September 14, 2003
Today we’re studying Hebrews 2:1-4:
We must pay more careful attention 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, wonders, and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit
distributed according to his will.
In our text this morning there is a warning. And
that warning has to do with the word drift
This word can have both positive and negative connotations. For instance,
we might describe a summer picnic by mentioning the white clouds drifting
overhead in the blue sky. Or we might speak of drifting off to sleep. Or
we might describe the relaxation of letting our canoe drift down a river
on a warm summer afternoon.
And yet if we were in that same canoe, drifting toward the top of Niagara
Falls, the scene changes from an image of relaxation to one of terror and
suspense.
The most prevalent meaning of the word drift is a slow, steady departure from an intended course
or goal. When a ship drifts off course, what began as a deviation of only
a few yards can turn into hundreds of miles by the journey’s end. And this
is the kind of drifting that we are warned about: a life that slowly and
steadily departs from the intended course.
The writer warns the Hebrew Christians that they are in danger of drifting
away from the person of Jesus Christ because they were not paying close-
enough attention to Him.
In what way were these Christians drifting?
They were drifting away from a solid reliance on and love for the person
of Jesus Christ. They were reverting to Judaistic practices that had already
been fulfilled by the person of Jesus himself. The anticipation had been
exceeded by the actual event, but they were returning to what was inferior
and obsolete.
Although they might have intended to honor God, they were instead drifting
into a course that would, in effect, lead them away from honoring God.
They were dishonoring Him by dishonoring the Son. They were forgetting
that in these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son. In so doing,
as the writer warns them, they were drifting into an area wherein they
actually ignored what they had been taught: the great salvation that Jesus
had provided for them.
They ignored the great salvation provider, Jesus Christ.
How then do we apply this warning to our lives?
I don't know of anyone here who is contemplating going back and taking
up Old Testament Judaism, with its priestly mediators and the sacrifice of
animals for our sins. That was the specific nature of their temptation to drift in their circumstance. This, however, is not our temptation.
Yet the nature of the drift is the same for us.
In the Book of Revelation is a passage that I believe can be applied to
this text in a way we can help us to better understand the danger of drift
to our situation.
First we need to read Revelation 1, verses 19-20. Here Jesus explains
the nature of his instruction.
Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place
later. The mystery of the seven stars that you
saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Turn to Revelation 2. Verses 1-7:
This is instruction given by Jesus Christ to the apostle John to seven
churches of the 1st century. The particular instruction I am going to read
is given to the church in Ephesus. Remember, this
was written when “the church in Ephesus” simply meant all the Christians in
this large city. And so this instruction was to
be given to all the Christians in that city and region:
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the
seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:
I know your deeds, our hard work and your perseverance. I know that you
cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles
but are not, and have found them false. You havve persevered and have endured
hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember
the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did
at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand
from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices
of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life,
which is in the paradise of God.
Now in many ways, Jesus’ description of the church at Ephesus reminds me
of the Jewish Christians to whom the book of Hebrews was written. We haven't
gotten that far into the book of Hebrews, but later we will learn that these
people had suffered for their faith. Among other
things they had been imprisoned and their property had been confiscated
for following Jesus.
And Jesus says about the Ephesians, "I know your deeds, your hard work
and your perseverance...and...You have persevered and have endured hardships
for my name and have not grown weary.”
In other words, both the people of Ephesus and the Jewish Christians who
are meant to read the book of Hebrews have really paid a price for their
faith.
And yet both groups are shown to be in danger of drifting.
In Ephesus, Jesus identifies the source of the drift, in these words,
(and this is what I want us to focus our attention on): Yet I hold this
against you. You have forsaken your first love.
The danger of drift is the danger of forsaking our first love.
What is our first love?
Our first love is the very touchstone of our faith. Our first love is
a solid reliance on and love for the person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
What does that mean? What does it mean to live in solid reliance on Jesus
and to love him as Christ?
We can find what this means in the book of Acts. In the early pages of
that book after Pentecost, a vital life is communicated to us. These people
were alive to God because they were alive to Jesus Christ. The events we
read about there are prompted by one all-encompassing, primal reality: Jesus
Christ, walking in the midst of His people.
In much the same way, when we examine the lives of the disciples in the
pages of the gospels, we see that Jesus was training his disciples to trust
Him. It was a new way of living. He wanted them to learn to depend on His
power, His presence, and His personal commitment to them.
They did that.
They tasted of that trust, that power, and that commitment.
That is why they were devastated when Jesus died.
That is also why they were filled with joy when they finally realized
that Jesus was alive forevermore.
Our emotional response to Jesus Christ varies a great deal from person
to person--and even from moment to moment. We
can compare our initial response to Him to the infinite mystery of snowflakes.
No two are alike.
But whether our first response, our first giving of ourselves to Jesus
Christ came quietly--or not, emotionally--or not, dramatically--or not, at
some point along the way there came, as a common thread for us all, an awareness
of the living reality, the personal presence, and the profound, unmerited
favor of Jesus Christ.
It is that primal awareness that reveals Christ to our hearts, that causes
our hearts to love and embrace Him, and that floods our lives with hope
and joy and peace.
That primal awareness becomes the lifeblood of our faith.
We must not drift away from that primal awareness.
Our dog lives the life of Riley. I mean our
dog is the definition of Pampered Pet. But happy as she is, she still is
not entirely happy when she must spend time at home, alone. Let a member
of the family walk in, though, and she is instantly flooded with joy.
We call dogs like that people dogs.
The normal life of a Christian in his relationship with Christ is something
like our dog with the family. I suppose you could say when we are healthy,
vital, and full of joy in His presence, we are “Jesus dogs.”
I Peter 6-9 describes this solid, uncomplicated reliance upon and
love for the person of Christ, when Peter, after describing this great salvation
that we have in Jesus, says this:
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have
had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your
faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by
fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when
Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him, and
even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with
an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your
faith, the salvation of your souls.
It is no coincidence that this description of such love for the person
of the Lord Jesus is tied to the experience of doing that which is humanly
impossible: to discover joy in the midst of difficult and enduring trials,
something which only happens when we find ourselves loving by faith the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed to us in the gospel.
What happens when we drift from this love? Our lives turn into mere duty!
What produced in both the Jewish Christians of Hebrews and the Ephesian
Christians of Revelation the strength and the conviction to suffer and
stand firm for the name of Christ? It was this love--this love for Christ--that
produced their supernatural strength; this love is the only thing that can produce it.
But what happens when these same Christians begin to drift from this love,
this solid, primal reliance on Christ? Their service for Christ, while
it might outwardly appear unchanged, becomes duty-driven and burdensome
because the life that gave it birth is slipping away.
A woman falls in love with a man and marries him, but in a short while
she finds that her thoughtful and tender husband has quickly disappeared. He has become demanding and oppressive, treating
her more like a slave than a wife. He begins
the practice of giving her long lists of things each morning that she must
have done when he arrives home. No matter how
many things on the list she gets done, he never gives her a word of thanks
or appreciation. But the items she doesn’t get done--those she hears about.
It’s not long before her stomach tightens when she sees the list. That list represents oppression and slavery and
endless, lifeless duty.
After a few years, her husband dies suddenly in the prime of life. Although
she is reluctant to give her heart to a man again, a genuine and loving
man eventually captures her heart and she marries again. This time, the
man proves faithful, and he showers her with his love and affection, and
he always appreciates her and encourages her. She
thrives in this atmosphere of love and acceptance. And she in turn devotes
herself to loving and caring for him and to encouraging him.
One day, the man comes home and his heart skips a beat because he finds
his wife kneeling by the bed crying, her whole body shaking. Next to her is an old open shoebox, full of papers
of various sizes. He immediately runs to her and implores her to tell him
what awful thing has happened. When she turns to him and sees him, her tears
turn to joy as she assures him that her tears are not tears of pain or anguish,
but of joy.
And then she explains to him that while cleaning she has opened an old
shoebox containing lists from her first husband. She tells him that as she
picked up the lists and began to read them, she was overcome with joy as
she realized that everything on those lists that had been so oppressive to
her, she was now doing without being told or even asked.
Now she is doing it out of love for her husband.
This story illustrates the service for Christ that is done out of a first
love for Him and the experience of drifting from that first love.
This story also shows how, when we return to our first love for the person
of Christ, we will also return to the first commandment implicit in our
first love. Jesus said the first commandment is to love your neighbor as
yourself. And he said his new commandment is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
As Peter said: Though you have not seen him, you love him, and even
though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an
inexpressible and glorious joy.
When we love the person of the Lord Jesus by faith, we will love those
he loves. Our neighbors.
And each other.
This love is to be the identifying mark and characteristic of a Christian.
One of the strongest evidences that our hearts have really been awakened
by the grace of God, is that we have a love for people that we did not
have before. Paul talks about this in the second chapter of Philippians
verses 1-4.
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort
from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and
compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same
love, being one in spirit and purpose.
The clear implication here is that if we have been united with Christ,
we will have a new love for people. And where this is not evident in a Christian,
then it indicates there has been a dangerous drift from the person of Christ,
no matter how much we may look like are his servants outwardly.
Again, this love that Christ puts in our hearts is what makes our service
to other people alive and vital. Otherwise,
even our attempts to help and serve others will have a hollowness to it.
Albert Schweitzer was a man who began a hospital mission to the medical
and spiritual needs of Africans. But one of the
secrets of his success was that he never lost his basic motivation--that
of simply loving people. In his later years he was often hailed as a great
humanitarian, but he never thought of himself that way or thought of himself
as starting a great work. Rather, he regarded
what he did as the natural outgrowth of the basic compassion for people that
Christ had given him.
Schweitzer writes that it was his love for people, originating in his
love for Christ, that gave his life meaning and purpose:
“Often people say, ‘I would like to do
some good in the world, but with so many responsibilities at home and in
business, my nose is always to the grindstone. I
am sunk in my own petty affairs, and there is no chance for my life to mean
anything.’
This is a common and dangerous error...Our greatest mistake, as individuals,
is that we walk through our life with closed eyes and do not notice our
chances. As soon as we open our eyes and deliberately
search we see many who need help, not in big things but in the littlest
things.
One day I was traveling through Germany in a third-class, railway carriage
beside an eager youth who sat as if looking for something unseen. Facing
him was a fretful and plainly worried old man. Presently
the lad remarked that it would be dark before we reached the nearest large
city.
‘I don't know what I shall do when we get there,’ said the old man anxiously.
‘My only son is in the hospital, very ill. I
had a telegram to come at once. I must see him
before he dies. But I am from the country and
I'm afraid I shall get lost in the city.'
To which the young man replied, ‘I know the city well.
I will get off with you and take you to your son.
Then I will catch a later train.’
As they left the compartment they walked together like brothers. Who can assay the effect of that small kind deed?"
This story inspires us to wonder where we might find that kind of simple
compassion among those who name the name of Christ.
So often it is absent.
So often Christians can wax eloquent about the things of Christ, but exhibit
not even a basic compassion for the people around them.
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort
from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and
compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same
love, being one in spirit and purpose.
It betrays a tragic drift when people find more basic compassion from
the people on the barstool next to them than from a Christian friend or
co-worker.
It’s sad when people who confess no faith in God have more empathy for
their fellow human beings than do their friends who walk out of a church sanctuary
every Sunday.
It’s a sad state of affairs when a Christian gets more encouragement from
a non-Christian friend than he does from the person he shares a hymn book
with on Sunday morning.
Jesus Christ walked and lived this kind of compassion.
In the last paragraph of chapter 9, in the book of Matthew, we read
these words: And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,
healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
And seeing the multitudes, he felt compassion for them ....
Notice the last term, because you see it over and over again in Jesus'
response to people:
AND SEEING--HE FELT
Notice what it is not:
It is not:
Seeing--he criticized
Seeing--he analyzed
Seeing-- he condemned
Seeing--he rejected
Seeing--he strategized
BUT SEEING, HE FELT!
When we have drifted from our first love, we simply will not have compassion.
When we have drifted from our first love, we will focus on all kinds of
secondary issues, and calluses will grow around our heart.
Our hearts will grow cold.
And we will find ourselves being able to say things to people that hurt
them, and destroy them, and cut them and betray them-- and we don't even
see anything wrong with it.
And we will find ourselves being able to say things to people that hurt
them, and destroy them, and cut them and betray them--and we don't even
see anything wrong with it. We have
drifted. We have no compassion. We have become an empty shell.
And our Christianity is empty. It’s just
words. It’s just a facade.
And it’s a common, common malady.
It’s a common, common drift.
It occurs to me that a lot of descriptions and penetrating questions in
scripture are designed to try to wake us up from such tragic drifting.
Jesus describes this condition when he says, “... You are like whitewashed
tombs, which took beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of
dead men's bones.”
James warns us of the evidence of this drift: With the tongue we praise
our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's
image. Out of the same mouth come praise and
cursing. My brothers, this should not be!
Or again, "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily
food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish
you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs,
what good is it?”
Or again James warns us, "Brothers, do not slander one another."
The book of Ephesians steers us away from drift with this exhortation:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what
is helpful for building others up, according to their needs. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God....
These kinds of behaviors warn us that we have drifted far off course. We often believe we are on course, following Jesus
Christ. We might be doing many things “for Him.” We might be faithful in
many outward ways. But our cold hearts, our
callousness toward the needs of people, our ability to use our tongues
to destroy our brothers indicates that we are far from the destination
we believe we are nearing.
In the passage from Revelations, although these people were doing things
that Jesus commended them for, he warned that if they didn't return to
their first love, he would remove their lampstands.
As he says earlier, the lampstands represented the churches.
Jesus takes this drift very seriously.
When we stop loving by faith, the person of the Lord Jesus, we are drifting.
When our hearts are cold and callous, and our tongues shred people instead
of building them up, we have drifted.
There are many legends about the building of the Taj Mahal. One that fascinates
concerns the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan. His favorite wife died, and in his
devastation he vowed to build a temple that would serve as her tomb. Her
coffin was placed in the center of a large piece of land, and construction
began around it. No expense would be spared to make her final resting place
a thing of grandeur and beauty. As the months of construction passed, the
Shah’s grief dissipated in his zeal for the project. He no longer mourned
her absence. The planning and oversight of the project consumed him. One
day, while walking through the vast project, his leg bumped up against a
wooden box. The Shah dusted himself off, and ordered the box to be discarded.
The Shah did not realize he had ordered the removal of the coffin – now forgotten
– under the dust of time and construction. The one the temple was erected
to honor was forgotten. But the temple rose anyway.