How Shall We Escape If We Neglect So Great a Salvation

In one paragraph

Preaching from Hebrews 2, the pastor walked the congregation through the first of Hebrews' major warnings and then into the passage's announcement of Jesus by name. The sermon turned on a single question the text asks: how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? The answer, he argued, is that we won't, and that reality should change the way we live inside the salvation we have already...

Read together

1. Hebrews 2:1 pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it
2. Hebrews 2:2-3 if the word spoken through the angels proved unalterable and every transgression received just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation
3. Hebrews 2:3 salvation first spoken through the Lord, confirmed to us by those who heard
4. Hebrews 2:4 God testifying with them by signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will
5. Hebrews 2:5 God did not subject to angels the world to come
6. Hebrews 2:6-8 quotation of Psalm 8, what is man that you remember him, crowned with glory and honor, all things in subjection under his feet
7. Hebrews 2:8 we do not yet see all things subjected to mankind
8. Hebrews 2:9 we do see Jesus, made for a little while lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone
9. Hebrews 1:1-3 God spoke in many portions and ways through prophets, in these last days spoke through his Son, radiance of his glory, exact representation of his nature, sat down at right hand of majesty
10. Psalm 8:4-6 what is man that you take thought of him, made a little lower than God, crowned with glory and majesty, all things under his feet
11. James 2:10 if you have erred in even one point of the law you have broken the whole thing
12. John 14:6 Jesus claimed to be the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except through me
13. Matthew 11:28 come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest
14. Matthew 6:12 forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
15. Matthew 28:20 referenced as an example of proof texting, lo I am with you always
16. 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 on the same night Jesus was betrayed he took bread and the cup, this is my body, this is the new covenant in my blood
17. 2 Peter 3:18 benediction, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be the glory

Talk about it

1. The preacher described the original audience of Hebrews as people who were being tempted to drift back to a familiar old system rather than hold on to something new and costly. Where in your own life do you feel that pull toward something familiar or comfortable instead of staying with what you know to be true?
2. The sermon used the image of swimming upstream in a river, saying that if you stop paddling you do not stay still but go backwards. How have you experienced that kind of drift in your own faith, and what has helped you keep swimming?
3. The preacher talked about God authenticating the great salvation through the Lord, through those who heard Him, through signs and wonders, through miracles, and through gifts of the Holy Spirit. Which of those has been most real or meaningful in your own experience, and why?
4. The sermon described two ditches people fall into, legalism on one side and licentiousness on the other, and said the gospel is the answer for both. Which ditch do you think is the bigger temptation in the culture around you right now, and how does the gospel speak to it?
5. Near the end, the preacher asked whether we are neglecting the great salvation not just in terms of initial faith but in everyday life, and he gave unforgiveness as a specific example. What does neglecting the great salvation look like in ordinary, practical terms for you personally?