Good morning and happy Monday. I arrived back to Texas from Seattle late Friday night, it’s so good to be back home. I did however almost miss my flight on Friday. The government shutdown had the airport security pretty lean and the line to get through security looked like a Chik-Fil-A drive through. Speaking of, what do they put in their sandwhiches? Their drive throughs are always 20 cars deep no matter where or when it is! But anyway, made it home fine and Marge and I had a great weekend catching up.
I covered Hebrews chapter one from Seattle on Friday and we touched on angels. If you missed it, you can find it at the5MC.com under the Hebrews tab. Also, a quick plug, if you find yourself missing some posts, you can subscribe to the5MC.com and it will send you an email every time I post a new writing. Many thanks to all those that have subscribed thus far!
Today we’ll be looking at Hebrews chapter 2 and we start out the chapter with a topic that really hits home for us in our world today, drifting from God. There’s an old saying that if you find yourself far away from God, He’s not the one that moved. So true. You see God is constant. He is always near. He is always available. He is always there for us. But on the other hand we are not constant. We are always in a state of flux, moving and being moved by this world. The real question is, are you moving towards God or are you moving away from God today? Let’s look at our verse.
“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Hebrews 2:1
I’d like to start out with a story this morning. A story of a beautiful exotic island in the South Pacific and one particular beach on that sunny isle. While serving God on Maui we of course had access to some of the world’s best beaches. The west cost of Maui is small, compact and everything is close to the water. From where we lived in Honokowai, it was a 6 mile drive along the coast to get to the church in Lahaina. Along the way, the views were stunning. Blue waters reflecting the bright rays of the sun, framed by a deep blue sky. The blues in Hawaii gave the color a new level of depth I had never imagined. One particular beach about half way to the church was called “canoe beach” by the locals. It was named because most of the paddling clubs kept their team canoes there. At any given time there would be 10-15 long, slim outrigger canoes at the north end of the beach. I would serve at the church in the mornings and then work at nights. God had given me a night manager spot at Tommy Bahama and He worked it out perfect that I could serve at the church from 8-1 and then work 3-11 at night. If I managed my time well, I could hit canoe beach on the way home and catch some rays before work.
I would take my bible and commentary and do a lot of bible time on canoe beach. I mean if I’m going to spend time in God’s Word everyday in Maui, you might as well do it on the beach right? It’s kinda funny I would tell people you can see how much time I’m spending in God’s Word by looking at my tan.
Lahaina had the only small harbor on the Ka’anapali coast so cruise ships would port there about twice a month. The harbor sat less than a mile from canoe beach and when the ships anchored off the harbor you could easily see them from canoe beach. It was always a treat to get to my spot on canoe beach and see a big white, majestic cruise ship anchored in the distance. I would settle in, start reading, and revel in the suns warmth on my skin. What a way to visit with God.
In the days that the cruise ships were in port, I would spend some time reflecting and just staring at them in the distance. Since Lahaina harbor was very shallow, they would anchor the ships about ½ mile off shore and then tender the guests to shore in small boats. What I started noticing was how they anchored the ship. The ship would be anchored at only point, by the bow. One day as I sat up my beach chair and settled in, I noticed the ship appeared to me in full broadside. I could enjoy the ship’s full length and see all the details and complexity of her design. After 20 minutes or so of reading I looked up to notice that she had now swung at anchor and I could now only see slightly down the side of her, my view changed dramatically, seeing much less than before. After another 20 minutes, she had swung even more and I could only see the ship head on, staring directly at the bow. My view had gone from one that allowed me to see the full beauty of the ship to one that was merely a white triangle on the horizon.
You see the current and the waves will move the ship, it’s inevitable. You can try to fight it by anchoring the ship at both ends but it would end up buffeting the ship and cause discomfort to the guests onboard. But by anchoring it to only the bow of the ship, you don’t fight it, you let the ship move with the sea. You don’t fight the sea, you literally go with the flow.
But this is what struck me. The anchor that holds the ship is firm. It is firmly planted on the floor of the sea, immovable. But the chain that connects the ship to the anchor is flexible. It connects the ship, but it allows the ship to move, to flex enough to allow comfort. The ship is always moving lazily along the sea, but the ship never drifts from the spot in which it is anchored. Even though it’s free to move from side to side, it never changes it’s location.
God’s Word is our anchor. It is truth. It holds wisdom, peace and joy. It anchors our lives into a solid position no matter the conditions of the sea. The chain is our connection to God and His Word. The chain is a choice. If the chain is disconnected we drift. The anchor is constant but the chain is no longer connected to the safety and security of the anchor. We as a ship with out the anchor, will now drift on the ocean and be taken anywhere the current desires. God’s Word is our anchor, and we must make a choice to connect to it. With it, we can swing at anchor but we will not drift. Without it, we will be helpless to be tossed and moved by the waves of this world.
Our verse this morning warns us of this. “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” You see we have a choice with what to do with God. We can stay close and connect to His anchor, or we can drift. It’s so true in life that a relationship left to neglect will suffer. If you stop talking to a friend the relationship will suffer and eventually die. You will drift from that person. You can eventually drift so far that sight will be lost. That is the case for many today with God. The communication has been severed, the relationship is suffering, they have neglected the relationship and have drifted.
So, it started me thinking, if you find yourself saying this morning, “this is me! I have drifted from God and I want to move back to Him…I want to reconnect my chain to His anchor", how do you start? It’s can be done, in fact it’s pretty simple. How? Well, back to that severed relationship with a lost friend. You start with a phone call. You start with contact. You start with communication. If you find you have drifted from God you start with calling out to Him. So lets look at ways you can call out to God and reconnect with Him.
1) His Word. Spend time in His Word daily. God’s Word is how He speaks to us. Do this. Grab your bible and go to a still, quiet place. Remove all distractions. No phone, no computer, no TV, no itunes. That means no email, no texts, no facebook, no calls, no music. I know what you’re saying, “Dan you’re crazy, I can’t live without those things.” Believe me you can do it. These distractions are a great reason many are drifting at sea today. Once free of distractions, take a deep breath and calm your spirit. You’re preparing yourself to meet with God, get ready. Start with a prayer. Pray for God to meet you in this place. Pray for God to show up to the meeting you have scheduled with Him. Next pray that the Holy Spirit would enlighten your mind as you encounter the glory of His Word. On our own we cannot understand the depth and complexity of God and His Word. You see “we need God to understand God.” But thankfully, we don’t have to try to understand on our own, He has given us the gift of His Holy Spirit. If you have called upon the name of Jesus to save you, you have been gifted a miracle, you have the Spirit of a Living God residing within you. He is the Helper Jesus spoke of and He will help you decipher God’s Word. He will make God’s Word come alive. Now the last step, read. Open up God’s Word and read. If you find yourself getting distracted stop and pray again. Some mornings my mind is racing, and I have to pray several times before my mind will settle down and relent to the Spirit’s guiding. God’s Word has the ability to bring you closer to God in an amazing way. But you see it’s a choice. You do it or you don’t. It’s your choice. No one can do it for you. This is personal. We serve a personal God through a presonal relationship.
2) Prayer. I’ve heard it said that God speaks to us through His Word and we speak to God through prayer. So true. So do you think its more important for you to speak to God or God to speak to you? I hope you said for God to speak to you! Prayer is very important but be careful that you’re not spending all your time telling God what you need, what you want and what you're not happy with. This is what most people think prayer is, begging God for what they want. I have an experiment for you. I want you to pray once every morning for 7 days in a row. You’re saying, “what? That’s easy, I pray like 50 times a day.” I’m not done yet. In these daily prayers you are ONLY allowed to pray for others. Yep, you heard me, you are not allowed to pray for any personal needs, wants, or desires, only for the needs of others. I heard a tough statement the other day, “If all of your personal needs were removed from your prayer life, what would be left?” Ouch. You see if we spend all of our time praying for ourselves, we can start drifting in selfishness. Even in prayer.
3) Service to God. There is not much sweeter joy I have ever experienced than using the spiritual gifts God has given me to serve and bless others. I compare it to playing tennis. If you’ve ever played tennis you know that a racquet has a sweet spot. As you strike the ball you can get several different feels. If you hit the frame you’ll get a dull thud. If you hit it off center, you’ll get a bad vibration that resonates down to your wrist and it can hurt. But when you hit that ball right in the center of the racquet, something special happens. You move across the court quickly to intercept the ball, set up that power fore-hand, swing with all of your power and Bam! The racquet and the ball both do what they were designed to do with perfect harmony and efficiency. The racquet launches the ball almost effortlessly. No vibration, no pain, no discord, just beauty, power, and harmony. God has gifted you. God has given you something to do that only you can do. The combination of this gift combined with your personality and how the Holy Spirit works within you, creates quite the unique, extraordinary gifting and ability. Find this gift and use it to bless others. Through this process you will find yourself feeling His purpose for your life. That’s His presence. That’s closeness to God.
4) Fellowship. Seek out the sweet fellowship of fellow believers and speak of the things of God. If you get together with a bunch of people and talk about Shakespeare, that’s fellowship in Shakespeare. If you get together with fellow believers in Jesus Christ and talk about God's plan for your lives, that’s true fellowship in God. Fellowship with believers will offer you strength, encouragement, enthusiasm and comfort. You were never meant to endure the Christian walk alone, God gave you fellow believers to help you along. Claim this blessing and it will help you to move closer to God.
5) Be a member of a local body of believers. This is more than just “go to church.” Every part of your body is important. If I said get rid of your right arm and your pancreas, you’d say I was looney. They’re part of you and they serve a vital purpose. If you’re not a vital part of a local body of Christ, do it. This is essential in God’s plan and critical for you to realize and utilize the gifts we spoke of above. The gifts God gave you are to serve the body. You can serve outside the body, but your first responsibility is to the body of Christ. To strengthen the body so that it can overall do the good works of Jesus Christ.
I pray that this morning if you feel that you’re disconnected from the Anchor of God, that you will embrace these points and start the journey back to Him. Even if you have to paddle that little ship on the open sea in high waves, do what you need to do to get back to Him. Without the goodness of God, this life is too much for us. To experience true joy, peace and abundance in this life, it can only come through a close, personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find yourself drifting today, right the ship, change your course and start paddling.
God bless you all richly in the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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