A Greater Hope
Jesus is Greater: An Exposition of Hebrews

Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see all of you here this morning. We're in part two of part two, I guess, of our book of Hebrews. Last Fall, we began and we went from chapter one through chapter five, verse ten.

And then, last week we picked back up and we're going verse by verse through the book of Hebrews. Now, before I dig in, in our passage today, I want us to pray and I really have three areas I want us to pray for. I want us to give a celebration for our Rocky Mount campus, celebrating nine years. I want us to pray and give thanks to the Lord for eight churches collaborating together yesterday to serve at five schools. That's something that many of you know I've been laboring at for the last five years, meeting with pastors and praying how we can be the capital C church in our city, not making our church famous, but making Jesus famous.

We had around 200 people from eight different churches, all wearing t-shirts that said “CT4W: Christ together for Wilson.” And we went and served at these five schools. And I'm praising the Lord for that. And then finally, I want us to be praying for our neighbors, our family and friends in western North Carolina. And I've heard from several of you who had family trying to get home, some of them making it home.

I just heard this morning about a student at Appalachian State that the school has really been harmed. There's story after story after story. So let's pray and then we'll dig in. Lord, I do give You praise for the way You've honored our perseverance and our church plant in Rocky Mount. And so, Lord, I just celebrate Your name there today as we have lunch after church up at our Rocky Mount campus.

Lord, I pray that we would experience great joy as we remember what you've done for us there. And, Lord, speaking of working together, Lord, thank You for the eight churches yesterday that we got to serve those schools. We pray that the name of Jesus will be magnified in our city. Not that we would raise up the name of our church, but that we would raise up Your name, Lord Jesus. And then finally, we pray for our neighbors, our friends, maybe even family members in the western part of our state, Lord, that you would encourage them, comfort them if they're without electricity or food or water or all the many details, Lord, that there would be help coming their way.

We pray it now in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're in another passage today of Hebrews and will be in the latter part of chapter six. The theme of the Book of Hebrews, as we would remind you, is found in the first chapter. If you want to know the keys to the book, look under “the door mat,” in chapter one. And it reads like this.

Hebrews 1:4 (NLT) “This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.” And thus the title of our series is, “Jesus is Greater.” He's greater than whatever problem you're facing today. And so, the purpose of the book of Hebrews was written to people who were from a Jewish background, thus the name, Hebrews. And it has more Old Testament quotations in it than any other New Testament book because he's writing to Hebrew background believers and he's telling them that Jesus is greater.

This pastor is telling this church today, you can know this for a fact, Jesus is greater than whatever you're facing today. And so, last Sunday, we heard a stern warning. We heard a warning not to fall away from the path to growing up to be like Jesus. And now this Sunday, in this passage, as we pick back up in chapter six, it's followed by a wonderful encouragement. You know, last week the sermon felt like a storm with lightning bolts and tornadoes, didn't it?

And so you might have left here thinking, Man, that was strong. I hope every sermon doesn't have a week that follows like last week. Right? But that's how that sermon felt.

But today's sermon, get ready. This one's going to feel like the sun came out and the blue sky appeared. It's as if the author of Hebrews said, ‘First, I have to tear them down before I can build them up. First, I gotta bring the storm before I can bring the sunshine.’ Well, get ready for the sunshine.

The name of this sermon today is, “Greater Hope.” We can have a greater hope because of the faithful promises of God. Now, we live in a world today that feels very unstable, where uncertainty looms large. The promises that people make to us often come up empty. Political promises that are unkept, unfulfilled contracts, even broken wedding vows.

It's often that the question we ask is, ‘Who can we trust?’ It's hard not to lose hope. Yet, as followers of Christ, we are called to live with confident hope, a hope that is grounded in something that's far greater than worldly things or the fleeting assurances of the world. Our hope is to be anchored in the person of Jesus, in the promises of God. And this hope is not just wishful thinking.

No. This hope is to be a firm and sure and steadfast confidence that God will do just as He said He will and keep all of His promises. We're talking about the greater hope that we can have in Jesus. In Hebrews, chapter six, verses nine through twenty, the author encouraged these Hebrew background believers not to lose heart, but to set their hope and to cling to this greater hope that they could have in the promises of God. And I believe today we can do that.

We can cling to this greater hope. We can hang on firm to this greater hope that we have in the promises of God. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three reasons why we can have this greater hope in Jesus. Well, let's look at it. We're picking up at verse nine of chapter six.

Hebrews 6:9-20 (ESV) 9 “Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
This is God's word. We're looking for three reasons why we can have this greater hope in God's promise.

1. Because we can be assured by God’s justice.

Because we can be assured by God's justice. I want you to notice a couple of phrases here. Look at verse ten.

Notice the phrase that says, “God is not unjust.” You see, God's justice is connected to how we can have this assurance of God's hope that God is always just. And then notice verse eleven speaks of full assurance.

This is where we're looking at this first reason why we can have this greater hope. It's because we can have full assurance in God's justice. Now, before we dig in on our first reason why we can have this hope, I want you to take note of a couple of other key words. One key word is the key word, “hope.” You'll see it there three times in our reading today.

It's in verse eleven, verse 18, and again in verse 19. If you'd like to look “behind the curtain” for a minute on how I prepare messages, those of you that are serious Bible students, let me give you a clue of how we do this. We look, first of all, for repetitive words, and we ask, ‘How many times is this word in the reading today?’

And we pray and we study and we dig in. Could this be the theme of the passage? Then we took note of another word. It's the word, “promise” or “promises.”

It's in there four times. It's in there in verses 12,13, 15 and 17. So then we were studying this week and asking, ‘Is this about God's promises or is this about the hope we can have in God?’ And what we decided was it was primarily both.

It's about the hope we can have in God's promises. You got a “backstage pass” for a minute to see how we think about these things, so that when we are preaching, we're not preaching our own opinion, but we're describing to you what we have faithfully, I pray, found in God's word. Amen.

So that's what we're doing today. Now let's just start going verse by verse here. In verse one, “Though we speak in this way…” What's he talking about? He's talking about what he said in our reading last week.

’Though we speak in this way, though we brought the “storm,” though we brought the “demolition crew” last week to tear down and to shake you up a little bit and recognize if you're going to keep being dull of hearing spiritually apathetic, not serious about following Jesus, you're putting yourself at risk. That was, “though we speak.” We've been speaking like this to you, and I know your knees are shaking a little bit. Yet in your case, remember last week he said back there in the previous reading, he said, ‘In the case of these, it's impossible for them to come to repentance because they've tasted of all these good things and yet they've turned away from the path to maturity.’

‘In the case of these,’ he said last week. But now he says, ‘in the case of you.’ Do you see what he's doing? See, last week, it's almost like it was a hypothetical. I'm looking at some of you believers in the church, and some of you are just so apathetic. You show up at church when the weather's good and when you don't have any other things going on. And, yeah, you don't really get a chance to read the Bible during the week.

I mean to. I try to pray once in a while, you know, whenever I'm in trouble. And you're apathetic and you're not growing and you're not becoming more like Jesus because you haven't really set that as your goal in life. And that's what he said last week to believers. But he says this, “Yet in your case, beloved…”

Interesting word here in Greek. It's the only time it appears in the book of Hebrews. It's “agapētos,” which is the word “agape,” which is God's kind of love. It's that kind of love that's unconditional, except he makes it into a plural noun instead of a verb. And he says, “those that I love with unconditional love.”

He's talking to believers. It's the only time it occurs in the book of Hebrews. There are other places in the Bible where it occurs a lot. In 1 John, it's in there a whole bunch. John's getting old; he calls everybody a sweet thing, you know, “beloved.”

Hey, sweetie. He talks to everybody like that in the book of Hebrews. He brought the “storm,” but now he says to them, ‘You're my beloved,’ because he can see that they need encouragement now. You know, if you're going to do a remodel of a house, you have to do the demolition first, but then you have to get in there and start rebuilding.

You can't just keep tearing the place down. And so, he is saying, ‘beloved, we feel sure of better things for you. See, that's what hope does. Hope believes better things are just around the corner. I don't know what you're going through today, but God knows.

And he says to cling to hope in Jesus. Better things, beloved, are coming your way. That's what he says. He beat us up pretty good last week.

He shook us up, but he says that better things are coming. These are the kinds of things that belong to salvation. The King James version says, they “accompany” or they “go along.” He's not talking about salvation, but he's talking about the good things that come with it. You got better things coming, so keep your hope way up.

Don't lose hope. Keep your hope way up. He keeps going; let's keep going verse by verse here, 10 “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

In other words, He won't forget the work and your labor of love that you've been doing for the other saints. See, one of the marks of maturity is service. I don't know how children are at your house. I raised some children, but now I've got ten grandchildren. Trying to get them to remember to pick something up. They just drop it wherever they want. They drop their shoes, they drop food wrappers. .

My wife is like super grandma. I'm telling you, my kids will say, ‘She was never that way with us.’ But the grandkids, they're gold. We've got a separate refrigerator in the garage that she keeps stocked with ice cream in the freezer. And they'll go out there in that garage and they will get those ice creams out. They will just take two bites and lay it down somewhere. It just melts on the floor or wherever it's at.

They're children.

They're not very good at service. They're not very good at picking up and cleaning up. And so, the adults have to come behind them. One adult comes behind them saying, ‘I cannot believe this; she fills it up with ice cream and then they come out here and then I have to clean the garage.’

I don't know who that guy is, but he goes by the initials, Gary Combs. He says, ‘But you, beloved, you're serving, you work, and you're performing a labor of love. And God's not going to forget that. He sees your efforts. You know, you're not perfect, but you're working towards the goal of being like Jesus.

And He's not going to overlook that. He's a just God.

That's what he's saying. And then he says in verse eleven, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,” Now, what does he mean? The same earnestness? He means the earnestness that he or that we feel back in verse nine.

We feel sure of better things, so we feel this about you. So you ought to feel this about you too, that better things are coming because they're all connected to your salvation. It might be hard right now, but better things are coming. Keep hope alive. Keep it up.

Hang on to hope. This is what he's saying. So you should have full assurance of this, so that, in verse twelve, “so that you may not be sluggish…” Now, do you remember back last week, he said that you've become dull of hearing, so I can't even explain things to you. You're like little children who just go, “na na na.”

You can't hear anything I'm saying to you. In that word, “sluggish,” we have said that “dull of hearing” has to do with sluggishness or laziness or apathy. He's bringing it back right here, in verse twelve, “so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Instead of being dull, I want you to imitate people of faith that are more mature than you and look at how they keep the faith alive and look at how they're patient.

The word,
“Patient,” is a great word. In Greek, it's “makrothumia.” “Macro” means a lot or long. And “thumia” means heat. And so it means long suffering.

Literally, it means that you have a long fuse. And patience is a great translation of that; it means when the heat comes, you hang in, you don't let go. You keep hope going. Well, that's where he's brought us to at this point. Do you see how we've gone through verses nine through twelve?

Do you see how we can be assured of God's justice? If not, let me show you some other ways we might “unpack.” This one is to look at Romans 3:26 (ESV) “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” We don't often think of justice as being something that gives us hope.

In fact, when we think of God's justice, we think of how we fall short. But He's not only just, He's also the justifier, beloved, which means that He makes us just through faith in Jesus. Look at how Charles Spurgeon unpacks this. Wednesday is my study day with my study team, so that we preach the same sermon in both locations on Sunday. So Rocky Mount is preaching the same sermon that we're preaching right now from the same text.

On Wednesday, I had read this same passage from Spurgeon on devotion. Here's how it goes: “Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. …If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished;

but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished. God must change His nature before one soul, for whom Jesus was a substitute, can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the law.” –– Charles Spurgeon, Morning & Evening, p. 538. So now it's wonderful that God is just because in Christ there's no double jeopardy. I have a receipt from Jesus.

What's this receipt? It's the receipt that says, ‘it is finished.’ Because on the cross, He said, “τετέλεσται,” “tetelestai,” which in the Greek means “paid in full.” These are His last words on the cross. I have finished the work You sent me for.

I have paid for all sin. God is just. He will not charge again for that which Jesus holds the receipt. And I, in Jesus, hold the receipt, too. And so do you, beloved in Christ.

And it's his justice that gives us hope. Knowing, even though I'm not good enough, Christ was good enough and is good enough. And because of Christ, I have this hope. Are you still with me? This assurance of this kind of hope comes from God's justice.

Did you know that double jeopardy in the US is found in the fifth amendment of the US Constitution? It reads like this,
"Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”
That's from the fifth amendment to the Constitution. Do you know where the constitution and the laws of our land originated?

Do ytou know where they're really founded upon? They're founded upon a Judeo-Christian ethic, that the scripture is the primary source book for the Constitution, and that most of the founding fathers were believers in God. Did you know that? If our Constitution could say there's no double jeopardy, where does that come from? It comes from our Lord, our Father, Who says, ‘No, He paid for it.’

Jesus paid for it. There's nothing else to pay. Therefore, you can have hope. You can have hope. We may feel at times as if the work we do for the Lord is wasted.

You're pursuing maturity and you feel like, I don't know. I feel like I'm serving in obscurity. Nobody notices. Be careful that you're not looking for the applause of men for what you do.

But God does not overlook what you do. Maybe, you’re a sweet young mom right now that's taking care of that infant. Maybe, your husband is off to work, and you're all alone there and you're so overwhelmed. It's your first child. But you love Jesus and you love your child.

And you sometimes feel like, Who cares what I'm doing? Nobody cares, I'm all by myself. No, you're not. He does not overlook your work and your labor of love. Maybe, you are a student who is trying to do good work for Jesus at your school. You're doing it and you're telling other people about Jesus and you're trying to live an honest life. You might think, Well, my goodness, I was trying to get an A; instead, I got a B.

And you might think it's about that grade, and grades are important, but no. The applause of the Father, the applause of the One who we live for, keep hope in Him. He does not forget; nothing is wasted. And then in verses eleven and twelve, he gives us these quick applications, 11 “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Are you getting older in years? Are you getting older now? You've gotten past your fifties and sixties and some of you are scooting on up. Some of us are. Don't start thinking, I have already done my due. I'm going to lay back and let the young people do it.

No, listen, you might be the most mature in Christ here. You might be at a season of your life where you have the most to share that you've ever had. Keep hope to the end; keep growing in Jesus. Many of us, in our latter years, are our most productive years. So show full assurance of hope to the end.

Avoid being sluggish in your spiritual progress. Don't be sluggish; don't be apathetic. Pursue Jesus, and then, finally be imitators of those who inherit promises. In other words, look at those that are more mature than you in Christ and pattern your life after them. Follow them as they follow Jesus.

Well, let's move on. That was the first reason why we can have this hope in God's promises is because we can be assured of God's justice. Here's the second:

2. Because we can be convinced by God’s character.

We're going to “unpack” verses 13 through 18 now, okay? Verses 13 through 18. This is the second reason we can have greater hope. It's because of God's unchanging character. Do you see it in verse 17?

Circle that in your notes if you're a note taker. I pray that you are. We gave you bulletins and pens as you walked in. Take them and use them. Unchanging character.

Verse 17. You can be convinced by it. Look at verse 17 more convincingly. It says that you can be convinced by God's character. Now, here's what the book of Hebrews does.

It says to be imitators of those through faith and patience, to inherit the promises in verse twelve. And then he says, ‘Let me give you an example. Let me give you an illustration of somebody who was patient, kept the faith and believed in God's promises.’ And who does he give us? He gives us the father of the jewish faith, and, if you will, the man of faith that we talk about to this day.

And that's Abraham, he says, 13 “For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself,” Now, I don't know who you swear by. I don't know what occasion causes you to swear. Is it when somebody cuts you off in traffic? Is it something like that?

Is it when you hit your thumb with a hammer? And I don't know who you swear by, but the Bible says you're not supposed to do that. That's a sin. In fact, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount not to swear about anything, but let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.” Just keep it simple.

Keep your word. But if you're going to make an oath, and there are times when you need to sign your name to a thing, maybe you're a witness in a courtroom, or maybe you're getting ready to buy a house, and you have to make an oath. You have to say, ‘I will do this,’ or ‘I agree that this will happen to me.’

And then if you stand in the US courtroom, they have you put your hand on the Bible and say, “I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” But God swore by Himself because there's no one greater than Himself. What would cause God to make an oath? It is so that He would give Abraham a double guarantee that what He was telling him was true.

I'm making a promise to you. And then he says, “he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you,” in verse 14, “and multiply you.” Now, if you were part of the Jewish audience, you'd be thinking, I know what passage this is. It's back there in Genesis.

And they'd be right. It is in Genesis, chapter 22. Genesis, chapter 22 is really being quoted right here. Genesis 22 is when Abraham had just taken Isaac, his only son, up on Mount Moriah and in obedience to God was getting ready to offer him as a sacrifice, when an angel of the Lord came to him and prevented him from doing this. And then there was a ram there with its horns caught in a thicket.

And God provided a lamb; that had just happened when we read this. And then, we're in Genesis 22:15-18 (NKJV) 15 “Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

That's the reference. Now we know what he's talking about. This is that part of the story in Abraham where God gave him this huge promise. It's a multifaceted blessing. I will bless you and multiply; I will multiply.

you and your descendants will be like the stars of the heaven and like the grains of the sands of the sea. But then he says this unusual thing in verse 18. He says, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” Now how do we interpret that? May I give you a clue about how to interpret anything in the Old Testament?

Let the New Testament interpret the Old Testament. If you want to understand the Bible, read it from the back, read it from this side, and let that side be the “lens” through which you understand the Old Testament. And so here's what the apostle Paul says about that word, “seed,” in verse 18. “In your seed all the nations.” He says in Galatians 3:16 (NKJV) Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made.

He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.

Know this. To rightly understand scripture is to look for Jesus on every page.

Yes, we're in there, it's about us, but it's primarily about God. And more specifically, it's a book about Jesus and it's about the Christ. And this seed that was promised to Abraham. Yes, Isaac was that.

Yes, but it meant this seed that was coming would be the Messiah that would bring all nations to the Lord. And so, this seed comes to Abraham through Isaac, through Jacob, through the line of David, this seed, Jesus. And we see that he patiently waited, this Abraham. Verse 15, “And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.”

What part of the promise did he obtain? He obtained the part of the promise of his son, Isaac. He got Isaac. He didn't obtain the whole promise.

We want to find out, as we keep reading in Hebrews, we get over in eleven and twelve that he didn't get the whole thing because Jesus’ coming was in the future. But he got part of the promise here. He got the part that Isaac was given to him. And so we see this reality now. What about this

”heirs of the promise” in verse 17? It goes on to say, now, he takes a little segue here in verse 16 before I get to that, “For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.” So he's stating something we already know. This is what people do.

They swear by something greater than themselves. They'll say weird things like, ‘On my mother's grave.’ What does that mean? Why do people have to do this? Because we lie.

We say these things to try to somehow make it as if we don't lie. But here God gives us an oath just to give us a double confirmation. Verse 17, “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath,”

Now, who are the heirs of the promise? That's us, beloved. Heirs of what promise? The promise given to Abraham.

I'm not jewish. How did I get in there? How did I get in there? How did I get in part of that Abraham blessing? Well, here's what Paul says

in Galatians 3:29 (ESV), “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”

We got “grafted” in. We got in there. So this whole, big promise given to Abraham back there in the book of Genesis becomes ours through Jesus, so that we, too, are offspring of Abraham by faith.

Remember what I told you last week? The author of Hebrews is saying, ‘If you're going to be childish, if you're still young, you're not going to get this, but if you're trying to grow up, you're going to dig in and you're going to understand what I'm saying to you. Hey, you too are children of Abraham because of faith.’ And he makes this oath, and he guarantees it with an oath, in verse 18, by two unchangeable things. Okay, now what are the two unchangeable things?

Well, if we “back up the bus” to verse 17, he said, “unchangeable character of his purpose.” So, perhaps one of the things he said that it was purpose. And I suspect the other unchangeable thing is His promises. So the two unchangeable things are probably His purpose and His promise, although some suspect it might be His oath and His promise.

It depends on how you read it. He said, “unchangeable character of his purpose,” so I think it's probably purpose and promise. Those are the two unchangeable things.

It is impossible for God to lie. It's impossible for God to lie. Doesn't the Bible say that all things are possible with God? Yes, it does. The angel Gabriel told that to Mary.

But there are some things that are impossible for God to do. It's because His nature, His character, is all truth and no room for falsehood. One commentator says, “His not being able to deny Himself is a proof, not of weakness, but of strength incomparable.” He's unable to lie.

The book of numbers says Numbers 23:19 (NIV) “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” God never lies. He keeps all of his promises.

And speaking of Abraham, Paul wrote this in Romans 4:20-21 (ESV) 20 “No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” You know, Abraham came to the promised land without having ever seen it. Then, at the age of 75,

God says to Abraham, ‘You're going to have a son. Your barren wife, Sarah, who's already too old to bear. She's going to have a son.’ He tells Sarah, and of course, it happened next year, right?

No. Twenty-five years later, he patiently waited to obtain this promise. Twenty-five years later, he's 100 years old. I think Sarah was like 90 years old. Now, I don't know how many people here, if

you're 75 years old, you feel like it's time to start having kids. I don't know that this is in the Bible to give you a proof text. This was a miracle.

This was a miracle. He made him a promise. And Abraham tells his wife, and they're trying to cling to the promise. They actually tried to help God, and that didn't work,

with Ishmael and Hagar and all that. But they waited 25 years. They were faithful. That's what Paul's talking about. That's what the writer of Hebrews here is talking about.

In a world where people fail us, where even the best intentions sometimes fall short, it's easy to become cynical about promises. Maybe your daddy promised, when you were a little boy, to take you fishing but he never did get around to it. Maybe your mama said, ‘I'm going to teach you how to make this or how to do this.’ Or maybe you're a little girl and your daddy promised to take you fishing.

I have to be careful about how I stereotype these things, don't I? And you've never gotten over that wound. Well, know this. People can lie or they can mean well, and they can't even live up to their own good intentions. But God cannot lie.

And He has made promises to Abraham that account to you through faith in Jesus, that have a double oath connected to him. He cannot lie. He can't change His purpose. He can't change His promises. We can keep hope because His character is faithful and unchangeable.

And now here we are at the third reason. We've said we can be assured of his justice. We can be convinced because of his unchanging character. And then finally:

3. Because we can be anchored in God’s Son.

Why? Because Jesus Christ is our anchor. He is our hope. Our hope is a person. Our anchor is the person of Jesus Christ.

He has entered into the very presence of God on our behalf as our great high priest. We're in the last two verses, aren't we? We're in verses 19 and 20. We've gone verse by verse. And now here we are.

We have this. Have what? What's this? Hope. Verse 19, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,”

”A hope,” in case you weren't sure about what this is, is a hope that enters into the inner place, beyond the curtain. Where Jesus has gone as a forerunner. What's a forerunner? That's one who scouts ahead. That's one in military terms, who takes point and takes all the trouble that goes with being at point, even unto death, in order to scout out the pathway.

First, he's a forerunner on our behalf. And then the author here surprises us by getting back to what he had said in chapter five, verse ten, which he meant to tell us more about. But he had to do a little parentheses and say, ‘Now wait a minute. I can't tell you about Jesus being from the line of Melchizedek because you're still a bunch of children and I have to keep feeding you milk. You are still sucking on your pacifier.

You can't eat. You don't have the teeth to eat meat yet. I wish I could tell you about Melchizedek and what all this means, but…’ So he took, from 5:11 through 6:19, like a parentheses to get us back. Now he's back.

Now he is going to tell you about Melchizedek, which we won't get to fully today. You have to come back next week because that's where he's headed. But he took a little break in order to shake up his hearers and his readers in order for them to really hear it. And so he says that we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor.

Do you see this? What is an anchor? It's that which keeps ships from drifting in the waves so that they can stay in the right place. Hurricane anchors are anchors that you put on your mobile home so that it won't blow away when a hurricane comes. I don't know what it is about hurricanes, but they seem to target mobile home parks.

Have you ever noticed this? And so my wife and I, when we first got married, we lived in a 12 x 55 mobile home. So I remember, I was a real stud. I said, “Here's the home, my wife” and I carried her across the threshold of a big old 12 x 55 mobile home.

We lived in a straight line for some time there in that little mobile home. But I remember the state law there was that you had to put hurricane anchors on the thing so it wouldn't get blown away. So that's what an anchor does. It keeps you from drifting. Remember back in Hebrews, chapter two, when we were studying last Fall, that there was a warning?

He said, Hebrews 2:1 (ESV) “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” It's kind of like he's coming back to it and he says, ‘You know what will keep you from drifting is if your hope is anchored in the person of Jesus. That'll keep you from drifting. That'll keep you anchored. That'll keep your hope not in present things, but in the person of Jesus.’

And what's this passage about? Well, he's using all kinds of imagery here. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Now, how does hope walk? Oh, this hope is Jesus.

Hope is a person. So this Jesus, this hope, enters into what? The inner place. What's that? That's the Holy of Holies.

Not the type which was the temple, but the real which is in heaven. You see, the earthly temple is only a foreshadowing or a type where its reality is in heaven with the Lord. And so here is Jesus, the great high priest, and He is going beyond the veil, beyond the curtain, into the Holy of Holies, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner. And so the inner place beyond the curtain was where the great high priest in Israel could go into the temple. He could only go one day a year, and that was on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

And he had to go in carrying the blood of the lamb, and he would spread it on the mercy seat, which was the lid of the ark of the covenant. And he did that for the sins of the people. But here we have Jesus, who comes as the lamb of God, carrying not the blood of lambs, but of His own blood. And He comes in past the curtain into the Holy of Holies, and He offers His own blood on our behalf.

God has made this promise that this promised seed would come through Abraham. And then here He is. Now I can get back to the part of the story that I wanted to tell you, that He precedes the line of Levi, He precedes the line of Aaron.

He's the great high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. And Melchizedek, his name in the Hebrew should clue you in. “Melchi” means king in Hebrew, and “zedek” means righteousness. He's the king of righteousness. He's the king of Salem, which means the king of peace.

He comes bringing bread and wine, which is like imagery of the Lord's son and Abraham offers him a tithe. Who is this Melchizedek? Well, we're going to learn more about him later. But Jesus comes according to the order of Melchizedek.

What can we learn from these last two verses? First of all, our hope is a living hope. First, Peter says, 1 Peter 1:3-5 (ESV) 3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Here's what he's saying: here's Jesus.

He's carried all that belongs to us now as a forerunner, and He's gone on ahead. And we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. And so there's the sense in which position we're already there. That's how much this hope is true. We're already so assured that we're already there.

He's gone as a forerunner for that which belongs to us. I don't know how your 401k or your savings account is doing. It kind of goes up and down, doesn't it? But this future inheritance cannot be touched. It's in Jesus, kept in heaven for you.

Now, you might say, ‘Who do these promises belong to? I wish this promise belonged to me in this book of promises, from page to page, I wish it was mine.’ Well, here's the answer to the question, in case you were wondering. Here's what the book of 2 Corinthians says, 2 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV) “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.

And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” What promise do you need? What do you need? What promise? What promise do you need to put your faith and your hope in today?

It's “Yes, inJesus,” because He is our hope. He is our forerunner. He is our salvation and our Savior. Are you feeling overwhelmed by life's challenges? Do you feel like you might be drifting spiritually?

Take hold of hope in Jesus afresh. You've heard me say this before if you've been coming to our church for some time. But Christian hope is not just wishful thinking. It's not just saying, ‘I hope it doesn't rain.’ No, Christian hope is more like a rope.

It's anchored on both ends. On one end, it's anchored in the empty tomb. The historical fact that Christ is raised from the grave, it's tied off on this end. Our Christian hope is anchored in the historical fact that Jesus is raised from the grave. And then it passes through the present, this rope, all the way into the future, beyond the curtain, beyond the veil.

We can't see it, but it's tied around the waist of Jesus. And He's our great high priest who's entered into the throne room to the mercy seat of God. And here I am today in the present. I'm not there yet, but I can hang on to this hope. And when the storms come, it's anchored on both ends.

And you know what? I can't make the storm stop, but I can hang on. I can hang on to hope. And the One who said, “Peace be still,” is the One who can deal with the storm. It's a greater hope. I don't know what you're facing today, but he says that better things are ahead.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus. I pray, first of all, for that person that's here today in my hearing. Maybe they're in this room or they're in our venue next door. Maybe they're watching online, wherever they are.

Lord, I know you're listening. I just encourage you, if you've never given your life to Jesus, to pray right now. ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I repent of my sins and I turn to You. I believe You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today.

Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. I want to be a follower. I want to follow you as my lord and savior. Make me a child of God.’

If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. Others are here today. And beloved, you're a believer, but you've been sluggish in your faith. You've been drifting. You've lost hope.

Take hold of Christ afresh. He says, “I'll never leave you nor forsake you.” So who moved? ‘Right now, Lord, I take hold of You afresh. I recommit my life to You. Fill me with joy and fill me afresh with Your Holy Spirit, that I might cling to the hope I have in You, Lord Jesus. We pray it in that holy name. Amen.