Hebrews: Jesus, Our Anchor

Let me pray for us and the sermon as we get into the book of Hebrews.

God, thank you for your grace to us.

Thank you for this passage that though it looks so difficult, it delivers so much promise to us.

Open our hearts to it and to you that we might rest in greater ways in how good and sufficient you are for us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So this fall we're making our way through the book of Hebrews.

We are in Hebrews 5, moving into chapter 6.

It's one of the most difficult passages in the Bible.

So with that, let's jump in, but we're going to jump in at the end of the passage, chapter 6, verse 19, because as we read chapter 5 and we read some of chapter 6, we're going to hit some really rough passages and text.

And so we need to know where the writer's taking us.

We have to know the context to understand any of this in between, or we get who knows what kind of sermon out of this thing.

So Hebrews 6, 19 is the arc of this text, and this is where the writer takes us.

We, the beloved, we have this as a, and talking about Jesus, as this sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.

Now, that whole phrase, the inner place behind the curtain, is referring back to last week.

We talked about the high priest, and then again in chapter 7 and 8 coming up, we're going to talk about this more.

So we're focusing this morning on this first half, this idea of Jesus, our sins put upon him and his finished work on the cross and his righteousness given to us.

So we're beloved, sure, steadfast and secure as an anchor.

Well, let's all imagine we're on an airplane.

You remember that?

Maybe some of you haven't been on an airplane in a while.

So imagine you're on an airplane and you're descending, going into like a mountain airport, like you know, in between some mountains, and the pilot gets on, he interrupts your, you know, you're watching a movie, interrupts it, and then you have to listen to him, and he says, you know, hey, you know, coming up on some rough air, we might feel a little turbulence, and so okay, no problem.

As soon as he gets off, huge drop, boom, I mean, your stomach hits the ceiling, right?

You know, you grip the armrest, and then you go, okay, it levels back off.

Another drop, boom, you reach for the barf bag.

You know, a couple seconds later, another drop, you're emailing your children, I love you, just to say goodbye.

You know, here's the lawyer's number, I mean, all of that.

And then the pilot takes this huge left bank, and you feel like you're up against the side, and while you're on the bank, another drop, and you are just white knuckling those armrests, right?

And then you look up and you see the flight attendants, and they're hanging out, they're talking to each other.

Hey, are you doing okay?

How are you?

You okay?

Great, no problem.

Like it's just what is what do they know?

What do they know that I don't know because I am afraid for my life, tight gripping this thing?

What do they know?

Well, they know they do this all the time.

And they don't expect flying to feel perfect, even though it is incredibly safe.

And that you're inside of an 80,000-pound flying machine of aluminum with hundreds and thousands of safety checks, and that chair that we're tight gripping right there, that chair is made to hold 3,000 pounds and takes 16 G's of force.

But we're tight gripping as if that is going to do something.

Right?

So, what's clear when we tight grip on an airplane, right, is that we are gripping inside of the grip it has on us.

And that's the point of this whole passage, we take it as context, is that God's faithfulness to us holds us, and inside of his grip of us, we grip him.

So let's jump back to the beginning of the passage, Hebrews 5, verse 11.

Hebrews 5:11

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food.

For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child.

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

So, point number one is this by grace we grow more deeply into the great wealth of our identity in Jesus.

By grace, we grow more deeply into the great wealth of our identity in Jesus.

We get to grow and mature in faith.

And growing in faith isn't about becoming more perfect.

It's never gonna be that.

It's about growing more deeply into that full welcome that you have in Jesus and his sufficiency for you.

And in that, we grow in this discernment about who we are and who we aren't, and what's good and right, right and wrong in the world.

This is all about maturity.

The writer keeps going, chapter 6, verse 1.

Therefore, because of this, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

So those would have been kind of elementary beginning teachings for these people.

And he says, Oh, we don't have to keep revising that, we can build upon it.

Verse 3 says, and this we will do if God permits.

So it's like, oh, what was he saying?

Like the fundamental things of the gospel don't matter?

That's not what he's saying.

Here's what he's saying Imagine you're gonna build a shed in your backyard, or more likely you're gonna have somebody else build a shed in your backyard.

You're gonna watch them do it, and the first thing that they're gonna do is they're gonna dig down, right?

And they're gonna pour some little footers.

They're gonna put footers in, they're gonna build a foundation.

And then upon that foundation, they will build up, and no matter how high you go up, it will be on top of that foundation.

That's what this passage is saying.

Not that we move on from the ABCs of the gospel, but we build upon them to mature in our faith, so that we can know what it means to grow in a secure heart in the Lord and to have discernment in life.

Verse 4, this is where the passage gets difficult.

And I'm gonna read a chunk, and then we're forced to keep reading, and you'll see why as I get through into the reading.

For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up for contempt.

For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and in its end to be burned.

So if we just stop there, right, that's where we get all sorts of sermons.

We get all sorts of beliefs.

If we take six, four through eight on its own without any context.

But that's not what this is.

This writer is writing a train of thought taking us somewhere, and then listen to verse 9 because you can hear the difference, and this matters a lot.

Though we speak in this way, it's like he catches himself, though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation, for God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name and serving the saints as you still do.

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.

Now we could spend weeks going through this passage and breaking it down, but what we clearly see is there's a different set of people being talked about in verses four through eight than starting in verse nine.

Seventeen years ago is 4th of July.

Christy and I had been dating for a year, and I had the ring.

And I had the plan.

And the plan was we were going up to my grandmother's lake cabin in the 4th of July on the lake, uh down the lake.

There's a bunch of fireworks, and so the plan was uh I had the ring, I had some candles, it's gonna be, you know, I was playing it all out, and and Christy and I were gonna get in the boat.

She didn't know of this, of course, is my plan.

We're gonna get in the boat, go down for the fireworks, and to the end of the fireworks, this closing fireworks, you know, it's gonna be the moment that I propose.

It's gonna be so beautiful.

So I have everything set up.

I get everything down in the boat and during the day when she's not paying attention.

I realize I don't have an anchor.

Like it's a little ski boat, it's not a big like boat with an anchor built.

I don't have an anchor.

I look all over the lake cabin.

We don't have an anchor.

Finally, I find on the side of the house, I find this chunk of concrete.

It's like about this big, a little pipe sticking out of it.

I pick it up, we wait a good bit.

I think, well, this should work.

I tie an old ski rope to it, take it down, put it in the boat.

This should work, not an issue.

We boat down toward the fire.

It's it is it is a parking lot of boats down there, and it is like the ocean, and there's lots of drunk people hanging out.

I'm just thinking we park, we drop the anchor.

I'm like, this is not the romantic setting I dreamt to propose to my future wife, and the boat starts to drift because my little chunk of concrete ends up not to be an anchor.

You figured that out, it's just a chunk of concrete, and so we start to drift.

I'm just I'm a nervous wreck, I'm sweating because this is all going wrong.

And I said, we gotta move, we gotta move.

She doesn't understand why.

She thinks I'm just being a moron at this point, and I pull the anchor up.

Finally, we find this quiet cove.

I drop that chunk of concrete back in the water.

It still does not work.

We're still drifting, so I have to get out of the boat, tie a rope to a tree, and then finally we're secure in place.

Amazingly, she says yes, side note to the story.

This is kind of the big note to the story, but the lesson of the story is the anchor never worked.

Like that chunk of concrete, right?

Because it was just a chunk of concrete.

It turns out anchors are actually built a certain way to accomplish a certain task, right?

They're built as they tip over, they dig in to hold the object of the way.

And it's really important that we have the right anchor that can hold us, to be anchored.

Verses four through eight are not about somebody who knows the anchor of Jesus, and that anchor lets them go.

Verses four through eight is about people who have tasted in the means of grace, but they've never really relinquished control of their lives, forgiveness of sins, to be right with God, their eternal salvation with God by his grace alone.

Maybe they've made a confession, maybe they've taken communion, maybe they're baptized, maybe they like the music, maybe, maybe they got a little Holy Spirit fuzzies during a service, maybe any of that.

But it doesn't have to do with the people who are truly the beloved, verse 9.

In verse 9 and 19, give us that.

Yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.

So point number two is this in the embrace of God, we are assured by evidences of our love and service.

In the embrace of God, we are assured by evidences of our love and service.

Verse 10 give us that.

The writer is reminding these people hey, you are assured.

Because we can see your love and we can see your service.

But love and service are not for our assurance, right?

Or else we're just thrown back into just anxiety-ridden faith.

They're not for our assurance, they're because of our assurance.

Because of our assurance is in this great anchor.

So we're not in a faith of constant anxiety and questioning.

We're in a faith that we are assured by Jesus' work for us.

And because we're safe in Jesus, we are free to love and serve other people, to serve our neighbor and to serve our enemy.

I mean, what that means, I think, in today's context, perhaps to love our enemy means perhaps you could love somebody even in the three taboo topics of today.

You know the taboo topics of today because you're trying to avoid them with everybody in your family and friends, and that's Black Lives Matter, the election, and where you should and should not wear a mask, right?

I mean, those are the three.

Like you're just trying to avoid them.

And that person who holds that opinion, the other opinion, you know, the other opinion, the one you don't have.

Because you're safe and secure in Jesus and you don't have to use your opinions to justify your value, you can love and serve somebody who has a different opinion.

That's so freeing for our love in this world.

Point number three is this this is the arc of the passage.

It's impossible for God to fail his beloved.

Steve Brown, author and seminary professor, he says this of Hebrews 6.

God doesn't say, trust me, and then for the rest of your life, make you wonder if you really trusted him.

The nature of the God of the universe is not to bring you to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but then to make you wonder for the rest of your life if you have that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is God's business and desire for us to have assurance of our salvation.

That's why the writer takes us through all of this.

And then at the end he says, Yet for you, I'm certain of better things.

You have an anchor.

In our first year as a church, we lost an incredibly important person in our church who died.

And many of you were there, his name was Stuart.

It was a tragic death.

It was traumatic for all of us.

It was incredibly traumatic.

We had the funeral at Riverstone Church, about 10 minutes north of here, and I led the service, and Bo from Stonebridge, he led worship, and Bo picked out this song, and I didn't know he was gonna pick it out.

He picked out the song Cornerstone.

And I'd always liked the song, but man, that song meant a lot to me that day because I was a mess.

I didn't let it be seen, but I was a mess.

That was some traumatic days.

And we sang that song, and it meant so much to me to sing and to hear and to receive that we have an anchor that is sure and certain in this world, no matter how much of a mess we make of it, and into the next world.

The song's written from the great hymn in the 1800s: my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name.

My anchor holds within the veil.

When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in him be found, addressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you are our anchor, not our achievements or performance in this world or in faith.

Thank you that we are free in the sufficiency of Jesus to rest as we are your beloved and to grow more mature in the faith and to love and serve our neighbor.

What freedom we have to be completely curious.

Help our lives to be a reflection of the great and perfect grace we have in you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.