Let's turn in our Bibles to Hebrews chapter six as we continue our study in this book. We're gonna consider the first, or not the first, we're gonna consider verses 13 through 20 this morning, but I'm going to begin by reading verses 11 through 20. So follow along as I read. Hebrews six, starting in verse 11. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 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 waited patiently, 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. Now the reason that I included verses 11 and 12 in our reading this morning is because the text that we're considering, starting with verse 13, refers to it. It supports it. Verse 13 begins for when God made a promise. And that ties it back to what he just said. He's just encouraged us to have full assurance of hope until the end. He wants us to have confidence in our salvation. And he calls us to patience and faith when it comes to God's promises. And specifically, the writer calls us to be imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Now, if we're going to be imitators, if we're going to follow someone's example, well, then we have to know who it is that we need to follow. We need to know what they did that demonstrated that faith. and that patience when it came to God's promise. So who do you suppose that the writer chose as an example to illustrate faith and patience for God's promise? Abraham. Now, the entire book of Hebrews is a sermon. It may have been intended to be delivered in two or three parts, but probably not any more than that. So the writer doesn't have time here to go back and fully develop this example of Abraham. But he doesn't need to. His writers, these Jewish Christians, they were so well-versed in the Old Testament scripture that he can just drop in the name Abraham, he can just include this eight-word quotation that he puts in there, and they know exactly what he's driving at. And then he can build on that to make his point. He doesn't have to, and he does make the connection explicitly, though. In verse 15, he writes, and thus, Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. This is the guy that we are supposed to imitate. Well, unlike the writer of Hebrews, we are not trying to cover all of this material in just three weeks. So we have time to go back and consider Abraham in a little more detail. The quotation that he uses in verse 14, surely I will bless you and multiply you, that comes from Genesis 22. But the story begins many years earlier. In Genesis 12, in verse one, it says that the Lord came to Abram. Abraham was still called Abram at that time. And the Lord said to Abram, 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.' So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. So Abraham was 75 years old when God called him, when God made these promises to him. Remember that, 75 years old. Now, it's a multifaceted promise that God made to Abraham. There are a lot of elements to it. I wanna focus on three of those promises. First of all, there's a land promise. Now, that the land is promised may not be evident in the first verses here in chapter 12. God really just tells Abraham to go to the land. But if there's any doubt that the land is part of the promise, that's cleared up for us when we get to verse seven. There it says, then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give the land. So we have the land promise. And then we have the great nation promise. God said, and I will make you a great nation. And it says that he would make Abraham's name great and that God would bless those who bless Abraham and curse those who dishonor Abraham. And that's all part of the promise too. But the third thing that I want to highlight is that all nations, or as it says here, all families of the earth shall be blessed. through Abraham. And this refers to the coming Messiah, the Savior of the world. That is the ultimate blessing and it would come through Abraham. Now, it may not be entirely clear here that God is promising the Messiah, but it becomes more and more clear as God reveals more and more throughout the entire Old Testament. Now, here's the thing. With these three promises, the land promise, the nation promise, and the Messiah promise, They all rely on an offspring. For the promises to be fulfilled, Abraham would have to have a son. The land promise was explicitly made to his offspring. To your offspring, I will give the land. And the offspring are implicit to the other two promises. The nation promise is a promise of a nation of descendants of Abraham. And if there aren't any descendants, then where is the Messiah going to come from? As we saw, Abraham was 75 years old when this promise was made. Sarah, his wife, was well into her 60s at this point. And up to this point, they were childless. Now this is not an age when you usually start planning a family. But Abraham believed God, and Abraham demonstrated it by his obedience. So Abram went, it says in Genesis 12, 4, as the Lord had told him. And I want to emphasize that while God told Abraham a great deal, in the form of the promises that God made to Abraham, there was also much that God did not tell him. He didn't even tell him what land he was sending him to. In verse one, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. Just go. I'll show you when I'm ready to show you. But for now, just go. Just obey. Now, most of us aren't crazy about that kind of arrangement. We're willing to obey. We'll accept God's will. But we don't like being kept in the dark. Really, about anything. But that is what God asked of Abraham. So Abraham went, as the Lord had told him. And God brought him to the land of Canaan, which was the land that God was going to give his descendants. And the years went by, and God blessed Abraham. Materially, Abraham became wealthy. but there was still no son. There was no heir. Abraham was well aware of this. He was fully invested in God's promises, and he knew the importance of a son to these promises. Now, there's no suggestion here that his faith wavered or that he became impatient with God. But perhaps he was confused, and he certainly was eager to see the fulfillment of this part of the promise, to have a son. So we come to Genesis 15. And we don't know at this point for certain how long it's been since God had called Abraham. It's at least a few years and possibly as many as 10 years. And God came to Abraham in a vision and he told Abraham, that Abraham's reward shall be great. Now, Abraham seems to have understood this as a reference to those earlier promises, and I think rightly so. So Abraham questioned God about the heir. Abraham said, oh Lord God, What will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir." Abraham understood that everything depended on the heir. The offspring was a necessary component to God's promise. And God said to him, this man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And then God took him outside and said, look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Well, you can't. You can't number the stars. So shall your offspring be, God said. They will be greater in number than any man could count. Now, Abraham, at this point, may have been as old as 85. It's been as long as 10 years since God made the promise, the promises that required a son. And so far, There was no son. Abraham was getting older. Sarah was getting older. But what does it say? It says Abraham believed the Lord. All that he had to go on was God's word, God's promises, which were backed by God's faithfulness. Abraham's circumstances certainly didn't inspire any confidence in the likelihood that he and Sarah would have a child. An 80-something-year-old man and a 70-something woman with their history in that department? But he believed God over everything else. there was a little bit of wavering in chapter 16. Sarah said to Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. So they thought that they could help God fulfill the promise in a way that they should have understood was not what God intended. So Abraham fathered a child with Sarah's servant Hagar, and this child's name was Ishmael. And although this was not part of God's plan, God remained faithful, and God did not deviate from His plan. So more years passed, Ishmael grew into a young man, and God appeared to Abraham again. Again, God appeared to Abraham and assured him that He would give him a son. And finally, This time, he gave him a timeframe. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And God did what he said he would do. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, who Sarah bore him, Isaac. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. A hundred years old. Now remember, Abraham was 75 when all this started. 25 years he's been waiting. And this is just the preliminary fulfillment, the birth of the son. This is just the first thing that had to happen so that the rest of the promises could be fulfilled. And he waited 25 years for it. Hebrews 6 verse 15 says, he patiently waited. And the New Testament often quotes from Genesis 15 that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. In Romans chapter four, in Galatians three, in James two, we're told to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. That would be Abraham. And we haven't even come to Genesis chapter 22, where the quote from Hebrews is pointing us to. Here's how Genesis 22 begins. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Now, we're not told how long had passed. since Isaac was born. We don't know for certain how old Isaac was at this point, but Isaac is the one who's going to be carrying the wood up the mountain. So he had to have been at least into his teens and perhaps more likely in his late teens or even into his 20s. I have to believe that Abraham had been very careful with Isaac all these years after waiting 25 years for him and knowing that everything depended on him. Now, not that Abraham was relying on himself to make Isaac the connection to the fulfillment of all God's promises. Abraham knew that God would see to that. But Abraham had been made a steward of this precious gift. And that is a responsibility that you don't take lightly. So now, after 25 years of patiently waiting, and then another 15 or 20 years of nurturing and protecting, God gave Abraham this perplexing command. Offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Now, it wasn't just that Abraham assumed that Isaac was the means by which God would keep these promises. As recently as chapter 21, God had told Abraham, through Isaac, shall your offspring be named. Not through Ishmael, not through some yet unborn son, through Isaac. There was no other option. So none of this made any sense at all. But look at what God says at the end of verse two. I think there's a hint here, something that ought to encourage Abraham's hope. God said to offer the sacrifice on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. What does that remind you of? What does that sound like? Genesis 12, verse one. When God called Abraham, the first command that God gave him, go from your country and your kindred and to your father's house to the land that I will show you. I believe that God is reminding Abraham here. He's telling him, I'm not giving you all of the information. Yes, this line here is just about the location of the sacrifice. It's just which mountain in this case in chapter 22? But it's a reminder of that first command. God told Abraham what he wanted him to know at that time. But he didn't tell him everything. God expected Abraham to set off with the promises and the command and act in faith. Now, Abraham still has the promises. None of them have been rescinded. God doesn't rescind promises. And Abraham now has a new command. His role is to act in faith, whether he understands how it's all going to work or not. and regardless of whether he has all of the information. Act in obedience and trust that God will keep his promises. That is faith. And that's exactly what Abraham did. And he didn't waste any time either. In verse three, it says that Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. God told him what to do and he got on with it. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on the back of his son Isaac, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. Now he was fully intending to do this. He took everything he needed. He took the wood, he took the knife, he took the fire, and he took the sacrifice. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. He was doing it. He was sacrificing his own son, the heir, according to the promise. And that's when God stopped him. 35 or 40 years into all of this, and with every promise that God had made to him seemingly at stake, Abraham obeyed. Now, it's not that he didn't puzzle over it. It's not that he didn't try to figure it out. In Hebrews 11, in verse 17, it says, By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. So he thought about what God might do. Of course he considered how God was going to deal with this. But he didn't really know. He didn't know and yet he trusted God. He obeyed God, and he left the fulfillment of the promises to God. All that Abraham had to go on was God's word, God's promises, and God's character that backed up his word and his promises. And what else is there? What could be more certain than that? The promise of God. So God reaffirmed the promise according to Hebrews 6. This was the greatest assurance that God could have given Abraham. His word backed by himself. There's nothing greater, nothing more certain that God could have done at this point or pointed to than this, his word. This is why it says in Hebrews 6.13, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying in verse 14, surely I will bless you and multiply you. And it's true because God said so and he used himself as the guarantee that it was true. That's really the essence of what's going on when it says that God swore by himself because there was no one greater. God gave his word and the security for that word was God, his character and his power. So consider the two sides of the equation that Abraham had available to consider. On the one side, you have an old man and an old woman, well past the age when people have children. And the woman had been barren all her life. And then, 25 years of waiting for this all-important promise to be fulfilled. And then another 15 or 20 years of nurturing and protecting his son, who was integral to all of the promises that God had made. After that, there's this alarming command from God. That from Abraham's perspective would have threatened to derail everything. And finally, Abraham had incomplete information. We saw it demonstrated in God initially withholding from him even the location of the mountain that the sacrifice was supposed to take place on. But the bigger point is that God did not confide in Abraham how this was all going to go down. That God really wasn't going to let him kill his son. So there was a whole lot to consider on this side of the equation. And the only thing that was weighing against it was God's Word. God's Word backed by God's character. And for Abraham, God's Word outweighed everything else. That is our model. Abraham is our model. This is what we are called to imitate. So then we come to verses 17 and 18. Now, this is a challenging sentence to parse because there's a lot going on here. But here's what I want us to see. God desired to show something to the heirs of the promise. Okay? Who are the heirs of the promise? I mean, according to our text here in Hebrews, who are the heirs to the promise? He tells us in verse 18, he says, we who have fled for refuge, both grammatically and contextually, these are the same people. God desires to show this, what he did for Abraham, to the heirs of the promise, so that we who have fled might have strong encouragement and hold fast to the hope set before us. He's saying that He desired to show us the unchangeable character of His purpose. The heirs to the promise are those who are in Christ, who have run to Christ for their salvation. Now, this does not necessarily mean that those who are in Christ are heirs to every promise that God made to Abraham. I want to make that clear. Every promise God made to Abraham is not necessarily in view here in Hebrews 6. But we are certainly heirs to the Messiah promise, that God would bless all nations through this offspring of Abraham, who would be the Messiah. What this is saying is that way back, some 4,000 years ago, God had it in his mind to show you and all believers today the unchangeable character of his purpose. That is why, at least this is part of the reason why, God set this whole thing up with Abraham and then affirmed his promise again when he guaranteed it with his oath. to show us how certain his word is. There are two unchangeable things. His promise, which he made when he first called Abraham and then reaffirmed over and over throughout the years, and his oath, which he used here to guarantee the promise. Now, either one, the promise or the oath, is itself unchangeable. And here, God doubles up on the unchangeable. He, in order to show us, even more convincingly, how secure we are in our salvation. And this is a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. And it all boils down to the word of God. God's promises, God's oath, God's word. And that leads us into our final two verses. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of our souls. What is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul? The Word of God, the promises of God, the oath of God, the revelation of God. The writer of Hebrews has been relying on the word of God, on what God says from the very beginning of this sermon. When he opens the book, he says, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. And then if you just scan down through the first chapter, You'll read, He says, He says, God says, over and over. In chapter two, our salvation was declared at first by the Lord, attested to us by those who heard, which means the Lord's messengers, his apostles. And God, the Father, also bore witness. And it continues on this way, chapter after chapter, quoting God from his word, always using that. as the foundation for every claim the sermon makes. God's Word is the sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. We saw earlier everything that Abraham was facing that might have caused him to question God's Word. This was like the sea that was raging around him. But God's word was the anchor of his soul, the sure and steadfast anchor, and Abraham was not tossed about by circumstances, even 40-year-old circumstances, because he held fast to God's word. How does your list measure up to Abraham's? What do you face that might cause you to question? The things that you see when you look out in the world around you? Things that are going on in your own life? Frustrations that things don't happen as quickly as you might like? Or in the way that you like? Uncertainty about the way that things are going to unfold? Do those things make you doubt? Or do you trust God and obey His commands because God's Word anchors you and prevents the storm around you from tossing you to and fro? Now, if God's Word is our anchor, what does it anchor? Our text says that it anchors a hope. that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. The inner place behind the curtain was the most holy place in the tabernacle and then later in the temple. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the most holy place to offer a sacrifice for the sins of Israel. Only the high priest could enter. Sinful man could not stand before God. And even the high priest only entered by the grace of God. The sacrifice was, in a sense, symbolic. The blood of an animal could never remove the sins of men against God. But God accepted it. He accepted it until the time when the perfect and sufficient sacrifice would be made. Jesus, the Son of God, was that sacrifice, perfect and sufficient. And Jesus has now gone behind the curtain for us. He presented himself, the perfect sacrifice, to the Father for our sin. And it was enough. The sin of all those who receive his salvation by grace through faith are forgiven. And now we can enter into God's presence. That is our hope. And how do we know it's true? Because God's word says so. This is what needs to anchor us. This is our hope. Our hope is not in our political system. It's not in our individual health. It's not in our money. Our hope is not in any of the things that we deal with around us, the things that we enjoy or the things that trouble us. Our hope is that our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has gone before us into the Father's presence to present Himself as an offering for our sins based on the sacrifice that He made when He died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven and that we could have right standing with God. That is our hope and it is certain because it is anchored by the Word of God. Nothing else compares. So whatever you're going through in your life today, whatever discouragements you may face, whatever disappointments come in your way, Look to the author and perfecter of our faith as he is revealed to us in God's Word. Be like Abraham, knowing that God's Word is more certain than anything that you see or experience around you. and wait with faith and patience to inherit the promise. Let's pray.