Hebrews 2:1
11 August 2024
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
So we now come to the second chapter of the book of Hebrews. Having spent many weeks working through this opening chapter, all of the “Jesus is greater” argument in contrast to the angels, this is now the first time in the book of Hebrews that we reach a point where there is a “so what,” an application, an exhortation before our eyes. Everything up until now has been teaching about Christ, and now we come to a “therefore.” This is what we’re introducing today in this section, verses 1-4, namely the exhortation, the command to attention that is given to the readers.
Now, brothers and sisters, one thing to stress right from the beginning, given all that’s taken place up until now, which has been teaching about Christ, there is a great and significant urgency to what we have before us. This is an urgent call to the Christian to pay attention, to wake up, to be aware. This is the tone and the means by which we are to grasp what is before our eyes here.
So let’s just notice, summarising, to begin with, what is being challenged and exhorted in this opening verse, where it says, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.” The next part of the verse, the end of verse 1, might be somewhat surprising. We may think, if this is an urgent call, almost a rallying cry to the church if it’s saying we must pay much closer attention, we might then think, “lest you end up in hell.” But instead, what we have is “lest we drift away from it.” So we have the command, the exhortation, “pay much closer attention.” And then we have the warning. The warning which is given to the church. The warning against drifting away from it.
Now, this is far more an urgent warning than the language may first appear. We just need to spend a moment considering the way in which the evil one seeks to infiltrate from within any established gathering of the church to begin to consider the danger that we face. Because it isn’t often the way by which the enemy would seek to strike down and devour with outright error and outright strike, but rather it often comes masquerading as something true, operating in half-truths, somewhat falsehoods, distracting from the main point. This sort of thing. And within time, where the danger comes, is drifting, drifting, drifting from what we should be paying much closer attention to.
Even with this brief introduction, it likely won’t be much of a surprise to know that this verse, and even what will be preached here this afternoon, is incredibly relevant to the church of Jesus Christ in a nation like ours. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention. Christian, you must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. This is what we’re going to be working through.
Now, the first thing that we’re going to do before we deal with these two key points in the verse is just establish our context. And it somewhat deals with a key point in the verse. Because one of the questions that may be asked regarding this verse is, who is it being written to? Is this being written to Christians or non-Christians? Especially when we have in verse 3, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” Now, we’ll be dealing with that issue next week, but let’s just establish who the focus is just by verse 1. It says, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Who is the “we”? The “we” that this author is writing to is the Jewish Christians, the church that has been established in this setting.
Now, one thing to note in any established gathering of a church is that, yes, there will be professing Christians. A church certainly should be made up of those who are born-again believers. But we also recognise, and this is something we are going to consider, that there will be people who maybe profess to be Christians but are not actually born again.
Also, we need to understand that in this specific context, even amongst true, genuine believers, there were a lot of religious and Jewish hang-ups and customs that they were trying to figure out and wrestle with. We considered this as we introduced the book of Hebrews, and it’s important to remember it here. These were some of the practical and cultural tensions amongst the people to whom this author is writing.
So, what do they need to be reminded of as they’re thinking, “Well, hang on a second, yes, we’re Christians, but we still need to be following these Jewish customs”? They need to be reminded that, even when it comes to the issue of the priesthood and the old covenant, there is something greater, there is Someone better. They need to be reminded to focus again and again on Jesus Christ. This is the purpose of the book of Hebrews. This is why the book of Hebrews is written; this is the central focus and view. Jesus Christ is better. Jesus Christ is greater.
We’ve spent an entire chapter already dealing with the foundations of that argument. So, when we come to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 1, we begin with a “therefore.” That links to all that we have seen already, which is about Jesus Christ. He is the One in these last days through whom God has spoken. He is the Son of God, the heir of all things, the Creator of the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the One who has purged our sins, and the One who is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The One who we’ve now seen more recently is greater than the angels. He is the One whom the angels worship, for He is God, and His throne is forever and ever. The One who is anointed above all things, Lord of all things, Lord over all things. This is the argument in Hebrews chapter 1, and it is why we can say with emphatic force and conviction, that Jesus Christ is greater.
Therefore, with all of that said, what do we then do? As the church, we hear all of this rich doctrine about the greatness, the majesty, the beauty of Jesus Christ. Therefore, what is the exhortation to the church? We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. This is the challenge: pay much closer attention. Let me ask you, brothers and sisters, what are you paying closer, careful attention to? Is it Jesus Christ and His word? Is that the authority in your life? Is that the foundation by which you do, think, say, and act in your day-to-day lives? Let’s think about this practically and consider what your daily routine looks like. Not simply in terms of how little time you spend in His word compared to some other things, but what are you really, day after day, paying careful attention to? What are the things, what are the sources of information and authority that you just need to listen to, that you must read on a daily basis?
Is it that you need to get home for a certain news channel, six o’clock, ten o’clock, whatever that may be? Is it a specific influential figure or commentator that you’ve subscribed to, and every time you’re waiting for some new content that you are just going to devour? What is it that drives you, that would make you sit up, take note, and think, “Yeah, this is something I need to listen to”? Oh, there’s something new about this health-related subject. They’ve got some new data on COVID. Look, there’s something new about the Trump assassination attempt. These are things that I need to pay attention to. The Bible can wait because this is really juicy, and this is something that matters in society, and maybe even in my life. Yes, we can say, “Yes, Christ is my Lord,” but let’s start to note how we are living because this exhortation is given to every one of us. It is a “therefore, we must pay much closer attention.” You tonight, Christian, must be paying much closer attention. Not to any of that stuff, but to what we have heard. This is the challenge, an examination of where our hearts are.
Let’s turn briefly to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19, a well-known text dealing with a very sad situation. This is the account of the rich young man. Now, a lot of things about this man in this text appear to be very good. They appear to be very Christian, but let’s pay closer attention to what’s happening here. Matthew 19 from verse 16: “And behold, a man came up to Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And He said to him, ‘Why do you ask Me what is good? There is only One who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to Him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honour your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ The young man said to Him, ‘All these I have kept. What do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me.’ When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
Now, as we look at this sad and startling account of the rich young man, it’s quite quick to see where his idol is, what’s really driving him. And this is the point, brothers and sisters. There are many people who hear the message of the Gospel. First of all, many unbelievers who hear the message of the Gospel, and they pay no attention. They are not interested. It has no relevance to their lives. We see this so often as we go forth and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
But surely, when we come to the context of the church, it’s different, right? Surely people who come into a place like this are ready to pay not just attention, but much closer attention to the Word of God. That’s why we’re here, right? How many times, even how many conversations have I had with people who’ve come into this building, who have been nothing more than cultural Christians? They’ve grown up with church. This is what they do, the teachings that they know of. Others who’ve come because maybe their wife or husband is driving them to do so, and they’ve kind of just followed along, tagged along with the line of, “Well, yeah, I’m a Christian too.” Others who’ve come because Jesus is a means to their end rather than the end point of all things in their life, just like the rich man. Christ was not the object of his affection. He wanted Christ to be the affirmation of what his real affection was, which was himself and the things that he possessed.
Where do we lie here this evening, brothers and sisters? Because what we can see clearly and emphatically in the book of Hebrews and in this opening chapter is Jesus Christ. That is it. That is the exhortation when it says pay much closer attention, that we are to look to Christ. We are to know Christ, consider Christ, focus upon Christ, obey Christ. It’s why at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 12, we have a picture of a race being run and Christ being the One who we fix our gaze upon, because Christ is the treasure for whom all your earthly treasure and possessions are driven towards. Christ is the Bridegroom for whom all marriages trust in and where families can flourish and grow. Christ is the Lord in whom we have the boldness to go forth and then proclaim this truth and call sinners to repent. Christ is the means by which the strongholds of today will be broken down by the proclamation of this truth. Christ is the One who has crushed the evil one and the One to whom we turn in the face of all evil and temptation because He is our Saviour and Lord.
Christ is the One who has crushed the evil one and the One to whom we turn in the face of all evil and temptation because Christ is our Lord and our Saviour. He is greater and He is glorious, and we are being commanded, we are being exhorted to pay much closer attention to Him, to who He is, to all that He has done. That is the command and the exhortation, brothers and sisters: pay much closer attention to Christ.
Now, we come to the warning. As we deal with this warning, we’re not simply going to be warning about what may happen. We’re going to reflect on what has happened to the church in nations like ours. We’ve got this exhortation: pay much closer attention to what we’ve heard, to the Gospel, to the Word, and then we have a warning lest we drift away from it. And what have we seen the church do? Where do we see the church in our land standing? She’s drifted. The very thing that Hebrews chapter 2 begins by warning against, we have seen this playing out before our eyes.
As we, in 2024, look out as a church in horror and dismay at the direction in which our land has moved to the point where we have literally paedophiles and perverts being paraded in the name of diversity and inclusivity, we stand in shock and horror, and in many ways rightly so. But we must reflect on how we have got to this point. How has the church got to the point where she now stands in our land? In a country where once the Word of God was being upheld and it was central and foundational to the way in which even the nation was governed. Where people historically have laid down their lives to uphold the freedoms to worship the living God. How have we then moved in such a direction?
Well, let’s think. When the questions begin and when the direction moves against the truth of God’s Word, the church has drifted along with it. As the Word of God is questioned and then ridiculed. As the family is then attacked. As men are sidelined. As women are taken out of the family home. As children are put into the hands of the state. As science replaces creation and a Creator God. As the media replaces the Word of God as the source of authority. What has the church done in response to this direction of travel? She has slowly, gradually drifted along with this.
Now, this picture of drifting, the word itself is to slip past. Like something easily slipping off. Like a ring slipping off a finger or a leaf or a piece of wood just coasting along a river with a current. It’s that sort of image. It’s not anything that’s specifically deliberate. It’s just passive. It’s just indifferent. It’s just apathetic. That is the picture that we have and the direct warning that is being given. It is not that the church has suddenly one day said, “Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t we start doing all of these liberal things and try to justify it with some pragmatic outlook to the Bible?” No, the church has drifted into this. We’re slowly, as time goes on, bit by bit, as we drift along with a changing culture, as biblical truths, biblical pillars are being attacked by our society and are focusing less and less on Christian values and more on our diversity, tolerance, and so on.
As moral boundaries shift and we start to, for example, redefine what marriage means, and what it means to be a man and a woman, our culture becomes more and more ingrained in wickedness and rebellion. Where does the church now stand? The church stands in confusion, confused because the Word of God is no longer the absolute authority because our churches are no longer living according to the authority of it, where church leaders now literally are being more pragmatic to keep folks in, adapting to the shifting culture and preaching according to the times that we increasingly live in. That is drifting, and that is the way all too many pastors are preaching. And so we’ll see children in state schools, women abandoning the home to work for strangers, and say something like, “Well, it’s not a Gospel issue.”
The very Gospel that we no longer preach in the public square because that’s too offensive. So let’s focus less on sin and hell and emphasise God’s grace and love in a way that the Scriptures don’t. This is our modern-day church, folks, and we’re in this place not because of a sudden blatant rebellion, no, it’s because we have drifted there and we continue to drift in this direction unless we take heed of verses like Hebrews 2:1 and the warning that is given, the call to pay much closer attention to Jesus Christ and His Word and the glorious doctrine that we behold to live according to it, lest we drift from it.
Now, one thing that we need to consider as a way of inference and application based on this warning: drifting is an easy thing to do. If you were to just lay back and go with the current, go with the cultural tide, that is the easy thing to do even as a professing Christian. If this is what most people are saying, if this is what most of the professing church is saying, well, what’s the easy thing to do? Drift along with it. What’s the hard thing to do? To swim against the tide, to move in a direction based upon conviction in the Word of God, that is not an easy thing to do.
The very foundation of even our church’s existence, and we’re only five years old and we’re only just at the very beginning of getting started, was with this in mind. I did not come up to Aberdeen because I thought that there were a lot of great and amazing churches moving in a biblical conviction direction that was moving against the current and tide of our culture. Sadly, this is not what is happening. So what are we exhorted to do? Pay much closer attention. This is not simply for other churches. This is for our church, brothers and sisters. For you here this evening, pay much closer attention to what you have heard.
We think of the application. Think of the application of what we are doing as a church. What it means to be biblically operating as a church membership, gathering together corporately to worship the Lord, meeting together to pray, going out to evangelise, having Christian fellowship with one another. This is what we are called to do, and this shapes a culture and a people who belong to Christ because we should biblically be more involved in each other’s lives because we are with the people who also are paying much closer attention to Jesus Christ. This is what we’re called to do, and this is who we’re called to be with, and this then has an impact on the way by which we live our lives.
As we think of the subject of evangelism, not simply in going forth to proclaim the Gospel on Saturdays and at other times, but even thinking about what our Christian witness looks like on a day-to-day basis. We don’t look to the world and think, “Yes, I want to blend with this world.” No, we look to the world and we have a compassion and a desire to reach the lost with this truth that we pay much closer attention to, this truth, the Gospel, the glory of the Word of God, which is the power to save. This is what drives us. This is what drives us in the way by which we relate to and impact society, and it is the witness that we can be as a church and also in the context of the family home.
Yet another area which has been utterly severed by our culture and increasingly within our church. Are we seeking biblical distinctives in this area or are we looking to drift with the current of our culture? Because we know this is one of our fights in today’s society. We know it. We know that actual biblical masculinity and for men to actually be leading their families is something that society and much of the church despises, and we know this by the way that society and much of the church treats women.
Instead of upholding what is biblically right and true for what it means to be godly and feminine as He has decreed and enjoying and cherishing the sacred calling of being a wife and a mother and a homemaker and having this God-given calling, we look to work, compromise, and appease the world, thinking how we can get the best of both worlds. The Bible in no way exhorts this, and yet this is where we have drifted to. It’s why our children are no longer under our control; they are under the control of the state. It doesn’t start by putting them in state schools. It starts with the dynamic within the family home and the automatic fruit that comes from it. We’ve drifted.
We have drifted in the way we treat biblical doctrine too. Instead of standing on biblical clarity—this is what we believe on these issues—we seek to dismiss them all as secondary in order to win more people into our buildings. We want statements of faith that are not more specific and narrow. We want them to be more vague and pragmatic. Why? Because we’ve drifted. And this is the warning. The Bible is not saying here, “Well, make sure that you’re talking about the Gospel and saying everything’s Gospel-centred.” No, this is a warning. This is an exhortation: pay much closer attention. So, what you’re studying in the Word of God, pay much closer attention to it. You’re studying this area of doctrine, get your teeth into it more. This is what the exhortation is because this is the grounds, the foundation by which you will stand. Everything else will drift. One thing, one Man will not, and that’s Jesus Christ, and we must cling to Him. And the means by which we cling to Him is upon His Word, renewing our minds, standing on this truth, growing in our knowledge and its application. This is what we’re called to do. And this is the first warning that we have in the book of Hebrews.
Proverbs 4:20: “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.” If it’s in the Bible, we need to pay attention to it, much closer attention to it. Because this is what God has said, this is what He has revealed to us, and if we are a people who have truly repented of our sin and believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of our lives, Christ is our Lord, Christ is our Saviour, Christ is the One whom we desire to live according to and to please in every aspect and every ounce of our being. That’s what being a Christian is, and it’s why even though there may be much challenge in a verse like this, and the exhortation and warning that’s given, may it be an exhortation and challenge that we desire to live according to. Because we desire to live according to Christ and His Word.
Every one of us can likely very quickly reflect on areas where we are spiritually weak or immature or where we’ve been rather off the point, off the biblical pages. And may it not be that we simply accept drifting further into that, but may we even this very night come before the Lord in prayer and pray, “Lord, may it be that I pay even closer attention to who You are and the truth of Your Word, lest I, lest we as the church drift away from it.” This is the warning, this is the challenge, and Christ is the focus.