Come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
Isn't that good?
We are so thankful for the music ministry.
Great job everybody.
If you have your Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter number two.
That's where we're going to be this morning.
Have you ever talked to someone?
You're trying to get your point across and you feel like they
heard you but they didn't really hear you.
Anybody ever have that go on?
You're saying something to them and they heard you but they
weren't really listening.
Okay, here's a more introspective question.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone was telling
you something and you heard they were talking but you had no
idea what they said?
Who's ever been there?
Men, this is where you must raise your hand.
Because it happens when you're watching TV, right?
It happens at my house all the time.
I focus on something.
I'm reading something.
I'm studying something or I'm watching something.
And my kids or my wife will say something to me and then you
ever do this, you look up and when you look up from what you're
paying attention to because you heard them talking, their
face was looking at you like waiting for the answer.
And I'm like, so you have two options at that moment, right?
The first option is like, yes, of course.
And then you're in horror when you find out your kids just asked
for another dog and you just said yes to them, right?
Or you can do the other thing where you don't pretend you just
acknowledge, yeah, I didn't hear a word you said, sorry.
And then you have men, do you ever get the look?
You're not laughing very hard.
It's painful.
I understand.
Men, you get the look.
Come on.
Do you get it?
Okay.
So sometimes that's what happens.
You don't give your full attention and because of that, you
miss out and you have to ask them to repeat again.
And I just want to publicly say to Megan, I'm so sorry because
this happens to me all the time.
There's so, who agrees?
There's a lot that fights for our attention.
There is so much that fights for our attention today in our
culture today.
It was already bad and then the Internet came along and then we
have these little devices that have the Internet in our pockets
and there's just so many things that can distract us in life from
all kinds of things.
And there's so much that fights for our attention.
Attention has become something that has grown and grown in
value because there's so much vying for our attention.
Billions of dollars every year are spent to capture your
attention.
Billions, trillions of dollars are made to capture your
attention.
As a speaker, one of the things I want to do is get your
attention.
I know that at any given time and any given message, there are
people that are hearing me and people that aren't really
actually listening to what I say.
And you know how I know that?
Because sometimes I sit out there and listen to messages and I
hear them but I don't necessarily listen.
That's true of all of us, right?
We've all been there.
The power to focus and listen is an important skill.
It helps relationships.
You want to help your relationships out?
Listen.
Don't just hear.
Listen.
So many people are just not listened to really almost ever.
Listen.
It helps relationships.
It helps productivity.
It helps with decision making.
There's so many things competing for our attention that
listening to and focusing on the right things, the essential
things is so important.
It is absolutely key that we focus on the essential few at the
expense of the trivial many.
Let me say that again.
It is so important that we focus on the essential few at the
expense of the trivial many rather than focus on the trivial
many at the expense of the essential few.
There's not very many things in life that are absolutely
essential.
In our lives, there's so much in our lives that is trivial.
And sometimes the essential is sacrificed on the altar of the
trivial.
In the book of Hebrews, we've learned that God has spoken.
We're in the middle of a series called Jesus is Greater.
It's a many, many week study walking through the book of
Hebrews and we find ourselves today in Hebrews chapter two
verses one through four.
That's where we're going to be.
And to catch you up from what we've been talking about in
chapter one, the author of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit himself,
tells us that God has spoken.
God has spoken.
We learned that in the past, he spoke to us through the prophets,
through the prophets under the fathers in many portions in the
Old Testament, many ways in the Old Testament.
And then we learned that as a better revelation, he sent his
son.
He revealed himself through his son.
He's revealed himself through the person of Jesus Christ, that
his son is how he has now spoken and his son is a better
revelation.
It's by his son that we're created.
Did you believe that?
It's by his son, Jesus Christ, that we're created.
It's by his son that we are redeemed.
So as we get to the passage today, Hebrews chapter two, looking
at verse one, the Holy Spirit says something really important
to us, and let me summarize it in this word.
The Holy Spirit says, listen, listen.
You get it?
God has spoken through the prophets.
He's spoken through his son.
Listen.
Don't just hear.
Listen.
God's spake.
God has spoken.
Listen.
Now here's why I want you to listen to me today as I walk through
this passage.
The Bible tells us that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood,
but against principalities and powers.
Namely, there's a spiritual battle going on.
And I believe with all my heart there's a spiritual battle that
goes on in this room every Sunday morning at 10.30.
Because what gets proclaimed, and I'm not claiming any kind of
divine something on me, but as I try to, if all I did was just
read the text of Scripture, there is a spiritual realm that
does not like that.
There's a spiritual realm that's honored by that.
And they're at war with each other.
And God has a plan.
God has a purpose for you being here and listening.
Satan has something he wants to go against that plan.
It's by the sun that we're created.
It's by the sun we're redeemed.
And it's by the sun that we understand who God is, but we also
have an enemy.
And the enemy's objective in our lives isn't necessarily to
make us evil.
His objective doesn't have to be to make everyone a wild-eyed,
satanic serial killer.
His objective need only be to distract you from what God has
said so you won't obey it.
His objective need only be to get you to hear without
listening.
That's all he has to do.
His objective for those who are saved, those of us who know
Christ, is to distract us so that others may not hear or listen
to the truth we are supposed to be speaking.
And so my objective for you today is this.
God speaks.
God hath spoken.
Listen up.
Let that truth actually affect the way you live this Christmas.
We should be, here it is, extremely careful.
We should be so careful to listen to God's revelation through
His Son for three reasons.
Here's the first reason, reason number one, and we're going to
get this right from the text.
The first reason, we should be careful to listen to the
revelation that is being proclaimed by God in the person
of Jesus Christ.
We should be so careful to listen to Him because of number
one, the first reason, the drift, the drift, the drift.
Let's read the text, Hebrews chapter two verse one says this.
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things
which we have heard lest at any time we should let them,
what's the next word?
Slip, slip.
Now I want you to pay attention to that first word, therefore.
The word therefore kind of connects what He's already said
to what He's about to say.
This is what I said, God's spake, God has spoken.
So therefore, what God has said is that He's been on the move.
He created the world and then He's been revealing Himself to
the world through Jesus.
Like we said, He revealed Himself to the fathers by the
prophets, and these last days He's spoken to us by His Son.
His Son is the air of all things, He's the one who created
the world.
His Son is greater than the angels, that's what we have
learned the last two weeks.
He's better than the angels because He's the Son,
they're worshipers.
He is the King, they're servants, He's a creator,
they're the created, and He is the ruler, they are ministers.
Jesus is coming back.
That's what's happening.
And because God has revealed Himself in the person of His
Son, and because His Son is superior in every way, Jesus is
superior in every way to anyone else.
Because He is, He's superior to the angels, the author here
tells us to take earnest heed, do you see that?
Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the
things we've heard.
What have we heard?
We've heard about the revelation of Jesus.
The word translated, earnest heed gives the idea of a
super abundance of regard and attention.
This is about giving an abundance of focus to the
revelation of God in and through Jesus.
An abundance of focus is not something that I know I give
to very many things.
It's so easy to be focused on the wrong things.
Here he says, you've got to give earnest heed, you've got to
be very careful what you allow to come into your eye gate, to
what you allow to occupy your mind and your heart as you
hear this revelation.
And he gives the reason why.
Why do I need to give an earnest heed to what I've heard,
the revelation of God to the fathers by the prophets, the
revelation of Jesus, who is the author of creation, the
author of our redemption.
He is superior to anyone and everything.
Why do we need to pay attention?
And he gives us the answer right in the first verse of this
chapter, lest at any time we should let them slip.
The picture here of this word slip is what happens.
It's a nautical term.
There's actually two nautical terms.
Let them slip there in verse 1 and later on when he says
lest at any time we should let them slip.
He's talking about earnest heed.
That means earnest heed and let them slip are the two nautical
terms.
Earnest heed means you get that thing anchored in, pay
attention to it.
The let them slip means the idea that if you ever tied a
boat to a dock, but you don't tie it right and maybe the
thing slips off and what happens to that boat goes away.
Right?
The picture can be given of these words of a ship tied to a
dock.
The idea is that if you're not secured to the truth of what is
revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, his identity and his
gospel, the fact that he died and was buried and rose again,
that's the revelation that who God has revealed is his son
and the sinless son of God, 100% God, 100% man, died in the
cross for our sins, was buried, rose again for our sins the
third day, that's the revelation of God in Jesus.
And here he says there will be an opportunity to drift.
If you extend that thinking and that picture all the way and
all of its implications, the person who does not take earnest
heed to stay more to the truth of this gospel will experience
a shipwreck, if not in this life, then an eternity.
The rest of the paragraph explains why this is so important
to avoid, but we must realize that the drift is possible.
You know how the drift is possible?
You know how you can know the drift is possible?
Because there are people that have been in our church or in
gospel preaching churches like this and affirmed everything
we're talking about, but they're not here today.
They believe something, they were conviction about something,
but other things came in and they distracted.
Sometimes good things, but they're gone, why?
Because they did not take earnest heed to what God has done.
Folks, I don't think that there's much more important than
what's happening right here, right now in this church service
today, not because of me, but because of Jesus.
Jesus needs to be proclaimed.
In life there can be a tendency to get distracted from what's
essential.
The trivial seems to outpace the essential in our culture
because we have so much available to us.
Prosperity is a difficult thing to steward because we have so
many options brought to us by our prosperity.
You might say, Pastor Ben, I don't feel very prosperous.
Have you heard of inflation?
Have you heard of the gas prices?
And I agree, things are getting tougher out there, but you know
what, we have so much.
We have so much.
And with that so much comes the opportunity for us to get
distracted by so much that does not matter.
Prosperity is this thing that we have to deal with.
If we're not careful, we'll lose sight of the centrality of the
gospel of Jesus Christ and of our faith.
If we're not careful, the families, the churches, the
neighborhoods, the businesses that we steward will get unmoored
from the truth of the gospel and we will drift.
It's exactly what Satan wants.
He wants us to think that Christmas is about snow and
Santa Claus and elves, and I love all that stuff.
Seriously, I really do.
It's so much fun, so much fun, but not at the expense of what
Christmas is really all about.
It's about Jesus.
And if we're not careful, we'll drift.
We'll drift.
And when we drift, then we're in danger of being the man that
Jesus warned us about.
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses
his own soul?
And what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
It's an important word.
We must avoid the drift that pulls us out to destructive
waters.
We have to pay earnest heed because the truth of the gospel
will drift from our focus so easily.
You know what we've learned in the last couple weeks?
God has ordered all of human history so that you would know
His Son could pay for your sins.
He's ordered all of human history to reveal Himself to us
so that there would be a redemption for sin.
He gave His Son as a sacrifice for you so that you could go to
heaven.
And the one thing that Satan wants to do is to let you get
distracted and totally miss that point.
God has done something incredible and we can't let that get
by us.
We have to be careful of the drift.
So there's three reasons.
Number one, the three reasons we need to pay earnest heed to
what God has revealed through Jesus.
Number one, because of the drift.
Number two, because of the penalty.
Because of the penalty.
What happens if we miss it?
What happens if we let this drift?
Here's what He says, verse two.
For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast.
Now let me pause there.
The word steadfast here means legally binding.
If the words that were spoken by angels were legally binding.
Whatever the angels said had to be followed.
What am I talking about?
Where was the word spoken by angels?
We learned in the last couple of weeks that it was when they were
part of revealing the first covenant.
The author of Hebrews described in previous revelation as from
the prophets.
Now he's speaking of the same kind of revelation that was
mediated by angels.
Galatians chapter three, he's already referred to this in the
first chapter.
Galatians chapter three gives us a little bit more insight to
this.
Look at Galatians 319, it will be on the screen.
Wherefore then serveth the law, it was added because of
transgression till the seed should come to whom the promise
was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
What does it mean that the law was ordained by angels?
Well, Stephen in the book of Acts gives us a little bit more
insight into this.
Acts chapter seven, verse 32.
This is Stephen, the first martyr, one of the first deacons in
the early church.
This is what he said to Pharisees that were getting ready to
kill him.
He said, which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?
And they killed those who declared before about the coming of
the righteous one of whom now ye betrayers and murderers have
become.
He's saying, God revealed in times past through the prophets and
all that.
And the people that were like you killed them too.
And now you're getting ready to kill me.
That's what he's saying.
This verse 53, who received the law by arrangement of messengers
and did not keep it.
That word messengers, that means angels.
The angels were used to communicate the law even at Mount
Sinai.
Stephen is telling the Jewish authorities that they did not
do what the law said.
So back to our text.
The word that was spoken by angels here refers to the law.
By delivering the message, they show that they agree with that
message.
They are daining that message in that sense.
And here's the point that the author is making.
The law that was brought through the angels and written and
articulated by the prophets was binding.
If I, maybe your parents have done this before.
Have you parents been in the middle of doing something and
you want one of your kids, you want to give some kind of
instruction to them so you send another kid to go tell them
what to do?
Does that usually work out very well?
Not necessarily.
Dad, I want you to clean your room.
Right?
How often does that work?
Not very often, right?
But yeah, what he's saying is, okay, if I do that, if I send one
of my kids to go tell my other kids to do something, I'm going
to tell my other kids to do something, and they rightly appeal
to my name in doing it, is that binding on that kid?
Does that kid have to obey the word of their brother because I
sent them?
There seems to be disagreement in the congregation.
All right, parents, let's, if you send one kid to go tell another
kid what to do, do you want that kid to do it?
Yes?
Okay, it's binding.
Not much authority there, right?
But it's binding.
What the guy's saying is, hey, listen, Jesus is better than
the angels, but even if the angels ordained this law to us,
and if that was binding, right, that means that this next
phrase is true, it says in verse, the rest of verse 2,
and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward.
You know what that means?
That first law that came to us and even came to us mediated by
angels and men, is Jesus better than angels?
Is Jesus better than men?
But even the law that he gave through angels and men, if that
was binding, if we had to do it, Jesus says, or the Roman says,
for all of sin, then come short of the glory of God.
Roman says, the wages of sin is death.
Sin is transgression of the law, and if God gives the law and we
break it, we're bound to that.
And our breaking it means that there's a just recompense of
reward.
You know what that means?
You do the crime.
You've heard that before, haven't you?
Right.
He's making an argument.
God has revealed Jesus.
God's revealed Jesus.
What is the message of Jesus?
He's come to seek and to save that which was lost.
What's the message of Jesus?
Before Abraham was, I am.
I am the father or one.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the father but by me.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
that whosoever believeth in him, in the son, should not perish
but have everlasting life.
What's the message of Jesus?
Repent.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
What's the message of Jesus?
He's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For the heart man believes under righteousness with the mouth
the confession is made unto salvation.
What's the message of Jesus?
God became man.
And he did not give up his divinity but he put on humanity
so that he could live a perfect life.
But then he could die the death that you deserved and I deserved
so that he could take our sin, take God's wrath, and give us his righteousness.
That's the message of Jesus.
But it all starts with this, you're a sinner and so am I.
We need a savior.
We need a savior because our sin means death.
And he says if what angels said brings some kind of reward for our disobedience.
Verse three, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
Whoever agrees that what God did through Jesus is great.
We do not deserve it.
We couldn't earn it.
We couldn't keep it if we got it and we had to keep it.
You know how I know that?
My dog.
That stupid dog makes me sin all the time.
I can't even be nice to dogs half the time.
I'm kind of, I'm not a jerk Meg.
Are you with me?
You've already sinned today.
You're like, no I didn't.
Yeah you did.
How do you know?
Because you're a human being.
We sin all the time.
All the time.
And that sin when it's finished has a baby.
And that baby is called death.
Every sin of commission, the things we do that we shouldn't do,
and here's the other one that's rough, the sins of omission,
the things we ought to do that we don't do.
Every sin receives a just reward.
He's making the case that the law that's mediated by mess and
message by angels and men was binding.
Violating the law would have consequences.
And so he says this, here's how you sum it up.
If the angels and men communicated a law that was so binding
that there was just punishment that came from what they proclaim,
how do we think we'll escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
If God who spoke in times past under the prophets would justly
punish those who ignored the partial revelation given to men and
angels, why do we think we'll escape punishment now that we
have seen the full revelation of Christ himself?
Let that lay on you heavy.
If God held them accountable and they didn't exactly know
everything that was going to come, won't he hold us accountable
if our redemption is history?
There's a lot of evidence to believe that Jesus is exactly who
he said he was.
How are you going to escape so great a salvation?
How's your neighbor going to escape if God did all of this?
He's the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father except through him.
What's amazing is not that there's only one way,
what's amazing is that there's any way at all.
We didn't deserve it.
God became man.
That's what Christmas is all about.
We're over here arguing whether or not Christians should worship,
should celebrate Christmas.
Holy cow.
If you don't get a, this is a chance to tell our culture,
Christmas isn't about Santa, it's about Jesus.
Who's glad we get this opportunity?
He became flesh and dwelt among us and we be held as glory
as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.
How are we going to escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
He's offering us mercy and grace and truth and peace.
Why do we think it's okay to neglect it?
Why do you think it's okay for us to drift from that truth
and we do drift?
It's so easy to get caught up in so many temporary things
and this has always been Satan's strategy.
Look at Christmas.
The world's consumed with Christmas the registered train work
and not with the Christ of Christmas.
As Pastor Corey mentioned last Sunday night,
the word Christ means anointed one or Messiah.
If we're not careful, we even drift in our celebration of the day.
God became man.
Why?
So that he could shed his blood for our salvation.
There will be consequences to neglecting so great a salvation.
God became man.
Let the nations rejoice.
God became man.
He died in our place.
God became man.
He knew no sin that he could give us his righteousness.
God became man.
He will rule and reign forever.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth.
Peace.
Goodwill toward men.
We need to be careful to listen to God's revelation through his son
for three reasons.
Number one, the drift.
Number two, the penalty.
How are we going to escape?
Here's another one.
Kind of follows logically from that last thing, this penalty.
Number three, the witnesses.
The witnesses.
Read it, verse three.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
Which at the first began to be spoken by who?
By the Lord.
And was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders
and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost
according to his own will.
Here's the question.
How shall we neglect, escape?
Escape what?
Penalty.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
The question is posed as we've observed with an assumption
that we understand the inevitability of failure.
The answer here that he is looking for is this.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
We won't.
We can't.
That's the answer.
We're not going to.
How do you know?
How do I know?
There are too many witnesses against us
if we neglect that salvation that he's offered.
The case is laid out almost like a case in the courtroom.
The Jews had a very, and we get it in our American,
we used to, get it in our American justice system,
this idea of needing witnesses and evidence, right?
And the Jews always had to have at least one or two
witnesses to confirm what's being said.
Witnesses that in every part of it,
the word may be established.
You can't just bring charge.
You ever heard of the term he said, she said?
What is that saying?
There's not any other witnesses to confirm one side or the other.
Here's what he's saying.
If you try to go against, if you go into God's courtroom
and you burry up your own righteousness to God,
hey, I'm good enough, I can get to you
some other way than through Jesus.
What the writer of Hebrews is saying is,
let me bring some other witnesses to bear.
First, he talks about the angels, right?
We already talked about it.
If the word of angels was steadfast,
who knows that the angels speak about Jesus?
Who's heard that in a Christmas story?
Who's seen little kids with little wings on and halos
talking to little shepherds?
Did the angels speak about Jesus?
Yeah, they do.
But that's not where it ends.
He says in verse 3, so there's the word spoken by angels,
but there's also the word spoken by Christ himself.
He says here, how shall we escape
from the great salvation which at first began to be spoken
by the Lord?
First it was by angels.
They gave us the law.
We already saw that.
They declared to us the birth of Jesus.
In this town is born unto you a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
This shall be a sign unto you.
You shall find the babe wrapped in swollen clothes,
lying in a manger, right?
And then suddenly there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying,
glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will to
why is there now on earth peace, good will to more men?
Because God has come to earth, right?
And then it was spoken by the Lord.
Jesus Christ made it clear that he was coming to provide
salvation.
It was declared by him many times and in many ways.
Here's one, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world
but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned.
You might be excited about that today.
He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth
not is condemned already because he's not believed in the name
of the only begotten son of God.
And this is the condemnation that the light is coming to the
world and men love darkness rather than light because
their deeds are evil.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
Thomas said, Lord, we know that whether thou goest, how can we
know the way?
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh to the Father but by me.
Jesus Christ is the only begotten of the Father and he
declares that he and he alone is the way to salvation.
He's a witness to the salvation and if we deny it, we can't
escape.
Angels.
Jesus himself.
What about the apostles?
He says here, this great salvation was first began to be
spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that
heard him.
Heard him.
If you are in Sunday school today, we went through John
chapter one down I think verse 14 or so.
Jesus began calling the disciples.
Right?
And some of the disciples started following Jesus because of
the word of John the Baptist.
You remember that from the Sunday school lesson?
And some of them started following John and started
following Jesus because John says, behold the Lamb of God
that takes away the son of the world.
John the Baptist had the honor of baptizing Jesus and when
Jesus came up out of the water, there was a voice from
heaven that says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well
pleased.
And God the Father spoke, the son was there, here comes the
Holy Spirit, landing on him like a dove.
They saw that.
Some of those, in fact, when Judas committed suicide and they
went to go get another disciple, that was something they were
supposed to do, one of the qualifications of being an
apostle was someone that had seen Jesus from the time that he
was baptized until he ascended into heaven.
So they knew that he was God because of that.
They saw it.
There are no apostles today because the scripture says in
Acts 1 that their ministry was to be an eyewitness of the
first coming ministry death, burial, resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
And by the way, one of the best ways we know that what Jesus,
what is claimed about Jesus actually happened is that all of
those guys except for John died a martyr's death.
They gave their lives saying Jesus was dead and he rose.
It's a pretty incredible witness.
They saw his works.
They saw him die.
They saw him rise again.
They deserve the gospel and history.
This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, for I delivered
unto you first of all that which I received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was
buried, that he rose again the third day according to the
scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, that's Peter,
then of the 12, after that he was seen of 500 brethren at once,
of whom the greater part remained under this present, but
some were falling asleep.
After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles.
And last of all, you've seen of me also as one born out of
due time, for I'm the least of the apostles, that I'm not
meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church
of God.
How does somebody go from being a Christian serial killer to
writing two thirds in the New Testament?
He saw Jesus.
Peter says, we've not followed cunningly defied his fables
when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but were I witnesses of his majesty, for he
received from God the Father, honor and glory, and there came
such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my
beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we heard
him in the holy mouth, the apostles were I witnesses to the
salvation that God has made available through his son Jesus
Christ.
They even go on to spend time with him after his resurrection
hearing all the scriptures that all the scriptures point into
Christ.
Luke 24 talks about that.
So you have the witness of the angels, you have the witness of
the apostles, you have the witness of Jesus himself, what
about the witness of God?
The witness of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, we see that
too.
He says in verse 3, how shall we escape when we neglect so
great a salvation?
The first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto
us by them that heard him, so you have the angels, you have
Christ, you have the apostles, and then God confirmed what the
apostle said, verse 4, God also bearing them witness, who's
God there, God the Father, how?
Both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles.
God allowed the apostles to perform miracles because he
wanted to substantiate what they said about eye witnessing Jesus
and the way that they could be confirmed as eye witnesses and
as from God is because they would do things like walk up to
that temple gate, the gate called beautiful, and the guy says
hey, give me some money and Peter says silver and gold, I have
none, but what I have give I unto you in the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
And the guy starts, gets up and runs around and Peter does
what any good preacher does when he sees a crowd, hey y'all,
come here, let me tell you about something, this Jesus that you
crucified, not just 50, 60, 70 days ago, God raised him from
the dead and you know it's true.
And now you confirm that I am from God because I was just able
to do this in the name of Jesus and so you need to repent and
believe and thousands got saved.
Isn't that awesome?
But they couldn't do that, Peter didn't have any power in
himself, you understand that right?
Well what, you understand how messed up Peter was, who here
agrees Peter was messed up?
Yeah, that guy put his foot in his mouth all the time.
There wasn't anything special about Peter but the Holy Ghost.
That's what was special about him and God confirmed his message
through signs and wonders.
And who is the ultimate gifting of those signs?
Hey, that happened, Jesus said it was good for me to leave
because if I leave then I'm going to go but then another
comforter will come to you, this Holy Spirit.
That's exactly what's talked about here.
We know that the message of the apostles about Jesus was
steadfast because God allowed them of his own will to perform
these miracles of the Holy Spirit.
The greatest of these miracles was penning the words of the
Holy Ghost into the Scriptures that we hold in our hands today.
Peter, hey listen, you want a miracle here, I got one in my
hand.
Here it is.
God has ordered all of human history, God wrote a book, we get
to think his thoughts after him because he wrote a book.
Peter said this, I read it a little earlier, we have not
followed cunningly devised fables.
We haven't followed cunningly devised fables, we didn't get in
a room and come up with a story that's plausible to hoodwink
the rest of human history.
We're just a bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, right
wingers and left wingers, making Israel great again,
getting taxes for Rome, that's who they were.
Are you with me?
We have not followed a bunch of cunningly devised fables and we
may not be the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we
are eyewitnesses of His majesty.
He says, verse 17, where you see to the Father, honor and glory
where there came such a voice from Him, excellent glory, this is
my beloved son, whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven we heard and when we were
with Him in the holy mount, then He says this, we have also a
more sure word of prophecy.
We're unto you do well that you take heed unto the light that
shined us in a dark place, unto the day dawn and the day star
writes in your heart.
He's saying, we saw Jesus transfigured, we saw the brightness
of His glory, we heard the voice from heaven but we have a more
sure word than that.
What's the more sure word?
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is in
a private interpretation, per the prophecy it came not in the
old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The message of the whole of scripture, the word of God,
pinned by the Holy Ghost is this, are you ready?
Here's the summary of the whole Bible.
Salvation is needed.
Salvation has come.
Salvation is needed because of sin.
Salvation has come.
Salvation is not an idea.
Salvation is a person and that person is Jesus Christ.
The theme of this whole message is this, you can't just ignore
what happened.
You can't let it drift.
You have to give urgent heed to this salvation because there's
this tendency to drift.
The scripture has been laid out like evidence in a courtroom.
There's a penalty for neglecting salvation.
We know that this salvation is real and true and available
because of the witness of the angels, because of the witness
of the apostles, because of the witness of God the Father and
of God the Son and of God the Holy Spirit.
He has ordered all of human history, the law and the prophets.
God hath spake.
God spake.
God hath spoken.
He's spoken through his Son.
And here's the question, how shall we escape if we neglect so
great salvation?
There are some of you, maybe you've been coming for weeks.
And the Holy Spirit's been tugging at your heart because you
know you're a sinner.
And you're starting to believe that this Jesus guy isn't just a
character in art or a legend that people talk about.
He's real.
He really came.
He really lived.
And there was something incredible about his death.
His death seemed to be substitutionary.
And God confirmed that he died for your sins because he rose
him from the dead.
And the Bible says that if you put your faith and trust in him
for your salvation, your sin can be forgiven.
Your sin could be forgiven.
The penalties for sin can go away because Jesus took your
penalty on the cross.
And what I want to tell you is you're not sure about today.
What is your life?
It's the vapor that appears for a little while and vanishes away.
We may not get to Christmas Day this year.
We may not.
Today's the day of salvation.
How shall you escape if you neglect so great a salvation?
And believer, your life is not your own.
Your mouth is not your own.
Your feet are not your own.
Jesus says, as the Father hath sent me, so send I you.
How can your family and your friends and your neighbors,
people you don't even know, how shall they escape if we
neglect so great a salvation?
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me this morning?
I do not apologize for what I'm about to do.
We want to give you an opportunity not to neglect so great a
salvation.
If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your
Savior, I want you to know you don't get saved.
You don't get right with God just by walking an aisle.
Walking an aisle doesn't do anything.
I'm not trying to get you to walk an aisle so that you'll be saved.
But I want you to make a decision.
If you're here today and you don't know Christ as your Savior,
there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun.
God loves you and we would love to take God's word if you would
provide us the opportunity and to show you how you can know for
sure that you're saved.
That Jesus' death on the cross and His righteousness could be
credited to your account.
So if you're here today and you don't know for sure that you're
saved, we play this song and we're all going to stand here in
just a moment, not yet, but we're all going to stand.
And if you would like to know for sure that heaven is your home,
come forward and talk to one of us.
Megan's here, Miles, for the Dave, Cory,
there are several that are here.
We'd love to take God's word and help you know that you're saved.
If you're here today, maybe what's touched your heart is this.
There are people in my life, maybe even some that I'm about to
interact with at this Christmas season that need Jesus.
And maybe a right response for you is to not let the drift
happen in your own life, not to let Jesus and the gospel and
salvation be something that happened in your past and be
something that maybe, you know, is important on Sunday,
but the rest of the week isn't, but that maybe,
maybe that you would recognize the drift and say,
hey, I need to make my life a little bit more of a light to
even those who might be coming over, even during this holiday.
People in my life that don't know Christ.
Maybe today you could come forward and you could pray and ask
God to help you be the witness in the light you ought to be.
I want to give you a chance to respond.
I'm going to stand.
I'm going to ask you to stand.
You guys stand.
Please stand and I'm going to pray.
And if you need to do business with the Lord, you do it.
God, we love you so much.
We thank you for this incredible gift of salvation.
God, I pray that today you would help us to not neglect
so great salvation.
We love you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
If you need to come, you come.
We love you in Jesus' name.
See if there be some wicked way in me.
Come, if you need to come, God, your chance.
I pray that you will be the witness in the light you ought to be.
Amen.
God, we want to say to you right now, thank you for the incredible gift
of salvation through your Son.
Thank you for what it means to us.
Thank you for how it's changed lives even in this room today.
And I pray that you would help us, saved and unsaved, not to neglect
the salvation that you so freely given to us in your Son.
God, I pray that you would help us to live it out.
And I pray that if there's someone here today that doesn't know you
and say, you're even at the end of the service, they come and talk to
one of us, let us show them how they can know for sure that their
sins are forgiven.
God, I thank you for your Son.
Thank you that He came a baby, but that He didn't stay a baby.
He lived and died and rose again for our sins.
We thank you for that.
We love you.
Help us to live for you this week in Jesus' name.
And all God's people said, hey, we're so glad you've been here today.
Tonight we have our five o'clock service, a family service.
It is a lot of fun and we learn a lot.
And so we would love to invite you back.
I didn't mention this, but we are doing a Christmas offering.
And if God's giving you like a tugging at your heart to give in
some way, to honor Him at Christmas time, we've got some
building projects we're doing.
And if God leads you to give towards that, we'd love for you to do
that.
And then of course, Christmas Eve service, grab some of those
invitations.
Christmas Day service.
We'd love to have you back.
All right.
You're not dismissed your sin.
Have a great day.
Thank you.