North Center Baptist Church
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
A diverse church for all ages
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May 30, 2010 Hebrews 2 by Pastor Stan Audio THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST: A SERMON SERIES IN HEBREWS “WARNING! DISREGARD AT YOUR OWN PERIL” (HEBREWS 2:1-4 / P. 846) MAY 30, 2010 INTRODUCTION -- Lead-in song: “Lord, Most High” -- Open your Bibles please to the NT book of Hebrews (p. 846). We’re just getting under way in a study of this important but often avoided part of the New Testament. I’ve entitled this series “The Supremacy of Christ” because that’s the book’s core theme; in fact, no other book in the entire Bible declares the supremacy of Christ more thoroughly or forcefully than Hebrews. -- The author of Hebrews starts by declaring Christ’s superiority to two groups that God used in revealing truth about Himself—the prophets and the angels. God began the process of revelation by working in and through the great prophets who wrote the books of the OT, but the climax, culmination and conclusion of that process occurred in Christ. The greatest and highest truth about God is what was given in and through Christ. -- Christ is superior not only to the prophets but also to the angels, those magnificent spiritual beings who live in the direct presence of God and serve as His personal messengers. Angels may be magnificent but Christ is greater because He created them, is worshipped by them, and rules over them as the eternal King of the universe, the Sovereign Lord of all creation. -- When we started Hebrews I mentioned that this book doesn’t seem to have been written originally as a letter but as a sermon. One reason is the way Hebrews keeps moving back and forth between exposition and exhortation, moving from the declaration of truth to the call for a response to that truth. The first such exhortation and call for a response occurs in chapter 2. I. THE EXHORTATION (V. 1A) -- The author begins chapter 2 with the exhortation: “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard...” -- This exhortation is based on what we’ve just seen in the first the chapter—that God has graciously and wondrously chosen to speak to us and what He has to say to us is so important that He Himself has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ. If God has gone to such extreme lengths to reveal truth about Himself to us, then we had better be attentive and listen carefully to what He has to say. -- He calls on us to “pay attention,” or, literally, to hold on to what God is saying to us. When I was working on my Master’s Degree, I had an OT professor who had what he called “Core Questions,” things that he considered essential to his course and that he expected everyone in the course to know if they wanted to pass the course. As he was giving his lectures, he would say, “OK, what I’m about to tell you is a core question,” in other words, it was something that would for sure be on the test and we’d better pay attention and hold on to it. That’s what Hebrews is telling us—this is a core issue and we’d better listen carefully and hold on to it. It’s as if the author is putting up a sign reading, “WARNING! Disregard at Your Own Peril.” What God says to us in and through Christ is essential—absolutely nothing has more importance to your life and eternal welfare—pay attention to it—hold on to it as a drowning man holds on to a lifeline. -- You see, the danger for most of us here in church isn’t that we will reject the Gospel as superstitious nonsense. The danger for most of us here this morning is that we will be apathetic towards it—that we’ll ignore it—that we just won’t pay much attention to it—that we’ll hear it with one ear—that we’ll receive it with half-a-heart. And that’s precisely what Hebrews is warning us about—how dangerous and perilous that attitude of indifference to the Gospel is. II. THE REASONS (VV. 1B-4) -- In the following verses the author gives us three reasons why ignoring or being half-hearted about the Gospel is so perilous and why paying clos |
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