Sermon Tone Analysis
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Where do you start?
Abraham is certainly a picture of hope!
God promised Abraham that He would make a great nation out of him.
Yet, Abraham for 25 years did not have even one son with his wife Sarah.
Abraham certainly had to grow in his faith over those 25 years, but he was a man of hope!
Paul described him this way...
Abraham and Sarah were well past the age of having children.
There was no hope of having a son.
But God… But God makes a promise.
So against all human logic, against all worldly wisdom of how things work, Abaham believed God’s promise.
What is hope?
Some think of hope as merely optimism.
Looking for, and expecting the best.
Optimism is more subjective.
Its root is in the choice and perception of the optimist.
Is Hope just optimism?
No, there was not possible way this could happen.
It was not just optimism.
The Hope that God gives is grounded in Objective truth.
It is grounded in the Promise of God.
And the objective truth is God, who cannot lie, keeps His promises.
The Holy Spirit inspired the author of Hebrews to explain it this way...
Hope is an objective choice to live in expectation of what God will do.
Hope believes what God says, and looking forward to what Him doing what He promises, lives accordingly, because He cannot lie, and always does what He says.
That is what Romans 4:18 is about.
Abraham chose to believe God.
Look at it again with me.
Even though the world says this is how things go, Abraham chose to listen to God instead.
He had hope, because he made the choice to believe God.
Hope is objectively grounded in God and what He has promised.
Abraham is a great example of Hope, and an example for us.
For, hope is not just for Him.
Look with me at the passage for today, Hebrews 6:18-20
Hebrews has been using the example of Abraham, but here it switches from Abraham to us.
Notice it says ‘we’ and ‘us’.
God wants us to have hope just as much as Abraham did.
Let’s look closely at this verse.
We who have fled...
Hope flees to refuge
Fled means to flee for refuge, like in Acts 14:6, when Paul and Barnabas found out that the Jews were planning to stone them, so they fled from the town of Iconium to Lystra and Derbe.
They fled from a dangerous situation to a place of safety.
In Hebrews it says we who have fled.
We face difficult, sometimes dangerous things in life.
What should we do?
If we dwell on the situation from a human standpoint, we will have no hope.
If Abraham would have looked at his situation from a human standpoint, he would have been hopeless.
Instead of dwelling on the situation, we need to Flee for refuge!
Where do we flee to?
We’ll get to that in a second.
The next thing we see in verse 18...
We flee to refuge to take hold of Hope set before us.
To take hold of here is to grasp strongly.
It has an element of strength behind it.
Have you ever started to fall, or slide down a hill?
I have.
Hiking through the jungle were we had about 30 inches of rain a month, the mountain trails could get really slippery!
I have had my share of slips and falls.
What do you do when you slip and start sliding down a steep path?
You reach and grab hold of something to stop you from sliding!
You don’t just hold it like you hold a pen, or a flower, or your coat or whatever you hold casually.
No, when you are sliding down a hill, you grab hold with all your strength!
That is the word here.
You are in a situation where you feel like you are sliding down that mountain path, out of control.
You reach out and grab hold of something to stop your slide before you go over the edge… what is it you grab hold of?
The hope set before us!! Set before us means that we don’t manufacture it like we might manufacture optimism.
No, it is set before us.
It is provided for us.
Who provides it?
God is providing that rock solid hope for us.
Look at the next verse...
It is an anchor!
God provides for us an anchor for our souls, our lives, which is firm and secure.
Hebrews describes is as entering the sanctuary behind the curtain.
Back in the day when this was written, the context was the seafaring vessels in the Mediterranean.
Often the harbors were small, and not all of the vessels would fit.
So some had to anchor outside the harbor.
Anchors could hold a boat just because of the weight of the anchor in calmer seas.
But if there was a storm, and the anchor had nothing to hold onto, the boat would move.
Story
So, instead of just relying on the weight of the anchor, the sailors would often use a small boat to carry the anchor into the harbor and lodge it in the reef.
That is what Hebrews describes.
Jesus has placed a firm anchor for us.
It is anchored behind the veil.
The imagery used is the Temple the Jews used to worship the Lord.
Inside the temple, was the Holy of Holies, behind a thick curtain.
This is where the ark of the covenant was kept.
The top of the Ark was the Mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled to cover sin.
Jesus was the true sacrifice for our sin.
He removed all that separated us from God when He died on the cross.
He rose from the grave to give us new life, and a new relationship with God.
We have been shown mercy, and we are dearly loved!
Hope is anchored in God’s love!
He has placed an anchor firmly in the presence of God.
He has placed an anchor in the mercy of God.
That is the anchor that holds fast in every storm.
We are anchored firmly in God’s mercy and love!
As I was studying this, it reminded me of the passage we just covered in our Monday night Bible Study.
Acts 27.
Turn there with me.
Paul is on his way to Rome.
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