon blessing.

This is the great salvation. So how do you neglect it?

Well, it starts by just ignoring Christ.

You just start to ignore him. When you hear about Jesus in church,

you just tune out and you start thinking about something else.

Or you get out your phone and you start playing a game.

When someone starts talking to you about Jesus, you start to tune them out.

You start ignoring Christ. But that leads to starting to show contempt for Christ or Christians.

Oh, here comes that Bible thumper again. He just wants to share with me more about Jesus.

Start to show contempt for Christ. contempt for the salvation that he's offering

to you freely, that you don't have to do anything, but believe and accept and

to lay down what you're carrying, the burdens you're carrying now,

the sin that you're carrying now,

to lay that down at his feet. Let him take that from you.

Let him cleanse your conscience, cleanse your past.

We ignore, we show contempt, then we begin to make fun of it.

We begin to make light of it.

We may not have the kind of persecution that we have, Christians have in other

countries, but we have some.

We've got a lot of people making fun of Christians these days.

I don't know if you watch late night TV or even some news programs,

but it's there. Some sitcoms that are on it, it's easy to poke fun at Christians.

It's easy to poke fun at Christ. People do. They ignore Christ. They show contempt.

They begin to make light of, and then they begin to say, well,

that's not even worth my time. I don't want anything to do with Christ.

I ain't going to a church. I'm not going to darken the door of a church.

I don't need to hear about Jesus.

I've already heard all I can hear, and that leads to some rebellion.

Rebelling against Christ.

Well, if that's what Jesus tells me to do, I'll do it. I'm not going to do it,

but he tells me not to do this. Well, I'm going to go do this.

Just flat-out rebellion.

This is ignoring the salvation, denying Christ, rejecting Christ, cursing Christ.

Tell people neglect jesus how should we escape if we neglect if we ignore this

great salvation folks let's not neglect it the problem that's the problem of neglect.

See, this great salvation brings to mind this great question.

How shall we escape? Because none of us will.

In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, the scripture says, For we must all appear before

2 Corinthians 5:10

the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the

things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

There's a judgment coming for all human beings from time past to the present

and into the future till Christ comes back. And I got to tell you,

we all have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Now, wouldn't you rather stand before that judgment seat, having Jesus as your

lawyer, having Jesus as your advocate?

He already paid the bills to be your lawyer. He's there to represent you.

He's been pleading your case to the judge already throughout your whole life.

Especially your life as a believer, because he knows you now.

He knows I paid the price for your sin.

When you want him by your side, when you're standing, probably kneeling before

the God of gods, before the only God, the one that will pass judgment.

Boy, that's there that we're going to find mercy if we have Jesus.

It's there that we're going to find grace if we have Jesus.

Do you have Jesus today?

Don't neglect your salvation. Don't take it for granted.

The scripture goes on, it talks about the proof of salvation.

And you got to love this. The rest of verse three, this salvation,

which was announced, first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles and gifts of

the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

This great salvation was spoken by the Son.

Jesus came and he testified. He showed us what his love is all about,

what God's love is all about.

Jesus showed us what it means to lay down our life for somebody else,

to have our sin taken care of, forgiven.

It's the beginning of which was spoken by Jesus Christ.

That's the message that was then proclaimed by his servants,

the eyewitnesses of Jesus, the apostles, those that were around.

When we read the scripture, we can have confidence because we know it came from eyewitnesses.

People that knew the eyewitnesses, it was there.

They were there, shared by the servants and then sealed by the sign.

Anytime as you read, especially through the book of Acts, as you're going through

that, any times the apostles would go to a new area where Christ had not yet

been preached, the Holy Spirit showed up to confirm the word that was being preached.

How did the Spirit confirm the words? Well, there was miracles that were performed.

Miracles just like Jesus did in his life on earth.

There were people that were healed. There were blind that were been able to see, made able to see.

There were lame that couldn't walk, but then they were able to walk.

Miracles happen. These gifts of the spirits that were performed,

signs and wonders, if you will,

whenever the disciples would go to a new area, never heard the gospel.

They would preach the gospel, and then a healing would be done.

Someone would be made whole to confirm the message that the apostles were bringing,

that this is the truth, that this is right.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that the message has been confirmed. You can trust it.

You can bank on it. It's solid, this message of salvation.

And just think about in history, all the ones who have set out to disprove the Bible.

I wonder what the percentage is. I've never done any research,

but how many of those people who set out to disprove the Bible actually became

followers of Christ, came to faith in Christ because they found it was reliable.

They found out it was solid.

They found out that they could trust it. It's trustworthy.

The words of it is true, not just for an American country, United States of

America, but throughout the world, through all times and all cultures,

when the word of Christ is preached.

Preaching of it has been confirmed already that this is the truth.

And you can trust it. It's trustworthy. So we've talked today about the peril

of the danger of drifting.

We've talked about the principle of discipline that when you break a law,

there's got to be a punishment for that. We know that Jesus paid the punishment for us.

So we should not neglect the salvation that Jesus has given to us.

That problem should be taken away, taken off the table, because there's been

proof of the salvation that's brought to us.

And so what do I want you to do with this today? I've given you several points there.

First and foremost, fight the quiet drift.

Fight it. Don't let the riptide take you out.

There's a way to escape a riptide. I'm not a swimmer, so I won't go into it,

but you swim parallel to the shore, not against the current.

But what are the currents in your life that are sucking you out to sea,

that are causing you to drift away?

Maybe you're overworked. You just work all the time. You're so tired.

You don't want to get up and go on Wednesday night and go meet with other believers and study the Word.

You don't want to get up on Sunday mornings because you're just too tired.

You've been working so stinking much.

Maybe it's the entertainment that you provide yourself with.

Maybe that's a current that's slowly drifting you away.

Maybe there's other things, sports, social media. Comfort is a big one.

Maybe you're just too cozy in your bed this morning. You didn't want to get

up, so you didn't come to Sunday school, but your wife or your husband dragged

you out so you had to come to church this morning.

Comfort is a big one. Maybe there's things in your life that are unresolved,

suffering that you haven't dealt with, a broken relationship that you haven't

sought out to seek reconciliation to make sure that that's going to be solved.

These are drifts, currents that will suck us out, get us away from God.

There's more, but they quietly, slowly move in and cool down our love for Jesus.

Maybe we need to do this, and that's pay much closer attention to the Word.

Maybe your devotional time is like this. You wake up, slow to wake up.

You grab your daily bread. You read through it real quick. There's a scripture

there. You close it. You pray, Lord, help me this day. And then you're out the

door because you already know that you're going to be late for work.

Maybe it's just quick. Maybe you're not fully engaged in there.

Pay closer attention to the Word for that day.

It might only be a sentence that you read, but are you paying attention to that

one sentence, that one verse, or let God speak through that verse to you today.

Disciplines we need to develop is that unhurried personal worship time,

that time where you get to spend with the Lord in prayer.

I thank all of you who have signed up on the pastor's prayer list.

That's the biggest list I've had since I've been here. So my prayer time has

increased every morning, and I'm grateful for it, very grateful,

because I get to pray for you by name.

Every day of the week, people, names in this congregation, and I get to think

about you and ask God to bless you that day.

And I know that if you signed up that you're praying for me as well,

and that just blesses me.

One of those disciplines is let's not hurry our prayer time, but let's keep it going.

We need to actively listen during our corporate worship times,

not just with our ears, not just watching with our eyes, but have our hearts

open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit of God.

That little nudge that catches you when something is said, when you're singing

a song of praise to God, and you get that nudge in your heart that God says,

hey, I want you to deal with this, or I want you to do what you're singing about.

These disciplines, you know, you can take notes in the sermon.

We've got it in the bulletin. We've got it on the Church Center app.

You can go there and there's the fill in the blanks, or if you miss something, you can go and see.

I mean, there's no reason you can't regurgitate what's been going on.

We've got our men's life group even that takes the sermon and they review it

again on Wednesday nights, and they talk about different aspects that I didn't

have time to cover, and they bring up new things. It's a powerful group, guys.

If you don't have a group that you're in on Wednesday nights,

I encourage you to go to this one.

It's a powerful time just to be together, to regurgitate, to think on the Word.

Always discuss the word in your homes. If you're a parent here today,

I would always make sure that you ask your kids, what are they learning in children's

church? What are they learning in Sunday school?

Have a conversation about that. Here's a funny story that Cindy told me last

week. I mentioned something about naked angels.

Well, as I mentioned that, it just so happened that the children were going

by in the foyer. There's a TV out there that has sound.

And one of the kids heard naked.

Pastor said naked. And you know what that child said?

I'm going to have to ask my mom and dad what they learned today in the church time.

So kids, they're paying attention.

They're wondering what Pastor Mike is saying about naked something or other.

Pay close attention to the word. Talk about it in your home.

Not to take this light, but to move on quickly here. Take sin and disobedience seriously.

Christian, don't make light of sin.

I mean, you would not handle a

venomous snake carelessly. Sin is like that venomous snake. It'll get you.

When you're least expecting it and when you're not paying attention,

when you're not taking care of mistakes, sin that likes to try to pop up in

your life, when you're not guarding yourself against that, it'll get there and

get in and get you. Don't let that happen.

Take sin and disobedience seriously.

If God dealt justly in the Old Testament, especially with disobedience under

the law, we must not shrug at the patterns of known sin that like to creep up in our life.

If you haven't done it yet, memorize 1 John 1.9.

If we confess our sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and

to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

That was written to believers, folks.

Say, we can still take care of that. We can still put it under the blood of

Jesus, still seek forgiveness.

So take it seriously. One of the problems in our own nation,

I'm not saying with the freedom we have because we're here because of the freedom

that we have, but because the church has not stood up against things that are not right,

that are unrighteous, that are ungodly.

Some churches are afraid to stand up even for truth.

We cannot. We can't not stand up for truth. We've got to stand.

We've got to proclaim that this is not right.

Whatever's going on in our community, in our nation, in the world,

we'll stand with those that are suffering because of that unrighteousness, because of that sin.

We've got to take sin seriously and not just poo-poo it and say,

oh, it's not that big a deal.

Oh, we're under grace, so we don't need to worry about it. No,

you do. Jesus died because of sin. So let's take care of it in our own lives.

And in a minute, we'll talk about cultivating community watchfulness.

You see, when we treat sin as it's no big deal, then what happens is we treat

salvation as something that is optional or ordinary.

And salvation is not optional, nor is it ordinary. It's powerful.

We neglect salvation.

Let other things take the throne that's set up in our heart,

our hobbies, kids' activities, family schedules, personal projects.

We let that take priority over Jesus being on the throne of your heart.

The two can coexist. I'm not saying that you can't do kids' activities,

you can't have a busy schedule, but what I'm saying is don't let that control your whole life.

Make sure Christ is the primary thing.

Jesus is better. We have a better salvation.

And so just don't count your salvation to something ordinary what you have is

precious if you were saved it's precious so valuable no one can make fun of

it because everybody needs it,

especially those that are mocking it so know that you got something special

it's not ordinary it's not optional this great salvation it cannot be indefinitely

postponed recently there was a man that died.

Part of his testimony or part of what he wanted to do, he did not profess Christ while he lived.

Doesn't mean he didn't believe in Jesus. He didn't profess it,

but I don't think that he was really following Christ.

But one of the things he says is, on my deathbed, I'll make sure that I accept Christ.

That's a dangerous gamble.

I'll wait till I know I'm dying before I accept Jesus. And I'm like,

well, why wait? Man, you're missing out on the in-between here, buddy.

Well, he came, this man did die. He did send, or a message was sent that he

had accepted Christ before he passed away.

But I'm like, that's the worst gamble you can ever make.

Man, why not solidify the decision now while you have life, you have breath

and experience all that the Christian life has to offer you and his blessings, and the benefits of it.

Getting rid of that guilt, getting rid of that shame, living freely for God

to do whatever he calls you to.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit as you serve others, as you serve God. Oh, powerful.

Well, two more. I know time's getting away from us, but fifth,

renew confidence in the gospel's reliability.

Hey, the message that was spoken by the Lord and confirmed by eyewitnesses has

been testified to confirm through signs and wonders. It still holds true for

21st century America. It still holds true for you today.

It's still something you can hang on to. You can anchor your faith to.

I'll tell you, sometimes you don't feel like being a Christian.

Sometimes you just don't feel like it.

Culture's hostile toward Christianity, not just our culture,

but other cultures even through the world.

And I want you to know that your faith rests on God's testimony,

not on your mood or the majority opinion.

Okay? Your faith rests in Christ. How do we know about Christ.

We know about Christ through the Bible, through his word. So hang on to that.

And last but not least this morning, how do we pay attention?

Well, we cultivate community watchfulness.

I'm not saying it takes a village, but what I'm saying is it takes a church,

to truly testify to the salvation that God brings.

I've got a testimony. You've got a testimony. You've got a testimony.

We've got these testimonies of how Christ has saved us from our own sin.

And when we come together, when we worship, we see there's different kinds of

people from different kinds of backgrounds that Jesus has brought into his kingdom,

that the kingdom of God is for everybody.

People like you and people not like you. And he assembles you because of this great salvation.

And so Community of Christ Church, I want you to know that we've got to watch out for one another.

If you see old Pastor Mike start drifting away, getting caught up in something

else that doesn't pertain to the mission of the church, then you say,

hey, Mike, let's turn the wheel back this way.

See our brother and sister starting to drift off into something we know they

struggle with. We come alongside and say, hey, I know you really don't want that.

What's going on? We notice someone's missing for an extended period of time.

And we say, oh, the pastor will reach out to him. I don't need to worry about

it. I know pastors probably call them.

Open Heart Ministries probably sending them a card.

Or do we say, no, I need to call my brother. Hey, man, I know she's not been

at church like all month dude what's going on,

not to stir up controversy or that kind of thing but to say hey I miss you and,

as a community of Christ you need to come back.

Told you about my friend Craig last week, so I won't go into it too much,

but when I was in Springville, California at our little church,

he gave me that testimony.

I only had two board members at that church. There was only two board members

in that whole church I could qualify.

Praise the Lord for those two. Craig was one of them.

He gave that testimony. Yeah, I missed church once, twice, three times,

and then it was four years before I came back.

He didn't have a community watching out for him to say, hey, Craig, we miss you.

Hey, you need to get back with us. Hey, we're having a potluck,

man. My wife's making your favorite dish. You need to come back and join us.

We've got to watch out for one another. It's okay. It's not just the pastor's

job, but we're the body of Christ.

We take care of all of our members and those that are wanting to be part of

the body of Christ. We reach out to them. We can't neglect that.

Folks, let's not neglect such a great salvation that we have. It's awesome.

It's amazing to live without the threat of sin, controlling your every moves,

dictating how your day should be, but rather following God in your great days

and your not so great days.

If you're here this morning, you don't know Jesus, why are you waiting?

Why are you ignoring him? Well, give your life to him fully today.

We're going to sing a song here in just a minute called Majesty.

Worship his majesty.

We're talking about the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one who died for

your sin. Would you come forward today and accept Christ as your Savior?

Christian, if you've been drifting, you've not really been paying attention

to your life with Christ. You've been taking your salvation for granted.

Maybe you've been seeing how much of God you can get and how much sin you can

still get away with. Hey, quit flirting with sin. Get rid of it and just give yourself fully to God.

What he has planned for you is way better than the sin you're flirting with.

I could tell you that much. You can be free from that.

Would you give yourself over fully to Christ and be free?

I want to invite the praise team to come now. And as they're coming,

would you all stand together?

We're going to sing this song, but I just ask as we sing it,

would you search your heart?

Would you ask God, God, what is there in me that I am drifting away from you in?

And then just lay that down at Christ's feet and say, God, forgive me.

To help me to get back on track once more. And if you don't know Jesus,

it's as simple as saying, Jesus, I believe in you.

I want to follow you. Will you come into my heart? Will you forgive me of my sin?

And if you do that, whether or not you tell anyone else, tell me.

Because I just want to share with you how lovely it is, how great salvation

it is, how awesome your life with Christ can be.

Let's sing together as we close out.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.