We are going to be in Hebrews chapter number six and we are
going to wrap that chapter up this morning.
Lord willing, let me ask you a question.
This is really personal.
How is your bracket doing?
Is it good?
Mine was good until Princeton.
And if you are not paying attention, they, I think we are
like a 16 seed, that one or whatever.
Kind of crazy.
My kids discovered March Madness this year.
We don't have a lot of sports on in our house.
I guess I am not as much of a man as I need to be.
But my kids discovered it as it go into school and I had put a
bracket out there.
My former staff that I worked on at Canvadas temple did March
Madness every year and we filled out brackets.
And every year I did the same thing.
I closed my eyes and I picked which ones were right.
And actually this year, I did it this year.
Here is the other thing I do and this kind of speaks to you.
I always have a point for my introductions.
It sounds like I am just trying to have fun.
But there is a point.
I always have a lot of confidence in myself that is not
well founded.
I name my team on the fantasy bracket thing whoever it is I
want to beat that year.
So this year is Ben Beats, Rob Hagee, which is a guy I used to
work with.
And then also because I am a very compassionate, loving father,
Audrey wanted to do a bracket too so we made our own group and I
called my name Ben Beats Audrey, which is probably not the best
name.
If you think about it.
So hopefully that won't go too badly.
But she is at this present time winning.
So that is not fun.
But Audrey is confident she is using this as a chance to talk
trash.
She was talking trash to me this morning and I don't really know
if I am discipling her well.
But anyway, that is what is going on.
But we always have a lot of confidence in things and sometimes
our confidence is not well founded.
Sometimes our confidence is well founded.
Sometimes our confidence is not well founded.
Imagine, let me ask you a question.
What is your assurance in life?
What is your confidence in life?
What are you confident in?
What are you trusting in?
What is assuring you?
People find assurance in a whole lot of things.
I think about those guys playing March Madness.
They have played basketball their whole lives.
They get through four years of college basketball to play at
that level.
And then in one game at the very end they lose and then basketball
for many of them is over.
Can you imagine putting your life into something and your
confidence into something and your assurance into something
and then in a minute, just like that, it is over.
It is done.
You say, yeah, I wouldn't do that with basketball, but did you do
it with your job?
Would you do it with your job?
Would you do it with your kids?
Is your reason for living your kids, you know your kids are going
to move out one day.
Yeah, I know it couldn't happen faster.
We want them to move out, right?
But if you are all of your assurance and your confidence and
your trust and what makes you all your identity is found in
basketball or your job or your kids, one day that is going to
be different than it is now, isn't it?
What about if all your confidence and assurance for life was
in money?
You ever notice money comes in and money goes out?
Who knows that money goes out?
Yeah.
What if your confidence for life, what if your assurance for
life was in banking?
How are you feeling right now?
Hopefully okay, right?
Depends on which bank you have.
What if it was in Washington, D.C.?
Yeah, right.
What if it is in relationships?
Can people let you down?
Absolutely.
That is your assurance for life.
But what about your assurance in death?
A lot of people put their assurance for what happens after
death in a whole lot of things.
Some people put their assurance in their good works.
Some people put their assurance in their religiosity.
They think that because they go to church on a weekly basis
that everything is going to be good between them and God.
And whatever happens to us after the end of this life,
it is going to be okay because I am a good person.
You ask people, hey, if you believe there is a heaven,
well, maybe there is a heaven.
If there is a heaven, why are you going there?
Are you going to go there?
Well, yeah, I think so.
Why do you think so?
I am a good person.
I never hurt anybody.
I never murdered anybody.
I never killed anybody.
Some people have their assurances in a lot of things.
And it is appointed on demand once to die after this is a
judgment.
You understand that?
We all put our assurance for our own salvation.
Whatever happens to us when we die in all kinds of things.
Today, I want to talk about what the text talks about.
Hebrews chapter 6.
And the writer of Hebrews is someone we don't know exactly
who it is.
Some people think it is Paul.
Some people think it is somebody else, other people.
The author never actually says his name in the text.
But in Hebrews chapter 6, we have gone through this passage all
the way up to verse 12.
But today, the author wants us to put our assurance for our
salvation.
What makes us know that we are saved.
What makes us live out our own salvation.
Knowing that one day we are going to die.
What is our confidence going to be in?
And he wants us to put our confidence in God and God alone.
That is the only thing you can put your assurance in that will
not let you down.
That is what he wants you to do.
In fact, he mentions two phrases that we are going to look at
today that I think is really just amazing.
One, he says down in verse number 19, you heard it as
Brother Royce proclaimed it, verse 19, which hope we have as
an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.
Who likes that phrase, theology?
An anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast.
He says in another place, we might have a strong consolation.
A strong consolation, that word for consolation as we are going
to see is another way of saying that is incredible comfort,
incredible assurance, incredible confidence.
Who votes for having a life where we can put our anchor in
something sure and steadfast?
Our consolation, our comfort, as bad as things are around us,
our anchor holds within the veil.
We just sang about that, didn't we?
That is our anchor holds within the veil.
I just got it.
You are going to get it too in a minute.
I never had something that occurred to me while I was
preaching, that is pretty cool.
Nothing ever occurs to God, nothing ever does.
He knows everything.
Today I want you to live in light of the person and promises
of God and when you do, it is going to give you the ability
to live with assurance.
And there are four reasons I want you to do that.
I want you to put all your eggs in the God basket,
all your eggs in the Jesus basket, all your eggs in the
Holy Spirit basket because that is the only hope,
that is the only confidence, that is the only assurance.
Listen, your money is going away.
Your wife or husband could go away, either by death or by
choice.
Banks are going away.
It is all leaving.
Trinity Baptist Church, as a gathered assembly on a regular
basis, that one day will be no more.
I hope it happens by the rapture, don't you?
Right?
What is your confidence in?
What is your assurance in?
When you live your life, how do you know you are living it
right?
How do you know that when you get to the end of your life
you are going to stand before God and He is going to let you
in?
How do you know?
If your answer to that is anything other than God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, you are confident in
the wrong thing.
Let's live with assurance in the person of Jesus.
Here are four reasons why you can do that.
Number one, because of God's incredible, incredible record
of promise keeping.
God has an incredible resume, an incredible record of promise
keeping.
Let's start in Hebrews chapter 6, looking at verse 11.
He says, and we desire that every one of you do show the same
diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end.
So now you see where I got my theme.
The theme of this message is assurance.
He says, I want you to live with assurance.
And that assurance is in hope.
And we are going to find out what that hope is in a few minutes.
The author shows this desire that they grow up and continue to
mature.
I am going to wrap all of that up in the end so you kind of see
where it is in this whole context of this whole message.
And so one of the greatest, this is all, the author is not
talking about whether or not you lose your salvation.
The author is talking about you being spiritually mature.
And he says, one of the greatest signs of maturity is growing
faith.
What is it that God wants to grow in us?
What does God want us to grow in?
He wants us to grow in our faith.
Our faith in him.
He wants us to believe in him and to believe him.
And to do that is to believe his word.
To believe it, not just believing it, oh yeah, that's right.
No, but to actually believe it in the sense that it's going to be
what we live out.
That we believe it in such a way that we obey it.
Knowing God's word is not enough, we got to obey it.
Knowing God's word is not enough, we got to live it out.
That's what it means to mature.
And so as we believe God, we obey him.
Look at verse 12, that you be not slothful, nothros,
dull of hearing, that you be not lazy.
But followers of them who through faith and patience
inherent the, what is it?
The promises.
So he's saying, don't be nothros, don't be dull of healing,
don't be unteachable, rather be followers of them who through
faith and patience inherent the promises.
The word followers here is the word mimicase.
It's where we get our word mimic from.
It's the idea of being an imitator.
The point is, here's what he's saying, act like people who
through faith and patience inherit the promises of God.
Act like people who have grown into maturity through faith in
God and inherited all of the blessings that God promised to
them through that maturity.
Who are these kind of people?
Well, verse 13, for when God made promise to Abraham,
because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself
saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I
will multiply thee.
So the author is saying, hey, I want you to live a life of
confidence in God.
When you live in confidence in God, God grows you through
faith, he grows you in maturity, and as you do that,
you're going to inherit all these promises that God has for
you.
He says, let me tell you about God's resume of promise making.
Remember Father Abraham?
He had many sons.
Many sons.
Had Father Abraham.
I am one of them.
So are you.
Remember Abraham?
God promised, he made incredible promises to Abraham.
Here's example number one.
What?
And he says here that when God made a promise to Abraham,
he did something, he ensured, he says, listen, you can trust me,
Abraham, I'm going to swear by something.
And it says, because he could swear by no greater,
he swear by what?
Himself.
Saying surely I will bless thee and multiply thee.
Now, when he made a promise to Abraham, he swore on his own name.
When did this happen?
You remember the scene in the Bible with Abraham where God comes
to Abraham and says, I want you to sacrifice your son,
your only son, Isaac?
God had promised Abraham.
You guys remember this?
God had promised Abraham, hey, you're going to be the father
of a great nation.
Look up at the stars, Abraham.
Your progeny, your people are going to be like the number
of the stars in the sky.
You're going to be like the number of the sands on the seashore.
You're going to have kids, and you know what the problem was?
He was old and he had no kids.
God made him a promise.
He's like, how is this going to work out?
You know, sometimes it's hard to believe God's promises
when you're in the middle of whatever you're going through.
He says he made this promise to him, and then after he actually
and Abraham did what all of us tend to do, sometimes you want
the promise of God, but you don't want to wait on God.
And so he went and tried to have kids with his sons,
what started with his wife's hand made, and that brought him
another son, and man, there's been all kinds of pain
that's come from that decision to this day.
But Abraham eventually did believe God, and he had this son, Isaac.
This was the son of promise, and God said, Abraham,
I want you to take your son, your only son, Isaac,
and I want you to sacrifice him to me.
Talk about having to believe God.
And so it says that Abraham got up early.
He took his servants, and he took his wood,
and he took his donkey, he took his son, and they went up
on that mountain.
At one point, Isaac even says, hey, Dad, I see the fire,
I see the wood, where's the sacrifice, and what did Abraham
say? God will provide himself a lamb.
He laid Isaac on that altar, and right as he was about to do
what God said, look at Genesis 22, 10, it'll be up on the screen.
Abraham stretched for this hand and took the knife to slay him,
and the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said,
Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here am I.
And he said, lay not thy hand upon the lad,
neither do anything unto him, for now I know that thou art
fearless God.
Sing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son for me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold,
behind him a ram, a substitute, caught in a thicket by his
horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up
for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh,
God, Jehovah will what?
Provide.
As it is said to this day in this moment of the Lord,
it shall be seen.
God stopped his hand.
He provided a substitute ram for Isaac.
And then in verse 15, God reaffirmed his word to Abraham.
And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham, verse 15,
out of the heaven the second time and said,
By myself have I sworn, sayeth the Lord,
for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld
thy only son, that in blessing I will bless thee,
and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars
of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore,
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies,
and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Who's that talking about?
Raise your hand.
We've been blessed by Jesus, haven't we?
Father Abraham had many sons, even in Finley, Ohio,
right.
If God would not have fulfilled his promise to Abraham,
he would have ceased to be God.
He himself, God reaffirmed his promise here,
and the reassurance to Abraham that he would fulfill his promise
to Abraham was himself.
He said, I swear on me.
He could swear on no greater.
He's the standard to which he held the trustworthiness
of his own words.
If God would have not fulfilled his promise to Abraham,
he would have ceased to be God.
He is the standard.
There is no standard outside and apart from God
that God submits to.
God himself is the standard.
Right is right because it reflects who God is.
Do you get it?
That's why God says, be holy for I am holy.
Look at what happened.
Back to our passage.
I'll read verse 13,
for when God made a promise to Abraham
because he could swear by no greater,
he swore by himself saying,
here's the promise.
Surely I will bless thee.
After he, Abraham, verse 15,
patiently endured, he, what?
Obtained the promise.
What happened to Abraham?
Is it warm in here?
Am I putting you to sleep?
Come on, stay with me.
He patiently endured.
This wasn't an active obedience.
He didn't just sit around.
When God told him to do something,
he believed God and stood up and did it.
When he was told that he would be a father of great nation,
not trying to be classier today,
but he and his wife did that,
which was necessary to be parents.
He believed God and then he obtained the promise.
He trusted God and God was true to his word
and to his character.
He was an example of verse 12.
Look back at your text.
Hebrews 6-12, that you be not slothful,
but followers of them who through faith
Abraham believed God and it was countered under him as righteousness,
who through faith and patience inherited the promises.
God gave father Abraham exactly what he promised him.
He had the son of promise.
He had trust in God.
He became the father of a great nation.
He obtained the promise.
And I want you guys to know this today.
We can trust that God is going to do exactly what he says he will do.
We can trust that.
We can live in light of that because God has an incredible,
incredible record and resume of keeping his promises.
Our God is a promise keeping God.
One way we know that is God was an incredible resume.
What God promised to Abraham, he did.
What he promised to Moses, he did.
What he promised to David, he did and is doing.
What he promised to Mary and Joseph, he did.
This can be also a terrifying thing.
What he promised Adam and Eve,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die.
God keeps his promises.
It can be an incredible thing to know that God keeps his word.
You can live in assurance of God and who he is and his promises
because of his incredible record of promise keeping.
Number two, because God's character is unchanging.
Number one is true because number two is true.
Are you with me?
Number one, he has a great record of it because number two,
God's character is unchanging.
Number three, God doesn't change.
Verse 16, for men verily swear by the greater.
And an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
You know, when we swear, when we make an oath,
we must swear on something greater than ourselves.
There have been circumstances in history
where large deals were affirmed by a handshake.
Do you remember a time in America where that was the case?
Where when you made a deal, you could shake somebody's hand
and sometimes trust, you often trust the person
because their word was their bond.
That hasn't been the case in most of all of history.
When you buy a house, there's a stack of paper,
a ream thick of all the things that must be signed.
Every new document that needs to be signed has some story behind it
of someone who cheated, stole, lied,
or did something else to get the advantage.
Am I wrong?
It's so funny when I was in Bible college,
we had a handbook and the handbook had all the rules
and the handbook got bigger every year
because we kept coming up with things that we would do
that they didn't put in the handbook.
So you go back to the rules in the handbook and go,
oh yeah, that one right there, that's Todd.
And that one right there, that's Jimmy.
Remember that?
My point is every new document has to be signed
because someone cheated, stole, or lied.
Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Person,
I'm buying this item from you can trust in me
because I'm John Doe.
Does that work?
This is not really an adequate solution for doing business.
We make oaths, but we do it based on something greater than ourselves.
You ever hear somebody say, man, I promise you,
I'll do it, I swear on my mother's grave.
What are we doing?
We're appealing to something bigger than ourselves.
When you go to court and you testify, what do you do?
Put your hand on the Bible.
You still do that, right?
You're swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth, so help me God.
We're pointing to something more sacred or greater than ourselves
so that people know how serious we are.
We sign contracts and bind ourselves legally,
making oaths that bind us.
But verse 17 tells me, it says,
wearing God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs,
the heirs of promise, the immutability of his own counsel,
confirmed it by an oath.
God did two things for Abraham that are talked about in this text.
He made a promise that promises what he would do for Abraham,
and then he made an oath.
He confirmed that promise with an oath,
and that oath was based on himself, his own unchanging character.
What was God trying to show Abraham and us?
His counsel is immutable.
This means his word does not change.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
When God obligates himself to something,
you can take it to the bank.
He's going to do it.
And God can swear by himself
because his character is in changing.
What God said he will do, period, end of discussion.
So it gets us to verse 18.
What was the point?
Verse 18, that by two immutable things,
his promise and his oath, that's what he's talking about,
by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie,
we might have a strong consolation.
You know what that means?
Not only does God not lie, that's his record,
it's impossible for him to lie, that's his character.
He doesn't lie, that's his record,
it's impossible for him to lie, that's his character.
He is, Jesus said it this way,
I am the way, the truth, and the life, right?
If he was able to lie, he ceases to be God.
He makes a promise, he makes an oath.
What does that mean for us?
Well, he says that we might have a strong consolation.
The word for consolation is periclaseus,
which means help or comfort or edification or encouragement.
It's also a word that is closely related to a word
that we use for the Holy Spirit, pericletos, comforter.
We call the Holy Spirit,
have you ever heard someone refer to the Holy Spirit as our periclete?
He's our helper, he's our comforter.
The character of God that is unchanging
can be a great comfort to us because we can always know
what God will do based on his word.
As Pastor Corey is going to talk about tonight,
there are some who question if there's a God
because of the evil that happens in the world.
They look at the evil that goes on and say,
there couldn't be a God because God wouldn't allow those bad things.
If there's a God, what if all these bad things happen?
But the truth is that they're holding to a standard
that God himself gave them and that without him
they would not know or hold.
If we are just the ends of accidental means,
if we are just the ends of accidental means,
if nothing blew up and made everything,
apart from a great designer,
then we're just moist robots
because we just do what our cells tell us to do.
You can't trust your brain because your brain is the end.
If all that happened was chance plus time
and that's how we got here,
you get my point?
Why do you trust your brain?
You're just thinking what you were accidentally conditioned to think.
But God has a standard.
The reason people don't want people to murder and kill
and steal and lie is because that's a reflection of who God is.
God's put that on our hearts, that law on our hearts.
Right and wrong is wrong because God himself is the standard.
Right is just a reflection of who God is himself.
We can take comfort in knowing that God's character is sure and predictable.
You know as I study this passage, this is amazing,
I literally experience the truth of this passage and the comfort that it brought.
He says here, we have strong consolation.
I remember the first time someone brought to me Hebrews chapter 6
and they brought it to my attention as a proof that we could lose our salvation.
They went to verse 4 and said, hey, look, we can fall away from salvation
and we can't repent anymore and you can lose your salvation.
What's amazing is if you just read verse 6 and you don't read it in the whole context,
you can get there.
You think, oh, I can lose your salvation.
But the truth of the matter is it's saying exactly opposite of that.
It's saying that God makes promises and you should live in light of those promises
because when God makes a promise, he doesn't lie.
You can live in light of the fact that God says, for instance,
for God to love the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Nothing can separate from the life of God.
That's the promise he's making.
The whole point that the author is trying to teach us is you can trust God.
The fear that comes from thinking that my salvation that I could not earn
was up to me to keep is more than stressful.
There's no consolation in thinking that I have to earn the right to keep my own salvation.
This passage is saying exactly the opposite of that.
You could not earn your salvation and you could not keep your salvation.
God is the one that keeps us because God keeps his promises.
He says, back to verse 18, that by two immutable things and which was impossible for God to lie,
we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
Stay with me in these middle miles. It will make amazing sense in the end.
He talks about in verse 18, he talks about us as refugees fleeing for refuge,
fleeing for hope that is set before us.
We're going to find out who that hope is in a minute.
The word that is used in the Greek here is the same one used in the Septuagint to speak of the cities of refuge,
something that God prescribed in the law.
Remember, these are Jewish people reading this.
When they heard this idea of fleeing for refuge, they go, oh, I remember what that was in the Old Testament.
In Numbers 35, verse 9, it says this, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when ye become over Jordan into the land of Canaan,
then ye shall appoint your cities to be cities of refuge for you,
that the slayer may flee thither which killeth any person at unawares.
And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger,
that the man slayer die not until he stand before the congregation in judgment.
Let me help you understand what he just said.
In the ancient world, and even in some of the parts of the world today,
there is reciprocity that comes when someone is part of someone's death.
I spoke with a friend this week, my buddy Adam,
who is a missionary in a part of the world where stop signs are just suggestions,
and where most everyone rides on scooters and mopeds and small engine motorcycles.
And he told me that here recently, his wife had been in a driving accident
where she was struck by somebody, a native from that land, who got hurt
because she is in a larger vehicle and he is on a small moped.
And he had a kid on the back and they got hurt, not majorly, but they got hurt.
And he told me that it was a real tense situation because in that part of the world,
any time there is ever any kind of accident, it is kind of automatic
that the Westerner, the American, is the one at fault even when they are not at fault.
And if the Westerner who has a lot more money than the average person there,
it is almost like this is my opportunity to make a lot of money.
And so you are almost automatically going to be guilty.
And there are times where there is a missionary, I read a book called The Peace Child,
talking about how that when different warring tribes in some part of the world,
when one person gets killed, then everybody has to avenge that killing.
And then when they do that, then all these people have to avenge that killing,
and right and left, back and forth, and it gets into this place where then tribes hate each other
and they are trying to kill each other and they go to war.
In the ancient world, that is what would happen, but sometimes things happen that are accidents.
Sometimes in the ancient world, the world has been a brutal place,
but you understand we live in a great time.
And so what God is saying here is there are times where stuff happens and people get blamed.
What we call manslaughter, right?
It is not murder or homicide with an intent, something that happens accidentally.
He says what God did is he set up a part of the law that said,
hey, if the person that was involved in that can get to a city of refuge,
then that city is going to defend them long enough to make sure that they get a just hearing
and that everything can get worked out and they won't just get killed by somebody else.
It becomes a city of refuge. Do you understand?
God prescribed cities of refuge from the Avenger, the person coming to claim the blood of another.
In this situation, that city was the hope for that person being avenged.
In our situation, here it is. Here is the illustration.
The very unchanging character of God is the hope that we should flee to and find refuge.
Jesus is our refuge.
The difference is we are guilty.
He is our only hope.
You should live a life of confidence and assurance for four reasons.
Because of God's record of promise keeping, because of God's character,
here is where this gets important to us.
Because of God's promise, it is made to us.
What good is God's promise keeping if he never made us a promise?
What good is it to us?
But God has made promises to us.
God has made promises to us.
Does that make you excited?
God who can't lie said he would do something for us.
And he's going to do it.
You can trust him.
His character bears it out.
His record bears out his character.
And he has obligated himself to us.
What do you mean?
Verse 19, which hope we have.
Which hope we have.
We have it.
I'm in a partnership with you when I preach that when I say something exciting,
you got to get excited.
The God of the universe has obligated himself to you.
There's a hope that you can have, that you can realize,
that lives in, that gives us confidence for eternity,
but it also gives us confidence in 2023.
We have an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.
Why is it so important that God has a promise keeping God?
Because he's made a promise to mankind, and that promise is our only hope.
In fact, he mentioned hope at the end of verse 18, the hope set before us.
Verse 19 clearly refers to it again.
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul.
It goes on to say, in which entereth into the veil,
even Jesus Christ.
Who's the strong consolation?
Who's the hope?
Who's the anchor?
My anchor holds within the veil.
Jesus is our only hope.
Sing with joy now, our God is for us.
The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress.
Did that what we just sang?
Did you sing with joy?
If you didn't, it's because it got past you.
2 Corinthians 5, 14, for the love of Christ constrained with us,
because this we thus judge that if one died for all,
then we're all dead, and that he died for all,
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him which died for them and rose again.
Wherefore hath hath hath hath no man after the flesh,
yet though we have known Christ after the flesh,
yet now hath hath hath no we, him no more.
Therefore, therefore, therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature.
The old things are passed away, be cold, all things are become new.
Jesus is our only hope.
He is our sure and steady anchor.
He is our strong consolation.
When life is crazy and people are disloyal,
and temptation is great, and it seems like Satan is after us,
and the sound system's not working the way we want it to.
And everybody, everything you hoped would happen doesn't necessarily happen.
When I have reason to doubt myself,
and I'm tempted to doubt my own salvation,
when I'm tempted to go back to what I did before I got saved,
and to act like that,
when I'm tempted to doubt the goodness of God,
when things aren't going the way I want them to,
when I'm tempted to think that God's not trustworthy,
when I'm tempted to start believing the news,
it's all fake news.
Or to believe more in the United States of America
and the free market that I believe in God.
When I'm in the midst of all the storms of life,
I want you to know,
I have an anchor of the soul.
Sure and steadfast, all that stuff's going away.
He will not.
The anchor is in the person,
the only hope we have, Jesus Christ.
When I fear my faith will fail,
Christ will hold me fast.
When the tempter would prevail,
He will hold me fast.
I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path,
for my love is often cold.
He must hold me fast.
He will hold me fast.
He will hold me fast for my Savior.
For my Savior loves me so.
He loves you.
You can't hold on to you.
He will hold me fast.
Those he saves are his delight.
Christ will hold me fast.
Precious in his holy sight,
he will hold me fast.
He will not let my soul be lost.
His promises shall last.
Bought by him at such a cost.
He will hold me fast.
For my life he bled and died.
Christ will hold me fast.
Justice has been satisfied.
He will hold me fast.
Raised with him to endless life.
He will hold me fast.
Till our faith is turned to sight.
He's coming back.
When he comes at last,
he will hold me fast.
He will hold me fast.
For my Savior loves me so.
He will hold me fast.
He is our anchor.
He is our strong consolation.
Why do you need to find your assurance in God?
Find your Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit?
Well, because he has an incredible record.
He does have an incredible record of promise keeping
because that's his character too.
He is.
If he stops being that, he stops being God.
And he doesn't change.
He cannot lie.
He's made promises to us which hope we have.
We have it.
Number four, because God's Son is representing us.
I'm glad I get my points from the passage
because it just ends here in this incredible way.
Back to verse 19, be here with me.
Which hope we have as an anchor for the soul,
both sure and steadfast,
and which entereth into that within the veil.
Whether the forerunner is for us entered,
even Jesus made a high priest forever,
forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Let's wrap this up in a tight bow.
Are you ready?
Going back to chapter 5 verse 11,
which is where this whole thing started.
Go back there real quick.
I don't think it's on the screen.
Hebrews 5, 11.
The Scripture had been telling us,
I've been preaching on it, 5, 1 to 9, 5, 1 to 10,
that we have an incredible high priest.
This priest is Jesus Christ.
You know what a priest does, right?
The priest represents us to God.
And in verse 5 verse 11, he kind of pauses
and says, of which we have many things to say,
talking about this priest after the order of Melchizedek,
and hard to be uttered,
seeing that ye are dull of hearing.
So he wants to keep talking about Christ as the high priest,
but he pauses and says,
now wait a minute, you guys aren't listening.
What I mean by that is you're not obeying,
you're dull of hearing.
You're immature because you're still stuck on,
you're still stuck on those primary things.
The Scripture had been telling us about this incredible high priest,
high priest Jesus, who's better than any priest
that had ever represented us to God.
He isn't an earthly priest that had to sacrifice for his own sins.
He was a perfect priest that never sinned.
He wasn't a priest for a while after the order of Aaron.
He's a priest forever.
He's a kingly royal priest.
Jesus is going to reign and rule from Jerusalem.
He's coming back.
He's our kingly royal priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.
He wants to say more about Jesus as priesthood,
but he had paused and said that this is where his readers were dull of hearing and slothful.
He told them that they were immature on a baby food diet and needed to be taught.
They weren't ready for meat, they were stuck on baby food.
So what he was telling when chapter 6 verse 1,
he tells these Jewish believers, in essence,
don't get to doubting that Jesus is everything I'm saying he is. Stop doubting.
Jesus is greater.
He's the greater high priest.
He's better than Moses. He's better than the angels.
And he's saying, you've tasted the heavenly gift.
You already know what the Word of God says.
You already know about this Jesus who's greater.
Don't go backward.
Don't go back to the old ways, the old ceremonies,
the old ways of thinking that you used to have before Jesus came.
Go forward. Why? Because you can trust God.
Don't go back to the past ceremony that pointed to Jesus and missed Jesus.
That's what he's saying.
When God makes a promise, he keeps it.
Move on. Grow up. Be mature.
God the Father has an incredible resume of keeping his promises.
God the Father has an unchanging character.
God the Father has made the promise to us and he cannot lie.
God the Father has given us this incredible hope in Jesus Christ
who now lives, ever lives to make intercession behind the veil.
In the Holy of Holies.
He's where God is.
The priest would go once a year into a veil
and he would pour the blood of the Lamb on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.
And that would where God's manifest presence would be.
And he was representing the people to God.
Jesus is our high priest who has gone to heaven and now sits in the Holy of Holies.
And he represents us to God.
My anchor holds within the veil.
People who wrote hymns read the Bible.
Not just a long time ago, even today.
And this hope isn't unsteady and unsure.
No, this hope is an anchor for our souls.
Sure and steadfast.
We can have a strong consolation because of God's good will for us.
There's a rest there for the people of God.
My faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed.
I trust the ever living one.
His wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument.
I need no other plea.
It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.
Enough for me that Jesus saves this ends my fear and doubt.
A sinful soul I come to him will never cast me out.
My heart is leaning on the Word, the written Word of God.
My salvation by my Savior's name, salvation through his blood.
My great physician heals the sick, the lost he came to save.
For me his precious blood was shed.
For me his life he gave.
I need no other argument.
I need no other plea.
It is enough that Jesus died.
Point to him he died for two.
He died for me.
If you are living for basketball or for your job,
if your anchor is trying to hold into this economy
or into a political party or to anything other than Jesus,
it is not sheer and steady.
If you are trying to base your salvation on something other than Jesus,
it is not going to work.
Your anchor holds within the veil.
Jesus is your only shop.
And then once you realize that and once you live in that
and once you believe that, man life can get like so much better.
Now it doesn't mean that you won't have storms.
He is an anchor.
Ships still go through storms.
But he told us, I'll never leave you nor forsake you.
His promises shall last.
So what's your anchor?
What's your anchor?
I know the Sunday school answer and some of you are saying it is Jesus,
but is it?
Is it?
If you are here today and you don't know Jesus as your savior,
I want you to know this.
God loves you so much that he sent his son Jesus Christ,
fully God and fully man, to come to this earth to live a perfect life.
He never sinned because he can't.
We call that the impeccability of Jesus.
He can't sin.
He was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin.
He kept the law that you could not keep and died the death that you and I deserve to die.
God poured out his wrath, his anger, his judgment for your sin on Jesus.
And if you would put your faith and trust, you repent from anything you're trusting in other than him.
You repent of you acknowledge your sin, you acknowledge that you're wrong.
You acknowledge that outside of him you have no shot at heaven.
And you put your trust, your faith in God.
I'm telling you, your faith will be well placed.
He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
So when you put your faith in that and your confidence in that, you become one of his kids.
He gives you a new identity.
You're one of his, you're a saint, you're in Christ.
And now you can go out and live.
And it's not that you don't do business and sports and fun.
It's not that you don't go live your life and have a family.
It's just that you do it as someone who's put their faith and trust.
You do it with assurance that those things aren't going to be what makes me right with God.
Those things, even if they go away, they're not my identity.
My identity is in Christ.
He is a sure and steady anchor for me.
And now I don't make idols of my kids.
I worship God and I love my kids.
I don't make idol of my work.
I love my God.
And I see God, I see work as a blessing from God and a platform for God to make a difference in the world for him who loved me and gave himself for me.
Do you get it?
You have a new assurance because creation doesn't replace the Creator.
That's why.
And if for some reason you're worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator, something's wrong.
And so, I'm calling you today to put your trust in Christ.
Not just for your salvation.
You're not saying do that, but also for your life.
What are you assured of?
What are you living in?
Where's your confidence? Is it in you or is it in Jesus?
I had to close your eyes.