1 “Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 4 So He became higher in rank than the angels, just as the name He inherited is superior to theirs” (Hebrews 1:1-4).
These are the opening words of a sermon preached two thousand years ago to a group of believers who desperately needed to be reminded of Jesus’ superiority and supremacy. Because we have a proclivity to wander, to chase things that are less than Him, these words are as relevant today as they were when first preached.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
We often choose to medicate ourselves with the pleasures of this world when He offers us Himself. We really are far too easily pleased. The cure to our wandering is constant reminders of the supremacy of Christ. Because our hearts are prone to wander from the God we love, we need to continually refocus our attention on Him.
Drift can happen in persecution or prosperity as our eyes are taken off Jesus. We defeat drifting by continually looking at the beauty and greatness of God, by turning our eyes on Jesus so “the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” Everything else is less than Him.
Drifting is reality; it’s what happens when we do nothing at all. We must fight, continually repent, and set our eyes on Jesus to not drift. We must once again, and again, be reminded to “pay even more attention to what we have heard so that we will not drift away” (Hebrews 2:1b).
If today’s church will embrace the truths found in the Book of Hebrews, she can have an unfathomable impact on the world. To help churches in this endeavor, LifeWay will be focused on the book of Hebrews in Fall 2015. If you would like to study Hebrews with your church or your group, simply go to hebrewsinitiative.com.