Sermon Text: Hebrews 2: 1-8
1 It’s crucial that we keep a firm grip on what we’ve heard so that we don’t drift off.
2 If the old message delivered by the angels was valid and nobody got away with anything,
3 do you think we can risk neglecting this latest message, this magnificent salvation? First of all, it was delivered in person by the Master, then accurately passed on to us by those who heard it from him.
4 All the while God was validating it with gifts through the Holy Spirit, all sorts of signs and miracles, as he saw fit.
5 God didn’t put angels in charge of this business of salvation that we’re dealing with here.
6 It says in Scripture, What is man and woman that you bother with them; why take a second look their way?
7 You made them not quite as high as angels, bright with Eden’s dawn light;
8 Then you put them in charge of your entire handcrafted world.
Morning Message:
Through the years my mindset and my goals in ministry have changed. I have always felt the deep urge to evangelize, and in the beginning of my journey with God I truly thought that was my calling. I really never imagined that I would pastor a church or be involved in full-time ministry. I have told you this before, but I saw myself more as part of something like Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show (Neil Diamond, 1969). That was appealing to me, to preach the message of salvation everywhere; to see the multitudes come to Jesus. In God’s wisdom He placed me in pastoral ministry. I look back sometimes and ask myself, how did I end up here? I have not given up on evangelism; I still preach salvation every chance that I get, but God has changed my thinking and allowed me to see that there is so much more to His call upon my life. He has shown me that there are many lost souls in the church and so many others that have drifted away from the faith and need to be reminded of the path that God has for them. I guess that I wanted something spectacular; a mission that I could take on and finish and then relax in my accomplishments. What God gave me instead was the blessing of ministry, the occasional satisfaction of seeing people’s lives changed, and the gift: the blessing of being allowed to touch and make a difference in so many lives. Weddings, baptisms, counseling, and even funerals, all, in their own way, changing and blessing me.
The message and the ministry that God has put on my heart recently is to bring people back and to keep Christ’s church from drifting. I spend a lot of time focusing on my messages as a whole and trying to make sure that I am preaching the whole gospel, and that I am not getting stuck in a rut. What I have seen is that my sermons seem to have a common theme lately. The conclusion that I have come to, at least for now, is that God wants our focus on this subject and there must be a real need for this. What does it mean to drift in your faith? Drifting is a gradual deviation from a set course; it can also mean to wonder aimlessly. To the world and sometimes even to us, drifting for a while can seem like a good thing. We think of it as relaxing to just unplug from our thoughts and give our minds a rest. We all need down-time from work and life, sometimes even from our families. All of this is different than drifting from God and his ways. An old song that has been redone a couple of times says: Give me the beat boys to free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away. Sounds like a way to relax but if you listen to the lyrics as a Christian, I think it says so much more. Day after day I’m more confused, yet I look for the light through the pouring rain, I’m feeling the strain, ain’t it a shame. Beginning to think that I’m wasting time. I don’t understand the things I do. The world outside looks so unkind, and I’m counting on you, to carry me through. Do you hear this the way that I do? Confused, unsure, straining to see the true light; still counting on God to bring you through but unable to find your way back. That’s the result of drifting in your faith.
Listen to what this scripture is saying. We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Now please pay attention because I believe that God is trying to get our attention. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance. Tolerance has been so misused in our society. We are told as Christians that in order for us to show tolerance we must agree with things that the Bible clearly says are wrong. We still have the right to our opinions and we still have the right to respect God’s opinion which we know through His word. To tolerate means to put up with, not to agree with; when we agree with something that is wrong for the sake of getting along, we are drifting. We drift towards disobedience and call it freedom. When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you give up the freedom to do what is wrong. Just because you have the right to do something does not make it right. We drift toward superstition and call it faith. This is so easy to do. When we make sure that we do things because we feel like we have to, rather than want to, we start putting our faith in what we do rather than trusting God. “We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking that we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (D. A. Carson in For the Love of God).
Here is a quote from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, “As a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?” It is so easy to drift away. All of us have most likely seen this in our lives. Loved ones that seemed strong in their faith then drifted away from church for whatever reason and then drifted into something appealing but ungodly. Once the world gets a hold on you, it is a real battle to overcome. People think that I preach about the importance of coming to church, reading God’s word, and praying because it’s like a business to me. The fact is that I preach this to you for your own protection because when you drift you are in great danger of just drifting away. I feel that God’s call upon my life in this ministry; that which He has blessed me with is to not just warn the unsaved and bring them to salvation, but more so these days to warn the church that many are drifting and in danger of drifting away.
In Christ’s Love and Peace
Pastor Bob
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