Pastor Malachi Maillot | The Drift | October 26th, 2025

Okay, uh let's turn to our Bibles.

Uh I'm dead serious.

Let's go to Hebrews 2.

Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

Michael came just to switch the vibes, you know, just get us all reel us back in.

Let's reel it back in.

Um Hebrews 2, uh, one to one to nine, and it says uh right out of the gate, it says, Therefore, and uh whenever you read in the Bible and it says therefore, it's literally just saying, like, pay attention to this.

So uh nudge your neighbor, nudge your neighbor, say, hey, therefore, pay attention, wake up if you're sleepy, not like give them a good elbow if they're sleeping, okay?

Especially if it's your husband, okay?

Lest we drift away.

We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.

For since the message declared by angels proved reliable, and every transgression of disobedience received a just retribution, 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, various miracles, and by the gifts of the Spirit distributed according to His will.

And I want to talk about this idea presented uh to the church in the early church, is the idea of the drift.

The idea of the drift.

And it's really interesting to me that you know thousand years ago that this was a problem then, and I believe it's addressing something that I I truly believe is a problem today.

And it's this idea that the drift is a natural thing that happens.

If you've ever sat in the ocean, I don't know if anybody's uh gone like ocean fishing, right?

If you're if you're not careful, if you don't have a direction or you don't have a compass or you don't have uh like an intentionality about where you're going, you're gonna drift off course and you're gonna be out in the middle of nowhere.

And so the drift is natural.

Say the drift is natural, but going against the current is intentional.

I'm gonna pray before we get into this.

Uh, just just set our hearts before God.

So could you just pray with me?

Father God, I just thank you so much for your word.

God, we we we want to build our life on the foundation of what you have said.

And God, we believe that your word is the same yesterday, today, and forever, God, and we can rely on it today.

And God, it's it's relatable to us today because you don't just think about one time period, you think about everything, God, that you have the future in mind.

And today we we want to open up your word, and God, we want to listen to what your Holy Spirit has to say to us.

So, God, would you just quiet our hearts, soften our hearts, open our ears to listen to what you have to say.

Say this with me, Holy Spirit.

I'm listening.

In Jesus' mighty name.

If you agree, somebody say, Amen.

Amen.

Hey, thank you, Michael.

Can we get up for Michael?

Um amazing time of worship this morning.

Um, I just want to give a little bit of context to the book of Hebrews, and I want to talk about this idea.

Um, it's it's really interesting, the book of Hebrews.

We actually don't know who wrote it, right?

There's there's a lot of scholars that would uh tend to agree and lean towards Paul being the writer, uh, as he wrote a lot of the New Testament.

But but uh there's you know there's obviously some debate within that, and uh and the reason why they believe this is because of the consistency of the writing and how he writes.

Uh the kind of emphasis that Paul makes is really this, really the similar emphasis that the author of Hebrews writes.

Some think that it could have been someone that studied under Paul, uh, but the main argument for this to be not Paul is because of this idea that we just read.

Uh, he talks about um it was declared first by the Lord and then attested by to us by those who have heard, so not like an eyewitness.

And so I tend to believe this different idea that some scholars believe this is a sermon by Paul or by someone who studied with Paul.

Uh, regardless of what or who wrote it, I just think it's really interesting, but regardless of who wrote it, it's written to Christians.

And I like to think it was a sermon to Christians.

So, like we would do today, like on a Sunday morning.

But it was it was it was uh directing uh and directed at this idea of Christians drifting away from their faith.

Christians drifting away from your faith.

Pay attention, pay more attention to what you have heard, lest you drift away.

Lest you drift away.

And now it's not it's not necessarily Christians that were like just completely rejecting Jesus, they were literally just drifting slowly back to what they used to be doing.

And a lot of them coming from a very religious background from Judaism, everything is very like set and and and rigorous and like the law, everything, they would go by the book, and they're coming, they're coming out of that to this idea of Christianity, and there is persecution coming at them.

And so after Jesus uh is crucified on the cross, they go after who?

The followers of Jesus, right?

The Jewish religious leaders did not want this Christianity to get out.

And so the the pressure to and the temptation to go back to where they were was extremely high.

There was there was uh people getting put in prison, there was people getting killed, there was people getting murdered, and so it's like this idea that that it was really, really easy to just kind of drift back to what they were before.

And so I want to talk about this idea that Hebrews talks about is the drift.

Now, one doesn't have to do anything to drift away.

That's exactly what you do.

You do nothing and you begin to drift, right?

Uh it's it's this idea, I was thinking about it like uh with hot water.

Like in order to get water hot, you have to turn on the element, you have to create energy, right?

It takes energy.

That's why things are get hot, because there's like friction and there's molecules moving and there's like all this movement.

And I'm not a biologist, okay?

I I don't know a lot about science, I didn't really take any of that, but like I know that when you turn on the heat, there's like there's things that are moving and you see the water boiling and there's and it's intentionality, right?

Like it's it's there's friction and there's movement and there's there's things happening, but what happens when you want to cool the water down?

You do nothing, right?

It just naturally cools off.

And so I think that when it comes to our faith, the departure from faith is often a slow death.

The departure from faith is not it's not often a sudden change.

It it can be.

There's certain instances and there's certain uh things that happen, but I think that it often happens before those sudden lease.

I think it often happens where it's just like a slow burn or a slow drift or a slowly just kind of nonchalantly going through life where we're not actually intentional about our relationship.

And we sometimes, when we start to drift, we actually don't notice it's happening right away because it's such a small little increment, or it's a small choice here, or it's a small compromise here, and we we don't quite think about it as a as a as a big thing that's happening.

We just kind of like allowing little things to happen, allowing little changes in our life, and all of a sudden we're in this place where we never really wanted to be.

Here's the truth.

Here's the truth.

It's kind of a hard truth, okay?

Uh, but we are either moving towards God, and this is what the the writer of Hebrews is getting at.

We're either moving towards God or we're drifting away.

There's two positions in your life.

You're either walking, moving intentionally, driving, whatever that, whatever that kind of looks like, pushing, seeking, asking, knocking, or you're drifting away.

It's two positions.

Why do we drift?

Why do we drift?

I think there's, I mean, there's a number of reasons.

There's a number of reasons.

I think some of them, maybe it's unrepentant sin in our life.

Maybe it's unforgiveness that we hold on to.

Maybe it's distractions.

Maybe we have so many things going on in our life, we just lose our priority.

Maybe for some of us, it's exhaustion.

We're we're tired of pushing, right?

You have like a rest day from the gym, and then all of a sudden that rest day turns to two, then that rest day turns to three, and in my instance, that rest day has turned to three months, okay?

Just telling on myself, okay.

My wife has been trying to push me into the gym, but it's, you know, she's not gonna win.

It has to be me.

Right?

Some people are exhausted, so we just, oh okay, I'm just gonna like sit for a minute, and then all of a sudden we're like, we're down the river, and we're like, whoa, how did I get to this place?

Uh for some, it could be more serious, like a destruction or a deconstruction of your own belief, where you you you have questions and you you have doubts and you're you're starting to look at things and be like, I don't really understand this, and but you're but then the the the other side of that is you're deconstructing in isolation to where you're you're you're taking apart things about your faith and you're not actually talking about it with someone or or you're not bringing your questions or your doubts.

I I preached a message a few weeks ago on our youth group about doubts, and it's actually okay to have doubts.

It's okay to have questions.

Uh God is actually not afraid of your doubt.

God is not afraid of your questions.

It's just when you don't actually express those and you live in isolation, then it becomes an echo chamber for yourself and you start to believe your own lies.

So there's deconstruction, there's isolation, there's old habits.

Uh this one hits a little close to home, but there's idolatry.

And some of you are like, that's a really big word, but it's literally when things become more important to God than God in your life.

When you spend more time watching sports than spending time with God, when you spend more time on your phone than spending time with God, when you spend more time at your job than you spend with God, and it becomes an idol in your life because you're actually all worshiping something.

We're always worshiping something, it's just who are we worshiping?

Who are we spending that time?

Uh sometimes our priority shifts, sometimes we have apathy in our life, and maybe you have a poor foundation to begin with.

The tide will choose where we go.

Right?

The the uh use that analogy of the ocean, and it's a powerful force on the earth.

And if you've ever been on a beach in Hawaii, like I remember the first time I tried to go body surfing, and it was terrifying because, first of all, I don't like the ocean.

I don't know about you, but I have an irrational fear of sharks.

Uh I think I've expressed this before.

And you know, you go in the water and something touches my leg and I'm not going in the water again.

It doesn't matter, and it's and it doesn't matter where I am.

I could be in a lake, a pond.

The ocean is just like, I don't like it.

But if you've if you've ever been like in the ocean, it's it's crazy how quickly if you have like big waves, like if a big wave comes in, it can just pull you right out.

And so the tide and the the current of culture will pull you away naturally, it'll constantly pull you away from God.

It'll literally every single day you're faced with this choice.

Either I'm gonna go towards God or I'm gonna allow culture to pull me this way.

Right?

So where does your where does your soul tend to drift?

We all deal with this, and I wanna I wanna switch to uh Genesis.

I want to read a story in Genesis.

Um I'm gonna try to paraphrase as much as I can, but there's a lot in this.

It's a relationship between two men.

And it's uh you've probably heard the story before, maybe in Sunday school, uh, maybe like the more PG version.

This is a crazy story, uh, but it's a story between Abraham and Lot.

The the relationship between Abraham and Lot.

So first we have Abram's brother, uh Haran.

Okay, so this is Lot's father.

His father passes away, and and Abram basically takes him under his wing.

So you could kind of view this relationship as not just like a nephew of his or like a distant relative.

Like he literally took him in, and it was kind of like this like father-son relationship that he has with Lot.

Okay, he has a very like very connected relationship with Lot.

They were very close, and everything was good when Lot was around Abraham.

Everything was good in Lot's life when Lot was around Abraham, and now look what happens in Genesis 13.

We have an argument, we have a separation, we have an offense that takes place, and this is kind of where everything falls apart.

So Genesis 13, uh 9 to 13, or sorry, yeah, literally Genesis 13, 9 to 13.

I'm confusing myself, but we'll get there.

Uh it says this, and this is Abraham talking to Lot.

It says, Is not the whole land before you?

Separate yourself from me.

If you take the left hand, then I will go right.

If you take the right hand, then I will go left.

Then Lot lifted up his eyes, and this is really interesting to me.

He saw the Jordan Valley, which was well watered, everything like the garden of the Lord, and like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zora.

In parentheses or in brackets, it says, this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so, if you know anything about Sodom and Gomorrah, if you've learned anything in church or you've been to church, you've heard about this before.

Like Sodom and Gomorrah were very evil places.

Right?

It's it's like it's kind of like this idea.

We we even even the secular word knows about this idea of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And and it's interesting, it says he lifted up his eyes and he saw the Jordan Valley was well watered.

So it's almost as if Lot has this like in his offense, he looks to the grass is greener on the other side, right?

This kind of moment where it's like, I'm I 100% know that he knew that this was an area that he should probably avoid.

I should probably not go this way, especially if I'm disconnected from Abraham.

It says, so Lot shows for himself the Jordan Valley, and he journeyed east, thus separated from each other.

Abraham settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley, and he moved his tent as far as Sodom.

So I don't want to I want to quickly talk about the relationship uh between Abraham because I think it's important to highlight this.

Obviously, the two were close, um, but we see that Abraham was close to God, and we see that uh all through Genesis we see the relationship between Abraham and God, and God spoke to Abraham, but it's interesting to see that Lot doesn't really have a relationship with God, he doesn't really have a relationship with God.

And I think I think what's happening here is Lot is kind of living vicariously through Abraham.

He has he has a quote-unquote relationship with God through Abraham, he doesn't have his own foundation because we see when they separate, when they when they fight, we we see some questionable decisions.

We see kind of like this like a drift happening in Lot's life.

And I want to say this and I want to be really careful with it, but being close to to God's people is not the same as being close to God.

Being close to God's people is not the same as being close to God.

Now I want to say this carefully, I don't want to offend you, but if you are if you are here and you've been here and your only reason for being in church is because of that girl was cute, or you know, that guy brought you here, or you're just here for the friends, or you're just here because of the sake of that person, and you're not actually here because you want to meet Jesus, it's not going to work in the long term for you.

You can't have a relationship with God through someone else.

And it's just like the idea of, you know, if you've grown up in a Christian home, there's eventually a choice that you have to make as a young person.

You can't live on your parents' faith.

And I live that firsthand.

Or we we tend to live off other ch other people's faith and we don't actually cultivate it in our own life.

And uh, and what I want to say is a relationship with Jesus is very personal.

It has to be you connecting with him, not you connecting through somebody.

Or or or you maybe you come to church and you you feel the presence of God, but then you know Monday is no different for you.

You just go back to living the way that you were, and that's because you're living vicariously through someone else, is faith.

The other problem with this, and this is what happens in this passage of scripture, is if you're here for people, then people are gonna be the reason you leave.

Because people are, I'm gonna offend you.

I probably already offended you.

It took five minutes, right?

But but people are imperfect, and and if you're if you're trying to look for a church that's perfect, keep looking.

Right?

Because people are imperfect, and people are gonna offend you.

They will, you will get offended.

At one point in your life, you will get offended, and especially by church people.

We're the best at offending people.

I don't know why we are, but we're just really good at it.

And you're gonna get offended.

But if your foundation is because of that person, you're going to leave, probably because of that person.

And that's what we see in Lot.

We see Lot doesn't have a really a foundation with God, and so he leaves and he and he sees and he's looking with carnal eyes, right?

He's not looking with God's wisdom, where should I go, God?

It actually says Lot chose for himself.

So in the f in the offense, he makes this decision out of offense.

Right?

He makes this decision out of offense, and he makes a really bad decision, right?

Because it wasn't, it wasn't like, is Sodom and Gomorrah really bad?

No, the Bible says it was a wicked, evil, and sinful place.

And we see Lot, he he doesn't, it's not, it's not as if he kind of like, you know, makes his place in the land.

It says he moves his tent as close to Sodom as he possibly can without actually being in Sodom.

He moved his tent as far as Sodom.

He got as close as he could.

And I think when I when I thought about this, I thought, man, I think a lot of people live like this, where you're as close to the world to have some fun, but you're just close enough to God just in case.

And I think a lot of people live in that space because it's like, well, I'm just gonna live, you know, as close to Sodom, just to have some fun, you know, just so my Friday nights aren't boring.

But I'm gonna make sure that I'm there on Sunday so that everyone sees that I'm a good Christian.

It's quiet in here.

Um my first point is this the drift is easier than we think.

You can write this down if you'd like.

The drift is easier than you think.

And it's kind of like that idea of uh me and my wife a few years ago, we were out on some paddleboards.

Anybody paddle boarders?

Any paddle boarders?

I know there's some avid people that are paddleboarders.

It's like a sport to them.

Not so much me.

I get on them and I fall off, so I like to sit.

I like to sit on the paddleboard.

Uh so, anyways, we we went on these paddleboards, and like like I said, I don't like water very much.

And so you get me on a paddle board, and I if my feet touches weeds or anything like that, anybody else there with me, I freak out.

Okay, so we intentionally are paddling, right?

It takes you, it's a it's such a simple analogy, but we're intentionally paddling away from the weeds, okay?

We're intentionally paddling away and out to where there's no weeds.

And you know, obviously, like we're sitting and talking and enjoying the sun, and we're not really thinking.

We're not thinking about where we are, and all of a sudden my feet are kind of dangling, and I look down, and all of a sudden my feet touch weeds and I freak out, and we're like way away from where we first were.

But it's because we're we weren't thinking, we weren't paying attention, and when you drift, it's and you're in a space where you're not thinking, you're not intentionally thinking about what is happening in your life, you're not taking account to the thoughts that are going through your mind.

Paul talks about take every thought captive.

And I think sometimes we get into these head spaces where it's like, whatever.

You know, we or we're we're exhausted and we're just like, I'm just too tired to try and combat this, or I'm just I'm just thinking about too many things, and you know, this doesn't really matter right now.

So I'm gonna just, you know, I'm just gonna let this slide in my life.

Or you think like I'm good, I'm invincible, like I don't need to think about these things, I don't need to be in this place.

And when you're drifting, you're not on guard.

When you're drifting, you're not on guard of your heart.

You're God in guard are on guard of your mind, and where the enemy loves to attack us is right here.

Every single day he'll probably try to attack us.

And if we're in that space, that mindset where it's just like, I'm just too tired to fight today, that's when you're gonna start to drift and drift away.

For Lot, he's not on guard.

For Lot, he's drifting.

For Lot, he's he's probably not thinking.

For Lot, he's he's making a decision out of offense, and he eventually doesn't even just come as far as Sodom, he actually begins to dwell in Sodom.

And it's really interesting.

It's like it's it's first he's as close as he can be to it without being in Sodom, and then actually in uh Genesis 14, there's this battle about nine kings, and the the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, they lose, they flee, and the other enemies come into Sodom and they actually capture.

It says uh in verse 12, they also took Lot, the son of Abraham's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom.

And so it didn't take long for Lot to go from Abraham to a fence to maybe a grass is greener on the other side.

Well, I'm just gonna keep moving my tent closer and closer to the world, and all of a sudden he finds himself in Sodom.

And he's and it's and I see this as the grace of God where he actually is captured and pulled out of Sodom because then it says a few verses later that Abraham finds out about this and he rallies 318 men and he goes and takes down this army.

It's kind of like sweet, it's kind of a cool moment, and he actually rescues Lot, and you would think, hey, maybe I shouldn't go back to Sodom.

Maybe that was a bad place to live.

Maybe I should reconcile with Abraham and maybe make some things, make amends here.

Maybe he would share some of his land.

Maybe I should be closer to Abraham, but no, what do we see?

We see in Genesis 19 that he's right back in Sodom.

He's drifted from being far from Abraham, close to Sodom to now, right back where he's at.

And my second thought this morning is the drift will lead to compromise.

So previous to 19, chapter 19, we see uh God's plan for Sodom and Gomorrah, and he's gonna destroy it, right?

God comes to Abraham, he gives him the lowdown, and I and I think again, this is another moment of the mercy and grace of God because he comes to Abraham and he knows Abraham's uh nephew is in Sodom.

So he comes to him and he gives him the plan.

I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and all these other towns in this valley, and Abraham negotiates with God.

And it's actually really cool to see this because it kind of paints a picture of how close Abraham was actually with God.

Because he was able to kind of negotiate.

It's kind of funny.

I picture it like a toddler coming up to a parent and being like, Can we get ice cream in like 20 minutes?

And the father's like, okay, yeah, we can get ice cream in 20 minutes.

What about 15?

You know, like, okay, we can go in 15 minutes.

What about 10?

Can we get it 10 minutes?

And this is exactly how it plays out.

He asks God to spare the city.

You know, God, what if there was 50 people righteous?

Would you spare the city?

God says, okay.

If there's 50 people, I'll spare the city.

And then he goes, okay, what well, let's see.

You know, 50 is a pretty big number.

What about 45?

God says, okay, we can give you 45.

That's a reasonable number.

Abraham goes, okay, well, you know, 45 is good, but what about 40?

And he just keeps going, like he goes from 40 to 35 to 20 to 10 people.

And I think it's because he knows that Lot is there with his family.

And and God, it's it's kind of humorous to me, this like exchange, but again, it shows this mercy that God has.

It also emphasizes the fact that I don't I don't think that Lot had a relationship with him because God doesn't go to Lot and speak to him.

Instead, God sends two angels.

God sends two angels as like messengers, as like a warning to Lot.

It's really interesting to me.

So he sends these two angels.

Obviously, they were just disguised as regular dudes.

So Lot doesn't exactly know, but you know, in Lot, there's still a goodness in him.

There's still like this, this like he he grew up with Abraham.

So he knows what about hospitality.

So he sees these two men, he brings them inside.

He wants to like wash their feet, feed them uh a meal, and and this just this little piece of scripture, it's it's kind of crazy, but it really just shows us the evil that was in Sodom.

And so the men of Sodom, they find out that there's two of these guys in Lot's house, and it the it's so twisted, but the Bible says, and this is not the Bible saying that this is okay, it's just literally outliering the the idea and the reality of the evil of man and how far it can go.

And it says in the New King James that they were like trying to break down the door so that they could know them carnally, which means to have sex with them, okay?

It's it's it's awful, but this is what was happening.

And Lot does something insane, something insane to us.

Like all of us in here, if you have daughters, you would just never think of this.

You would probably try to kill the dudes outside.

Like you'd be like fighting, like I'd be fighting if it was if it was me.

But but in this culture, the culture was to protect the guests of the house.

They were more important than your own family.

So Lot, idiot, like he be he he says, okay, you can have my daughters.

And we think that's crazy, but he's just going according to culture.

And the angels, they kind of save his bacon, they grab Lot and actually literally says they pull them back into the house.

Like, what are you guys doing?

They laser beam all the dudes outside and blind them.

Like, it would just be an incredible thing.

Like, how could you not think that these guys are something different, right?

And Lot is just, he's just so dumb sometimes, but um, they he they blind the men outside, so they cannot find Lot's door anymore.

And it says in the morning, this in verse 15 uh as the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, uh, take up your wife, take your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away by the punishment of the city.

It says in the next verse, it says, but he lingered.

He was trying to stay.

It says, and after, like, imagine seeing these guys like just like blind people and be like, I want to stay.

You know, like it would take a lot of like ignorance at this point for him to stay.

But like I said, the drift will lead to compromise.

Uh it says, but he lingered.

And this is us, this is another piece of the grace and mercy of God.

It says the men literally grabbed the family, and it says they teleported out of the house, out of the city.

Like it would have been a crazy experience.

It says they they they grabbed them, the Lord being merciful to them, and brought them out and set them outside the city.

And as they brought them out, they gave them very clear instructions.

Very clear instructions.

It says, they said, escape for your life, do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley.

Escape to the hills lest you be swept away.

So it's very, very clear.

It's not like they're speaking in cryptic, like they're not giving them like parables saying, escape for your life, don't look back, and do not stay in the valley.

It couldn't be more clear.

But what happens?

The drift has led from compromise to compromise to compromise to compromise to Lot saying this.

He says, Oh no, my lords, behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life, but I cannot escape to the hills lest this is that this disaster overtake me and die.

Behold, there is a city.

It's just a little city, we can escape there, it's not as far as the mountain.

You know, we'll just I don't want to go as far.

I don't want to put in as much work.

And you can see it, you can literally see it in the way that he's talking to these guys.

He's like, is it not just a little one?

And my life will be saved.

So Lot, he compromises full obedience for partial obedience.

And it's interesting that God allows it.

God allows it.

And we would say from first glance, oh, it's you know, it's it's mercy.

You know, God's just kind of like saying, Okay, you can have your way, but really what happens is we see the consequence of the compromise.

We see the consequence of a partial obedience to God.

We actually see multiple.

We see multiple.

The first is this, and I think again, um, this is not to shame anybody in the room, but if you are the head of the household, if you are the father of the house and you allow compromise in your life, it will 100% affect the rest of your family.

And and this and this scripture it really shows that because his leadership was compromised because Lot was trying to compromise to not to completely disobey the one thing that the angel said was don't stay in the valley.

He said, Can we stay in the valley?

Can we just go to this little town?

And what happens?

Uh his wife compromises on one of the instructions.

What does she do?

As they're walking away, as they're fleeing, she does what?

She looks back and she turns into a pillar of salt.

And it's this tragic moment, and I'm sure it like was gut-wrenching, but there was nothing he could do in that moment.

Secondly, the angels say, Don't stay in the valley, flee for the hills, go to the mountain.

And what I think is happening here, what I think is happening here is God is reaching out to Lot, and He's trying to get him to this mountaintop experience.

Get out of the valley that you're compromising in and get to the mountain.

And we see all through the the Old Testament where God met people was where?

On the mountain.

And I actually think that this was God reaching out to Lot saying, if you would just go through a little bit of pain, if you would just go through a little bit of effort, I want to meet you here.

But instead, what does he do?

He stays in the valley, he goes next door, and actually, this city was supposed to be destroyed by God.

It was one of the cities that was supposed to be destroyed by God, but there was a compromise.

And he trades the mountain of encounter for a cave of compromise.

Because later, actually, we see that uh that Lot and his family, the rest of his family, are hiding in a cave.

He's hiding in a cave.

And it's and it's honestly awful.

I'm gonna invite the worship team to come up.

It's honestly like it's an awful part of scripture because we see this kind of just like disgusting thing happen.

But again, we have the head of the house who's compromised after compromise after compromise after compromise after compromise, and it's affecting the rest of the family.

And we actually see his daughters, they get impatient because they were actually engaged to be married to these men in Sodom, and they're frustrated, so they they do something unthinkable.

Again, this is not the Bible condoning what happens, this is just showing the reality of compromise leading to consequence, and the the daughters actually get their father drunk, they sleep with him, they have children with their father.

It's it's crazy.

We we hear it, we're like, that's disgusting.

But even worse than that, don't worry, there's good news at the end of the story, there's good news, but there's there it has to be the bad news first, otherwise, the good news is not good, okay?

These these children actually become the enemies of Israel, the Mohabites and the Ammonites.

And it's just this crazy consequence, this earthly consequence that Lot now has to deal with because of his actions.

And then the story ends.

It's like that they just stop talking about Lot after this, and we're like, huh?

It really ends there, and it just begins to talk about Abram.

And we're thinking, like, man, that is an awful story.

And we could, you know, you could swing that any way you want, or you could preach that, like, just don't make compromises and you're good.

No, there's something actually better here.

The story was a tragedy, it was an absolute tragedy to what we read.

But I think the real bigger tragedy is we believe the lie, we believe the lie of the drift, that when it comes to compromise in our lives, it's gonna be all good.

It'll work itself out.

You know, it's just a little thing that's happening.

It's just a little compromise here, it's just a little compromise here, it's just a little compromise here.

Oh, that's okay, that doesn't matter.

It's just a little slip here.

We'll just get to the edge, you know, we'll just be as close to Sodom as we can, but not actually go to Sodom.

And we think that, you know, it's okay.

I'm not actually dipping my feet into that.

But that's the lie of the drift because eventually it just keeps pulling you and pulling you and pulling you eventually until you're actually dwelling in the place of Sodom.

That's the lie of the drift, and it doesn't stop until you get up and say, Enough.

Until you get up and say, No more.

The good news.

I promised you the good news.

There's something absolutely beautiful about this story, not the actual story itself.

And and I think just because we we don't see the entire biography of Lot doesn't mean that there wasn't another opportunity for him.

Okay?

I think I think the Bible is really funny.

We think that just because the Bible didn't talk about this, that, oh man, it just must have ended really badly for him.

I actually believe, and according to this passage of scripture, all the way in the New Testament, that something happened and it was good.

We see this, this is the next, we don't hear about Lot ever again until 2 Peter.

And it's really encouraging, interesting, but I think ultimately powerful for us to know.

2 Peter says this, 2 Peter 2, 6 to 9 says, if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made in them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, if he rescued Lot, and then afterwards it describes who Lot was a righteous man.

A righteous man.

And if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from the trials and hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

And I just think, I'm like, how on earth, how on earth could they consider, how could he consider Lot righteous after what I just read?

How?

How is this possible?

It doesn't make sense in my logical, somewhat logical mind.

Like all we read about is him messing things up all the way and dragging his family through that mess.

And all of a sudden, the story ends.

We skip a few thousand years and we see in Peter Lot was considered righteous.

We're like, we want justice, you know what I mean?

Like, how is that possible?

But what this passage tells me is that there was an opportunity, I believe, for Lot to turn things around, to turn his heart back to God.

Maybe he actually did eventually get to the mountain and meet God.

Regardless of all of that, what this passage tells me is that the grace and the mercy of God is not fragile.

I'm gonna say that again for the people of the back.

The grace and the mercy of God is not a fragile thing.

You know, I think of all of my life and all of the mess ups, and I and I think like, how on earth am I standing here?

It's the grace and the mercy of God is not fragile, it's also not logical.

Because when we think logically about the grace and mercy of God, it doesn't make sense to us.

And then we we heap shame on ourselves, and then what happens when we heap shame on ourselves?

We get stuck in that same cycle of just, ah, I'm just not enough.

You know, how could God ever use me?

You know, he's gonna use him, but uh, I can't use me, I've done too many things.

But the grace and the mercy of God is not fragile.

Now, hear me.

There's consequence for compromise.

We see that.

There's earthly consequence that you will walk through if you have compromise in your life.

That's the truth.

That's something we can't avoid, but it doesn't have to end there because God can take something absolutely what we just read, hideous, and all of all the way into 2 Peter, Lot was a righteous man.

He can take something that's absolutely dead and gone, and what you think is dead and gone, and in a moment breathe life into it.

You might think your marriage might be dead, but God can just take a moment and it's a it's a moment of you just turning your heart back to him and saying, God, I'm sorry, and he will begin to breathe life back into that marriage.

You might think that your life is over because of the things that you've done, or you might just think, like, man, I'm just not gonna go anywhere with this.

Maybe you have doubts that that that God even loves you, but it's just a moment where God can just breathe life back into it.

Because again, the mercy and the grace of God is not a fragile thing.

Here's what here's the here's another truth: is we cannot stay drifting.

You cannot stay in that place.

We can't just sit here and do nothing about it.

There has to be a willingness to get out of the cave.

There has to be a willingness for our sake to actually say, God, I'm sorry, and repent.

And repentance is just literally going, I'm gonna turn from that, and I'm gonna turn to you, God.

You might have to repent ten times.

Because sometimes things hold on.

But one thing I don't like is when you know we just think like, okay, well, you know, if God's gonna meet me, he'll just come to where I'm at.

That's true.

But we're not allowed to stay there.

We can't stay there because we're just gonna continue drifting on.

Um, can I just ask you to stand with me?

Um I don't want this to be like a heavy moment.

I know this, it sometimes just becomes heavy because I believe sometimes truth just kind of cuts through our our stuff.

It just cuts through our stuff, and it cuts right to the heart of the thing that we're dealing with.

And and I want you to just close your eyes just so no one's embarrassed or no one's looking around.

And this is not to shame you or make you feel weird or feel isolated or or pointed out, but if if you would say, you know, I've been drifting and you notice this about yourself, you know, you've drifted, whether it's a mile, whether it's 10 miles, whether it's 10 feet, drifting is drifting.

Doesn't matter how far it is, as we saw, Lot, he drifted pretty dang far.

But there was still an opportunity for him.

So I'm not asking you to be like, well, measure my drift.

Okay, well, how far from God am I actually to repent?

The truth is, is if you're if you've taken one step away from him, repent.

Turn around.

Start paddling.

And it's not about effort, it's not about the effort that you put in because there's this there's this truth that.

That Paul talks about in Romans, and it's also echoed in Hebrews, and it's it's this idea of justification and sanctification, because if you are justified through faith, you are faith, you are saved through faith.

That is that is the grace and the mercy of God is not earned on your life.

You do not have to paddle to get to the grace and the mercy of God.

That is offered to you as a free gift.

And if you believe that, if you take that in faith, it says, through faith, I am, you are justified.

Justified through faith.

You have received the free gift of the of Jesus dying for you and the forgiveness of your sins on the cross.

That song that we we sang, the God who bleeds, he bled for you and me.

And that was not something that we earned or paddled for or tried to strive for, or you daily tried to do something to get God's mercy and grace.

No, you are you get that regardless.

The favor of God is on you.

He already looks at you and says, I am proud of you, regardless of the things that you've done.

That is justification.

The next thing is sanctification.

And this is our part.

It's a very small part, but it's where the Holy Spirit actually comes and grabs our hand and walks with us through the journey of salvation.

Because salvation is not just some line you cross, you hop over, and you're good.

You start to walk out that salvation daily with the Holy Spirit's help.

Because we as human beings are in like we're incapable of doing it on our own.

Because we're gonna mess up.

And it's the Holy Spirit who picks us up and keeps us walking forward.

And walking is an intentional moving towards God through this journey of faith.

Hebrews says it like this, and I love it because he says, it says, by one sacrifice, those were made perfect, justification, and those who are made perfect are being made holy.

That's sanctification as you walk this road.

And that's why we come to church.

We come to church, Hebrews 10 talks about do not forsake the gathering of the believers.

Therefore, encourage one another with love.

Encourage the person standing next to you.

Uh pray for the person standing next to you.

If you're tired, put your hand up.

Say, I'm tired.

I've drifted.

This is where I if you're here and you want to respond to this, I've drifted.

Say I, you know, I've drifted from the faith.

I've drifted a mile, I've drifted 10 miles, I've drifted an inch.

I notice there's a drift in my life.

If that's you, just say, hey, that's me.

You don't even have to, you don't even have to put your hand up, honestly.

That's just so I can know if you're here, that's fine.

But in this moment, you could just say, even just to yourself and God, like, God, I, you know, I'm sorry.

I've drifted.

I've been drifting.

There's there's not even like my life isn't in crisis, but I know that there's areas that I've been drifting in.

My attention, my focus hasn't been on you.

My attention and my focus has been on other things.

Maybe you're in a spot where you have drifted far from God, but I'm telling you today that the grace and the mercy of God is not too fragile to bring you back.

And I want to ask, before we do something else, I want to ask if there's anybody in this room, and this is where I need you to raise your hand, because I just need to know if you're here, and if you're not, that's okay.

If you've never received that free gift that Jesus gave on the cross, that gift of salvation, if you've never, ever asked Jesus into your life, I just want you to just raise your hand.

No one's looking around.

I'm just looking, I just want to give an opportunity.

If you're not here, that's all good.

If you've never received the gift of salvation and you want to receive that gift today, I just don't want to move on from this moment.

You just put your hand up nice and high.

Okay, that's okay.

Maybe for the most of us, for the rest of us, we've had some drift in our life.

And I'm not gonna ask you to come to the front, I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, I'm gonna ask you to do what Hebrews 10 says.

And maybe you're completely not comfortable with this, that's okay.

But I want us to actually do what the Bible is saying for us to do is to actually pray for each other, to encourage each other.

Maybe you just need encouragement.

And maybe that's what you could lift your hand for.

You say, I need encouragement today.

You put your hand up if you say, I need encouragement today, I've been discouraged.

I feel like I just need prayer.

Come on, we're so we're so reserved in this culture.

If you could just put your hand up, you say, Hey, I need prayer today, I need encouragement.

Nice and high.

And now, those of you who are good, go and pray for those people right now.

We're gonna have the band just play, and this is just gonna be a few moments.

I want you to, even if it's just your neighbor, begin to pray over them, begin to encourage each other, begin to say, hey, like where in your life can I pray for you and encourage each other right now, 321 go, don't wait for the music.

We're gonna be the church today, okay?

Just a few moments.

If you say, hey, I need encouragement, if it's just, hey, turn to your neighbor and begin to pray, the band's gonna play, we're gonna worship.

And just take a few moments.

Encourage one another, pray for one another, lift each other up.

Let's just sing this song.