We continue to worship God through our study of the Letter to the Hebrews; please open your Bibles there…..
Let us note again that the letter was written to Jews wo became Christians. Many of them probably saw Jesus crucified and heard first hand that the body of Christ was resurrected; many of those Hebrews about 2000 years ago probably saw the empty tomb of Christ; and so they believed that Jesus Christ is the Messiah/Savior foretold to them in the Old Testament Scriptures and affirmed by the first disciples of Christ!
Read along with me now Hebrews 2:1-8………
v1-3: We note that God does not want those Christians to drift away:
- from what?? – v3a…..
- what is salvation? – go back to Heb.1:10-12…… it is about not perishing but being with God alive forever!
- it is obvious that the writer and the audience have heard about salvation through Jesus Christ (v3 notes this)
And so, what must they do to avoid drifting away from salvation?
- v1: pay most careful attention to what they heard!!
what do you think that meant??
Remember what we noted from Hebrews Chapter 1 about the Hebrew’s knowledge of angels? The Hebrews who were the recipient of the Letter believed in the power of angels through the Old Testament. They knew and heard God’s Word through the Old Testament; they knew the power of angels and the Promised Savior/Messiah!
Those Christian Hebrews were warned in Chapter 1 about putting angels ahead of Messiah Jesus Christ! Those Hebrew Christians were being told to believe in the Old Testament truths but the focus now is on Jesus Christ, what He did and say and what was said about Him through the disciples!
v4: God also testified about salvation by:
- signs??
- wonders?
- miracles?
- gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed?
v5-8: angels, God, and Man
- angels are not the ones who will rule the world to come
- God made human beings lower than angels, YET…..
- sometime in the future, everything, including angels, will be subject to human beings
- at the moment, angels are superior over human beings!
I believe there is enough Biblical truths here to apply for our lives for today. We will finish Hebrews Chapter 2 next week as we celebrate with Communion.
What should we glean from Hebrews 2:1-8?
We must always keep in mind our Scripture of the week Romans 10:14 along with 2 Timothy 4:2 which tells us we are to be always ready to talk about salvation. And so…
1. If someone asks us about salvation, are we ready to share?
- saved from what?
- how does salvation happen?
- warn them about the challenges
2. How are we handling our own challenges as Christians? God does not want us to drift away from our belief in Jesus Christ! What must we keep doing? Know and always remind ourselves of what Scriptures tell us about our salvation!! This is one of the reasons why God gave us the full Armor of God! Put it on daily! BBSSSHF!
3. Acknowledge the power and presence of angels and our position with Christ now and in the future!
