Hebrews 2:1-4 Anchored in the Gospel

Patton Shinall

Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Hebrews 2:1–4

Discipleship

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We must not neglect our salvation, but instead live all our lives according to the gospel.

Notes

Transcript

Intro

I. A Call to Anchor Our Lives in the Gospel

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

Any time you are reading the Bible and you see “therefore” you need to ask, what is that therefore there for?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Because therefore is used as a way of saying, “Because of everything I’ve just said, here is what I need you to understand.”

In other words, when you see a therefore in Scripture, you need to read everything that follows it as direct implication of what the author had just said.

So here the author of Hebrews says therefore pointing us back to everything he’s just said in chapter one.

He is saying because Jesus is God’s supreme revelation. Because he is God incarnate. Because he is worshiped by the angels, seated at the right hand of the Father as ruler of all things, here is what you need to know. Here’s what you need to take to heart.

And that is, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.

The Author’s main concern is that the Hebrews actually listen to what God has said in Jesus Christ.

That’s why he says that we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. What we have heard is of course the gospel.

Its the good news that God became a man in Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life on our behalf, and died our death on the cross under God’s wrath. In doing so, Jesus paid our full penalty for sin.

And then three days later he conquered sin and death and rose again so that through faith in him, we could be forgiven all our sin and given eternal life.

Setting the Stage:

In the beginning of Exodus, the Israelites are in Egypt. 400 years earlier, a famine drove Jacob (Abraham’s grandson) to Egypt where God providentially installed his son, Joseph, as an administrator who would organize Egypt’s food stores to save many (Gen 41). In Egypt, the Israelites experienced the blessing of God’s promise to Abraham as they increased in number and became a great people (Gen. 15:1-5; Ex. 1:7).

If it weren’t for God’s providence in saving Joseph despite his brothers’ sin, even Egypt would have been devastated by the famine. Consider this, God saved Egypt through the very Israelites whom they would one day enslave. However, following the famine, Egypt remembered the blessing Israel brought and honored Joseph and his family.

After growing, a new Pharaoh arose who “did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8). Rather than meaning he had never heard of Joseph’s works that made him a national hero, this means that he refused to acknowledged Egypt’s debt to the Israelites. Growing fearful of them, he sought to subjugate them (Ex. 1:9-11). Thus, he beat them and ruthlessly enslaved them even organizing genocide against them to keep them in submission (Ex. 1:11-14; 22).

Israel was innocent of this punishment. They simply were blessed by God who fulfilled his promise to Abraham. The land that once brought them salvation, now only brought slavery and death.

Place yourself in their shoes. They lived peacefully in the land only to suddenly be ostracized and subjugated. The freedom, comfort, and safety they had known was ripped from them only to be replaced by chains, beatings, and labor. The Israelites suffered like this for years to the point where some were born having never known freedom. Their life was nothing but pain and suffering from birth until death. Their life was a slog that was seemingly meaningless as they died with no purpose other than their ability to work for a cruel master.

What do you think the Israelites would say if you asked them what God was doing during this time? Could they see how their story fit into God’s overall purposes? Have you ever felt like your suffering was devoid of any meaning or plan? Perhaps God is actually cruel having the power to stop evil but refusing to. Have you ever felt abandoned by God like the Israelites surely must have?

In the opening chapters of Exodus, God seems absent. The most active person is Pharaoh who commits unspeakable atrocities against God’s “so called” people. From our perspective, we know God is not absent in this. After all, didn’t he tell Abraham that his offspring would suffer in slavery in Egypt before God would deliver them (Ex. 15:3)? Also, we know how the story ends. God rains wrath down and eventually brings his people out who seem at best ungrateful after receiving freedom.

But put yourself in the thick of it. When you suffer, do you see every bit of pain rationally seeing God’s overall purpose? Truths in the midst of pain seem hard to grasp. Pain doesn’t lend itself to intellectual questions of faith, but emotional ones of distress. Where is God? Why is he allowing me to go through something so hard when he says he loves me? If God is all powerful, why doesn’t he stop this? Does he even care? Israel suffered for years asking these very questions.

Why did God allow them to suffer so long. We don’t know, but we also don’t know his infinite wisdom, goodness and mercy. But when God shows up, there is no doubt his view of the situation. Ex. 2:23-25: “The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel - and God knew.” Two things stick out from this passage:

God knew - More than awareness. The word here conveys an intimate knowledge and empathy for their plight.

God remembered - More than recall. This remembering is a movement to action.

God is not absent in our pain. He knows the pain we feel and remembers his covenant to love us and do good to us.

In response to Israel’s plight, God sent a redeemer. “I have surely seen the affliction of my people. . . . I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land” (Ex. 3:7–8). Moses is a type of Christ who came down to earth in the incarnation to bring us up from death into right relationship with God.

And Jesus defined eternal life in as knowing God and Jesus Christ. It is a relationship with the God of the universe

And this eternal life isn’t just something we are waiting for heaven to enjoy, but if we trust in Jesus we have eternal life right now and get to experience its blessings.

God knows your pain because Jesus suffered pain for us. The Bible says that he was made “perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10). Consider how Jesus suffered. Is it that much unlike our own?

He endured hostility of others who maligned him (Heb. 12:13)

He was rejected by those he came to love, body broken, even spit upon (Is. 53:3-6).

He was betrayed by one of his best friends.

That’s because our sins are works of death. We believe their lies thinking that if we give into sin then our lives will be satisfied. That our life will be better with that sin than without it.

He was abandoned on the cross under the full wrath of God for sin (Ps. 22:1; Mt. 27:46).

But when Jesus saves us and gives us eternal life, he gives us new hearts and new desires that don’t want to live for our sins, but to live for God and his glory knowing that his commandments are life.

He endured loneliness in his pain as his closest friends failed to pray with him in Gethsemane when he was “very sorrowful, even to death” (Mt. 26:38).

He struggled to trust the Father’s wisdom. He prayed three times for God to remove the cup from him in Gethsemane, but his prayers seemed to go unanswered (Mt. 26:39, 42, 44). This is compounded when we consider another time that Jesus prayed all night entrusting himself to the Father before choosing his twelve disciples (Lk. 6:12-16). That ended with Judas who actually betrayed him. Is it not possible that this contributed to Jesus’ struggle to trust the Father’s wisdom? But thankfully Jesus entrusted himself to the Father’s plan because he knew he was his Son. In the same way we can trust God with our pain because we are also his sons and daughters.

Jesus said in that eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ who the Father sent, and when we truly know God, when we see his glory and salvation in Christ, we are transformed. We are freed from our slavery to sin to instead live for him because in Christ God has set his love upon us and living for his glory by walking in obedience is how we love him in return.

As we face our own suffering, consider what Jesus didn’t do in Gethsemane. He didn’t:

Ignore his pain

Numb it through sinful behaviors or addictions (license to sin)

Mask it by repeating platitudes concerning God’s sovereignty

And this is what the Author is telling the Hebrews. You need to pay attention to this. It needs to be on the forefront of your mind in every single area of your life. How can you ignore this message that God has forgiven you and freed you from sin when God himself said it through his own Son who reigns over all things.

Instead, he ran to the Father trusting that he knew best and that he was good and truly cared for him.

This same God cared for the Israelites. He never turned from their pain but faced it head on to work his glory through their suffering. He invited them to participate in this redemption (Moses and the elders were to go to Pharaoh to tell them of God’s plan Ex. 3:18). He invites us to do to same. To face our pain with God trusting that he hasn’t abandoned us, but that there is something better through it.

You cannot allow the gospel to become common to you, but you must pay much closer attention.

“God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Ex. 2:24). In the same way, God is moved to act on your behalf because in Christ a new covenant has been formed for all who believe in him. Will you trust God with your pain? Sometimes we run from him thinking to be the source of our pain or at least an idle bystander with the capacity to help but not the will to. We keep our distance, holding orthodox beliefs in our head but failing to follow him with our hearts. In Christ, the Heavenly Father is our Father. God knows your pain, and wants to face it with you. You don’t have to go at it alone.

Now that phrase is very interesting in Greek. Its actually a nautical term that has the idea of setting an anchor or securing a ship to a dock.

So in a way, the author is calling the Hebrews to anchor their lives to this gospel. To tie themselves to it.

So when we talk about anchoring our life in the gospel, what we mean by that is that we must make every effort to live all of our lives according to the gospel and God’s Word of salvation.

That means following Jesus should have an impact on how we live. How we build our marriages. How we parent our children. How we work in our careers and callings.

That there is no area of life the gospel does not touch with the redemptive power of Christ to free us from our sinful habits and patterns and show us a new way of living. A way that reflects Christ and his glory.

Anchoring your life in the gospel means that Christ and his salvation should be the soul focus of your life.

Why? Lest we drift away from it.

The author is saying that it is actually possible that you and I can live in such a way that our lives actually drift away from the gospel that saves us.

The word translated drift away is also a nautical term, and it gives a picture of a ship that is floating along under the control of the wind and the current because a sailor never dropped the anchor or tied it down. It is a ship that is beginning to float of course away from its desired destination.

So the picture the author is trying to give the Hebrews is that if they are not careful to anchor their lives securely to the gospel, they are in great danger of drifting away from it.

For the Hebrews, that meant falling back into their old life. It meant giving up on following Jesus and just returning to Judaism.

The author is warning the Hebrews that if they are not careful to focus all their lives on the gospel, that they will wake up one day far from Christ and his salvation.

Now to see the depth and the beauty of what the author is truly saying, I need to do a little bit of technical work for you deconstructing this verse.

When he says we must pay much closer attention, this is an emphatic and binding command. Its like he is saying in light of who Christ is, it is absolutely necessary that we pay close attention to what we have heard him say so that we do not drift away from it.

And I want to draw your attention to the phrases “pay much closer attention” and “drift away.”

Both of these are nautical terms that talk about ships that are sailing in the water.

The word translated pay much closer attention to means to tie up a ship in a harbor or to drop a secure anchor.

Whereas the word translated drift away communicates the idea of a ship is allowed to drift along as it is carried by the wind and the currents that control it.

So what he is saying is because Jesus is God incarnate who has spoken God’s final word on salvation, we must anchor our lives in what we have heard.

That we must anchor our lives in the gospel so that we will not drift away from it.

This begs the question. What does it mean to drift away from the gospel and how do we anchor our lives in it to avoid this drifting?

Drift Away

The picture here is not of an ignorant sailor who does not know the gospel, nor of a rebellious sailor who actively tries to sabotage the voyage.

It is a sailor who is simply careless. It is one who doesn’t care to drop the anchor and lower the sails.

Who through his carelessness, is content to allow the ship to continue to drift along instead of securing it so that it will not be carried along into shallow rocks that can sink it or a strong storm that can capsize it.

And the danger the author is warning us of is that the Christian life can be like that. That we can just drift along carried by the currents of the world, the flesh and the devil and end up somewhere we never imagined.

For the Hebrews, that meant falling back into their old life of Judaism. To completely ignore the gospel and everything God had done to save them to just fall back into who they were before Christ.

We allow ourselves to become complacent and distracted. To be satisfied with the things of this world or to functionally live day to day as if this world is all there is.

Life becomes just about existing and doing what needs to get done until the next day only to start it all over again.

We forget that our lives are meant for more. That we were saved to glorify Jesus and walk in his salvation. We stop praying, stop reading the Bible, stop trying to honor God in our relationships and with our time.

And oh so slightly, we begin to drift. Sin becomes a little more tempting. We fall back into some of our old habits. Start reasoning that living by the old nature of our flesh is better than walking by the Spirit until one day we look up and wonder where it all went wrong.

How did we ever end up here? We find ourselves again enslaved to sins we thought were long dead. We look back at our life and realize we haven’t matured spiritually in we don’t know how long, and that our love for Jesus has grown cold.

This is the danger we face in drifting away. That the blessings of salvation that Christ has purchased for us are no longer at hand but off in the distance.

You’ll remember that the phrase pay much closer attention gives the picture of anchoring a ship and so the author is saying that if we don’t want to drift from the blessings of the gospel, then we must drop our anchor its truth.

This of course is the gospel. Its the message of forgiveness. Its the power of God for to everyone who believes.

What that means is that live live all our lives according to what God has said and done in Jesus Christ.

The gospel says that through faith in Christ and his sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection we are forgiven of all of our sin and freed from our slavery to sin to worship God alone.

That we live our lives according to it. That we obey the gospel. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “Hold up. I thought the gospel was something we believed? Not something we do.”

That means when we truly believe the gospel, it changes our lives. We are made new. We are changed from the inside out to no longer live for our sin, but to live for God and his glory.

Therefore, to anchor our lives in the gospel, to pay close attention to what we have heard, simply means that we live wholly committed to Christ and his gospel knowing that he alone has the power to save.

And this commitment will always manifest in faithfulness to him.

And if that is true, that means we will be people of the Word. That we will actually live according to what God has said and build our lives on his truth.

We cannot be content to go back to our old way of life before Christ where we were like a boat adrift in danger of being carried away from salvation.

This is the only way we can fight against spiritual drift in our lives.

That its not just sailors who sail in the wrong direction that will find themselves far off course. It is also those sailors who are not careful to drop anchor.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

In this passage, Paul is saying that the goal of the church is discipleship. To grow us into Christian maturity so that we will no longer be immature children.

That its not just sailors who sail in the wrong direction that will find themselves far off course. It is also those sailors who are not careful to drop anchor.

In the same way, its not only people who worship other gods that will find themselves outside of salvation when Christ returns. Its also those people who believe they are saved, but are not careful to anchor their lives in the gospel and live according to it.

And look at the language Paul uses. In our immaturity, in our lack of focus and commitment to Christ and his gospel, we can be tossed to and fro by the waves.

We can be a ship that is not anchored and secure, but is at the mercy of the ocean as we are tossed about.

And what are those things that toss us and cause us to float away from the gospel? Pauls says its three things.

First its every wind of doctrine. This is not true doctrine rooted in God’s Word. Its fleeting and passing doctrine. False doctrines that to not endure forever like God’s Word does.

Then he says we can be tossed about by human cunning. That we can start living our lives according to man’s wisdom and not Gods. Our lives stop looking distinctly like Christ and we start living as if we are just like those of the world.

Finally we can be tossed about by craftiness and deceitful schemes. These are false teachings that portray truth, but actually lead God’s people away from the truth of the gospel.

What I want you to see is that its not only those who row in the wrong direction that fail to reach their destination.

And and Spiritual drift, spiritual complacency, must be something we war against in our lives because it can lead to God’s Judgment. This is what the author says in verses 2-3 where he shows us the Danger of Neglecting the Gospel.

We can also get of course in our Christian walk simply by doing nothing at all.

And there is great danger in spiritual drift because in verse 2, the Author shows us the Danger of Neg

That unless we anchor our lives in the truth of the gospel, we will be tossed about and carried away towards godlessness and immaturity.

This is probably one of the greatest misconceptions of what it means to follow Jesus.

Most people have only ever heard a gospel of easy believeism. That if you just trust in Jesus you can punch your ticket to heaven and you can spend the rest of your life just sitting back and enjoying the ride.

But that’s not what discipleship looks like. Following Jesus isn’t passive, its active.

Yes. Our justification is a passive act of God’s grace. We contribute absolutely nothing to earn God’s forgiveness.

However, many Christians take that to mean that the entire Christian life is completely passive.

That somehow, we will magically grow in Christian maturity and faithfulness just by existing with the name “Christian.”

We have to remember that our salvation is more than just initial faith and justification. The totality of our salvation in Christ really consists of three parts.

First, there’s our justification. This is the moment we are saved and it happens in an instant. It is the moment through faith that we are given a new heart to trust in Christ for salvation and we are made right with God.

Then one day, when Christ returns, all who believe in him will experience glorification. This is where we receive our new resurrection bodies free from the corruption and brokenness of sin to live with God forever in heaven.

But in between our justification and glorification is our sanctification. This is where we grow to be more like Jesus. Where we grow in holiness.

And our sanctification does not happen passively, but we are active participants who partner with God to grow in holiness by his grace.

This is exactly what Paul talked about in work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

What Paul is saying is that every Christian has the responsibility to work out their salvation. To labor in such a way that the fruit of salvation, the fruit that they have been forgiven and delivered from sin, is able to grow in their life.

But then Paul immediately says this responsibility is still God’s work because it is God who work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

That means that by his grace, God works in us both the desire to love him and live for his glory as well as the power to do so.

What that means for us, is that we must engage our lives in the work that God is doing in us to free us from our slavery to sin and glorify Jesus.

To do anything else, or maybe a better way to say it is to do nothing at all, will always result in a drift from the gospel.

Hebrews tells us.

The Anchor

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

You’ll remember that the phrase pay much closer attention gives the picture of anchoring a ship and so the author of Hebrews is saying if we don’t want to drift from the gospel, then we must drop our anchor in the deep water of what we have heard.

This of course is the gospel. Its the message of forgiveness. Its the power of God for to everyone who believes.

And to pay much closer attention to it means that we listen to its truths more than we listen to our sin, the world, or false teaching.

That we live our lives according to it. That we obey the gospel. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “Hold up. I thought the gospel was something we believed? Not something we do.”

But what does the gospel say? It says that through faith in Christ and his sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection we are forgiven of all of our sin and freed from our slavery to sin to worship God alone.

That means when we truly believe the gospel, it changes our lives. We are made new. We are changed from the inside out to no longer live for our sin, but to live for God and his glory.

Therefore, to anchor our lives in the gospel, to pay close attention to what we have heard, simply means that we live as if it is actually true that salvation is in Christ and him alone.

And if that is true, that means we will be people of the Word. That we will actually live according to what God has said and build our lives on his truth.

Remember, the Hebrews were being tempted to forsake Christ and return to their old life of Judaism. To ignore God’s supreme revelation in Christ and abandon the gospel.

But the author is urging them to pay much closer attention to it. To see it as the only way someone is able to be saved and then to live all their lives according to its truths.

What that means for us is that we can’t listen to the World, our sin, or false teaching. We must pay much closer attention to what Jesus says so that we won’t drift away.

And paying much closer attention means that we not only hear what the gospel says, but that we take it to heart and build our lives upon its promises.

That’s what it means to anchor our lives in the gospel.

That we live all of our lives according to this truth.

Through faith in Christ and his sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection we are forgiven of all of our sin and freed from our slavery to sin to worship God alone.

That means paying much closer attention to what we have heard means that the gospel actually changes our lives.

The importance of hearing God’s Word is a theme that courses through all of Scripture.

But hearing God’s word is more than just physically hearing the message of the gospel. Someone can hear the gospel and still remain unsaved.

Instead, hearing God’s Word rightly means to hear it spiritually. That means its more of a matter of the heart, than our physical ears.

Spiritual hearing means that we believe what God has said with the kind of faith that compels us to build our lives on its promises.

It doesn’t mean that we just intellectually agree that the gospel is true. It means that we actually take its truths to heart in such a way that it actually changes how we live.

To anchor our lives in the gospel means that in every area of our life we pay attention to and obey the gospel of Christ.

And this raises the question. What gospel do you believe?

That because Jesus lived a sinless life on our behalf. Because he went to the cross and suffered in our place for our sins so that we could be forgiven. And because he rose again three days later so that we too might walk in the newness of life, we must build our lives on this message.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

If spiritual drift means that we fall back into our old ways and living according to our old nature, then paying closer attention to the gospel means that we

To anchor our lives in the gospel means that we live our lives according to the Gospel. We must see our sin as offensive to God and put it to death. We must see how God has loved us in Christ and trust him enough that our sins really are works of death only by obeying God’s Word are we able to enjoy the life he saved us to.

This is the only way we can fight against spiritual drift in our lives.

I will let you in on a little secret. There is no secret to the Christian life.

God sanctifies us through his Word. Jesus said, Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

God’s Word, tells us the gospel and what it means to live according to the gospel.

II. The Danger of Neglecting the Gospel

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?

The message declared by the angels is not a reference to the gospel, but is actually pointing back to the Mosaic covenant where God gave the Law to his people.

There are a couple points in the Bible that talk about God giving the Law through angelic messengers.

In , just before he was martyred, Stephen ended his sermon saying that the Jews had received the Law as delivered by angels but they did not keep it because they failed to see it pointed to Christ.

Also, in Paul said that the Law was put in place through angels who acted as God’s messengers to his people.

And these angels delivered a reliable message from God in the Old Covenant. Namely, if you obey you will live, if you disobey you will die.

If you were going to summarize God’s revelation in the Old Covenant it would be that every sin deserves punishment.

And this is exactly what the author of Hebrews says when he wrote and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution,

The word translated Transgression means to cross a line. It is a willful act of rebellion against God. It is an active breaking of God’s Law.

It is a sin of commission meaning its a sin where we intentionally do something we know to be wrong.

Disobedience on the other hand is a word that that carries the idea of someone who is unwilling to hear what God is saying. Like a disobedient child who plugs their ears in order to ignore their parents, disobedient people close their ears to God’s commands.

So in these two words we are told something very important about our sin. First, sin is a transgression. It is a willful rebellion against God and his commands.

And second, sin is caused by disobedience. By our inattention to what God has said where we willingly close our ears to him and go our own way.

And the Author says, under the Old Covenant that was delivered by the angels, all our sin received a just retribution.

The author is actually being ironic here. The word for retribution is also translated as reward in other passages calling to mind Paul’s statement from , For the wages of sin is death.

Death is the fitting payment for our rebellion and disobedience to God.

So to help you understand what the Author is saying in this verse let me summarize it for you.

In verse 1, the author said we must pay careful attention to the gospel so that we do not drift away from salvation.

Then in verse 2 he says For, meaning because, if the Old Covenant that was delivered by the angels proved to be true and every sin that broke God’s law received a just punishment, Do you really think God will understand if we reject the New Covenant delivered by the Son himself?

Basically, the Author here is asking a rhetorical question. He is saying if the God’s previous revelation in the Old Covenant Law brought condemnation for those who broke it, how much more judgement do you think we will endure if we ignore God’s final Word, the gospel of Jesus Christ?

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Because remember, the Hebrews were Jewish believers who were being tempted to give into persecution and drift right back into Judaism.

Its like the author is saying, why are you wanting to go back to the Old Covenant? If the Old Covenant delivered by the angels demanded retribution for sin, how much more do you think God will judge those who spurn the gospel that wasn’t just delivered by angels, but by God’s own Son?

The warning is clear. If you go back to Judaism, you will be ignoring everything that God said about how salvation and forgiveness of sin is found in Christ and in him alone. You will be abandoning the gospel and if you abandon the gospel, you will not escape God’s coming judgement against sin.

This is a stern waring. It says that if we ignore the gospel, if we treat it as something common instead of treasuring it and building all our lives upon its truth, we will suffer for our sin.

Now, is this saying that someone can lose their salvation?

I mean, if he is talking to Jewish Christians who he is concerned with drifting away from the gospel so far that they actually come under God’s judgement, doesn’t that mean someone can can stop following Jesus and essentially get “unsaved.”

This is what is commonly called apostasy or abandoning the faith. And there are several warnings in the Bible about apostasy, many of them in the book of Hebrews.

And it is common for some people to twist the Bible’s warnings against apostasy, like we have here, and turn the gospel a works based salvation where we are justified and forgiven by God’s grace, but after we are saved, it up to us to do enough to stay in God’s grace.

That we can be so disobedient and rebellious that we actually lose our salvation.

But the Bible is clear. We are saved, from beginning to end by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

We did not earn salvation through our works, and therefore we cannot lose our salvation because of our works.

The message of the gospel is that you and I could never have done anything to earn God’s forgiveness. We are only saved by his grace in accepting Christ as a substitute for our sin.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

This is why Paul says, while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

If Christ loved you and set his grace on you before you had even done one thing to obey him, why would he take back his love and replace it with his wrath if you disobeyed again?

Christ’s blood is powerful enough to cover every sin.

Paul continued that because we have been justified, or made right with God, through Jesus death, how much more will we be saved from the coming wrath of God?

When Paul says saved there, notice he isn’t talking about justification. He had just mentioned that. Here he is talking about glorification. He is talking about when Christ will return and execute judgement on all people, and Paul says that on that day, everyone who trusts in Jesus will escape God’s wrath.

So in other words, if God loved you and saved you even while you were his enemy, how much more do you think he will love you and save you now that you are his son or daughter? If Jesus died for his enemies, then surely he will save his friends.

But still some will say, “Ok. We know that God doesn’t unsave people who disobey him, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t choose to stop following Jesus and stop being a Christian.”

Basically, the argument here being that while God doesn’t throw anyone out of his grace, we can still walk away from him. That we can choose sin and disobedience instead of following Jesus effectively removing ourselves from God’s saving grace.

I mean isn’t that what it means to drift away from the gospel?

But look what Jesus said in I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Jesus promises that when he saves us, he gives us eternal life and keeps us entirely by his grace.

He even says no one is able to snatch them out of God’s hand. And that no one includes you and me.

We can’t disobey so much that we remove ourselves from God’s saving hand. Our salvation from justification, to sanctification, to glorification is entirely, 100% made possible and sustained by God’s grace.

If we concede for one second that someone can disobey so much that they lose their salvation, then we have traded the gospel of grace for a works based righteousness that focuses more on the power of man to save themselves, than on the power of God to give life to dead sinners.

So if that’s true, if we can’t lose our salvation no matter what, why are there warnings about apostasy? Why is the author so concerned of the Hebrews drifting away from the gospel?

That’s because the warnings against apostasy are given for two types of people: 1. Those who are deceived about their salvation, and 2. Those who are complacent in their discipleship.

Deceived

These are people who say they follow Christ, but their life actually proves otherwise.

They are a Christian in name only. Their life doesn’t reflect the power of the gospel to free us from our slavery to sin because they live exactly like those of the world who do not know Jesus.

They are people who say they love Jesus but don’t actually walk in obedience.

Well now, hold up. Didn’t we just talk about how our works don’t save us? So why would works be the proof for whether or not someone is deceived about their salvation?

I’m glad you asked. As I’ve said, we are saved by grace through faith. However, faith without works is dead.

The way we know that God’s grace has been effective for us, is if our lives are actually changed.

When God pours out his grace, he gives us new hearts with new desires that no longer want to disobey God in sin, but to give our lives to him in worship.

So our works, while doing nothing to save us themselves, are the tangible evidence that we have truly been saved.

This is exactly what James said in ; What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?...So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James is saying that our faith shows itself to be real, and effective for salvation only when it is followed up with the evidence of a transformed life.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

And by saying this, James isn’t contradicting Paul who says in For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Because look what Paul says in the very next verse...

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Calling Christians to obedience isn’t legalism. Its discipleship.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jas 2:17.

When someone is truly saved by God’s grace, we should expect their lives to look different. We should expect them to live as a new creation.

But people who are deceived about their salvation can have no fruit because their heart is still a dead tree.

That’s why the biblical authors warn against apostasy.

They are wanting those who are deceived about their salvation to see their deception and repent so that they will not suffer God’s wrath but will be saved.

So by calling the Hebrews to pay much closer attention to the gospel so they won’t drift away, the Author is trying to get those people in the congregation to examine their lives and see if they are one of the people who are drifting away so they will not have to suffer judgment.

And if they leave the faith, then it shows they were never in Christ to begin with.

As They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Complacent

But the Author isn’t only wanting to warn those who are deceived about their salvation against apostasy, he is also warning those that have grown complacent in their Christian faith.

examaine yourselves, test yourselves

He is calling them to go all in and commit all tlheir lives to Christ and his gospel. and he closes this warnign by assureing us why we can joyfully put all our faith in Christ by laying out the sure hope we have in the gospel of Christ.

III. The Sure Hope of the Gospel

IV. Application

We can see this in our own lives can’t we? We feel the temptation to drift away from the gospel that has saved us through our own carelessness.

We allow ourselves to become complacent and distracted. To be satisfied with the things of this world or to functionally live day to day as if this world is all there is.

Life becomes just about existing and doing what needs to get done until the next day only to start it all over again.

This is the danger we face in drifting away. That the blessings of salvation that Christ has purchased for us are no longer at hand but off in the distance.

This is exactly what Paul was talking about in So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.