What will We Neglect?
12-30-07
Almost everyone is legitimately “busy” today. The so-called “time saving” inventions of the past 100 years have only made it possible for our employers to demand more production and correspondingly more headaches during the amount of time they demand of us. These devices have not given us more “leisure” time.
Kids in school today have much more to learn and computers have only raised the demands of teachers rather than simplifying their lives. Colleges demand more of incoming freshmen, especially in the area of “extracurricular activities,” making kids and parents spend their days driving from one place to another to another. Tuition prices have parents taking another job and another mortgage. Combine that with parents having children later in life and retirement has become only a dream for today’s parents of college students.
Even “more aged retirees” spend day after day going to specialist after specialist instead of visiting a family doctor. The time spent in transit and waiting for the doctor to actually see them along with the unbelievable costs of health care have made retirement a world of endless uncertainty.
God Himself has weighed in on this subject as well. Only you can determine whether He has merely added to the list of demands we face every day or if He has provided a solution for us. Listen to the words of Hebrews 2:1-4:
“We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore (or “neglect”) such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”
In this passage we learn we must pay careful attention to the gospel message: (1) so that we do not drift away from its message; (2) because it is binding on us and every violation and disobedience will be punished; and (3) because God sent His one and only Son to deliver the gospel message because it was so important that no one else could help us see and understand what God really wants for us.
Words like demands, binding, punishment, violation, and disobedience are not popular today. Man’s spirit so longs for its freedom of expression that merely announcing that the gospel cannot be neglected without terrible consequences makes many want to ignore it and go their own way just because God has placed these demands on them. Even as I am saying that we are not even allowed to ignore or neglect the demands of the gospel, many in today’s audience will tune me out or decide for themselves what they want to do with today’s message. Any pastor who honestly believes if he teaches God’s word people will change their lives just because God’s word has indicated a change they need to make in their lives is a fool. Instead of evaluating whether what I will say is God’s word and therefore binding on each of us, many listening today will evaluate whether or not they want to do what God’s word says they must do.
Looking a little closer in this Hebrews 2 passage will show us the key to unlocking the dilemma of “busy-ness.” Look at parts of verses 3 and 4 again: “This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”
The gospel message, the really “good news,” was what Jesus came to earth to announce. We had to see it in action, in the life of Jesus Christ Himself, if we were to understand it. That is why He had to come Himself. In John 5:19, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” This verse gives us the key to our daily routines. Jesus did what He saw the Father doing, or put another way, He did with each day what God wanted Him to do with each day. If we could live each day knowing when we went to bed that we had done with that day what God wanted us to do with that day, wouldn’t we rest easier and be able to live with all of the other uncertainty much more easily? If Jesus’ standard of success becomes our standard of success, we will be able to say, just like He did, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
This passage in Hebrews tells us that the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” have been distributed “according to His will” so that we can achieve what God wants us to achieve. When God sent Jesus to proclaim the gospel message, this passage says God confirmed the message with “signs, wonders, and various miracles.” Most of our lives will not require these kinds of confirming acts, but is it too hard to believe that God will give us the help we need to finish the things He wants us to do with our lives? Therein lays the key. When we are doing with our day what God wants us to do with our day, we will have all of the help we need to get it done in the way that God wants it done. When we are doing with our day what we want done with our day, we only have our own strength to get it done. Sometimes our strength is enough. Most days it is not. That is why we are so tired and exhausted.
This morning I am asking you to quit fighting against God, and give your every activity to God every day. Spend the time you need to spend getting to know Him well enough so that you can recognize when God’s hand is in your day’s activities and when He is not. Spend the time to you need to spend learning to recognize His voice from all the others, especially your own. It has to be learned by trial and error. Sometimes, like Samuel, we need a teacher. Do remember that story? Young Samuel living in the temple hears God’s voice in the middle of the night calling his name but he did not understand. 1 Samuel 3:7 says, “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” But with help from Eli, the next time the LORD spoke, Samuel replied, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10).
In your bulletin, I have provided a tool to help you learn to hear the Lord’s voice, but only you can determine whether or not you want to hear the Lord’s voice. Look back over 2007 and honestly evaluate how you used your time and how high of a priority you gave to listening to God and seeing what He was doing in your world. Evaluate what you really listened to and saw in 2007. Each day, the chart on the right side should start with your relationship with God. That is what this passage in Hebrews is saying absolutely cannot be ignored if you want your day to go well. But each day the rest of the right hand column will change as God directs you. Over a period of time you will find the norms. You will find those norms by seeing how your days go when you give priority to the various items on your list. If you find days are consistently bad when certain items are given priority, it is time to eliminate that item from your list or at least move it much farther down the list. If you find days go well when you follow a certain pattern of decision making, then you have found God and heard His voice. Every day is not meant to go well if evaluated from a single day’s perspective. Some things have to lost and some things have to be found. Those can be painful days. Still, Scripture provides the blueprint for everyday success. This tool can help. But your own will and sprit are still the determining factors. Nothing will work unless you “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).