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    Feb 02, 2025

    Lest We Drift

    Lest We Drift

    Passage: Hebrews 1:1-14

    Speaker: Andrew Kerhoulas

    Series: Worthy: His Worth, and a Life Worthy of Him

    Keywords: worship, superior to angels, more excellent name, pay much closer attention, lest we drift

    To drift is to be carried away slowly but surely by a current of air or water. Drift can happen in any relationship—a steady pull away from another person—and for all manner of reasons. This divergence can happen with a friend, our families, and with Christ himself. Why do we drift from Christ? And furthermore, what should we do if we drift from him? The writer of the Hebrews reveals both the reasons and the anchor for drifting away from Jesus.

    CENTRAL TEXT:  Hebrews 1:4-2:4

    After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

    5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
    “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?

    Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?

    6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
    “Let all God's angels worship him.”

    7 Of the angels he says, 
    “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”

    8 But of the Son he says,
    “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

    9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
    therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

    10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;
    11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment,
    12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed.
    But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”

    13 And to which of the angels has he ever said,
    “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?
    14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

    2:1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
    2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution,
    3 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 heard,
    4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

     

     

    PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH:  The Apostles’ Creed

    LEADER:   Follower of Jesus, what do you believe?

    ALL:   I believe in God the Father Almighty
    Maker of heaven and earth.
    And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
    Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
    Born of the Virgin Mary,
    Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    Was crucified, died, and was buried;
    He descended into hell;
    The third day he rose again from the dead;
    He ascended into heaven,
    and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
    From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
    I believe in the Holy Spirit;
    the holy catholic Church;
    the communion of saints;
    the forgiveness of sins;
    the resurrection of the body;
    and the life everlasting. Amen.

     

    RELATED SCRIPTURES:

    • Numbers 15:32-36
    • Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 32:43; 33:1-2
    • 2 Samuel 7:14
    • Psalm 2:7
    • Psalm 45:6-7
    • Psalm 97:7
    • Psalm 102:25-27
    • Psalm 104:4
    • Psalm 110:1
    • Isaiah 61:1, 3 
    • John 14:26
    • Acts 7:38, 53
    • 1 Corinthians 10:5-10
    • Galatians 3:19
    • Hebrews 6:19
    • Revelation 2:4

     

    DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

    1. When you think about angels, what images or ideas come to mind? Can you name a few of the various functions of angels according to the scriptures? 
    2. Why was the writer of the Hebrews so keen to show the superiority of Christ to angels in the first chapter of his letter to persecuted Jewish Christians (1:4-14)? If Jesus was no greater than an angel according to Jews of his day, what social effects would it have for Jewish Christians to say he was superior to angels? Why might this context encourage drifting from Christ? 
    3. For the people you know who have drifted from Jesus, can you identify the reason(s)? Try to get specific. 
    4. What does the writer of Hebrews say is the anchor, as it were, for drifting away from Christ’s supremacy (see 2:1)? What does he say is the consequence if we neglect our salvation? Why is that punishment just? Furthermore, why is a sin against love, to borrow John Calvin’s language (see quote below), more blameworthy? Apply the gospel here. 
    5. To borrow a metaphor, if you’re a tea drinker you know the longer you steep the tea leaves the more potent the tea becomes. Practically, both corporately and individually, how can you “steep” yourself in “such a great salvation” (2:3) this week? What does the Holy Spirit have to do with it? 
    6. If you’ve been drifting from Jesus, first be honest with him about it. He is always close; we are the ones who drift away. Then read Hebrews 6:19-20 and ask him to be your anchor yet again, or, maybe, for the first time. 

     

    ILLUSTRATIONS:  

     

     

     

    QUOTES:  

     

    • When religion is seen as belief, the believer lives on a continuum between belief and doubt. But when religion is seen as a longing, the believer lives on the continuum between intensity and apathy. That’s the continuum I live on these days. I’ve gone whole months when God may or may not have been walking beside me, but I can’t bring myself to care. Other desires, chiefly the desire for achievement and prowess, crowd out the higher desire for contact with the divine. In the Middle Ages, they called this spiritual listlessness acedia: It’s easy to lower the horizon of your thoughts and not even think about the ultimate concerns. It’s easy to let the embers of that desire cool down. “The danger,” the Jewish mystic Simone Weil wrote, “is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.
      - David Brooks

     

    • Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And 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?
      - C.S. Lewis

    • I fear the Dark Spectre may come too soon
      - or do I mean, too late?
      That I should end before I finish or
      finish, but not well.
      That I should stain Your honor, shame Your name,
      grieve Your loving heart.
      Few, they tell me, finish well . . .
      Lord, let me get home before dark.
      - Robertson McQuilkin

     

    • It is more blameworthy to sin against love than against law, to ignore God’s mercy than to break his law. There is no escape if we ignore such a great salvation.
      - John Calvin

     

    • I want to stay in the habit of glancing at my problems and gazing at my Lord.
      - Joni Erickson Tada

     

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