If you have a Bible, let me in my turn with me to Hebrews chapter 6. This evening we're verses 13 through 20. Now let me help us remember how we got here. This is a passage about assurance, about the ground of our surets, the basis upon which we can have great confidence and personal assurance of our salvation.
Why are we here? Well at the end of chapter 5, the writer had called them out for spiritual immaturity. He had exhorted them also, then to let God carry them on to maturity. But he had also warned them in chapter 6 about those who fall away.
That is those who fully and finally fall away. And then in verses 9 through 12, he wanted to reassure them. And so he said in verse 9 that we speak in this way, yet in your case beloved we feel sure of better things, what things, things that belong to salvation. And then he ended at verse 12 saying, be imitators of those who through faith and patient inherit the promise.
So he wants them to persevere. And in that context of speaking of spiritual immaturity, apostasy, and yet assurance and perseverance, he wants them to know that they can keep going with Jesus. And so here in verses 13 to 20, he's not quite done with the issue of assurance. He wants to root their assurance in something steadfast and firm.
That is not in the ups and downs of how they're doing day to day spiritually, the condition of their hearts. To root their assurance not in their spiritual progress. Many of them were immature, hadn't become mature. He doesn't want to root their assurance ultimately in the warmth of their love for Jesus.
Though he knows that they love Jesus. He's already committed them for their love for God and for all the saints and their work that their faith produced, their service. But what he wants to root their assurance in ultimately here is in the steadfast, immovable, rock solid, unchanging God. So we want to think about the grounds, the basis upon which we may have assurance.
So let me invite you to hear it from Hebrews 6 verses 13 through 20. Remember 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 hopes 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. Amen.
This is God's Word. May He write it on our hearts, let's look to Him in prayer. Father, we ask that you would enlighten our eyes and the knowledge of Christ, that you would help us to know the hope to which you have called us, and what are the riches of your inheritance in the saints, and what is your immeasurably great power for us who believe, the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him above all rule and authority and dominion and for the good of the church. So come, oh, head of the church and strengthen your body in grace.
In Jesus' name we ask Him. Amen. Amen. God wants us to have assurance.
He wants Christians to have a firm and certain assurance of hope. That is, He wants His children to know that they are safe and secure in His love, even in the face of troubles, trials, and temptations. And this passage tells us our assurance comes not from our ability to hold on to Jesus, but His ability to hold on to us. That hope is so important for us to persevere in the Christian life.
Hope is necessary for that. A man tells a story of a little town up in Flagstaff, Maine, which had, they were planned for it to be flooded as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. And in the months before it was flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were going to be covered in water in six months?
I mean, why repair anything when the whole village was going to be wiped out and submerged under a lake? By week the whole town became more and more bedraggled, more gone to seed, more wobga, and then this man had it by way of explanation where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present. And spiritually that's true as well. To lose hope, to have no optimism for the future.
It's demotivated. When people, when Christians think they're always on the edge of being kicked out of the family of God, it eventually wears them down, wears them out, and a lot of people give up. If you think God is only as faithful to you as you are faithful to Him, if you think it's saving grace to you, it's something that's here today but it may be gone tomorrow, you'll end up, frankly, resenting Him. I mean, why?
Think of it. Because you'll end up feeling like God is treating you like a circus animal who only treats you well when you perform for Him and withholds His treats when you don't. And you can only jump through so many hoops before you fall and before you fail and before you grow exhausted, trying to prove how worthy you are to continue to be loved. At the end of that road is you'll end up hating God and walking away from Him.
But there's another way. And it is to be assured that God loves you with a never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking always and forever love. And that's what the author wants us to know, that God is a gracious, steadfast lover of our soul and that would invite them our response of love. And so assurance of what motivates, it helps us follow Jesus.
And the writer here points us to the grounds of our confidence and assurance. And he points us to three things. Notice in verses 13 to 15, the promise in oath of God. He also points us to the character of God in verses 16 to 18.
And then he finally points us in verses 19 to 20 to the son of God himself. And we're going to save that one for next week. But notice two things today. First the promise in oath of God.
Found in verses 13 to 15. Notice this verse 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by him to swear, he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham having patiently waited to obtain the promise.
And what's going on here? Well, the writer is trying to encourage these Christians. Christians who had come to believe that Jesus is their savior in Messiah, but who were opposed by family, opposed by friends, opposed by the community of faith they used to be part of as Jews and having embraced Jesus as Messiah, but their community, many not having done so. They faced ridicule, mocking calls to come back as well as disgust that they had as it were left.
And so the world was persecuting them. They were tempted then to turn away from Jesus and return to their old way. And so the writer holds out to them the example of Abraham, Abraham and the promise of God. And what's them actually to be imitators?
As we said at the end of verse 12 of those who threw faith and patience in Herod the promise. And so the promise quoted here is from Genesis chapter 22. You may remember the story when God commanded Abraham to offer up his son Isaac. Now before you get to Genesis 22, just briefly remember the sketch of the story.
It was in Genesis 12 that God appeared to him while Abraham was still an idol worship of the counties. And God showed himself to Abraham, revealed himself to be the true God called him to go to the land of promise and blessed him and promised him great blessing and a countless offspring. And it seemed incredible. I mean, Sarah had been thus far gone through life bearing that is Sarah, his wife.
Both had reached old age. They had no children. Sarah becomes past the age of child bearing. So who could believe that a people as large as the stars of the sky and the the the same of the seashore would come from two old people past their ability to conceive.
And yet we know in Genesis 15 that Abraham believed God. He trusted God in his promise and he was counted righteous. And then if you remember in the story, the very next chapter in chapter 16, Abraham shows that his faith, the genuine is incredibly weak. He asks for signs, of course, out of the weakness of his own faith.
God graciously gives him signs. But even still, Sarah and he, well, he listens to Sarah's plan, says their Baron, that they should go the route of the handmaiden to try to have children instead of waiting on God's promise. They decided we'll do by our flesh and our wisdom what God promised to do in his own way. And so they went that route and it wasn't God's plan and the child was not the promise seed.
And so they kept waiting. So 25 years before the promised Isaac was finally born. And God proved true to his promise that there was an offspring of Abraham. And then you remember that Abraham was tested.
God told him in Genesis chapter 22 to take Isaac and to offer him up on the mountain as a sacrifice to God. You find this in Genesis chapter 22. You may want to turn there or just listen in. In Genesis chapter 22, in verses 11 through 14, notice this exchange here, Genesis 22 picking up at verse 11, Abraham had reached out his hand in verse 10 to take the knife to slaughter his son as God had said.
But verse 11, the angel Lord called him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket of by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. As it is said at this day, on the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. So Abraham obeyed.
And just before he took that knife to slay his son, God stopped him, God intervened, God provided a ram as a substitute in sacrifice. And you may remember, of course, because we all just can't imagine being in Abraham's place. How could you go through with this? And you may remember that in Hebrews 11, the author there tells us that Abraham had believed God and that he believed that even if he should slay Isaac, God would raise Isaac from the dead.
He believed in the resurrection. But well, I'll do this, but I'll give my son back. And he did receive his son back, so to speak, the writer says. So it's at this point in the story where God swears the oath that we hear about in the book of Hebrews.
So again, in Genesis chapter 22, beginning at verse 15 through 17, notice this, the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself, I have sworn the players of the Lord because you have done this. And if not with Helgier's son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sin that is on the seashore. So what's going on?
Well, it's the story that of God doing exactly what he promised of Abraham believing the promise, waiting in hope, being given Isaac, being given back Isaac as it were from the dead. And God added in oath, having promised, he added to his promise in oath, surely I will multiply you. And that's directly quoted here in our passage in Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 14. It's a direct quote from Genesis 22 here.
Now Abraham didn't leave to see any of the children beyond Isaac, but there were many until in the story of the Bible to make a long story short. There was one descendant, Jesus Christ, and we who believe in Jesus, we are ourselves the fruit of this promise to Abraham, that he would have descendants as many as the stars of the heavens and sand of the seashore. We are, we who believe in Jesus, the seed of Abraham, we are the object of the promise here. And it's not just us, when God took Abraham outside to view the stars promising, so shall your offspring be, he was thinking of and pointing to us.
He promised as many descendants to many accounts, and in Christ Jesus we are those descendants. Every promise of God to Abraham then is fulfilled in Jesus. As Paul puts it in Galatians chapter 3 verse 29, if we are Christ, then we are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise. And old son, Father Abraham, has many sons.
Many sons is Father Abraham. It's true, and it's believers, it's us. So if your faith is in Christ, you have the forgiveness of sins and adoption into God's family, and you can be certain of your salvation, you can be sure, because God promised a vast multitude of spiritual descendants to Abraham to be received through faith in his offspring, that is Christ. And you, having them believed in Christ, are evidence that God is honoring his promise, not just to you, but also to Abraham and to his own son Jesus.
He's honoring his oath and promise to Abraham so long ago. When we are, as Christians, we are the eternal donation of the Father to the Son. God plans for all eternity to give to his Son of people a bride. John chapter 6 verse 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me.
The Father gives me, we're the donation of the Father to the Son. And whoever comes to me, Jesus says, I will never cast out. So you can be assured that God will keep his promises to you. He has been and always does keep his promises.
We are the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham and to his offspring, Jesus. That's the first ground of our assurance here. And notice, then the second ground of our assurance is the character of God in all of this, in verses 16 through 18. And notice that the oath shows the character of God.
It shows his humility and his integrity and his kindness, those three things. First, God's promise on oath shows his humility. Why do I say that? Well, notice verse 16.
Where people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation. What's he saying? When somebody takes an oath, right?
Oaths are significant. We take oaths because, well, of the uncertainty and unreliability of human words and promises due to our sin. That is, we may say one thing, but we have trouble following through on what we have said. We may make promises, but then we struggle to believe others that they will follow through on the promises that they make.
Our experience in life makes us distrustful of people. And so we require not just a promise, but an oath on certain occasions. And oath because we don't implicitly trust one another. And so for instance, legal authorities make us take an oath because when we take that oath, we are acknowledging that there may be consequences if we are unfaithful in what we say under that oath.
We take an oath to God. And as it were, we are saying, well, let the wrath of that God fall upon me if what I'm saying is a lie or if what I'm promising to do, I don't do. He's greater than me. He has greater power than me.
I'm subject to him. And so an oath then is taken ultimately because of human character flaws. But does God take an oath? Because he has any character flaw?
Of course not. Absolutely not. He isn't untrustworthy. God takes an oath here not because he is weak, but because our faith in him is weak.
Our weak faith, which is an evidence of our continuing sin. And so God swore an oath to Abraham that it was intended to convince us, 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. Isn't that incredible?
God condescends to stoop down to take an oath, not because there's anything lacking in him because there's something lacking in us, which is just does it not point us to the humility of a God who would stoop to our level just to reassure us because of our tendency to distrust. He swears as if his word is untrustworthy and it isn't untrustworthy. So he doesn't swear to make his promise unchanging, but he swears to let Abraham know with absolute certainty that it is. So John Chrysostom, the early church father said, do you see that God regards not his own dignity, but more so how he may persuade people, even though God bears with having unworthy things set of himself, his wish is to impart full assurance.
I mean, you see what Chrysostom is saying? It's unworthy. It's unworthy of him that he should not be believed. It's dishonoring to him for us to doubt him.
But we do, and we do it time and again, but he isn't too proud to stoop down to our weakness. He's humble. That's a reason for reassurance. There's a second one here, also because of God's integrity.
End of verse 17, he guaranteed it with an oath, verse 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 hopes that before us. What are the two unchangeable things here, or immutable things here, in which it is impossible for him to lie? The two things are his promise and his oath. It's impossible for God to lie regarding his promise and regarding his oath.
It's not in his character. I have a friend who told me some parental wisdom. He tried to live by, and I can imagine that he lived by it much better than I have done, even as I occasionally remember to try. I mentioned this in Sunday school a couple weeks ago under the knife commandment, not burning false witness and not lying, not making promises that you don't fall through, and as a parent.
What he said was he aimed to restrict what he would ever promise his kids so that he wouldn't ever fail to deliver. He said, I use words like maybe rather than we will or I will or you can't, rather than promising certainty about something he may fail at or circumstances beyond his control may intervene. He would talk like that to his kids. He said he did it because he wanted them to learn to trust him and so then find it easier to trust in our Heavenly Father.
Well, I thought that was wise at the time I heard it. I thought that's wise ever since. I just have failed myself to consistently live that way, always. I found in the trenches of Peritang and in my foolishness, I fall short of my ambitions in that regard year after year.
My family have heard me say at times, I'll do this or I'll get that or I'll play then or I'll help this way or yes we can or yes you can and then year after year and I fall short and my words are like a mist of April and worse. Saying one thing and doing another promising and not following through, I'm sure the Bible is correct when it says that all men are liars, but in this we are not like our Heavenly Father. We are unlike our Heavenly Father. If he says he will do something, he always does it.
If he promises you a gift, he gives it. He does not and indeed he cannot bear false witness. His integrity then should assure you. There are two things in which it is impossible for him to lie.
His promise on his own. So this is a ground for our assurance, not only his humility but his integrity and then thirdly notice his kindness. Who did he swear this oath for? Not just Abraham.
In order to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise. That's not just Abraham. That's us. God didn't do it just for him but he did it for us.
And how are we described? Middle of verse 18. We who have fled for refuge. We who have fled for refuge.
I'm not playing politics here when I say that we are all refugees so to speak. It's not about nation states of course, it's about the church. The world is not our home. We are just passing through.
We are all strangers and pilgrims on our way to the heavenly city. And we have already fled for refuge to Jesus. For safety. For shelter.
From what did we flee? It's interesting that the word refuge is used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This word refuge here is used of the cities of refuge that dotted the landscape of Israel so that one who was fleeing for their life and for safety could enter a city of refuge and be protected from an avenger who was seeking to kill them. This is the imagery he has in mind when he says we have fled for refuge.
From what did we flee? Well Hebrew 17 has already pointed us to at least one thing when it says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. That is he is the one who turns away the wrath of God from us by suffering that wrath for us. That the avenging angel of God as it were may justly hunt us down but God himself has provided a place of safety.
And so where did we flee for this safety? We fled to Jesus as Noah entered the Ark for safety from judgment. We have believed into and found shelter in Jesus. And God welcomed us.
He opened wide his arms and he sheltered us and think what that cost him. It cost him his own son and isn't then his kindness for us. A reason for our assurance. We have the writer says strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Strong encouragement in the promise and oath of God. Strong encouragement in the humility and the integrity and the kindness of God. And so in a moment we are going to say maybe you want to turn to your bulletin to our last hand we are going to sing a datter to mercy alone. A hymn that Augustus top lady wrote.
A hymn about assurance and confidence in a time of theological confusion he actually went after those who didn't believe in assurance. He didn't believe in this kind of confidence where God preserves his people and you are safe in him. Second stanza we are about to sing the work which his goodness began. The arm of his strength will complete.
His promise is yay and amit and never was forfeited yet. Things future nor things that are now nor all things below or above can make him his purpose forego or sever my soul from his love. Your brothers and sisters you have a loving father a good father who when he takes you into his family he never lets you go. Let's pray.
Father bless you. Thank you. You're the best father there has ever will be and we acknowledge it and we thank you Jesus that you agreed with the father that to rescue us you would suffer the wrath of God on our behalf. To spare us to reconcile us to God making peace by the blood of your cross.
We praise you. We thank you. Help us to be confident assured of your steadfast immovable love for us. In your name we pray.
Amen. Let's stay together and say. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and sing. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen.