Transcript

All right. Good morning, church. It's great seeing all of you here this morning. I'm thankful to be back. I've been on vacation and also took some time to look at some future things that are going on in our church and where our city is headed.

And so I appreciate and give you thanks, church, for allowing me to "sharpen the saw," to go off and get refreshed a little bit with my family and also some time alone with the Lord to study some things. And so we're thankful. I'm also thankful for our teaching team that filled in for me while I was gone. I've heard great reports. I've been able to watch some of the online videos.

I hope to watch them all to encourage our teaching team. I think we have a great teaching team, don't you? And so we're just happy about that and thankful for each of them. And we're in this series entitled, "God is..." and we've been going through the attributes of God, and that's what we've been working on. This will be the fifth Sunday now, and so I'm happy to tag in for my opportunity to preach in this series.

And I want to mention a couple other things. One is, how about these young people down front, these students down front? And wow, I was really happy to hear the report about you having such a great week. I was talking to some of the adult leaders and one of them told me, "you know, I knew I was doing this to help the students. I didn't realize how much this week would mean to me personally."

And so don't be surprised, adults, when you go on one of these trips that maybe you grow as much or more than the students do. But hearing those results that were announced earlier means a lot to me, especially the one. Well, not especially, but of interest to me, is that seven people made a decision that they felt like the Lord was calling them into ministry. And don't be surprised by that. Most people that are in ministry, most pastors, most missionaries, most people that are in ministry made the decision.

They had a call from the Lord when they were teenagers, many of us, myself included. My grandmother used to say to me when I was like nine or ten years old, "Gary, you're going to be a preacher." In fact, she was kind of old school. She'd say, "Gary, I think you're going to make a preacher." That's some unusual English right there, isn't it?

That's what she used to say. And I'd say, "No, granny, I'm going to be a chicken farmer with my Paw Paw," you know, because I used to spend summers on the farm with him. But from an early age, people began to tell me they thought I was called to ministry. And I was 19 when I stood at a conference and said “yes” to the Lord. And so whoever you seven are, get to work.

And the rest of you get to work too. And so we're glad you're here on the front row. I expect for you to really encourage me now as I'm preaching, I'm pretty fired up. I'm really fired up because you're here.

Okay, so we're talking about these things. A couple more things I want to mention quickly. I was glad to hear the update about Kidzfest. Kidzfest is almost here. It's one of the most important things we do in our church.

In fact, many of the new families that begin to come to our church come as a result of meeting us during that week of Kidzfest. And Kidzfest is like VBS=10 for us. And it's not just for our kids, but it's for the children in our community. So volunteer and be part of that.

One other thing I want to mention is the Uganda team. That's nine people from our church. They're getting really close. I think they have one or two more team meetings. So be praying for our Uganda mission team. That will be two weeks in Uganda with my good friend, my brother in Christ, Pastor George Mybonye of Kisoro Hill Baptist Church and with other churches in Uganda.So we've been sending teams to Uganda for years now. And so we want you to be praying for them and talk to them and find out where they're at on their support raising and so forth. Be talking to them and so updating on that.

And, you know, I come back and I've got so many things to talk about, but make sure you stop at the Choices Women's Center table before you leave today. Members, I'm talking to you. Stop and say “hello” to our director who attends our church and she's running the table out there. And stop and talk to her about the opportunities we have to support the Choices Women's Center here in Wilson, who we partner with. Well, that's enough of those announcements. Let's dig into this message. We're talking about knowing God.

This is what John says in his Gospel. He says, John 17:3 (ESV) And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So what is eternal life? It's knowing God. What's the purpose of life?

For us, it's to know God. A theologian, an author, that affected me from the time I was in college. I remember reading this book when I was a freshman in college, “Knowing God.” It's a Christian classic.

If you haven't read it, you really should read the book, “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. Here's what he says, “What were we made for? To know God.

What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God… Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.” Why did God make us?

He made us for himself so that we might know him and be fully known by him. And so this is life. And that's what this series is about. It's about knowing God better. It's about growing in your knowledge of God.

And so we've talked about these different attributes of God so far. We've talked about how God is love, how that's really his chief attribute. God is love. That God is merciful, that God is father, that God is mighty. So that's where we've been.

Now, today we're going to talk about this reality, that God is unchanging. God is unchanging. Or as theologians call it, God is immutable. Immutable, which means that he's fixed. He cannot be altered.

He never changes. He is perfect, and he never changes. Now, that's important, isn't it? That there's someone that never changes. Now, in our invitation, we've already mentioned it before.

We invite you to change. We say, “Come as you are and be forever changed by the love of Jesus,” because we need life change, but we need a lord. We need God to be the same today, tomorrow, and forever. We need a God like that in this changing world. Indeed, in this ever changing world, we can depend on a never changing God.

And that's what we're talking about this morning. I don't know what's going on in your life. Maybe you're going through a time of decision. How many seniors have I got in the group in front of me today? 12345.

Okay. Some of you aren't sure. You think. Okay, so we got a bunch of seniors, I heard, “I think.”

Was it nine? Nine that you have in the total group, nine seniors? And so you guys are at a big change point in your life, a big transition point. And that's good. It's exciting, but it's also scary, because change can be really scary when you're going through big change and life is like that.

It's wonderful to have an unchanging God that you can hold fast. To the one who says, I never change. I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's wonderful to have that. And this world is changing so fast, so fast today.

So many things are changing in our culture. So much is changing about morality, so much is changing about our economy, our politics. Everything is changing so fast. And maybe even in your life, there's been changes in your life that it's really challenged you. It's great to have an unchanging God.

Here's what Charles Spurgeon, that great Baptist preacher, said about this topic of God's immutability. He said, “Would you lose your worries and fears this day? Then you must immerse yourself in the immensity of God…

He never changes. His being, and nature, and perfections can’t be altered. Nothing can be added to the infinite God and nothing can be taken from Him. What God is today He always was.

What God is today He shall always be…He is all-wise; He need not change. He is perfect; He cannot change.”

We worship an unchanging God, and in a time when so many things are changing, in fact, everything seems to be a constant flux around us, we can take hold of him and hold fast to him as a sure and steadfast anchor for our soul. Well, let's look at the text. Hebrews, chapter six. In this book of Hebrews chapter six, believers are reminded that they can hold fast to an unchanging God in this ever changing world. And as we look at it, I believe that we too can hold fast to this unchanging God in this ever changing world.

As we look at the text, we'll be looking for four reasons why this is possible. Let's look at it. We're in Hebrews chapter six, starting at verse 13. Hebrews 6:13-20 (ESV) 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.

This is God's word. Amen. Amen. We're looking for four reasons that we can hold fast to an unchanging God in an ever changing world. Here's the first reason.

1. Because of God’s unchanging perfections.

Because of God's unchanging perfections. When we use the word perfections, what are we talking about? It's another way of describing God's character traits or his attributes. We call them perfections because all of his character traits, all of his attributes are perfect.

They're whole, they're complete. They miss nothing. They need nothing added to them. Where do we see this in the text? Well, notice that in verse 13, it says that God made a promise to Abraham.

And when he made the promise, he swore an oath by himself because he could think of no one greater than himself. Just think about that. God. If he was going to swear an oath, he could find nothing greater than himself to swear it by. This is what he says.

So he swore it by himself. Why? Because he's perfect. He's the great one. He has all of these perfections.

We've mentioned several of them in previous weeks. Chief among them, we say, is God is love, that his love is whole. It's perfect. We've talked about God being holy. God is just, God is mighty.

These are his perfections. Every character trait of God is full and perfect in every aspect, and so he's greater. And then take note, this word is in here twice, and it gives us the title for our sermon, verse 17 and 18. You'll see it in each of those verses. Circle the word in your notes if you're taking notes.

”Unchangeable.” Do you see that in the text, verse 17 and 18? “Unchangeable.” First we see the phrase unchangeable character, that the promise has an unchangeable character of his purpose and is so unchangeable there. And then we see it again.

He says two unchangeable things in verse 18. This is where we get our title, “God is…Unchanging.” From that two time occurrence of those words. If you're looking at the King James, it says, “immutable,” which is the same word. It's a synonym.

It means “fixed and unchangeable, unalterable cannot change.” This is so important because we look to our God as one. Okay. Is he loving all the time, or does he have a bad day?

Sometimes he just wants to be hateful? You know, sometimes we ascribe that to God if something happens and maybe you're afraid of God in the wrong way. I don't mean fearing him as in respecting him, but actually being afraid to give your life fully to him. Many of you know the story of my early life, that my father died of cancer when he was 39 years old. I'm the firstborn.

I was eight years old when my daddy died. When I was 13, I was a believer. I prayed to receive Jesus the year my father died. I saw the reality of life and death. I grew up really quickly as a result of that impact.

Then when I was 13, someone was talking to me at school, and they said, “Gary, have you ever given your life fully to Jesus?” And I said, “What do you mean by that?” “Like every aspect of your life.” I'm a believer.

This person was actually a senior in high school that was talking to me. So I looked up to him and he really hurt my feelings. He said, “Because your life doesn't look like it.”He began to point out some things about the way I was living.

I didn't like that, but he was correct. He said, “Your dad, when he was still alive, I mean, if you were to go to your dad and say, ‘Dad, I want to be just like you when I grow up,’ would he lock you in the closet and make you eat spinach or something? I mean, what would he do to you? And I said, “no.” Actually, I used to say things like that to my dad when he was alive. I'd say, “Daddy, I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

And he'd say, “Son, I'm so proud of you. I just want you to be whatever God wants you to be.” I didn’t have to imagine that. This senior said, “Well, your father in heaven loves you so much more than your father on earth could ever love you. And if you go to him and say, ‘I want to be just like you, I want to follow Jesus fully in my life in every regard,’ then you can trust him and know that he loves you. He's not up in heaven with a whip in one hand and a chain in the other trying to make your life miserable.

No, he sent Jesus to die for your sins.” And he loves you and he loves you and he loves you and he loves you. And his love is perfect. And so you think about these perfections. You don't have to think of God the way you think of another human.

He's constant. He's unchanging. And not only that, speaking of his perfections, he never lies. Do you see this in verse 18? “...it is impossible for God to lie.”

Unusual phrase in the Greek. It literally means he is without strength to lie. He's impotent to lie. The all powerful God, the one who has the power to do all things, the scripture says he has no power to lie. It seems a little paradoxical on the face of it, but it makes perfect sense.

Dr. Barnes says in his commentary, "the impossibility is a moral impossibility," because God is truth. Therefore he cannot lie. It's impossible for him to lie. This is just one of the perfections of God. His word never lies.

His written word, which is from the father, never lies. And so he cannot lie. In fact, Jesus, when he reveals God to us, he says, "I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but by me." It's impossible for him to lie.

When Dr. Louis Berkhof, in his systematic theology book, talks about God's immutability, he says, “That perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change, not only in His Being, but also in His perfections, purposes and promises.” You can count on him. He does not change. The prophet Malachi in Malachi three says, speaking of the Lord, Malachi 3:6 (ESV) “For I the Lord do not change…”

In James 1:17 (ESV), he writes, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” There's no shadow, there's no cloud, there's no imperfection. Light here is symbolic of truth. Can I give you three logical reasons for his immutability, for his unchanging nature?

First, God is eternal. And since change takes place over time, thank you Facebook for reminding us of this with the Facebook memories, right? Here's your memory from ten years ago… and there's a selfie of me. That's when I still had dark hair.

Yeah, thanks Facebook, for that memory, you know. But we change over time. As time goes on, we change. But God is eternal. He stands outside of time.

In fact, he created time. Time has no effect on him. He is unchanged. He's eternal. God is perfect.

If he's perfect. If he's perfect love, there's no way you can add or subtract to that which is already complete and perfect. God is perfect. To make him better or worse in any category implies change, and he does not change. He's perfect. God is omniscient, which means all knowing.

If he's all knowing, he can't forget, nor can he learn because he already knows. He's omniscient. Those are just some logical things I'm helping us think through. When we think about how God in his perfections is unchangeable, he's unchangeable. Does everything around you seem to be changing?

Is life becoming overwhelming, confusing? Hold fast to God and his unchanging perfections, his unchanging love. In an ever changing world, we can count on a never changing God. Here's the second reason. The first is that God is unchanging in his perfections.

The second is:

2. Because of God’s unchanging promises.

He's unchanging in his promises. Because of God's unchanging promises. Circle the word, “promise.” You'll find it there three times in the text. If you look at the text three times in the text, you'll see it in verses 13,15 and 17.

Our God is a promise making and a promise keeping God. And that's something. He makes promises and he keeps promises. Here he's talking about a promise he made to Abraham. He tells us a little piece of the promise

in verse 14. He says, in verse 14, he says, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” That's kind of a “cliff's notes” version of what he actually said. We can go over to Genesis chapter 22 and see what God said, which is what is being quoted here. He says, in Genesis 22:16-18 (NKJV) 16 “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore;

and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” Twenty-five years prior to that, God had first told Isaac, I know you're old. I know that your wife is past the age of childbearing. But you're going to bear a son

and from him, you're going to be multiplied to the point that your children, your offspring, are like the number of the stars in the sky. The number of grains of sand on the seashore. And Abraham believed him. He believed him. And then he patiently waited.

And it refers to this in verse15, “And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.” God came through, and God gave him a son, Isaac, whose name means “laughter.” And so he has Isaac. And then God tested Abraham's faith and he said, take your son, your only son, up on Mount Moriah. I want you to offer him to me as a sacrifice.

And Abraham got up early the next morning and immediately took off. And when Isaac asked about it, he said, “Father, I see that we have wood, and I see that we have fire, but we have no lamb.” And Abraham says, “My son, God will provide a lamb.” And so they go up on the mountain, and as he lifts the knife to take his son's life, an angel of the Lord appears and stops him. And he sees a ram with its horns caught in a thicket.

And God provided the ram, and God took care of that. So that's the context of the story. He says, I will bless you because of this, and through your seed, everyone will be blessed, all the nations. When Paul looked at this, he took note that the word, “seed,” was singular, not plural. And he took note of that.

Here's what he said in his letter to Galatians. He said, Galatians 3:16 (NKJV) Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. You see the promise that God gave to Abraham, Abraham never saw its complete fulfillment.

He got a partial fulfillment when he got Isaac, but he never saw that the whole purpose of this miraculous promise was that through Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob, and so forth down to David. And then in the line of David would come Jesus. He's the promised seed by which all nations will be blessed. This is the promise that God made with an oath, swearing by himself because there was no one greater than himself. God does not lie.

He fulfills his promises and he keeps his promises. It says in Numbers 23:19 (NIV) “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” These are rhetorical questions.

God keeps his promise, all of his promises. Indeed, you might say, well, do these promises affect me? Well, if you're a follower of Jesus, guess what? All of God's promises are “yes” in Jesus. Look what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV) For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.

And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. All of this. You could call this book, “God's book of promises.” It's so filled with promises. Do you feel like God's far away from you today as a believer?

Do you feel distant from God? Remember, he says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” and believe the promise and ask, “Well, God, why do I feel this way? Because you promised never to leave me or forsake me. Open up my mind and my heart so I can understand why I'm having these feelings. But I want to believe your word over my own feelings.

I want to bring my life into alignment with your word.” You could just look at so many promises and claim them because “yes” is the answer. Yes, this promise is for you in Christ Jesus. Now I have a question for the young people because you're close enough to see. I don't know if everybody can see. What is this?

It's a $100 bill. Does anybody have one of those? What about you? Okay.

I'm not going to ask for it. You can keep it. Oh no, the preacher's going to ask for money. So some of you seniors, I know some of y'all got some of this, right?

Got some money, you know, hope you did. Hopeyou're putting in a savings because you're going to need it. So what do you think this is worth? Hundred dollars. That's what it claims.

This is a promissory note from the US government, one of the most important large, powerful nations that maybe has ever existed on planet Earth. And it promises that this is worth $100. I remember if I got one of these when I first got married. I got married in 1979. When my wife and I first got married, if somebody gave me one of these, I was like, ‘yeah, you can get some stuff’ because you know what this was worth in 1979, it was worth $400.

You could buy $400 worth of goods with one of these promissory notes from the US government that said $100. Because here's what's happened. There's this little thing called “inflation” that since 1979, it's now only worth 25% of what it was in terms of its spending power. The US government, the most powerful nation on planet Earth, can't even keep its promise about this $100 bill. It can't because it keeps changing.

Inflation, deflation, depression, economic factors. But God keeps every promise. He keeps every promise perfectly. Without inflation, deflation, without lying, without any change. God's promises are permanent and unchanging.

Some of you older people that are close to retirement, does your 401k look like a 101k? Are you concerned? You think, it looks like I'm going to have to work longer because you can't depend on the world, but you can depend on God, our God.

In this ever changing world, we can depend on our never changing God. Here's the third reason:

3. Because of God’s unchanging purposes.

We've talked about his perfections, his promises, and now we talk about his purposes. Look at verse 17. Circle the word, “purpose.”

Do you see it there? His purpose is unchanging. You could look at this and say, “What do we mean by his purpose?” Well, we mean his will, his counsel, his plan. And so God's purposes will come to pass.

They will stand. I know I keep talking to the young people, but they're up here where I can see them. Good. So I'm going to keep talking to you. Do you ever think, what's God's will for my life?

Does it ever cross your mind, like, what's God's will for my life? Seems like you old people figured that out, but we're still working it out. Now, let me just explain something to you. The old people don't have it figured out either. They have you fooled.

That's one of those questions, like, “What's God's will for my life?” But when you are young, you do have certain details that you're looking for. Like, if you're young and single, you ask, “God, what's your will for my life, for marriage? Where is he right now? Have I met him yet?

Where is she? How do I find her? What's God's will for my life, for marriage or not? If you're calling me to be single…” I know some of the guys are right now going, “Please, God, do not give me the gift of celibacy,” right? Right?

You know, give that gift to somebody else. But some people, that's the perfect gift, right? So what's God's will for my life? What's God's will for my calling? Like, what should I major in?

What school should I go to? And these kinds of things, these are the kinds of things that young people are asking. But as you get older, you keep asking these kinds of questions because life keeps changing. And as you get older, some people call it a “midlife crisis.” Do I need to change some things?

Like, what do I need to do? How do we decide, how do we find out what God's purpose for our lives is? Here's the thing. Proverbs 19 says this, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. You can make your plans, you can come up with all kinds of great plans, but the truth of the matter is only God's purpose will stand.

Our calling then, as believers, is to try to bring our purpose into alignment with his, to bring our plans into alignment with God's plans for us. This is the challenge. And I think God's not hiding his will from us. He wants us to talk to him about it, because he's a revealing God. He's a promise keeping God, and he's a purposeful God.

He has a purpose for your life. Now, what is God's purpose for your life? Would you like to know? I can tell you right now. Here's God's purpose for your life.

It's that you would come to faith in Jesus Christ and that you would become more and more like him until you ultimately are fully conformed to the image of Christ, so that you can live forever with God, forever in a new heaven and a new earth. That's God's overarching purpose, that he would redeem the fallen humanity and the fallen creation, that we would once again become the image of God that he first made us in, that we would reflect his glory. This is his overarching purpose. And so everything God is doing is working towards that. You probably know this verse.

It's in Romans 8:28 (KJV) “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” You know what's great about this verse? This Romans 8:28 verse? Even the places where you have messed up, you've taken a wrong turn, you got caught up in a bad habit, maybe it was an addiction, maybe you've blown it in a relationship, you've made some mistakes, maybe your deepest wounds, your deepest hurts, you've lost a parent, you've lost a sibling, you've lost a grandparent, and you've been wounded.

Those very places God can take your deepest hurts, your deepest wounds, your deepest sin areas, your deepest mistakes, your addictions, everything. He can take it all. Romans 8:28 says he causes “all.” How many things? We know that most things, no, it doesn't say most, many things.

No. It says all things work together. So here's what God can do. He takes your junk, he takes your ugly, and he makes all things beautiful. He makes all things beautiful.

If you'll give it to him now, you have to get your little hands off of it and give it to him. And if you'll give him even those places that you've kept secret that you've hidden from God, he can take it and make it beautiful. He can actually make it the part of your life that's the most important part of your life that I used to be. Like the blind man said, “I once was blind, but now I see.” And that becomes his biggest testimony.

I once was this, but now I'm becoming like Jesus. This is God's purpose. In the book of Genesis, Jacob had twelve sons, and his eleventh son was his favorite son because this son was born to his favorite wife. He loved Rachel, and so his name was Joseph. And the other eleven brothers were jealous of Joseph, and so they sold him into slavery.

They saw their chance to get rid of him and they sold him into slavery. And the Edomites that were in the caravan there carried him and they sold him to a man in Egypt. And then this man ultimately was displeased with him and he put him in prison. But it was when he was in prison. So you just visualize, here's Joseph favored son, slavery, prison.

He's just going down, down, down. But yet he never lost his faith in God. And while he was in prison, God had given him the gift of interpreting dreams. And so he was able to interpret a dream for the pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And as a result of interpreting this dream, Pharaoh brought Joseph out of prison and made him the second in command.

The only person greater in all of Egypt was pharaoh. Joseph was the number two man in Egypt. He went from favored son to the second in command over here. But boy, it was a journey. It was down, down, down before God raised him up.

And then this famine came. And even his father and his family and all those brothers, they had to move to Egypt because that was the only place where they could find food, because Joseph, in his foresight from the Lord, was able to feed them. And when Jacob, his father, died, his eleven brothers were afraid because they knew they had sold him into slavery. And so they went to him and they bowed down and they were like, our father said you'd take care of us.

Okay, now that dad has died. He's going to remember. He's going to want blood. They were afraid. They were thinking like that. That's not what Joseph says.

Look what Joseph says in Genesis 50:20 (HCSB) “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.” What a godly man Joseph turned out to be. His brothers sold him into slavery, and he ends up caring for his brothers and making sure their families are taken care of.

Why? Because he looked at it from God's perspective and he said, you tried to hurt me. You meant evil for me. But God used it, or else we wouldn't be here today. See, sometimes you have to look back on your life and go, you know, I wouldn't take nothing from my journey now because God has used it to bring me to this place in my life today.

He's an unchanging God. He has an unchanging purpose. Hold fast to God. His purposes will stand in our ever changing world. We have a never changing God that we can hold fast to.

Here's the fourth reason: 4. Because of God’s unchanging High Priest. Yeah, we finally made it to Jesus. That's where we're at here in these final verses of our text today. Look at verse 20.

Who is our high priest? It's Jesus. He's our great, perfect high priest, the one to whom we hold fast. Verse 18 says, “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've run to Jesus. We've gone to him. He is our refuge. Now. Where is he?

Well, the author goes on here, and he says that he has gone past the curtain. What curtain are we talking about here? Do you see that in verse 19, “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,” What in the world is he talking about? Well, he's talking about the heavenly temple, of which the earthly temple was only a type.

Because on the earthly temple, the Holy of Holies was on the other side of a veil, on the other side of a curtain. And inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat, the Throne of God. And only the high priest could go in there. And then only one day a year, on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. And so here's what the author is saying.

Here's what the book of Hebrews is saying is that Jesus has already gone in there as a forerunner, representing us, and he's already in there, and he's our high priest. He's our go between. We don't talk a lot about priests today, but what it really means, the one that stands as a mediator between God and man. And so we can hang on. It's almost like we could say, hope is not like worldly hope.

You know? I say something like, “I hope it'll rain.” And by the way, I pray it'll rain. We need some rain. I was reading about farmers that are really struggling right now.

We need some rain, but I hope it'll rain. But that's all. I hope that's what. Well, I hope this, or I hope that. But Christian hope is stronger than that.

Christian hope is more like a rope. It's more like this. It's like we're hanging on to this rope that Jesus has, if you will, kind of tied around his waist. And he's gone as a forerunner, and he's already pulling us in. There's no way that we're not going to be with the father someday.

He's got us, and so he's our forerunner. He's gone ahead of us. And our hope is so sure. It says, we have this, in verse 19, as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. So we're anchored in him.

In fact, the book of Colossians says, we're already there. That you should set your minds and your hopes upon the Lord because you're already there positionally. You're already in Christ, and Christ is in you. And so we can flee to him.

We can run to him. Are you afraid? Are you nervous, seniors? Are you nervous about this Fall?

Do you know who your roommate is already? Do you know who your roommate is?

Going into my freshman year at Radford University, my best friend growing up was going to be my roommate. Then, a month before we were supposed to go to school, he chickened out because he was dating a girl that was in the 11th grade, and he was afraid they'd break up. He stayed home for a girl.

And then guess what happened to me? I got there and was wondering, okay, who am I gonna get for a roommate?

So one day, this guy showed up and he was from Iran. His name was Merehegan Lofi Najafar Bardi.

And that was my roommate my freshman year. That's a story for another time. And so you just don't know. Sometimes. You don't know what changes are coming.

But we can. Listen, you don't have to be anxious. Do not worry, because God has got a future for you. He's got a purpose. He's made a promise, and he's got this great high priest, Jesus, that you can hang on to as a sure and steadfast anchor.

He's our forerunner. Now, this final comment it makes here is a little bit obscure. He says he's a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And so I would direct your studies to the book of Genesis. Melchizedek in the Hebrew means “king of righteousness.”

He was the king of Jerusalem. When Abraham had won a battle, Abraham came before Melchizedek. And Melchizedek, it says, he brought bread and wine, and he blessed Abraham, and Abraham gave him a tithe. Many people think that Melchizedek was the pre-incarnate Christ. He was what's called a “Christophany,” an appearance of Christ before he came, in the Old Testament.

And so this is the Melchizedek we're talking about. I don't have time to go further into that, but he's from that order of priesthood, not from the order of Levi, which was the Mosaic law, that everyone that was a priest had to be a son of Levi. But this Jesus is a son from the line of David, and his priesthood comes through the order of Melchizedek. Well, that's the backbone on why it talks about that in that place, Jesus is unchanging. It says in Hebrews 13:8 (ESV) “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

He is our mediator, our great go-between, the one who's gone ahead of us, preparing a place for us so that we don't have to be anxious or worried. Now, this past week, I was at Nag's head with my children and my ten grandchildren, from little babies all the way up to age 15. Now, the little babies were my wife's department. She likes to sit in a chair under an umbrella and rock them until they go to sleep. My job is entertainment, so my job is to keep them busy making sand castles or in the water.

And on the last day we were there, we finally had some good waves. We had not really had good waves, but the last day we were there, we would have some really good waves, but they were breaking a little bit offshore. So that kind of scared some of my younger grandchildren. So my granddaughter, Addie, wanted to get on a boogie board and really catch a wave and so I said, “I can show you now.”.

My wife looked at me like, no, don't you go out there; we've already replaced your knees and back surgery. I know how to catch a wave. I hadn't forgotten. My body might have forgotten, but I still remember. And so I went out there, and Addie wanted to catch a wave, but it was over her head where the waves were breaking.

But I'm bigger than her, I'm stronger than her, taller than her, and I know how to catch a wave. And so we're out there, and she's got her boogie board and she tries to catch a wave. I said, “No, that's not the one. That's not it.

That's not it.” Here comes another one. Not it. Just turn this way. Turn this way.

And then a big one comes. She goes, “Oh, papaw!” because it was a big one. And then I edged her into it, and, boy, it blasted her off. It threw her up on dry sand. I mean, it was a good one.

Go, Addy. And she looked back at me with her lower lip trembling and ran to the umbrellas.

Apparently, it was too good. That wave was too good. That's how I roll sometimes. We caught a good wave. Here's why I'm telling you that story.

For her, she needed someone bigger, stronger, taller, and more knowledgeable than her before she could catch a wave. Now, the wave scared her, but she came to her paw paw to help her with that. That's a small little story, right? It's a funny story.

But God wants you to live into your purpose, and he's unchanging. He's bigger, stronger, taller, smarter than you. He's perfect in all of his ways. And you can give your life fully to him. And he's going to take you out there on the bigger wave where it's over your head.

Trust me. He's going to test your faith. He's going to take you somewhere that's going to challenge your comfort zone. But that's where you meet the joy and the adventure of following Jesus, our great high priest. He's unchanging.

Our God is immutable in his person and his perfections, in his promises, in his purpose. And finally, in this great high priest, Jesus, who is the anchor for our souls. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that we can talk to you knowing that you never change, that you're the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And thank you that we can pray to you through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And I pray right now for that person that's here this morning that's never given their life to you. The word of God says that if you confess Jesus as Lord with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So right now, wherever you are watching online, right here in our building, sitting in one of our seats, you can do business with God. You can talk to him right now.

Just pray with me. Pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I repent of my sin and I turn my life over to you. I believe you died on the cross for me and that you were raised from the grave and that you live today.

I believe that. Come and live in me. Save me, Lord, and forgive me of my sin. Make me a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life.

If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, he'll do that, he'll forgive you, he'll save you, he'll make you a child of God. Others are here today, and you have received him as lord and savior. You're a follower, but you're going through a storm right now, or you're going through a transition of change. And you have to admit you're anxious, you're worried. You're afraid.

Why not, right now, take hold of that anchor, Jesus. Take hold of Jesus afresh. You already believe in him, but take hold and say, lord, I don't know everything, but you do. I don't know how this is going to work out, but you do.

And I trust you. And so I've decided not to worry, but instead to turn my worries into prayers. I'm trusting you right now with what's going on in my life, knowing that you'll cause all things to come together for good. To those that love you and those that are called according to your purpose, Lord, in Jesus’ name, Amen.