You're the bottom of me invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter six this evening We're picking up by the end of what we looked at last week So we're in verses 19 and 20 returning to the theme of assurance our assurance of salvation The assurance that we can have that we are safe in Jesus and that God will not let his people go And so let me invite you to hear God's word from Hebrews chapter six I'll read verse 19 and 20 now in a moment I'll review the prior verses and the tie it Lord willing together here now the word of God We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul I 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. Let's look at him in prayer father We ask that you would be our teacher this evening that you would that you by the spirit would open this word to our hearts and minds that you would Show us wonderful things in your word and about your son We would see Jesus tonight and to be comforted and reassured in him. We asked for that in his name Amen Amen with the office of speaking of the full assurance of hope that we can have and and he does so because it's not uncommon for Christians to struggle With assurance of hope and there are a variety of reasons for that of course But but Christians do struggle with these things sometimes we're simply temper mentally inclined to struggle with assurance from For assurance of salvation and God knows that so I over and over and over again in the scripture God gives us assurances of his love That he loves us and because he's seeking to ground us in our hope He doesn't want us wandering around in this world as children of God wondering well, he loves me But he loves me not he loves me, but does he love me not? No, like a good father He wants his children to know that he loves them and then of course not only temperamentally though some of us struggle But circumstances can make it difficult for us at times And cause us to struggle we find ourselves in situations where we say you know, I just didn't see that coming I just had no idea that was gonna happen or that I was gonna have to deal with that sort of thing I didn't know life would be like this.
I didn't know the Christian life would be as difficult as it has been Maybe we're saying, you know, I just didn't know that I was gonna have chronic illness to deal with or I didn't know that I was going to bury a loved one before their time before I was ready or I didn't know I was gonna struggle with marital infidelity and suspicion and distrust in the heartache of difficult relational Brokenness, I didn't know that I was going to struggle to raise my children on my own or some of us I didn't know it was gonna struggle, you know with with parenting and and not knowing if my children are gonna respond in love in the long haul I there are just so many things I didn't know I was gonna have to care for aging parents I didn't know that work was gonna be so difficult and for so long and I was gonna constantly wish I was doing something else Locationally, yeah, there's just so many unknowns and so many difficult circumstances in life Sometimes if we get focused on those with sort of a narrow tunnel vision, we can forget the truth that God loves us We lose sight of the cross we lose sight of his promise we lose sight of his assurances And so that can really wear you down and the scripture is constantly seeking to reassure the people of God that we have been loved with a Never stopping never giving up on breaking always and forever love in Jesus my friend who knew a guy Who was in his mid 20s? He was an incredible college athlete. He was well-rounded. He was well-liked on campus He was leading Bible studies in ministry and it was the total package kind of kind of student and then he got Hodgkin's a curable cancer But still a rough road of treatment and as he went through chemo himself He lost everything and it broke his health.
He lost many friends as sadly sometimes happens when hard things come and He was in the hospital one night He was trying to walk from his bed to the bathroom and he simply collapsed on the floor his body was so weak and he said this Lying there on the floor unable to even get to the toilet. He said I got it. I wasn't leading Bible studies I hadn't felt like praying in months. I was doing nothing for Jesus and he says on the floor.
I got it He says he got grace He says you know I was helpless and I realized God loved me even when I was on the floor unable to do Anything for him and to this day he says I thank God for Hodgkin's It helped him see that that God didn't love him because he had done everything right or something right And it was a reminder to him then that God won't stop loving him because he's done something wrong God's love is beyond these things and so this love that will never let us go is precious and God wants us to know it He wants us to know that he will never leave us nor forsake us and that's what Hebrews chapter 6 Especially verses 13 to 20 is pointing us to this assurance we can have that motivates us to keep going And so we saw in verses 13 through 18 last week and here now in verses 19 and 20 a third We saw last week two grounds for our assurance and tonight We'll add a third we saw the promise and oath of God is a reason to be assured And then we saw the character of God is a reason to be assured and this tonight We'll add the son of God is a reason to be assured Let me just remind you of what the author has already said He said God made a promise to Abraham and then God swore an oath to keep that promise Notice 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 And the writer of course is saying that well We are the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham God surely did bless him and multiply him and gave a people to him more than all those Say it on the seashore the stars in the sky Galatians 3 we noted says if you are Christ's then you are Abraham's offspring Heirs according to the promise so that we who believe in Christ are the fulfillment of the promise and the promise itself ought to be enough to assure us That God doesn't need to do anything more or say anything more that he said it once and he will fulfill his promise And you could trust in him, but no God not only said it promised it but God sworn oath to do it For verse 16 for people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes and oath his 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 last week we noted that God swears an oath and he doesn't buy himself Because you swear it oath by something greater than you and there's nothing and know what greater than God himself to swear by So he swore by himself and we noted that God doesn't take this oath because he's untrustworthy But because he knows that we are untrustworthy and we're a suspicious people People make promises that they don't keep and so we ask and we require them an oath either to tell the truth or an oath to follow through on What they vow and and so God stoops down he humbles himself to condescend to our weakness God doesn't need to swear an oath God is God and he's always true, but he knows that The weakness of our faith the weakness of our competence our own doubting and distrustful hearts are reassured by God making a promise and an oath That he would keep his promise. This is a reason to be reassured The humility of God and as well the integrity of God verse 17 He guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie We who have led for refuge by the strong encouragement told fast to the hopes that before us we lie all men are liars the scripture says But God does not lie indeed God cannot lie numbers chapter 23 verse 19 It says God is not a man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind Has he said and will he not do it or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it? It's impossible for God to lie It's impossible for him to lie when he makes a promise It's impossible for him to lie when he takes an oath and so by these two unchangeable things in which God cannot lie He backs up his purposes with this promise and oath for our assurance And so we can be confident that what God says he will do for us He will do because of his humility because of his integrity and we saw because of his kindness that God hasn't kept this a secret from us But verse 17 God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose We are the heirs of the promise Abraham seed heirs according to promise and he desired God desired to more convincingly Persuen us of the unchangeable character of his purpose And so we have fled to Jesus for refuge and we who have fled to Jesus for refuge can have assurance that God will save us and save us to The autumn of save us to the very end Because of his oath and his promise because of God's humility and God's integrity and God's kindness Now here the author turns and says we can also have reassurance Because of of Jesus 19 and 20 notice that language again We have this this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul a hope that enters into the inner place behind us of the curtain Where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek He points us to three pictures here He wants us to think about anchors He wants us to think about a curtain and he wants us to imagine a forerunner And so let's just pull it apart here with those three things first Jesus is our anchor verse 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the of the soul Now he's been speaking of the hope that we have and he says our hope is an anchor for the soul But but he's he's going to say and Jesus is our hope so the hope and Jesus are one in the same They are the anchor we have and you know of course what an anchor does You mean you're out of a boat you want to stop and be be held in place you toss an anchor overboard it drags across the bottom It catches on something and winds and waves can't shove you off and and The anchor ties you in one place of course in a fallen world. It doesn't always work that way correctly I was Remembering in 2017 the US Navy guided missile cruiser and teetam ran aground across on the coast of Japan It's an enormous ship near the two football lights in in length and a half a football field across and the ship grounded it hit bottom after Anchoring out in high winds the crew noticed the ship was dragging its anchor But they noticed it too late they started the engine but shortly after getting underway They felt the ship shutters and lose all pitch control in both propellers and a drag bottom But thankfully nobody was injured but but the author here by contrast wants us to be that us to know that there's been no mistake We have a sure and notice the language she piles up a sure and steadfast anchor that is we have a firm and certain anchor We have an immovable anchor our hope then isn't affected by the chaos of this world.
It's sure it's certain It's firm. It's steadfast. Jesus is never himself dragged about by circumstances And so we who are chained to him tied to him are not dragged about by the winds and waves Our hope ultimately is never threatened and more than that our anchor is not only secure But it's secured in the proper place and that's important Until until the year 2017 the last time a US Navy cruiser had grounded was the USS Port Royal in 2009 which hit bottom hit bottom in Hawaii And what happened was a mix of things the captain had only four and a half hours of sleep the night before and only 15 hours of sleep in The three previous days. He was a bit sleep impaired and he hadn't been at sea in five years So he was a bit rusty and the ship's Phathometer which measures the water depth was broken as well as The radar repeaters were broken on the cruiser's bridge and the global positioning system malfunction And so the crew had to switch to gyroscope and the switch that caused or that switch caused a 1.5 1.5 mile discrepancy in the ships reported position We of course wonder how in the 21st century does the US Navy have so many things go wrong all at once on the same ship?
But it did and the alarm bells that were triggered by this one and a half mile discrepancy They were disregarded by the ships crew and so it dragged bottom and it caused over $40 million to repair it Why well the captain wasn't sharp the equipment was broken the boat wasn't reckoned to be in the right condition and the alarm bells were ignored But again the author here is saying by contrast our Jesus isn't asleep. He isn't drowsy. He isn't inexperienced He isn't rusty. He isn't incompetent and he isn't derelict of duty and his atonement wasn't dysfunctional And he didn't anchor us in the wrong place Our anchor is not cast into the depths of the sea to grip the ocean bed But it has it has ascended into heaven into the most holy place fixed in the presence of God You might think of this anchor as instead of a ship's anchor one of those acres You might throw up rock face to cats above that you can pull yourself or in this case be pulled safely Our anchor is in the right place and it's steadfast immovable and sure and what's the right place?
Not as first 19 we have this as a sure-and-stead-fast anchor of the soul a hope that enters into the inner place Behind the curtain and this is his second image the anchor and now the curtain what curtain is he talking about? Well if you remember in the tabernacle and then the temple in Jerusalem there was an outer chamber called the holy place And it was separated from the inner chamber called the most holy place or the holy of holies and what separated these two places Was a curtain avail and in that inner place behind the curtain was the Ark of the Covenant and upon at the mercy seat Where God dwelt as it were in the midst of his people and all humans were excluded from that inner Sexuary that most holy place except one man Once a year the high priest the high priest only could pass through the veil behind the curtain Varying with him the blood of the atonement for the sins of the whole nation But now the author saying in the perfect atonement of Jesus our great priest high priest has passed through the curtain So to speak and he provides access into the heavenly sanctuary The sanctuary of God's eternal presence the earthly tabernacle the earthly temple being but a shadow and a symbol of the true heavenly Reality and now access through the veil is opened to all who come to God through Jesus and unlike Aaron and the high priests who entered the most holy place But didn't remain in it. They had to get out Jesus has entered the most holy place and he has remained in it He offered a once-in-for-all sacrifice and entered in and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high He is still there in the presence of God on our behalf permanently there And therefore because he is our anchor and that is where he is through the curtain. We're not out of position He's not out of position.
We're not out of position. Our hope is not tied down in the wrong place So if you believe in Jesus the writer saying you haven't hit your horse to the wrong wagon Now if you believe in Jesus you have been united to the right Savior who's in the right place now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf So you can have confidence in him so that you can have an assurance in him and how did our anchor get behind the curtain? Well, Jesus went there the writer saying and noticed this third image He went there as a forerunner on our behalf again first 19 We have the sure is that fast anchor the soul a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain Where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf now This is the only use of the word forerunner in the New Testament and it isn't a Levitical term It's it's not picked up from the Old Testament worship The Levitical High Priest did not enter the sanctuary as a forerunner of God's people He entered it as a representative of God's people but not as a forerunner He entered the most holy place the Old Testament High Priest did but he didn't bring us with him truly in reality But Jesus has gone there not only as our representative But as our forerunner and what's a forerunner a forerunner is it's a word for a scout who goes ahead of an army To make sure of the way and to make sure that the party following can get where he is and This is what Jesus has done on our behalf. He's gone ahead of us He's scouted the way so to speak to make sure his people can follow by him Into the most holy place in the presence of God forever John 14 of course Jesus famously said in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so what I have told you That I go to prepare a place for you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and take you to be or take you to myself that you that where I am you may also be He's gone ahead of us and and this word for forerunner Progromos it has an interesting nautical use as another noted that is though it typically was used of a scout for an army It had a nautical use in this way that the Greek harbors were often cut off from the sea by sandbars Over which the larger ships dared not pass Until the full tide came in you needed a high tide to pass a large ship over the sandbar safely into the harbor And so what they did is they sent a lighter vessel a forerunner to take the anchor of the bigger ship and drop it in The harbor on the other side of the sandbar So that from the moment the ship was safe from the storm although it had to wait for the rising tide before it could enter Yet its anchor was in the proper place The entrance of the small vessel into the harbor the forerunner carrying the ships anchor was the pledge So to speak that the ship would safely enter the harbor when the time is full and because Christ our forerunner has entered heaven itself Having torn us under everything that separates the redeem center from the very presence of God He himself then is the pledge that we too shall one day enter the harbor of our souls as Rick Phillips in the very presence of God in The knee Jerusalem so the tide of time Will usher us in the storms may how the waves may crash?
Circumstances may get desperate and some of the people will be arrested the people of God will be arrested Persecuted even put to death but our anchor holds in safe harbor and we can be assured of that and so we are secure in Jesus We are tied to our anchor by an unbreakable chain Paul puts it differently But the idea is the same in Romans 8 when he says those who got four new He also predestined to be the conformed to the image of his son in order that he that is Jesus By the first born among many brothers and those whom he predestined he also called and those whom he called he also justified and those whom he justified He also glorified there's this unbreakable chain if you are justified if you're pardoned in Jesus Paul says you are glorified And you're thinking well doesn't feel like it right now and that's true You're glory yet awaits, but it's so certainly true He can speak of it in as it were the past tense as a done deal And so there's this unbreakable chain that holds us to our anchor in glory and the fact that that he is there as our anchor is the Guarantee we will be there to you so Can unforeseen circumstances break the line of the great anchor? Can the work of man or the temptations of the devil or the hostility of the world sever a cord forged and Placed by God himself. Can your sin break the line to this great anchor and the answer to all those questions is no God is greater than them all and his oath shall overrule every opposition Believers are saved and we are safe because of God's oath bound promise secure and made Fast by the finished work of Christ and so you are not only eternally safe in Jesus You who have trusted in him But you are invited and welcomed into the very throne room of God even now through Jesus your forerunner has God there He has made the way safe and we've already seen in Hebrews 4 since we have this great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the son of God well Let us with confidence draw it near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and help In time of need and Hebrews 10 we'll put it this way Hebrews 10 verse 19 Therefore brothers brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus By the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh It's essentially have a great priest over the house of God. Let us draw near Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed With pure water.
How can we be sure will persevere to the end be saved? We have this hope our hope is in heaven because Jesus is there and Jesus is our hope and our hope is in Jesus And our hope is guaranteed by Jesus. So dear believers fear not let's pray Father thank you that We have a reason for the hope that we have thank you that because of Christ we know that We have peace with God and we have a standing in grace And we have access to the throne of grace to help us and that we are so tied to our Savior So held safely in his hand that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord We bless you. We praise you.
We thank you. We need you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
Let's stand together and sing