Hebrews 6:13-
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Shawshank Redemption
Brief Plot overview
Accused of murder but was not guilty ends up escaping.
Andy makes a friend. Red and Andy and Red talk about what they will do if they ever get out of prison.
The Ending-Andy actually escapes. Red finally gets parole and he find money Andy had left him in a field. He boards a bus to go to Mexico to find Andy.
"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.
I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
I hope."
The movie ends with the two of them reunited again on a beach in the pacific.
I that movie, you didn’t know how it would end. Red’s hope were in things uncertain.
With believers, its different than that. We don’t hope in things uncertain. Our hope is secure.
What does it mean to hope as a believer?
Last week, we left on with verse 12. I want to read that verse because it sets up this verse.
so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
The Necessity of Faith and Patience
The Necessity of Faith and Patience
So, just as a review he is urging the audience here to not be sluggish when it comes to their Christian walk.
He is urging them to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
In verse 12, he mentions faith which is trusting in God and then patience, that is waiting on God.
Just as an aside here, For me at least, at times I fail to see how closely these these two things are tied.
Here is what I mean, If i say I trust God and yet, I display impatience with God, I am showing that I don’t really trust God.
Because if I truly trusted God, I would trust his timing as well.
Faith and Patience go hand in hand. They are inseparable qualities for the Christian.
The more we trust, the more patient we become, because we know God to be good.
But boy is that hard.
It’s hard to wait.
Nobody likes to wait.
We live in an instant society where everything is at our fingertips.
Fast Food-Text Messaging- Face time- Online Streaming, online dating- Online ordering- Next day Delivery with Amazon Prime. All at the click of a button. What a time to be alive! Those are blessings and it does show how far we’ve come.
But with all of that increased technology and capability, there may an unintended consequence of us having completely forgotten how to wait.. especially on God.
We believe we should have our prayers answered now. What we want, now. No waiting.
But that is problematic when we look at how God has operated according to the biblical record.
There is no on demand with God. He is the one who is sovereign. Not us. He’s in charge.
So in light of that, how are we to live as Christians, when it comes to waiting on God?
Thankfully, the author of Hebrews gives us a biblical example of trust and patience right here to explain how our faith and patience should be.
Just to remind you, He tells us in verse 12 that we are to imitate those “who by faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Now he is going to explain WHO he means by that.
Who in Scripture exemplifies the qualities of faith and patience? None better than Abraham.
He uses the example of God’s promise to Abraham, and the need for Abraham to trust him and to be patient.
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.”
God swore by Himself. And He does this because there’s nothing greater he can swear by. We will deal with this more so in verse 16.
At this point you should know that what We see in Genesis, that God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, 17, 18, 22. In all those passages, God promised Abraham that he would bless him. That he would make this man who had no children, a great nation, and not only that, he would also through him ALL the nations of the earth would be blessed. And He swore by His own name.
Bear in mind, Abraham must have been taken off guard that God would make him into a great nation. He didn’t have children.
And Abraham was given the first promise of children at age 75.
So He was old and his wife Sarah was old. According to Genesis 18, they both knew they were physically “unable” to bear children.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing.
But the whole point is that the promise of God was not dependent upon Abraham or Sarah’s ability to bear children.
God would give them the child. God would fulfill this promise.
In Genesis 15, God cuts the covenant with Abraham.
You should go and read that passage later, but for now I’ll do my best to explain it.
In Genesis 15, God tells Abraham cut a cow, a goat, and a ram in half and lay them on the ground. Now I no that is kind of weird, but this is how they made a covenant.
An animal was sacrifice and laid down on the ground.
Basically, they would divide the animal, and the one making the covenant, the one on whom the oweness of the covenant was would pass between the animal, he would walk between the two pieces of the animal, essentially saying, “If I break the covenant, let what has been done to this animal, be done to me.”
In Genesis 15, God in the form of a smoking oven is the one who passes between the two pieces. And God illustrates that he is the one taking the oweness of the covenant upon himself.
In other words, he is swearing by Himself. He is saying he will accomplish this covenant.
God not Abraham passes between the pieces.
Which is to say, the promise being kept, is dependent upon God not Abraham’s ability.
So again, the whole point is that the promises was not dependent upon Abraham or Sarah’s ability to bear children.
God would fulfill this promise.
According to verse 14, this is the promise.
saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.”
And God did.
But God did it in His timing.
Abraham had to patiently wait. He tried to rush things if you remember and tried to accomplish God’s promise for Him.
He had relations with Hagar, but that was not how God intended to fulfill His promise.
Ishmael was not the son of promise.
The Son would come through Sarah as God said. God didn’t need Abraham to sin in order to accomplish his purpose. God needed Abraham to be patient.
25 years go by after Abraham is first promised by God that God will multiply and then Isaac is born. God did what he said he would do in giving Abraham a son.
But then something interesting happens again. Do you remember what happened?
God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Can you imagine the crisis of faith at this moment? Really? I’ve finally gotten what you promised and now I have to sacrifice my own son. Abraham was learning faith and patience.
Genesis 22 tells us
So Abraham gets up the next day, takes Isaac and they go where God told them to make the sacrifice.
Abraham was all the way to the point of even taking the knife in his hand to slaughter his own son, and God stops him and provides the sacrifice.
And its there in Genesis 22:17 where God will tell him.
indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
The author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 11
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Abraham had faith in the promises of God.
God had told Him he would bless him through Isaac. and Abraham believed.
And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.
Here we see the necessity of faith in the life of the believer, and while yes we must be patient and have faith, God is not asking us to do that blindly.
YES, faith is required but it is not blind faith.
He didn’t ask Abraham to do it blindly.
God told Abraham his intentions from the beginning was to bless him.
He gave him his promises. It was up to Abraham to trust Him.
But why should he?
The Reason for Faith and Patience
The Reason for Faith and Patience
Look what he says here in verses 16-18
For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.
When you and I swear or make oaths, when we make big promises, we do so by appealing to a higher authority.
When the POTUS takes the office and takes the presidential oath of office, he places his hand on the Bible.
He says these words:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Not sure how long that will be there, but it is now.
The reason it is there is because the promise appeals to the highest possible authority.
But when God makes a promise or gives and oath, there is no higher power than himself, so he swears by Himself.
In other words, God’s promise to Abraham was insured by God by God’s own name and he did it not just for Abraham but for us as well.
Look in verse 17
In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,
God desires to show the heir of the promises.
Who are the heirs of the promise? The heirs of the promises given to Abraham are the children of Abraham. Who are the children of Abraham?
Listen to what Paul says in Galatians about this very thing.
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
Those of faith are the heirs of the promises. We are blessed WITH Abraham.
So going back to verse 17.
God desires to show the heirs of the promise (those who are of faith) the unchangeableness of His purpose.
Now this is amazing to me.
In verse 17 there is a distinction made between God’s promise and His purpose.
Do you see that? Read it again.
God’s purpose is that which is eternally set in the mind of God that he will accomplish in His creation. God has a purpose set in his mind to do.
God’s promise is the revealing of that plan. He has made his purposes known to us in the form of promises.
He stoops to our level, to speak to us in our language, so that we can know the mystery of His will.
He gave an oath and he did this for good reason. Look at verse 18
so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
Two unchangeable things
God’s eternal purpose.
God’s eternal promises.
God’s eternal purpose- God will do what he set out to do from eternity past. He will save a people from every tribe, every tongue, and every language. That is his revealed will. And he seals it by making the promise to Abraham.
God’s eternal promise to Abraham- I will bless you, and in you shall all the nations be blessed.
And that blessing comes through faith.
We have good reason for faith and patience. We have good reason to grab hold of Christ and never let go.
He says this in verse 18.
so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
We have strong encouragement because-
We have God and His eternal purpose, and we have God’s eternal promises.
BOTH of which do not change. And God has promised that he will save those who cry out to him in faith and who patiently persevere in this life.
The blessing and hope for the believer and that in Christ, we are anchored beyond the troubles and struggles of life.
The last thing we see in this passage
The Hope of Faith and Patience
The Hope of Faith and Patience
Look in verse 19-20
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
The result of faith and patience is an enduring hope that Christ will sustain us through every trial, every pain, and every struggle.
The picture here is one of an anchored boat to a shore.
We have an anchor of our soul. One who has entered the veil.
Our hope is fixed. Our anchor is secure so long as he lives at the Father’s right hand.
Aw Pink- Because Christ has been where we now are, we shall soon be where He now is.
What is the purpose of this anchor?
The purpose to stay the boat. If you don’t tie up the boat, or anchor the boat, the boat will drift the boat will not stay.
Here he is saying that the anchor of our souls is the hope and faith we have in Christ.
For believers today, you should know the benefits of this:
That no matter what we are faced with in this life- if we are in Christ, the anchor of our souls remain unmoved.
So whether it is storms or winds. the boat stays not because of the strength of the boat. Its never about that.
The strength of anchor.
So whether it be a storm in life that cause us to doubt God. The anchor is unmoved despite the doubts and fears.
Whether it be temptation and even us stumbling into sin as believers, we may have the tendency to think that the anchor has shifted a bit. Nope. Its steady. We may have tipped for a minute, but the anchor pulls us back.
Whether it be unbelief and a lack of trust in the middle of sickness , pain, a worldwide pandemic, or presidential election, the hope of the believer doesn’t change. It remains firmly fixed on the shore.
Whether it be death it self, when our own bodies fail us, fight us against, or we become sick, and our minds begin to fail, there’s a sure and steady anchor and it holds fast.
Believer I know the world we live in right now seems uncertain. We are hoping many things right.
We are hoping this virus settles down. We are hoping for a vaccine. . We are hoping the chaos in our country settles. We hope we remain healthy. We hope our stocks will pick back up.
We hope we will have enough money to pay the bills this month.
All of those hopes are in things uncertain. We do not know how any of that will turn out.
But we are not hopeless.
Believer, you have every reason to be sure today that your eternal hope in Christ is secure.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
Have faith and be patient.
Unbeliever, there is no hope apart from Christ- Share the Gospel.
Pray