Let's turn again to Hebrews chapter 2. Well, actually our scripture reading will begin in Hebrews 1. So Hebrews chapter 1 as we continue our studies in this book. Hebrews chapter 1 beginning at verse 1 and we'll read to chapter 2 and verse 4. Hebrews chapter 1. beginning in verse one. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. But when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he says, who makes his angel spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But to the son, he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. And they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak. You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who shall inherit salvation? Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will? We'll end the reading at verse four and trust that the Lord today will open his word to our hearts for his own namesake. Let's now bow in prayer, let's ask the Lord's help. Father, we do ask for help today because we know we need it. Lord, we have just read this phrase, so great a salvation. God the Holy Spirit says our salvation is great. Lord, we know that to some degree. We see it, we understand it, but we also know there is a degree to which we have not yet seen it. There is a degree to which it is greater, more amazing, more powerful and life transforming than we have ever known. And Father, we want to know it. We come to you today, oh God, and we ask these minutes we spend together over the word of God will not in any sense be wasted. We ask you, Father, to rise up and defend us against the onslaughts of the devil as he would seek to distract us or to undermine our confidence in what we hear in your word. We ask you that you will empower us. We ask, Father, in that unique way that the Spirit of God has of knowing exactly what needs to be pressed home to each heart. We pray that he will do that work today. We pray, oh God, we just say before you, Father, simply, honestly, and earnestly, we don't want to leave here the same as we came in. We do, O gracious God, ask you to show us what we're missing. Show us, O God, what we need to see that will thrill us and fill us more than we've ever known. So, O God, we pray, do great things in our hearts this day. So thank you for your precious word. Thank you, oh God, for all that you have said here. Thank you for what it means. And oh God, open it to us so that we will understand it and we will be powerfully impacted by it. We pray in Jesus' name, amen, amen. As I said already, as we continue these studies in this book of Hebrews, we have found that it's a book that is written to Jews who had professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but who, at this particular time, were discouraged disheartened, who were decidedly under attack and really ready to give up on Jesus. And so the message of the book and largely from the Old Testament, since it's written to Jews, the message of the book is this, that in every respect and from every perspective, Jesus is better. If you only knew Him, Jesus is better. So in these first two chapters, we learn that as a revealer of God's truth, Christ is greater, and we'll see He's greater as a priest, He's greater as a sacrifice, we'll see all these things. But in the first two chapters, as a revealer of truth, He's greater than the prophets and greater than angels. And that has some pretty powerful implications for our lives. Last week, and as we just read through chapter one again, you see what I'm talking about through a series of Old Testament quotations that show who he really is. We saw this glorious portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ as one worthy to be believed, worthy to be trusted. He's that great. He's that glorious. He's that big. He's that good. And he's exalted from every perspective to us as all we need, no matter what we face. So last week, we saw that he was a savior worth trusting. Well, now as we come to chapter two, which begins with a word, therefore, is sitting on the foundation of what we've just learned in chapter one, We see that if that is true, if Jesus is a Savior worth trusting, then it must change your life. It's not the kind of truth that can just sit there and you can say, huh. It's the kind of truth that demands something. And so, you know, as we look at this here, it stops you in your tracks. It demands a response. And as we're going to see, no response actually is a response and one with very real consequences. So right here at the beginning of Chapter 2, the Spirit begins to address those who are disheartened, struggling, under attack, and the message is this, you have a soul worth guarding and worth growing. So we're just going to be examining these first four verses of Chapter 2 today and really in a very simple way. I want us to first just kind of In an overview sense, I want us to look at the argument, what he's actually saying, just thought by thought, and then at the application. So today, a soul worth guarding and growing. Now let's begin with the argument, and these are really not hard words to follow. So, verse one of chapter two, therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. All right? So this is ultimate truth. It's eternity shaping truth. And so the scriptures tell us we must pay very careful attention to it. We must keep this truth and live out whatever it dictates. Because if we don't lock our eyes on this truth, what's going to happen is we are going to drift away. We will drift away. Verses two and three, for if the word spoken through angels, so now it's going back to chapter one that showed us Jesus is much better than the angels, but if the word spoken by the angels, the old covenant message, if those words, it says, if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward. In other words, what they said had such authority that if you ignored it or transgressed it or blew it off, there was a price to be paid for that. So if the word of the angels, the inferior ones, proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape? If we neglect so great a salvation, how shall we escape? Here's this searching question. If we neglect so great a salvation, which, and continuing on, it says, which, at first, at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, remember there's chapter one, in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. So the prophets and the Old Testament speakers, the angels, and by the way, in Acts chapter seven, Stephen is preaching to the Jews who were rejecting Christ and persecuting the church, and he's speaking to them, and he charges them with this. And this is right before they stoned him, okay? Charges them with this, he said, you who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it, okay? So this law, this old covenant that came partly through the ministry of the angels, you have not kept. And so as a very witness to what is being said right here in Hebrews chapter two. But he says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and then was confirmed to us by those who heard him? Because you've got to understand at this juncture, most of the apostles had passed away. They were no longer on the scene. They had passed that message on to the next generation as it were of ministers of that truth. And so many of these people didn't hear it directly from those who heard it from the Lord, but from those who heard it from them. So it first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him. Notice verse four, God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. So, it was spoken by God the Son and then those whom he commissioned and then was sealed and attested to by God himself. Signs, wonders, miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, that's the basic understanding, that's the argument, that's the flow of the thought, but there are a couple of things to notice especially here. I mean, talk about an understatement. So great a salvation. It just shows you the bankruptcy of human words from finite minds to cover what God has done for us in this great salvation. Because you see God came in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ. He took your nature so that he could fulfill all righteousness for you. And then take your hell on his head and die an eternal death for you on the cross. And then rise again so that you can rise again one day. And inherit everything the Father owns so that all that can be yours. And now he ever lives to intercede for you infallibly. What he's praying for will be done. He ever lives to intercede for you and obtaining from the father all you will ever need. And he is himself shepherding you till you are safely with him in glory. God's doing all that. God is the one who thought up that plan. God is the one who was executing that plan. Did you deserve it? No. Would you have ever thought of it? No. Would you want it? No. God has done all that in mercy to us. So yes, so great a salvation. There's weight in that. But then a second thing I want us to think about is this. The message of God the Son becomes the authenticated message of the body of Christ, his church. And he, in generation after generation, works through that. So, it begins with the Lord. He has his apostles. Through his apostles, then, that ministry begins to be spread to others. In 2 Timothy 2-2, we read Paul saying, all right, here's this generation needing to pass it on. And in 2 Timothy 2-2 says, and the things that you have heard from me, an apostle, among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Every generation is charged with understanding this gospel in its purity and in its fullness and passing that on to faithful men who are commissioned likewise to pass it on to the next generation. So this is the message, the authenticated message of the body of Christ. So verse three talks about the men who heard him. And if you will, put your finger here in Hebrews and turn back to Acts. the Acts of the Apostles, right after the Gospels, and chapter one. And let's just trace this. At least here in Acts chapter one, and then we're gonna see some of the fruit of it a little beyond that as well. So Acts chapter one, and I think it's worth pointing out to you what led to this statement. Look, begin in verse six. Therefore, when they had come together, this is after Jesus has died and has risen from the dead. He spent, you know, these above 40 days with them, was seen of many, but he's with the disciples, the apostles right now. And in verse six, therefore, when they had come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They're still not fully understanding the big picture of this kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so they said, okay, are you gonna exercise all your divine power right here? Wipe out these Romans, restore the kingdom to Israel and give us all the things that have been ultimately promised. Jesus answer verse 7 he said to them it is not for you to know times or seasons Which the father has put in his own authority So that that's not your business. Don't worry about that, but there is something you were to be doing right now. I but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. By the way, that's the outline of the book of Acts, is we see what happens first in Jerusalem with the coming of the Spirit, and the ministry there on the day of Pentecost, and then it spreads to Judea. By chapter eight, we are in Samaria, and then Paul begins his missionary journeys, Barnabas, Silas, and others, and it spreads to the end of the earth. So you have the outline given you right here. But here is your business right now. The church is called now to receive power from the Holy Spirit and to be witnesses, not to truths, Witnesses to me and whom is all truth. Witnesses to me and that is to spread. So we see that that's called. So what's the first order of business then? Verse 11 tells us of the rising of Christ, his final ascension before his second coming. And so they are gathered together and Peter stands up and says, there's some unfinished business we have to do here. There is someone who must take the place of the traitor Judas Iscariot. But look at how he speaks in verses 21 and 22. He says, and it shall come to pass that whoever, oh, hold on, what did I do? Oh, I was in chapter two. Chapter one, 21 and 22. Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us, One of these must become a witness with us of the resurrection. All right, and you know the story, they chose someone and they were added to the 12. But do you see how this is what Hebrews is talking about? It was committed to them that heard him. So when they were filling out the 12, they made sure that it was someone who was there from the beginning who had heard them, okay? And then these 12 become the ones who then pass it on to the succeeding generations. But what Hebrews is emphasizing, and stay in Acts for a minute, because we're gonna be right back there in a second. But what Hebrews is emphasizing to us is that it wasn't just Jesus, and then his apostles, and then through whom he passed it on, but God bore witness too. God added his own testimony. And so we read those words here in Hebrews two. God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will. So God does that. Now, as we see this in Acts and then those few places in the epistles that talk about these gifts, we see that there are two purposes for those gifts. One, which is to the fore here, is authentication. It's God saying, yes, this is my message. I'm gonna show you miraculous things. I'm gonna give men gifts because I'm going to authenticate this message and say it came straight from me. So that's the first purpose, authentication. The second is edification. And when we come to a couple of important places where these gifts are spoken of, Ephesians chapter four, 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, the emphasis there using these gifts for the edification of the Church. Edification is just a fancy word for building up, maturing, strengthening. Alright, so using it to build up the Church. And this by the way the fact that edification is such an important part and the very focus of 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Ephesians 4. It's one of the reasons why I believe the gifts are still to operate today. The body never stops needing this edification. God is in it, God is behind it. But the other purpose of the gifts is authentication. And we see this throughout Acts. So look at Acts 2.22. This is on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2.22. Men of Israel. This is Peter standing up speaking. Men of Israel, at the day of Pentecost, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. All right, so Jesus Christ, his own ministry, was attested to, authenticated by God, with these very same gifts, miracles, wonders, signs that he gave. Go to chapter four. Chapter four, as the church is beginning to get its first taste of Christ, the persecution because of the name of Christ, which Christ promised would be the case. They come together after one of these occasions and they have a prayer meeting. And so they're in this prayer meeting in Acts chapter four, and let's read verses 29 to 31, because we're gonna hear their prayer. Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness, they may speak your word. Now isn't that amazing? Their threats were persecution. Their threats were to kill them and to torture them and to make their lives miserable. And what are these people praying for? They're not praying for deliverance from those threats. They're saying, so give us boldness. so that that won't hold us back, so that we won't walk in the fear of man, but we will minister the truth of Jesus Christ because that's what every man needs. That's the truth worth living for, also worth dying for. So now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus." And listen to this, and when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. So God gave them a sign and a wonder in effect to say, I heard your prayer and I'm going to answer it. He shook the place, shook it. I don't know, in the very early days of our church, we had a recording of the Isle of Lewis revival. Isle of Lewis is just off the coast of Scotland. And in the late 40s, there was just a mighty moving of God where just many were swept into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. But on one occasion, they held just such a prayer meeting in a barn and the very same thing happened. God came and just shook everything powerfully with His presence. So here you have it. God says, I'm authenticating, and now this is the next generation, all right, those who heard Him. Turn to chapter 14 and verse 3. Acts 14, verse 3. Now the apostles are on missionary journeys. They are spread beyond Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Now they're at the outermost parts of the earth. And what do we find? Chapter 14 and verse three. Therefore, they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. So you see, what Hebrews is talking about was the experience of the early church, that the message was authenticated by Jesus Christ, by God the Father, through the Holy Spirit pouring out. these authenticating signs, miracles, wonders. And Jesus had said that very thing. At the end of Mark, the very last chapter, the very last verse of Mark's gospel says, and they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen. Done. So, and there are a number of passages in other places as well. But so, to summarize then this argument, It's a great salvation accomplished by God the Son. It's His message to needy people everywhere, and it is the authenticated message He's passed on to His body, the Church of Jesus Christ. And because it is so great a salvation, it cannot be taken lightly. So that brings us to the application. And the application is not hard. He's got one driving point. It's easy to understand. He says don't give up. Don't drift away. Don't neglect so great a salvation. Now notice the word drift in verse one here. Lest we drift away. You know, drift doesn't imply evil intent, does it? It doesn't imply, as it were, rebellious effort. Drifting takes no effort, okay? It's not going in the opposite direction, it's just drifting. And drift is a nautical term, right? It's something you see in the sea, right? So to drift slightly off course is to end up very far from your intended destination. Because you see, if you're going somewhere and you've got a bead's eye on your destination, you get there. But if at the beginning of that destination, beginning of that trip, you get off slightly, by the time you get, cover the same number of miles, you will be way off course. You will be very far from where you intended to be. And the devil works like that. We were talking about this in Sunday school today. That at least at the first, the devil isn't going to tempt you. He's not likely to tempt you with some total rejection of God or of his way or of his truth or some, you know, magnum scale, you know, kind of offense like murder. You know, he's not going to tempt you that way. Nothing that serious, just a slight drift. Just the slight drift, but the drift that will take you further and further away from Him, take you further and further away from the life and the peace and the joy that He promises. Just a little drift. And the devil is the most effective rationalizer and excuser that there is. It's just a little thing. It's just no big deal. I'll pay attention to God tomorrow, you know? It's just, the consequences of this are not great. But it's that drift, that first alteration of course, which could turn out to be deadly in the end. So what does he say? Give the more earnest heed. In other words, fix your eyes here. Fix your eyes where they need to be. Lock your eyes on Jesus, lest we drift away. lest we be distracted to death. And that's something else the devil is so good at. He's a master distractor. He's very, very good at it. And the thing is, is he has an array of distractions that they're pretty effective because one, You know, he's got the trinkets and the glitter and the glitz and the entertainment and all these things that are in the world. And they get a lot of attention. You know, why? Because they attract, right? But he doesn't even need to go there, you see, because just life, just the daily cares, and we learn this from Christ's parable of the sower, where he is identifying those weeds that grow up and choke the word. And he says, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in choke the word, and it doesn't bring forth fruit. The loss of this world, you know, those kinds of things. Yeah, you can understand, but the cares, that's just life. That's just, you don't have to go seek them. They come to you every single day. in a hundred different ways. So you see, the devil is very effective, knows how to use just the business of life to distract us, to be so busy that we don't fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. And folks, we see this kind of warning throughout this book. Chapter after chapter, and I'm gonna point it out to you, where he is just saying, no, stop, take stock. Think about what you're doing. This matters, not just for time, not tomorrow and the next day. This matters your whole life. This matters for eternity. So he warns us again and again, lovingly. So what does this mean? As we look at this today, what does it mean to you and me? Well, I think one thing that we need to recognize is that we can never think from this warning, that this warning is for other people, that they're the ones in danger, that they're the ones the devil's gonna target, but it's not going to be you. We can never think that way. Every last one of us is fully capable of drifting away and neglecting this great salvation. And let me just try to make it graphic for you in the same thing, all right, here is where we are, our destination is dead center, all right, at the back of the room, and we're heading toward that. It may seem just the slightest temptation for the devil to rationalize you or distract you into drifting just slightly. But you see, it's from a position of drift that the next time, maybe the next day or the next hour, he's going to say, drift just slightly. And the next day, just slightly. And that's why, folks, there's not a sin on the planet that you or I could not commit. if the right series of drifts take place in our lives. If the word of God gets neglected just a little, and then more and more. If our eyes are taken off of Christ, not that much at first, but more and more. We're capable of anything. So I think the first thing that we need to learn is that we are never in a position, to think we're above the distraction. We're not. But then let me ask you this question to, in a sense, have us analyze where we stand with what the warning we've been given here and the concern expressed in Hebrews chapter two. Is Jesus and his kingdom, is that, what is its place in your life? Where do you stand with it? In other words, is Jesus the kingdom in you? Is his kingdom in you, what Roman says? And I preached on this when I first got back here. Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Is that our experience? Is that what it's like to us? Maybe there are exceptions, we go through difficult times. But is it basically righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? Now, I plainly confess, it's not for me, constantly. It's not, which means at least to some degree that I need to give the more earnest heed to this great salvation, that I need to stop neglecting it to some degree, that I need to grow more in that. And folks, for many of us, Christ can be our religious affiliation, but not our life. We're Christians, we got the title, carry the card, but he's not our life. Is that true for you and me? That's the question worth answering. You see, Jesus has never intended to be anything less than your life, your whole life. I think we see a really powerful illustration of this in scripture. Again, if you can put your finger here in Hebrews 2, turn back this time to Psalm 81. Psalm 81. beginning at verse 10. I mean, here is a tremendous invitation with a promise, tremendous word of God based on so great a salvation, based on who he is and what he's purchased for us in Jesus. So Psalm 81 at verse 10 says this, from the mouth of God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. You know, that's not a hard picture to understand. Here's an expression of wow. I have great things that I want to give you. But notice what he goes on to say. but my people would not heed my voice and Israel would have none of me. So they might've been distracted, right? They might've had their own agenda. They might not have intended it with any serious, you know, rebellion, but they just ignored him. Israel would have none of me. So I gave them over to themselves. You wanna rule your own life? God, this is one of the most horrific judgments ever. God says, okay, have at it. Go to it. And that's scary. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart to walk in their own councils, guide their own lives. Oh, that my people would listen to me. That Israel would walk in my ways. I would soon subdue their enemies. I'd conquer all their enemies, you see. and turn my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to him, because they'd be scared of them. Their fate would endure forever. Verse 16, he would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock. I would have satisfied you. The Lord says, oh, if you just seek me and seek from me, you'll have the very best of things. but the devil's really good at that work of distracting. And so you see, Jesus is to be everything, and when he's not, whatever it is we put in his place, it's not gonna give us what we want. It's gonna harm us and not help us. And see, when Jesus is not your everything, there are always consequences. Like maybe struggling marriages. Frustration and anger with life. Defeat before temptation. Or just general unhappiness. A real life and walk with Jesus is the answer to all of these. Let's just take one of them as an example. The idea of a struggling marriage. And you know, I don't think this is news to you, but you who are married, you married a sinner. And so did he or she. That's the reality of the situation. There isn't going to be perfection there. When you're living in Jesus' presence and seeing with the eyes of Jesus, then you can't be angry and irritable without calling it sin. It has changed the ballgame, you see. You call it sin. You say, this shouldn't be. And when he's there, you're able to drill down and find out what you're angry at or afraid of or what idol is threatened in your marriage. You can say, wait a second, this isn't who Jesus made me to be. There's something wrong here, so let me find out what it is that is wrong. And because He loves you unconditionally, you're free to examine every last negative thing in your character and in your spouse, and to see the answer through the love of Jesus. That's possible. That should be the norm for the people of God, you see. Nothing less, nothing less. And when you're living for and consumed with the love of Jesus, when you've realized that all you need is found in Him, then you're not asking your spouse to be your Savior. We don't recognize that. In most cases, the devil doesn't want us to. So he doesn't tip us off to the fact that, wait a second, I am asking my spouse to do something only Jesus can do. Why? They're not gonna be able to do that. And they're going to fold and give up and feel frustrated because I'm looking to them to do that. So just on one thing, you're not asking your spouse to be your savior and you're freed from everything in life being about you. Freed from that. And when you're walking with Jesus, you can start loving like Jesus. Because you begin to see what He sees in every person and that is glorious potential. Marred and hindered by sin and self, but sin and self that He came to defeat and came to remove. So you're free to be for them rather than against them. There's no, you're in Jesus, your identity is Him. He loves you with an everlasting love and you look to Him for all the good you seek. And so you're free to be for your spouse. instead of frustrated because they're not doing what you want them to do. So that's just one example. That's just one example. Eyes that are full of Jesus, eyes that are consumed with who he's made you to be. It transforms everything. Everything. And it's our privilege. It's our right in Jesus to take every negative thing, everything in our lives that isn't what it ought to be, and to say, oh Lord, what am I not seeing that Jesus did for me? I'm believing something that is not true, or I am not believing something that is true, because you are the answer to all things, and you are the source of everything I need. So as I say, it's just one example, but Jesus is the answer. to what is in our lives. We can take every last one of them and imply who He is to that. So, folk, there's one thing in this passage that in this context really struck me as I was preparing this. Here in verse three, he says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, but then this, and was confirmed to us by those who heard him? God has given his church voices, speaking voices sent from him, and we're to be listening to them. We're to benefit from those speaking voices. And I believe the devil does a great work when he limits us to just those voices we know. Now I just have to confess, the Christianity I was brought up with, there was a tiny subset of approved people. You know, that tiny subset, so I didn't dare listen to anybody else. And I grieve to think where I might be and what I might know if I wasn't so limited by that thought. That we can only trust people who are carbon copies of ourselves. Folks, that's a curse. You know, you ask them, so do you believe that person is not saved, that's not on the authorized list? Oh, no, no, they're believers in Christ. Well, then Jesus loves them, and Jesus has saved them, and Jesus is working in their heart, and Jesus has given them a voice to share the wonders of his grace in their life with you. So listen. And there's this lie of the devil behind that, that there are some people that we can trust absolutely everything. They say they're not. You can't. Scripture tells us that we're to try everything. And I'm talking about me. You listen to me. Scripture says, search the scriptures, whether those things are so or not. Scripture tells you try the spirits, whether they be of God or not. The scripture tells you prove all things and hold fast what is good. It gives you the responsibility, and Colby Holmes, my good friend, who Lord willing should be coming. He's a missionary in Argentina, and many of the folks will remember him from prior years. But Lord willing, he's gonna try to make a weekend with us. He's in Maine right now. But Colby Holmes used to say, You know, I don't worry too much about anybody's approved list, what I read and what I listen to. He says, my Lord shows me how in his word, how to chew the meat and spit out the bones. And so I just do that. I just listen to the Lord and I listen and I learn. And so I would encourage you to do the same thing. And I believe, you will be greatly helped if you listen to other voices. For instance, just examples off the top of my head, the zeal and the abandon of Francis Chan. And technology, by the way, folks, you can get them on your phone or you can get them on your laptop, you can do it through YouTube, podcast, a thousand different ways to hear other voices. But Francis Chan just has this zeal and this abandon that makes me giggle, you know, and just thrills my heart and say, yeah! I wanna serve the Lord and know the Lord like that. Tim Keller has a grasp on the gospel and I taught theology, systematic theology, of course I know the gospel. Well I tell you what, he broke me down and showed me I had no idea of how precious the grace of God was and how it touched absolutely everything in my life. if I would grasp that grace of God and that love of God. Matt Chandler, I've mentioned him several times, and he's a guy that's take no prisoners when it comes to living for Jesus. He just, that's his, that's the way he goes about it. John Piper, if you wanna grow and see how big God is, there's a guy named Dan Mohler and he's, He's just been a tremendous ministry to me in these last couple of years, and especially one part of my transformation, and that is showing me the love of the Father, showing me how He views me, how much He's for me, and that I should expect good from His hand all the time. You know, I'm a natural perfectionist workaholic, and therefore always disappointed with myself, just always pretty disgusted. Joey was on me yesterday, you know, because I'll go, ah, you know, because they're just so impatient. I shouldn't have done that. And I did this wrong, that wrong, you know, like that. And so she's going to be calling my bluff on that as she has many times. But that's me. I'm always disappointed with myself. And because that's so, I naturally see the father is disappointed with me as well. He's got to be. But God's word says he's not. He is not. He's thrilled with me, even at all my weakness and unbelief and self-absorption. He's actually conquering those things step by step. That's what he promised. And I found it goes a lot faster when I see him and his love and goodness and I walk in faith in those things instead of fear. So that's just one thing. Folks, there are many voices, many, many voices. So don't confine yourself to just what you know. Through books, through recorded messages, through worship songs, through other things, get new sights of the Lord Jesus that are, you know, this is one of the things, is I can only tell the story of Jesus out of my experience. And so I wanna hear it from other people. Why? Because they're going to use different words. They may say exactly the same thing, but they may say it in such a way that, wait a second, that made the light dawn. And so I want the benefit of that. So, you know, I don't agree with everything, with every person that I listen to, and they don't agree with me, and who cares? The Lord says, if any man thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But with humility, before the living God, I can say, Lord, teach me, and use the rich way that you have worked in your body to be to my benefit. And that's why, by the way, 1 Corinthians 12 says, nobody in the body can say we don't need you to any other part of the body. It's all put there by God, it's all useful, and it is all needed by every other part of the body for our welfare. There are many other ways in which we can grow and can seek Him. But it takes a village, you know, the expression. It really does take a community in Christ's church. And we can expand our community and we can benefit from that community. You know, I just, I worry. I believe that many times, there are many of us who just accept defeat and misery as all we can expect in this life. That's what Christianity basically is. We hang on till heaven. That's not so. That's not so. The Word of God gives us a much more glorious picture of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. So often we're struggling because we're stuck. We're in a rut of thinking and living that, well, maybe it had power at one time, but it's lost it long ago. We need some fresh voices to show us the Lord Jesus from new and fresh viewpoints. So let's be the squeaky wheel. Let's cry out to God to lead us and guide us and teach us and minister to us and work in our souls. You know, George Mueller used to say that his first business of the day was to make his soul happy in Jesus. And so he had a means of doing that. He would pray through a psalm, and he would pray, and he would read portions of scripture, and he would do certain things, but there was one thing that he was about. He wasn't trying to get information to teach messages. He wasn't trying to learn principles. He wanted to make his soul happy in Jesus by seeing that he had so great a salvation. That's our privilege every day. So folks, if to any degree whatsoever, Jesus isn't enough for you right now, meaning that Jesus isn't everything to you, then you be like Jacob of old and you lay hold of God and say, I will not let you go unless or until you bless me. And you give more heed, you seek him. And I promise, no, he promises that he will be found of you. That's his word. May God seal it to our hearts for his own name's sake. Let's bow in prayer. Oh God, our God, we thank you today for the mercy and grace which is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Father, I pray since you have given us such a loving, but such a very serious warning that you will deliver us from drifting away, that you will deliver us from neglecting so great a salvation. And Father, I pray that you will enable us by your grace in each of us, Lord, to find the means of seeking you, which will grow us. which will thrill us anew and afresh, which will teach us things we've never known before and grant us to see the Lord Jesus in ways we've never seen him before. So Father, I ask you that you will work in each of us. So thank you for your mercy, your goodness, your grace. Thank you, Lord, that you are the faithful God. We thank you, Lord, that you want us to walk in that righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And so, Lord, we ask you to give us the simple, childlike grace of faith that dares to take you at your word and trust that you will do it. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.