Anchoring Your Soul

Hebrews  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

The Certainty of God’s Promise

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 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, 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 hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

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Last week we ended on a frightening word of warning to those who would fall away. This week we get to take heart as we look at how this passage continues,

9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Remember the purpose of the warning. The writer could see the lack of intensity in the readers’ embrace of the deeper doctrines of the gospel. His hold on the lifeline was tenuous, at best. And while that might be fine when the waters are calm, it won’t be at all fine when the waters churn. He seeks to fuel their faith, their trust in God. Not all is lost, however, as he sees others exhibiting signs of genuine faith, moving them to love and service.
Now the writer seeks to address the next question, “how do I know I’ll be okay?” It’s an important question because the more you decide to trust someone, the more out on a limb for them you go. The risk gets higher and the dangers get increasingly real. That’s how it is in any relationship, is it not? Think of when you started dating or about dating for the first time. Trusting someone means opening up, letting them see who you really are. How much of that can you do? How much of yourself can you let someone see? The answer is always tied to trust. You take a step in trust, and another and another. Eventually you reach your limit. You realize there is farther to go, but fear grips you.
That would be the case with the readers of this letter soon enough, if it wasn’t already. Trusting God, believing Jesus to be God in the flesh would become costlier and costlier. It would cost association in the synagogues, the hub of their lives. It could eventually cost their jobs or even their lives. The risks, in other words, were great. The same is true for you, too. The greater the risk, the deeper the trust must be. Thus, the writer seeks to strengthen your trust and enable you take another step toward vulnerability, toward risk, toward danger. How do you know you won’t get swept away? How do you know this one in whom you trust can save you amidst the growing threats? This is what the writer of Hebrews seeks to address.
He wants you to see that your trust is not on shaky ground. It is not on shaky truth. It is stronger than any of the dangers coming your way. It is strong enough to keep you from being swept away.
The metaphor “an anchor for the soul” resonates. Something about it not only sounds deep and meaningful, but sounds true. We feel that need. We’re aware of that need.
An anchor, of course, is something that holds something else in place, from getting lost, when outside forces threaten to sweep it away. We’ve certainly considered how that was true for the original reader, as the judgment of God upon Jerusalem was on the verge of happening. Quite literally, outside forces were preparing to sweep away the Jewish nation which, as has been warned time and again through the Old Testament. They are in desperate need of an anchor, something that can hold them. And of course, the greater danger, greater than losing their nation and even their land, was the danger of losing their soul in the judgment of God. That is as true now as it was then. We all need an anchor for the soul when storms in life threaten to undo us.
Keller presses the metaphor into its parts to bring its significance home.
The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive Our Covenant God—What Can I Really Trust In?

What is there about the anchor that gives you security? There has to be two things about it that give you that security. First, it has to be attached to you. It has to be committed to you. You can’t break the bond between you and the anchor. Then secondly, the anchor has to go into a realm where we can’t go. It doesn’t go into the water to give us security. We don’t need the anchor just to go into the water. We’re already in the water, and the water is the problem. You can’t get security in the water. The water moves. The water changes. The water is in flux. It’s the vicissitudes of the water which are the problem.

The soul.

In verse 19 the writer explains we have a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul and he does so with the understanding that we know how significant that is. He assumes we get it. But I’m not sure we do. When he speaks of the “soul” he’s not talking about some ethereal aspect of our being that’s important perhaps for the next world but not necessarily for this one. In English there’s a bit of that understanding when we think of the word soul. We tend to think of ourselves made of two parts, body and soul, associating the body with this world and soul with the next. While that idea does flow from ancient Greek thought, particularly from Plato, it’s not what the Bible means when it speaks of the soul. Rather than referencing something removed from this world, it refers to the most significant part of us in this world. The soul, ψυχή, is also translated life.
For example,

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

or minds,

2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

It’s a reference to the inner-self. That part of the self that drives your thinking, upon which you build and shape your life. In today’s parlance we might refer to it as your identity. It defines you. When you think of it like that, it’s easier to see how we need something to which to anchor it that isn’t shifting or relative.
We’ve seen what happens when the soul isn’t anchored. We drift with culture. We don’t know who we are and we have nothing to hold onto to help us out. We’re constantly dropping anchors, hoping to catch on something.

The other realm.

Now let’s explore what it is we need our anchor to find. As Keller said, we need something that can reach into the realm we ourselves can’t reach. We need it to latch onto something permanent, something that can hold fast when everything else is stormy. Let’s face it, you will endure events, people, culture that will challenge you, cause you to question who you are, if they haven’t already. It’s why we so want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. That’s just another way of saying we need attach ourselves, derive our identity, from something solid, something rooted in what is true and what is real.
Culture says you need to anchor yourself to your heart. Listen to it, follow it, and it will tell you what is true about yourself. One of the ways we see this being worked out now in our culture is with the LGBTQ+ movement as they seek to redefine gender identity. What’s telling you that you’re a girl or a boy or something else? The heart? Only as it floats amidst of sea of relativism. You can’t attach your anchor in the back of the boat to the cleats on the front of the boat, though that’s what our culture is telling us to do. The only thing that will do is ensure you float with the cultural tides.
What we need is something solid and true, something that stands firm amidst the currents of culture and the storms of life. The only place you can find that, given the changing nature of everything on the earth, is in something beyond it. Something beyond time and space, something unaffacted by time and space. We must have our anchor connected to a realm with more permanance than the one in which we dwell. And that’s the realm of the Kingdom of God.
We see the clues as to its existence. We see creation and deduce there must be a creator. And we deduce that he must have eternal power, power beyond time for him to step into time, to create time; and divine nature, something above and outside of his creation. We feel the clues to God’s existence just as we feel the emptiness that living apart from him creates, compelling us to search for something continually to fill that emptiness. We have in us an insatiable thirst for the divine.
Greater than the clues, however, is the assurance of God himself, and that’s what we have pointed out here. We have the promises God has made to us, promises that assure us that this kingdom exists, a kingdom that stands beyond the physical land and political entity of Israel. These were types and shadows of the true Kingdom of God that exists where God dwells. Just as the temple on earth was a copy and shadow of the temple in heaven, so is the political entity of Israel. The promised land in the middle east is a shadow of the promised Kingdom of God, a kingdom that will one day fill the whole earth. This promise is real. This promise is of a kingdom beyond the reaches of the changing nature of this earth, the changing nature of this culture, and the changing nature of our psyche.
How do we know this promise can be trusted? We know because,

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 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, 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 hope set before us.

It is perhaps a bit hard to find the assurance in this, simply because every parallel we have feels a little shaky. But we get the idea. When you want to give someone a measure of assurance that they can rely on your word, you give your word, you shake on it, you sign a contract. All of those are meant to reinforce the gravity of your promise. And when you swear, you swear on the name of something important to you, as though your suggesting that thing be lost before you don’t keep your word. God is doing the same thing, only he swears by himself since there is nothing greater. He is the rock, the one permanent, unchanging thing in all of the universe. He is the other realm and his promises are deposits given to us to ensure us that he means what he says.
The oath referred to in this passage took place in . Years had passed since God had promised Abram a son and he remained childless. While God had told him, could he provide another guarantee? And he did.

7 And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

That promise still stands for us. Just as the Sabbath rest still stands for the people of God, so does the Kingdom of God, a better country, a realm more permanent and stable and glorious than the one we now experience and it is the promises of God that stand unwavering in the midst of history.

The anchor that holds to that realm.

All throughout this book of Hebrews we see the author pointing to this realm and showing how the structures and practices of the ancient Israelites were connecting them to this other realm, this other kingdom.
The anchor that holds to that realm.
All throughout this book of Hebrews we see the author pointing to this realm and showing how the structures and practices of the ancient Israelites were connecting them to this other realm, this other kingdom. They were the anchors for the people of the Old Testament.
The tabernacle during the time of Moses and the Exodus. The priests and their sacrifices on the altar. The temple planned by King David and the land of Israel itself. All of these served as anchors for the people of Israel to connect with God.
Now, as these structures are on the brink of being swept away the writer of Hebrews points them to a greater anchor, the true anchor to which all of these others could only represent. This anchor is mentioned in 19,

19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

​
Jesus is the anchor that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Here we come back to the work of the high priest. In the time of Moses only he could enter the holy of holies, the place behind the curtain. This place behind the curtain was where the ark of the covenant resided, inside of which were the tablets of the Covenant, upon which God’s finger wrote his commandments. The lid of the ark was referred to as the mercy seat, the throne of God. It represented God’s throne room. It was a holy place, a place in which the high priest alone could enter and then only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. It was a day in which the people’s sin would be atoned for and the blood of the sacrifice would be poured out upon the altar. The scapegoat would carry the sin of the people away into the wilderness, the place of the Azazel, the wild things, the lost ones.
The scapegoat would go away bearing their sin that they might dwell in God’s camp. Now we find that Jesus is the true high priest. He did not enter the earthly holy of holies, but the heavenly one. He entered not the shadow of God’s throne room, but the real one. He is the anchor that connects us in our realm to God in his permanent one. This is how we withstand every storm that we will ever face.
When you feel lost in your sin, unworthy. When you feel lost in who you are, searching for an identity, searching for something permanent, it is Jesus who anchors you to reality because he went behind the veil.
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What is the anchor? The certainty of God’s promises. He swore by himself and made an oath (a covenant) to embolden faith. That’s what the anchor is meant to do—to embolden to live by faith. To be confident of the things not yet seen. To live as though they are already a reality. We see this definition given in 11:1.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Here is the groundwork for that definition. Here is the anchor.
Why do we need it?
What do we typically anchor our faith in? How long do these anchors hold?
Who is the anchor? or how is it that we know these promises anchor us? Jesus is the bridge, the rope that connects us to the anchor. He is behind the curtain interceding for us.
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