Listen Closely to Jesus
Good morning, Cities Church. Great to be with you this morning. Today is the fourth Sunday in our Hebrews sermon series, fourth of many more to come this year, God willing.
This morning we’ve come to Hebrews 2 and the first word of this morning’s passage, that Josh just read for us, is “Therefore.”
The primary preaching pastor at my church, when I was in high school, his name was Pastor David Cawston, he would often say “Whenever you see the word ‘therefore’ in the Bible, you ought to pause and ask yourself, ‘What is the ‘therefore’ there for?’”
In other words, why does the word “therefore” appear? And in almost every case in the Bible when you see the “therefore” it’s giving some exhortation. When you see the word “therefore,” it typically means that you were just given some bit of information, some truth or some doctrine, and now you’re about to be told what to do with that information, or you’re going to be told how to respond.
In Hebrews 1, we were given some very important and very valuable information, but here in Hebrews 2 we get the commands on how to respond to that information.
Pastor Jonathan pointed out that in just the first four verses of Hebrews we see ten different glorious facts about Jesus. Over the last 3 weeks, we’ve seen some glorious things about Jesus. We’ve seen that he’s the ultimate prophet and he’s our high priest. He’s the radiance of God’s glory and he’s the exact imprint of the nature of God. As Pastor David Mathis mentioned, he’s the coronated king, and as Pastor Joe discussed last week, we see that Jesus is greater than the angels, and he’s currently seated at the right hand of the father, ruling over all of creation in majesty. Simply put, in Hebrews 1 we see that Jesus is better!
But Hebrews 1 has no direct commands. There’s no clear exhortation. It’s not until chapter 2 that we’re told what to do with these truths. Let’s pray this morning and we’ll dive into Hebrews 2.
Father in heaven, you are so kind. You are merciful, and gracious, and slow to anger. Thank you for the book of Hebrews. This rich book, this sermon, with beautiful pictures of Jesus, with such great doctrine, glorious truths, and serious warnings. God, I ask, please use your Word this morning, to transform your people, to sustain us, and to keep us from drifting away. Please, I ask, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Hebrews 2:1:
“Therefore… we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.”
Another English translation renders it like this,
“Listen very carefully to the truth” (NLT).
Listening is important. Who’s in your ear? The writer of Hebrews seems to know that listening impacts us. The voices we listen to affect our moods and outlook.
Let me give a silly example. Later today the Philadelphia Eagles host the San Francisco 49ers, and the winner will go to the Super Bowl. This week I was listening to sports talk radio in San Fran. I had been feeling super confident in this game, but the 49ers fans were super confident, and listening to that made me feel less confident, so I then flipped over to the Philadelphia sports talk station. And by listening to Eagles’ fans, my confidence was boosted all over again. Listening to some voices played a huge role, greatly impacted me and my mood and outlook.
The writer of Hebrews seems to know that who we listen to impacts us. That’s why he tells us to go out of our way to listen to Jesus.
He says, pay extra attention to what we heard from Jesus. In other words, because we know so many amazing things about Jesus, that should inspire us to “pay much closer attention to what we’ve heard.” Now, what is he referring to, when he says, “what we've heard?” This is clearly answered in verse 3, skip down to the second half of verse 3.
He’s briefly describing the things that “we've heard,” he says, what we heard “was declared at first by the Lord.” The Lord, of course, being Jesus. So, basically, the things that Jesus taught.
Then he says in verse 3:
“and it was attested to us by those who heard.”
So, Jesus taught some things, and then there was a particular group that heard those things, directly from Jesus, referring to the apostles, and then that group, the group that heard those things directly from Jesus, the apostles, that group then gave these things to “us.” He uses the word “us” so we see that the writer of Hebrews is putting himself in that second group.
Side Note: This potentially gives us some insights into who wrote this book, it’s clearly someone who doesn’t see himself as an apostle.
He said,
“It was declared at first by the Lord and [then] it was attested to us by those who heard.”
Those things that were passed down to us, those things that started with the Lord himself, those are the things we must pay much closer attention to.
There is no one greater than Jesus. He is greater than the angels. He is the exact imprint of the nature of God. He’s the best, and his teachings are the best, so the things you’ve heard from the apostles about Jesus, the things that Jesus taught them that they’ve passed down to you. Give the words of Jesus extra attention.
This idea of giving Jesus more attention is elsewhere in Hebrews. In 3:1 we see the writer says, “Consider Jesus.” In 12:2 the writer says that we ought to “fix our eyes” on Jesus. We need to listen more carefully to the words of Jesus, and pay more attention to the things we received from the apostles, the things we’ve heard about Jesus from those who knew him.
Each week we commission you out with the words of Jesus from Matthew 28, Jesus said:
“Go… make disciples… baptizing them… [and]… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
The things that Jesus gave the apostles, the things he commanded, those things, they are to be passed along to everyone else who believes. His words are worthy of being declared.
In John 6, we read that Peter said to Jesus,
“You have the words of eternal life.”
In John 4, we read a story about an encounter Jesus has with a Samaritan woman, at a well outside of town. Jesus confronts her and she’s blown away. She runs back into town and tells everyone. In John 4:29 she says,
“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
A bunch of the people from the town came to see Jesus, many of them believed, and at the end of the story, the crowd says to the woman,
“It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Take note, these Samaritans, they paid close attention to what Jesus said, and they “heard for themselves.” And that led them to believing in Jesus.
Jesus said this about himself, in John 5:24, he says:
“Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes has eternal life.”
The author of Hebrews is making it clear that they need to pay extra attention… much closer attention… to the words of Jesus, because he is better. Jesus is better!
Side Note: The teachings of Jesus do not only come from the Gospels, the teachings of Jesus are found throughout the entire Bible. So, I’m not saying that we need to give the Gospels priority over the rest of the Bible, that’s not what I’m saying at all, just to make that clear. The things that these people had “heard” were the things that were attested to them, those are the types of things we find throughout the pages of the New Testament.
So, when we read the writer of Hebrews telling them to pay much more attention to the things they’ve heard, we can translate that into,
“Pay close attention to the teachings of Jesus found throughout the New Testament.”
Now, why did the writer of Hebrews tell us to “pay much closer attention”? He tells, very clearly why, look at the second half of verse one, he says this…
“lest we drift away from it.”
The implication here is this, if we do not intentionally and proactively “pay much closer attention” to Jesus, we will drift. This word “drift” here was most likely used in association with boats or ships, specifically, a ship or a boat that was not anchored.
So, imagine you’re at a large body of water, imagine the ocean with crashing waves. Then imagine a boat that comes into a harbour, but never drops an anchor or never ties-in anywhere, it just sits there, and then the crew just jumps off and leaves the boat unanchored. That boat won’t be there for long, right? It’ll drift away.
The writer of Hebrews is like: “If you don’t pay much closer attention to the words of Jesus, the things you’ve heard about Jesus from the apostles, you’re like the boat with no anchor.”
Later in Hebrews we see the opposite, we see that faith in Jesus is our
“sure and steadfast anchor” (Heb. 6:19).
Refusing to pay extra attention to the words of Jesus is like a boat refusing to get anchored in the harbour. You’re putting yourself in a situation where you are much more likely to get pulled away by the tides of the moment. If you are not anchored, you’ll be swept away by the tides of culture.
Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, during the week of Christmas, my wife and I traveled southward, to a much warmer location. So, like three days before Christmas we were at the beach. It was glorious.
And me, and my wife, Malaina, and my daughter, Lettie, and two of my younger sisters. The five of us were out in the ocean, not super deep, maybe like neck or chest deep. Our daughter, she’s 19 months old, but she had her floaties, so she was good. We were just swimming around, enjoying the day. It was great. And my mom and stepdad were back on the beach, in the sand, lying on the beach, and they were lying down right in front of this little cabana hut, of sorts. They were relaxing. Well, after a few minutes of being out there, I looked up and realized that my mom and my stepdad had moved, they moved like 20 feet to their left (our right).
But then, I realized, “Wait a minute, they are still in front of the little cabana hut” and I realized, “Oh gosh, it was not them that moved, it was us.” We had drifted. By accident. Not intentional. So I said to my wife and sisters “Hey, let's shift over. Let's make an intentional effort in the other direction.” And periodically, like every few minutes or so, I'd kind of just check and see where we were. And once every few minutes, we probably had to kind of adjust a bit.
The current was going in a particular direction, in order to stay where we wanted to stay, and not drift away, we needed to make intentional movement against the current. The writer of Hebrews, in essence, he’s saying that if we wanna make sure that we don't drift away from the truth, then we’re going to need to intentionally go back to the words and teachings of Jesus. We need to give him extra attention. If we’re not intentional, if we’re not proactive, we will drift away, like a boat that’s not anchored.
We’re all tempted to drift, tempted to wander, to find our satisfaction in things other than Jesus. Like that line from the old hymn:
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.”
They start with small things, but it gradually progresses. In CS Lewis’ classic work, “The Screwtape Letters” (many of you are familiar with that book); in the book, one of the demons is giving advice to a younger demon and he says:
“The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
It starts small… with just one click, one swipe, one message, one download, one long stare, one conversation, just one episode.
The Song of Solomon says that it’s
“the little foxes that spoil and ruin the vineyards.”
The writer of Hebrews follows-up the exhortation with these words. Look at verses 2 and 3:
“For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”
Here the writer is bringing up the seriousness of this message. He’s saying, look, when the angels made declarations in the past, those declarations were reliable. And when the angels declare something, when they get involved, it’s serious. They were a part of bringing the Law of Moses.
Therefore, we should expect this message, this gospel message, which has been corroborated by the angels, we should expect this message to be reliable too. We should expect that what we heard about Jesus, his resurrection and his teachings, they are all true!
And then the author of Hebrews says, just like in the past, when God made sure that “every transgression” received the proper “retribution”; and just as God ensured that in the past, we should expect for God to do the same in the future.
God has never allowed humans to just “get away” with sin, therefore we should expect that God won’t allow humans to just “get away” with sin in the future.
We should expect accountability, which is why we need Jesus! We need Jesus to be our advocate when that just retribution comes our way.
In the last few minutes, I want to talk to three specific groups.
First, the genuine believers, many people in this room are genuine Christians, truly born again, truly regenerate, if that’s you, you’ll never fall away from the faith, praise God. Pastor Jonathan mentioned that a few weeks ago. That’s taught in several places in the New Testament, most clearly taught in 1 John 2.
But Christians can sometimes drift too, but differently. Sometimes we drift toward bad theology or laziness or apathy or nominalism or worldly ideologies, and it causes all sorts of damage to our spiritual life.
Scholar DA Carson says:
“We drift toward compromise and call it freedom. We drift toward superstitions, and we call it faith.”
It’s remarkable to me how many Christians I know have just warped and accepted worldly views of sexuality, or they don’t seem to understand sanctity of life, or have a low view of marriage, or they’re flippant about marriage and divorce, or they have shallow views on church membership or weird views of the Holy Spirit, or they read these goofy translations of the Bible that do violence to the text, they’ve just stopped being cautious or discerning.
The apostle Paul says this, 1 Tim. 4:16,
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Or we have some Christians that aren’t serious about holiness…
Here’s what Jesus said, Matt 5:30,
“If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Jesus is serious about sin. He hates it. I often pray that if anyone is sinning, I pray they’d repent or that they’d get caught. The day you get caught will hurt, it’ll be humiliating, but it’ll be the mercy of God in your life. Let’s get serious about fighting sin.
Ask yourself, “How am I doing?” Take an honest inventory. How’s my prayer life? How’s my Bible study? Is my love of Jesus vibrant and growing? Am I becoming more holy or am I drifting toward sin? Am I growing in knowledge and wisdom or has my pursuit fizzled? Or ask yourself, do I find other things more satisfying than Jesus? Do I love this world more than Jesus?
This happened to a man named Demas. He had been a ministry partner with the apostle Paul, one of the men a part of Paul’s inner circle. But we later learn that Demas drifted away from the faith because, as the apostle Paul says in 2 Tim. 4: Demas abandoned the gospel because he was “in love with this present world.”
Christian, if you’re drifting, if you’re fizzling, if you’re in love with this world, please, I exhort you, give more attention to the things you’ve heard about Jesus!
Second group, there are people here that seem to be Christians, but you’ve never believed. You don’t really love Jesus, you don’t really believe that Jesus is better, you don’t really have passionate affections for Jesus.
If you’re in that camp, you are drifting, you’re not anchored, and your soul is in jeopardy. I beg you, I implore you, today, put your faith in Jesus. Christ died for your sins, and he rose from the dead, and he loves you, and you can be saved if you put your trust in him. If you have any questions about what that means, I’d love to have a conversation with you after the service. Believe in Jesus, look to him today!
The third group I want to talk to today are those that have wrestled with doubts. And I’ve been there. In 2007, I had a significant crisis of faith. I had been a Christian for a decade. But all of a sudden, I wasn’t sure what I believed, if anything at all. So, I decided to lean in, I read the Bible more than ever. And I began to study and evaluate the history of Christianity, it’s really the season of my life where I fell in love with church history. I read various Christian philosophers and theologians from the past. And after about a year, I came to the conclusion that everything I had heard about Jesus, it was true. I came to the conclusion that Jesus was better than anything or anyone else.
Maybe you’ve claimed to be a believer for a while, maybe at one point you had confidence in the Bible, but today you’re having doubts. If that’s you, I’d love to talk to you after the service too. But for you, let me challenge you, do what the writer Hebrews says: listen to Jesus!
If you’re trying to discern who Jesus is, let him speak for himself, examine what he said about himself. Turn off the Tik-tok videos, stop listening to the faux theologians who sound like they may know what they’re talking about, but don’t actually know what they’re talking about. Get rid of those voices, turn that stuff off. Please, I beg you.
And instead, give God the opportunity to speak for himself, through his word, read the Bible. Do what this writer says, go pay “much closer attention” to the things that were attested to us; the things that came from the apostles to us, attested by the apostles in the pages of Scripture. And see what the Holy Spirit does through that.
I have a few friends that have deconstructed their faith. They started out with small doubts., but instead of reading the Bible, instead of paying close attention to what we have heard about Jesus from the apostles, they instead turned to liberal theologians and secular progressive types.
And I have slowly watched several of my friends, people I did ministry with, that I’ve watch drift, friends that fell away from the faith, and now I fear for their souls!
It starts small, but if you have the wrong voices in your life, you will drift away, but if you give extra attention to Jesus, he will draw you in toward himself.
As the writer of Hebrews says:
“we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift.”