Sermon Tone Analysis

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message.

The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Mary and I have been watching a unique television game show called “The Hustler”.

There are five contestants in each episode and they have to work together to answer 10 questions worth $10,000 each.

But there is a catch.

One of the contestants is the “hustler” and that person already knows the answers to all the questions which are based on his or her life.

So that person has to lie in order to keep the others from identifying him or her as the “hustler”.

If he or she is successful, that person gets all the money.

If not, two of the other players split the pot.

Out of the 19 episodes aired so far, I think Mary and I have each correctly identified the “hustler” maybe 3 times.

which means that there are either some really good liars, or we’re just really bad at picking them out.

But given that the hustler wins about half the time, I guess we’re not alone.

In some ways, that game show reflects our culture, in which someone’s word often doesn’t mean much.

We live in an age of loopholes and broken promises where unfulfilled wedding vows and politicians who lie constantly are expected and accepted as part of life.

Tension

And unfortunately, those attitudes can easily spill over into our ideas about God.

I don’t know of anyone, even atheists, who would claim that God lies.

But I do think that there are many, even some who are genuine disciples of Jesus, who are tempted, at least at times, not to believe in God’s promises.

And that is especially true when we’re going through storms in our lives.

Truth

Today will mark the end of our study of the book of Hebrews for now, but we will pick up with chapter 7 some time next year.

And this is a really great place to take a break.

After the last couple of weeks of sober warnings about failing to grow up spiritually and the dangers of falling away from Jesus, the author of Hebrews turns to some much needed words of encouragement.

So I’m going to begin this morning with the main idea we’ll be developing today and then with that in mind, we’ll dig into the text.

The confident expectation of my future salvation anchors my soul in my present storms

Once again, we find a section of Scripture that begins with the word “for”, which means that it is further explaining that which came right before it.

So let’s look back at the last two verses of last week’s passage and see what that connection is here:

We didn’t spend a lot of time on those two verses last week, other than to point out that the author of Hebrews was not trying to get his audience to question their salvation, but rather to encourage them to have “full assurance of hope until the end”.

So the passage we’re looking at today is providing the reason they can have that assurance.

This is probably a good time to talk about the word “hope” that was used there in verse 11 as well as in today’s passage in verses 18 and 19, where we are encouraged to hold fast to our hope.

I’m reminded of the man whose neighbor was a frequent fisherman.

One day he asked that neighbor how the fishing was going.

“Better,” he replied.

“Last week I went out for four hours and didn’t catch a thing.

Yesterday, I got the same result in only three hours”.

As a fisherman myself, I can relate to the idea that most of us are incurable optimists.

But while biblical hope is optimistic, it is certainly different from worldly hope, which is usually just wishful thinking about what we’d like to happen - like I hope I win the lottery even though I know there is only a 1 in 300 million chance that is going to happen.

Biblical hope is not based on mere fantasy.

It is, as we will see this morning, based on the certainty of God’s promises.

That is why I have used the term “confident expectation” in our main idea this morning.

In order to convince his readers of the fact that they can count on God’s promises, the author uses the example of Abraham.

Why Abraham?

I think there are at least a couple of reasons:

Abraham preceded Moses and the Law by over 1,000 years.

So for those Jewish Christians who were tempted to go back to observing the Law as the basis for their relationship with God, the author is pointing out that long before the law was ever established, the only way to a relationship with God was by faith.

Abraham was the perfect illustration of a man of faith.

When we get to chapter 11, we’ll see the author devotes a good portion of that chapter writing about Abraham.

Abraham was certainly far from perfect, but we see him trusting God time after time, even to the point of lifting the knife to sacrifice his son Isaac.

He trusted God against all odds and found Him to be faithful.

The promises of God were a sure anchor for Abraham.

So it’s not surprising that Paul also uses Abraham as an example of righteousness coming through faith in both Romans and Galatians.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ABRAHAM’S EXAMPLE

God’s promises can be counted on because of:

In verse 18, we discover that there are two unchangeable things that guarantee that God’s promises can be counted on.

Most commentators believe those two things are God’s promise and His oath, and I don’t disagree with that.

But I think it is helpful for us to consider that those promises can be counted on because of...

His character

In verse 17, we are told that God’s character is unchangeable.

And in verse 18, we are reminded that it is impossible for God to lie because that would not be consistent with His character.

So when God makes a promise we can count on it just because of who God is.

When God made the promise to Abraham to bless him and multiply him, Abraham was able to hang on to that promise even when circumstances made it appear that it would not come true because he trusted in the character of God.

And we can do the same.

His oath

In Abraham’s day, when a covenant was made, it was sealed in a unique way.

The two people making the covenant would take an animal, cut it in half, lay a piece of the animal to each side and then walk between the two pieces.

This was known as “cutting a covenant” and it signified their commitment to keep the terms of the covenant.

In Genesis 15, God has Abraham take some animals and cut them in half and lay the parts to the side.

Then God puts Abraham into a deep sleep and while he is asleep, God passes between the halves of the animals.

So Abraham isn’t even part of the covenant.

Essentially God makes a covenant with Himself.

The covenant was not conditional on anything that Abraham did, It was an unconditional covenant that God made to bless and multiply Abraham.

We can count on God’s promises for the same reason Abraham could - God’s character and His unconditional covenant.

God’s promises often require perseverance

Abraham, who was still named Abram at the time, is first called by God to leave his home and go to a land that God will show him at the age of 70.

He is 75 when God first makes His promise to bless Abraham and to make him into a people who will bless all the nations of the earth.

At the age of 86 Abram and Sarai get impatient so they decide to take things into their own hands and Abram conceives a son with one of Sarai’s servants.

And Ishmael is born.

It is not until Abraham is 100 years old, 25 years after God had first made the promise, that Isaac, the son of promise, is born.

Even then, the final fulfillment of God’s promise didn’t come for another 2,000 years when Jesus comes to this earth.

That is why Jesus proclaimed this to some of His Jewish followers:

Today, we wait, much like Abraham, for the final fulfilment of our salvation that will be inaugurated with the return of Jesus.

It is likely that many of us won’t see that final fulfilment in our life here on this earth.

But Jesus’ promise to return and inaugurate an eternal kingdom under His reign is just as sure as the promises God made to Abraham.

Our anchor is secure on both ends

In verse 19, we are told we have a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul”.

But what, or who, is that anchor?

The text is a bit ambiguous here and it could refer to God’s promises, or to our hope, or to Jesus.

But I don’t think we’re really forced to choose since those three are all so interconnected you really can’t separate them.

This is the only place in the Bible that the metaphor of an anchor is used.

And like an anchor of a boat keeps it from drifting, the anchor for our soul keeps us from drifting away from God.

The anchor of a boat keeps the boat from drifting by going down into the water and connecting to something solid and immovable.

Our soul anchor goes up, into the heavens where Jesus has already gone before us as our forerunner.

He is in the “inner place behind the curtain”, which is a reference to the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, and later the Temple.

Once a year, the high priest would enter behind that curtain and make sacrifices on behalf of God’s people.

But he had to do that year after year.

Jesus, on the other hand, is now permanently in the presence of God, where, having finished His work on the cross, He is now seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf.

So it’s pretty clear that that end of the anchor is firmly secured.