Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 2:1-4. He taught that we can hold on by listening well. Lector: Kristen McGee
Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 2:1-4. He taught that we can hold on by listening well.
Lector: Kristen McGee
I turn 40 in just a few days. A week or so ago, I realized it wasn’t until mid 30s that I realized life was hard.
I don’t mean hard like the job I had once renovating houses, or that Summer I spent washing dishes, or digging irrigation trenches in the sandy soil of Florida.
I’m not talking about the kind of difficulty that leaves calluses on your hands, but the kind that leaves calluses on your soul.
By the time I was 35, I was frankly shocked by how painful life could be.
There was a time in this church where we had buried more babies than elders.
There have been long stretches of suffering and surprises.
How old were you when you realized life could be this way?
How old were you when you realized Christianity could be this way?
Have you ever fought with all you have for holiness, for godliness, to act with integrity and honor and faithfulness…and you are ridiculed, punished, insulted for it?
The experiences themselves are painful, certainly.
But what’s the long term effects of this kind of fatigue?
I’ll tell you for me…when the pain feels overwhelming, it feels like the hits keep coming, a voice creeps into my head and says, “just stop…don’t do it anymore…”
And I’m not always sure what the “it” is…is it a job, or is it this? Trying to hold on…
I find a lot of comfort when I can say things like that out loud…I think those are biblical things to say…biblical in the sense that they’re all over the Bible.
These are the thoughts of Hebrews’ original congregation. Maybe let’s just be done.
So the preacher, like a good preacher, comes out swinging.
High praise, even starts singing. And suddenly he stops singing, and starts preaching:
we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it
-Hebrews 2:1
Listen carefully to the TRUTH, or we may drift away.
Notice how carefully he connects truth with life here.
You can’t believe one way, and live another. It’s not possible.
What you believe directly shapes how you live. And if you don’t listen very carefully to what’s true…well you may find yourself drifting down the road of fatigue-formed-failure
If you want to live well, you have to listen well.
And the preacher gives us some beautiful pictures of what we can listen to.
First is a bit sobering:
the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished.
-Hebrews 2:2
Aren’t you thankful God doesn’t change up his messages or promises?
They’ve stood firm. He’s always communicated consistently through his messenger.s
And every time his laws were broken, his people were punished.
Now what does this mean? Does this mean God sends lightning to punish sinners?
Come reason with me, church.
Who knows the ninth commandment?
Thou shalt not bear false witness
-Exodus 20:16
In other words, don’t say things that aren’t true about other people. Don’t lie.
How do people think about you if you lie?
What happens to your relationships if you consistently lie?
They fall apart. No one wants to be around you.
No one trusts you, which means no one is friends with you.
So…is loneliness God’s punishment for your lying? No…
Loneliness is what happens when you lie.
So God tells you don’t lie. It won’t go well for you.
God’s commands and promises are the words of a good parent telling you not to touch the stove.
When you touched the stove, you got burnt not as punishment from your parents, but as a result of not listening to your parents.
The consequences for sin are so often wrapped up in the sin themselves.
It is not the punishment of god that makes a drunk driver crash. Being drunk makes you an awful, dangerous driver. So God tells you to not get drunk.
Anxiety and isolation are not God’s punishment against greed.
When you live for your possessions, you become anxious and isolated. So God tells you to give. Do you see?
The preacher is reminding us that fatigue and pain and difficulty can be so disorienting that bad things start looking good. But, REMEMBER! No one gets away with it!
Every act of disobedience, every instance of not listening, is punished.
Hold on and listen well.
Listen to the voice of history, that shows you over and over that no sin goes unpunished.
Now, gratefully, we have incredible motivation to listen well:
What makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself
-Hebrews 2:3
The punishment for sin was laid upon Jesus as the culmination of his invitation to come to him and experience freedom.
You’ve been invited home. You don’t have to fear God’s punishment.
You don’t have to endure the consequences of sin…but you do need to Hold On and Listen Well!
If you’re here this morning and you’re tired, you’re lonely or discouraged or overwhelmed, you have to see how vulnerable of a place you’re in.
Listen! Hear the voice of God pleading with you to hold on, reminding you of the great salvation afforded to you through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember the testimony of history, listen to the testimony of many witnesses:
…then delivered to us by those who heard him speak? And God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles…
-Hebrews 2:3-4
Pain and confusion and suffering plug the ears, amen? Did you hear me?
If you’ve suffered deeply you know this.
It becomes hard to see God in the past, hard to hear him in the present.
So we have to hold on and listen well…some will refuse, and do what seems right.
Have you seen them? Those who take the way of the liar or adulterer
Remember: no one goes unpunished. Maybe you need to listen to those stories a bit more to find strength to turn your ears to better witnesses
Learn to ask people “where is there evidence of God’s grace in your life?”
Find someone with gray hair in this church, buy them lunch, and ask them to tell you stories of God providing for them, caring for them.
Sometimes it can be simple…some of you may remember Chuck Heeke, a recently departed saint from our congregation.
One time during a particularly discouraging time of my life, Chuck was in my basement with me and some friends. I asked him what he thought of when he thought of Jesus…
He instantly teared up, shook his head, and simply said, “he’s been so, so good to me.”
Chuck’s faith fueled my faith.
It helped me to hold on and listen well.
Hold on and listen well to the testimony of history, the testimony of your brother’s and sisters, and finally hold on and listen to the testimony of the Holy Spirit himself:
God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose.
-Hebrews 2:4
That idea can sound so foreign to us, the Spirit speaking…listening to the wind?
Try to understand…where do we go to learn how to listen well to God’s history?
The Scriptures. The Bible is predominantly a history book.
Secondarily, it’s a poetry book. Some of you were told it was a rule book.
And listen. You were told wrong. It’s not.
Some of you have spent a lifetime reading the Bible out of fear and duty
What might shift if you could see it a a beautiful history of God’s promise keeping?
What if you saw it as a collection of pure goodness meant to revive your soul and encourage your spirit?
Part of listening well means learning to love the Bible as God’s history of keeping his promises.
Where do we go to hear the testimony from witnesses of the power of God?
We come here, to church! Incredible! We get into the presence of other Christian’s.
And what might happen if we stopped seeing church as a product to consume but as a community to participate in? In other words, we come to give, to learn, to listen…not to take evaluate and consume.
So we’re studying the scriptures and hearing stories form our brothers and sisters about what God is up to…and do you know what all of this will do?
It will train your mind, your eyes, and your ears to recognize the presence of God.
Maybe you’ll start coming to Bible Fellowship and study the scriptures like most Christian’s throughout history have: together.
If you listen to the history of God and the testimony of his people, you will learn to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking just to you, day in and day out.
You’ll recognize his prompting, you’ll hear something, a nudge, an inclination, maybe a clear word.
When you’re uncertain, you’ll go to the Scriptures and see how it fits
You’ll talk to your brothers and sisters and let them weigh in…and when this becomes our way of life, we will be a people who HOLD ON because we LISTEN WELL.
Beautiful in its simplicity, powerful in its profundity.
Life is hard and filled with pain. It is not only hard, and it is not only painful.
But at some point, likely soon, your life will become hard and painful.
Will you be someone who knows how to hold on because you’ve learned to listen well?
Or…or maybe you’ll just drift away.
Listen very carefully to the truth you have heard or you may just drift away…
And so we come to the place where God’s history, testimony, and Spirit’s voice speak in unison: the night Jesus was betrayed.
COMMUNION