The Immutable Promise

0:00Morning. It's uh good to have um to do things different uh at times uh and to step in and just have some different flow in the morning, but um it does kind of throw me off my rhythm. It just doesn't feel the same. Uh open up to um open up to Hebrews uh chapter six. This is where we are this morning. We're gonna cover the rest of chapter six, uh finishing up, moving into chapter seven. Um this week we're covering a larger passage than we have in the past few weeks, which is 13 through 20. So chapter 6, verses 13 to 20. Uh I'm sure most of us have watched at least one of the many different um singing competitions or singing talent shows that uh are available for us to consume now. Um and inevitably, if you have, you have been introduced to a contestant on one of these shows. Usually, when you are introduced to them, they are kind of off by themselves, nervously or anxiously getting themselves ready. And immediately reflective music begins to play. And you get their backstory, right, of all the adversity that they have overcome in life to get them to where they are at that point. Those feel-good stories always end with the person saying something like, I never gave up because I just knew I was gonna make it. Or I couldn't quit because I promised my grandpa I would make it for them. Something like that. And the reason why those stories make it in every show is because they resonate so very well with us. As cheesy as they are sometimes, seeing how someone has overcome adversity or pulled through a particular situation is very inspirational. Seeing how someone pushed against all odds because of a promise that they made, and they made it through. Seeing how their circumstances and difficulties didn't distract them from where they were going. We could say that they displayed faith, patience. They demonstrated earnestness, perseverance, steadfastness. And I feel confident that the producers of American Idol or any of the other ones didn't intend to communicate gospel virtues. They were just trying to pull your heartstrings to get you to keep watching the show, right? But in light of general revelation, sometimes the truth of God and his word cannot be hidden. And that feeling that you get when you watch one of those intro stories, this is the same feeling that I want you to have this morning. Except you aren't just watching someone else's story. You can cue the overly emotional music right now. Because this story this morning will inevitably and hopefully, prayerfully, hit a little more closer to home. That's all the intro you get. Stand with me as we read Hebrews 6, uh, starting in verse 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 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, 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. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you again for your word. Please now speak for Christ's sake. It is in his name that I pray. Amen. There are many reasons we could point to as to why Abraham is such an important figure in the Bible. For the sake of time, I will jump into the biggest and most relevant reason for us this morning. If you are in Christ this morning, you are a recipient of the same promise that God first made to Abraham. As with much of what we covered in Hebrews, such ideas are explicitly supported by much of Scripture. Galatians 3, verse 29, Paul says, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So the writer of Hebrews, then here to begin, is drawing us back to Abraham, once more, and he will continue to, to ground our unity with Christ in the same promise that was made to Abraham. So let's look briefly then at that promise. You don't have to turn here unless you want to, but this is Genesis 12, 1 to 3. Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. What an incredible promise. One in which Abraham did not deserve, one in which he didn't do anything to earn, one in which he could not fulfill on his own or in his own power. And at first he was certainly a little hesitant to believe was even possible. Right. How in the world could Abraham, an older man, with an older wife, no specific notoriety or fame, ever become a great nation? Or through whom all families of the earth would be blessed? Abraham said as much to God, too. Oh Lord, what will you give me? He said. Somewhat of a rhetorical statement by Abraham. I'm old. My wife is barren and old, my heir is a member of my house, not even my own son. How is this promise even possible? This is Abraham practically looking at the desperation of his situation and saying, I don't know how that promise is possible right now. God in his mercy, though, gave Abraham some encouragement. This is Genesis 15, verses 4 to 7. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. And then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and it count, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. The encouragement God gave was to visually show him a representation of his promise and say, See all those stars? Those are the heirs, according to the promise I am making you. He didn't explain how he was going to do it. He simply reinforced his promise by illustrating to him what the final outcome of that promise would be. That was enough to stir the faith of Abraham in that promise, and our text, what we just read, said that Abraham believed. Then he believed. And the rest of Abraham's life was characterized by many acts of faith in that promise. Not the least of which was to offer his son Isaac, right, on the altar, knowing that God was somehow still going to fulfill that promise. It was his patience and his trust in the promise of God that against all odds, Abraham obtained that promise. And if you are here this morning, and if you are in Christ, that salvation has come down to you through the ages by way of the same promise that God made to Abraham so long ago. If you have trusted in Christ, then you are one of the stars upon which Abraham looked, and whom God promised Abraham he would make an heir according to that promise. You could say then that you, all of us, as Christians, were a long time in the making. If God has been so diligent and perfect in his promise to Abraham, and to the oath that he made for himself, do you suppose that he will forget about you now? If in Christ you are a part of this promise, a recipient of that promise through his oath made to Abraham, how is it possible for God not to deliver you to glory? Or Christ and Abraham and all of those countless other stars await for the fullness of that promise to come to pass. As sure as God is God, he will keep his promise to you. And that is the point that the writer of Hebrews makes next as he demonstrates the double surety of God's promise. He says, this is verse 16, for people swear by something greater than themselves in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation. I'll continue reading 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. Let's look at that oath real quickly that God made to himself, because that's referenced, swear he swore by himself in this oath. You can turn again if you want to. This is Genesis 22 now. Genesis chapter 22. I've already mentioned the sacrifice or the potential near sacrifice of Isaac, where the Lord Himself provided the offering. And this is just after that, Genesis 22, starting in verse 15. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. So not only does God make a promise to Abraham, that through him will come a great nation, a numerous people. And then here, for good measure, the angel of the Lord, which Genesis 22 says, which is more than likely, most likely the pre-incarnate Christ, the eternal Son, declares that the Lord, on account of Abraham's faith, swears by himself. That the promises he made will indeed come to pass. When someone desires to bolster a promise or give it an extra validation, they always swear by something greater than themselves, right? This is what the text says, and we know this to be true. Usually it's either God or oddly enough, people swear on their mother's grave, which is an interesting thing. I'm not quite sure why, but the point is to assure the recipient of the promise that the promise can be trusted. When God makes a promise, it can certainly be taken simply as a promise and trusted because God cannot not keep his promise, right? By nature of his eternal perfection and his eternal truth. So for him to swear by himself, an oath to keep his promise is purely for our sakes. The writer of Hebrews again says as much. To show more convincingly to the heirs of his promise, that's us, that his purpose is unchangeable. He is going to save, he is going to keep all who by faith trust in him to receive the benefits of his promise. He promises that. And to prove to all of those who read and hear his word that such a promise will never change, that such a promise will never be altered, he swears by himself that it will be done. And that's great, right? But he's God. He makes promises and he keeps promises. What specific value does that have for me and you today? Again, the writer of Hebrews makes this plain to us. So that, by two unchangeable things, that is his promise and his oath, 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. In the midst of all that this life will inevitably throw at us, all the trials and the triumphs, all the failures and the temptations, all of the worldly influences that seek to pull us out to sea, or to turn us away from God, to destroy our hope, we can have this strong encouragement this morning. Not in ourselves, not in our promise. Or because we just knew we could persevere. No, we will persevere and we will make it through life and we will make it to glory. Because our God has promised. Because he has swore to himself that he will give us an eternal blessing. That he will give us an everlasting inheritance. That he will give us timeless joy and peace in which he will be our God and we will be his people. And this is doubly certain. If you would only trust in his immutable promise. Further, God is not afraid of being reminded of this promise. Because he swore it on himself. So when life and sin feel like they are going to crush you, don't be shy to remind God, you promised to keep me, Lord. We can only be encouraged when we return again and again and again to his promise. That by faith all will truly be made well. I read that a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, his name is Armand Nikolai. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I'm not sure if he's even alive. Well, I'm assuming he is. He was quoted saying the following, and keep in mind that I'm not sure that this man is even a Christian. And he says, this was about 10 years ago, he argues that we are in a crisis of hope. And he says this: quote, our culture has forsaken its spiritual roots. And we live in an overly secular society without even the pretense of spiritual values. Many young people today feel that their cultures fail to provide an answer to questions of purpose and meaning and destiny. We fail, they feel, to provide some reason for hope. The consequence is that we are now in a cultural crisis and living in what is being called the age of despair. We can say then that perhaps the biggest crisis facing the world, which also happens to be the cause of much of the despair that we may feel at times, is a crisis of hope. The world is struggling. We are struggling. And our only real hope is to have our soul anchored to the promise of God. What a sure and steadfast anchor this hope is if we would only cling to it. Samuel Rutherford says this quote, our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as I imagine so, or it is likely. But the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor is the oath and promise of him who has eternal verity. Our salvation is fastened with God's own hand and Christ's own strength to the strong stake of God's unchangeable nature. What does an anchor do then? Among other things, it fastens a ship in place such that it is stable, right? It is secure. In a shifting, mutable sea, it is a tether to something solving. Solid, something immovable. To have our souls anchored then is to have a tether from our very soul, not down into the depths of the seabed, but up into the heavenly places, held firm in the unshakable grip of Christ, our solid rock, as we say. As Rutherford said, this cable is the oath, the promise of God in which we hope. And the author of Hebrews does something poetic here at the end of our passage, really in this final verse, with connecting the ship metaphor back to the high priestly illustration he began with before he made this short diversion in chapter six. And that connection comes with a reminder of Christ entering behind the curtain, our high priest as a forerunner on our behalf. And this explanation I'll read comes from Lewis Talbot, and he says this, I'll quote Greek harbors were often cut off from sea by sandbars, over which the larger ships dared not pass till the full tide came in. Therefore, a lighter vessel, a forerunner, as it was called, took the anchor in and dropped it in the harbor. From that moment, the ship was safe from the storm, although it had to wait for the tide before it could enter the harbor. The entrance of that small vessel into the harbor, the forerunner carrying the ship's anchor, was the pledge that the ship would safely enter the tarbor when the tide was full. And because Christ, our forerunner, has entered into heaven itself, having torn asunder everything that separates the redeemed sinner from the very presence of God, he himself is the pledge that we too shall one day enter the harbor of our souls and the very presence of God in the New Jerusalem. And that, of course, connects us back to the incredible work done for us by Christ as our high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. So to turn again where we started then, when the reflective music of your life plays, and someone asks you, how did you keep going through the trials and the temptations? When sin is racked you? When the hostile world has beaten you down? How did you still persevere and make it to glory? My prayer is that our reply to those questions would be the verse three of the song that we sang second this morning. All the way my Savior leads me. Oh the fullness of his love. Perfect rest to me is promised in my Father's house above. When my spirit clothed immortal wings its flight to realms of day. To put down your roots on those elementary principles of your faith, justification, sanctification, glorification. He warned us of the dangers of not being a mature Christian, growing in Christ. The danger of apostasy, of turning from Christ because you are not grounded in growing in the person of Christ by faith. He then warned us not to let such warnings cripple us, because by faith working through us in love, we can be assured that we are abiding in Christ. We are connected to him. And from that assurance, we are encouraged to be eager, to be earnest, to serve him, right? Finally, this morning, he anchored our souls in the surety of God's oath and promise. That we do not wish for glory or salvation. But with Christ as our forerunner, we have a tethered hope that when the tide is full, we will enter the harbor of eternal glory. And now, with all of that done, and with him returning to his reference to Christ's office as high priest, which he has done to finish this section, he is signaling to us that we are now ready to move on to the deeper truths of God's word, which is where he started but then diverted. It's as if Hebrews 6 is the prescribed diet to move from the milk to the solid food. And for us, now having received it, and I pray digested it well, we are now ready to move on to the meat. Now that our souls and our stomachs are ready, we can load up our plates with the T-bones and the tomahawks. And God willing, next time, that's what we'll do. Let's pray. Lord, to grow us up, to remind us of the stable foundation on which we stand. Lord, your salvation, your justification, your sanctification, and ultimately your glorification. We thank you this morning that you have once again grounded us in your promise. You've anchored our souls to the hope that we have in your promise and your oath. Lord, you know our hurts, our struggles, our trials, past, present, and future, Lord. I pray and ask that you would help all of us, Lord, to be anchored in your promise. That you will deliver us, Lord. That Christ has gone before us to prepare a place for us to meet him in glory. Lord, help us to rest in that promise, to cling to that promise, Lord. And in doing that, Lord, we are matured to handle the meat of your word. Lord, help us as we go into the coming weeks digging more into that, Lord. Open our hearts. We do thank you for everything that you give to us. In Jesus' name. Amen.