Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Hail Abram’s God and mine. I join the heavenly lay as we join the heavenly song of the angels as we come into worship today. God of Abram praise.

Well, the text today reminds us that we are indeed of Abraham’s lineage. The sermon text today is Hebrews 6:13-20. And we have here described an anchor of the soul. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 6:13-20.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.

And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, in which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your wonderful word to us, and we thank you that you confirm this word to us in so many ways, Lord God, condescending to our unbelief, our fears, our anxieties. Minister to us today, Lord God, the sureness of the blessed promises found in your word to us, Abram’s heirs. We thank you, Lord God, for those wonderful promises, for that strong consolation, for that anchor of the soul. Minister to us now by your word. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Last year after the annual CR presbytery meeting held in Pennsylvania, Jonathan and Joanna were kind enough to drive down to Pennsylvania from their home in Rochester and then take me up to Rochester for a few days that I spent with them over the weekend. And a wonderful time.

One of the things that made it wonderful was in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon after church. We thought we would go to a cemetery—Mount Hope, maybe. I’m not sure the name of it. I don’t remember the name, but a huge cemetery within walking distance of their house. So we went there. I like cemeteries, and we went there, and by the providence of God it was kind of a blustery day, but there were volunteer tour guides, and there was a man who was going to do a tour. We didn’t know anything about it. Because the weather was so poor, we were the only ones there, so we spent two or three hours with this man as he walked us around the cemetery, explaining things to us—the imagery and symbolism of the various headstones.

He pointed out that it’s a cemetery, not a graveyard. And they very self-consciously use that terminology. They weren’t Puritans. They were more kind of Congregationalists or Unitarians. You know, a graveyard is someplace you go where you’re expected to put on an air of gravity. The Puritan headstones would, you know, show this is your destination—that kind of stuff—to make you aware that we all have to go to the house of our death, so to speak. So that was their purpose, and that’s a perfectly fine purpose, to remind us of that.

The cemetery is a little different. The term cemetery comes from a Greek word meaning sleep. So a cemetery is a place for what’s stressed, and the very name of the place is sleep and rest. Many of the graves in this cemetery were oriented to the east. And so the imagery is that when Jesus comes, he’ll come from the east, and they will rise up out of their resting place, their sleeping place, to meet him in their bodies. Kind of nice. I like graveyards and cemeteries.

Well, in this particular cemetery, and I’ve noticed this before, I saw a lot of anchors on tombstones. And I always sort of assumed that meant maybe the guy was in the Navy, you know, connected to the Navy or a seafaring man. But of course, that’s not what it means. It is a direct reference to the text we just read—that Jesus, this hope we have in Christ, not a wishful thinking hope, but the objective hope that we have, is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast.

And so that’s what the symbol means. When you see an anchor on a gravestone or a cemetery marking place, that’s what it means. It’s a reference back to the text we just read.

And I’m sure that many of us—I know because, you know, I pastor here and I know you—that a number of you at any given time, and certainly now as well, are going through rough seas, troubling times, difficulties. You know, life in general is kind of a rough sea, and sometimes it gets a lot rougher than other times.

And in the midst of that kind of roughness, you see, God brings us this wonderful imagery of the anchor of the soul—that we don’t have to fear shipwreck, being dashed to pieces, and this sort of thing. God gives us rest. And so it’s my prayer today that God would minister to you strong consolation and the sureness of this anchor of your soul.

You know, “soul” means all of your life. So it’s the anchor of our life—the Lord Jesus—that’s described here in the context of this part of our sermon to the Hebrews.

Not a graveyard, you’re reminded, or a cemetery. The most troublesome times most of us will go through—at least one of the most severe testing times for us—is just before our death. And you know, may this text come back to us as we approach death and as we go through whatever God may put us through on that way. May we have a firm anchor for our souls, even in the face of death itself.

It’s interesting in Hebrews, you know. Some commentators take a totally heavenly perspective of what the author is writing to the Hebrews. Now we would say that this sermon comes in the decade leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. And we’ve seen many references to that already in the text. And so we don’t say that it’s all postponed to the future. There is real consolation that will come to them if they persevere through the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. If they don’t go back to Judaism, which is going to be definitively removed from the world and its history, if they persevere, there’s stuff right in front of them.

In other words, this text, like all other texts in Hebrews, has this sort of—we can apply it to the temporal difficulties we go through, and we can apply it ultimately, you know, to our deaths and ushering us into the great heavenly land above, the new world, the transformed world of the future. Both of those things are perfectly legitimate.

What I want to do this morning is look at the text and on the handouts that are provided. Once more, I’ve given you—I’ve laid out the text in a particular way that helps me at least kind of think through what’s going on here. And what I’ve done is you’ll see I’ve blocked it into two groups.

The first couple of verses we have the example of Abraham—promise and patience is what’s stressed in that first section. And then from that example, the meaning to us—guarantee and anchor. So I kind of think it’s two things here. First, he describes directly Abraham and what happens there, and then he kind of makes application to our situation.

And I didn’t read these, but on the handouts on the first page of the outline, I’ve got the verse just before this section and the verse at the end of the section because they’re kind of the brackets that tie this section together. These are sections, discrete units, but they’re knitted together usually by closing and opening verses of each section.

And this one is the saying. We remember that in verse 12 from last week, the admonition at the end—”the sluggish.” Remember, that’s the one word that’s used at the beginning of that last section we talked about. Only place in the New Testament that Greek word is used. A definite bracketing effect. So we’re not to become sluggish, and apart from that, in opposition to keep us from becoming sluggish, we’re to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promise.

So we’re to be mimics. The word “imitate” doesn’t mean to be a disciple. It can be kind of thought of that way, doesn’t it? It’s not a Greek word meaning to follow. It’s a word meaning to copycat, to be an imitation, you see. So we’re to imitate—good translation—those plural who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

And now what he’s going to talk about here with Abraham is promises. That’s why I have promises in italics under verse 12, and then in verse 13: “For when God made a promise.” You see, it links it together, sews it together. So this is a section about promise. But he’s going to give us one particular individual who we should imitate. He’s going to pick one, and that’s going to be Abraham. And so Abraham is the one who through faith and patience inherited the promises.

So Abraham is stressed to us here. You know, we can’t be sluggish.

Interesting. I was listening to my class—Proverbs class—recite, say it was evaluation, a test day on the book of Proverbs, which I’ve taught them for several months now. And part of that was they had to memorize the last few verses of the words of the wise section at the middle of Proverbs, the end of chapter 24. And it’s the one we all know about. You know, it’s the field of the sluggard. “I went by the field of the sluggard, and I went past the vineyard of the lazy man. And then, you know, it’s broken down because he’s a sluggard. He’s sloth, like this text just warned us of.

Notice that he goes past the field of the sluggard and then he goes past the vineyard of that man. You see, so the sluggard is the one who has bread and wine originally. God graciously brings him into relationship. We’re going to come together, you know. Field and vineyard represented here before us.

The admonition at the end of the central section of Hebrews is “Don’t be slothful.” And here the admonition is “don’t be slothful.” But beyond that, and the example in Hebrews is a negative one. That’s one way not to be slothful—you fear the results. But here we’re told explicitly to imitate something or somebody or a group of people. And God gives us this as the way we’re to avoid slothfulness or becoming sluggish.

Okay. So then we have the text itself proper in verses 13 and 14.

For when God made a promise to Abraham—so Abraham’s the guy—because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you.”

Now this is a simple, very simple chiasm. God makes a promise. He swears. Then we have the content of the promise. You see? And it’s a wonderful promise. It means there’s no end to the blessing. Blessings multiply. They, you know, in the Bible they come at us like Amen. There’s so many of them.

“Blessing, I will bless you. Multiplying you, I will multiply you. I multiplied you with Isaac. I’m going to give you, you know, and Jesus ultimately your seed, but ultimately the seed, you know, as many as the stars of heaven.” So tremendous blessing. But that’s the promise, you see. The promise is repeated and frequent blessings and multiplication of fruit from us by God. That’s the promise.

In addition to that promise, in Genesis 22:16, God swore by himself that the promise would happen. Okay? So the text is going to talk about two things. By two things, God says this stuff to us. Twofold witness. So God promises something to us. And then to make it more sure to us, he swears, right?

So I make a promise to you. Well, I’ll meet you on Wednesday for lunch. And you say, well, you know, you haven’t shown up sometimes, or I’ve heard you haven’t shown up, or how do I know you’re really going to be there? Well, I swear by Almighty God that if I don’t show up, you know, through my own lack of will, may X happen to me. It’s an oath. You’re swearing by God.

You know, it’s not enough to get in the courtroom and say, “Well, I’m going to testify truthfully.” No, you got to swear. It’s controversial these days. Is it a Quran? Is it a Bible? We don’t know. But in most of the history of this country, you’d swear on the Bible, right?

So you’d invoke God’s name to guarantee with an oath or a swearing your promise. So that’s what we’ve got here. And so we have the content of the promise made to Abraham, and God swearing by himself. Because, you know, we’re supposed to swear by God. But there’s no one greater than God. You swear by someone greater because they’ll hold you to account. But there’s no one to hold God to account. So he swears by himself.

What wondrous condescension. And so after he—that is Abram—had patiently endured, he obtained the promises. Okay.

So God goes out of his way to assure him of the promises. He takes an oath. He swears, and then Abram, in response to that, patiently waits. And as a result of that patient waiting, Abram then inherits the promises. So Abram is brought to a recognition of God’s sure character, and as a result of that, he patiently waits.

Now Abram is the example for us. And so if patient waiting is the antidote to sluggishness, then patient waiting is by a firm reliance upon the sureness of God’s word of promise to us as Abraham’s heirs. And thus we shall indeed inherit promises. We shall obtain them as he did.

And then the second section of this text is the meaning to us. Now he makes application of what he just said.

For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.

So this first section of this section—the little group I put together here for you—you know, this is emphasizing not the promise. Now there is an allusion to that in verse 17: “The immutability of his counsel.” His counsel is his promise. But again, it has a threefold repetition that he’s wearing. He’s making an oath, and he’s doing an oath, and he’s guaranteeing this thing to us.

Now, we can’t—we don’t want to take the time to look at all these Greek words in particular, but this is all legal language. There’s a striking number of legal language items used in this text. So, you know, we had Amy become a member of the church, and she signs a legal document. That’s a good thing. That’s one more way that God assures people of what he’s doing. He enters into these legal terminologies to guarantee to us. Look how wonderful he is, that we’re going to be multiplying. We’re going to be multiplied and blessing. He will bless us. I mean, you can’t use stronger imagery here for us that God will care for us, and not only that, but bless us.

So: swear, oath, oath at the bottom. Repeated emphasis to the second of the two things. He promises. He swears or gives an oath. And he—this is explicitly given to the heirs of promise.

So you see, he’s talked about Abraham, and now he says we’re of the faith of Abraham. We’re the heirs of the promise. That same promise, in other words, you see. “Blessing I’ll bless you. Multiplying I’ll multiply you.” That’s ours. We’re the heirs of that promise. We receive that promise. You know, we get what was Abraham’s. And what was Abraham’s was that promise. And we get that.

Notice by the way that says at verse 16—I’ve got this here in the text—”an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.” The word “dispute” there means like a war of words. It’s antilogos. In its simplest form, it’s words against one another. And when we have a situation like that, Calvin said, and I agree with him, that God is commending to us a particular tool that God says will be good for ending disputes, and that is taking an oath.

And when we have disputes in the church between two people, each saying something different, one of the ways to resolve that is to get them to swear to an oath by the name of God, invoking blessings and cursings. Nothing wrong with that. Perfectly proper tool. He says that ends most disputes. Now it doesn’t end all disputes, of course, because men increasingly in our culture will lie whether they swear in the name of God or not.

But in the context of the Christian church, it’s interesting that Solomon, in his prayer for dedication of the temple, you know what the very first thing he prayed for? He prays for seven things. The very first thing he prays for has to do with this. When two men are having a dispute and they swear an oath, they take an oath in terms of trying to resolve the dispute. “May you, Lord God, act on the basis of those oaths. Bring blessings and curses. Make clear to us. Help us to have discernment of causes.”

So we have a God-given remedy here for bringing discernment in murky waters, and we ought to use it. I don’t use it. I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a church dispute, but there it is. And we ought to do it, both in our homes—I’ve used it a few times there—but also, I think, in disputes.

So in any event, what he’s really focusing on here is that there’s no question that God has promised this to you. And I tell you today, in the name of God, I tell you, and I tell myself: there is no question that you are the heirs of this promise—this blessing of God, guaranteed to you. Okay, no question about it.

And then I’ve got down there: the word “confirmed” could be also translated “guaranteed” or “mediated by an oath.” So again, legal terminology, strongly saying what God has done for us. Okay.

That by two immutable, unchangeable things. What are they? They’re the promise and the swearing of an oath. So by two things in which it is impossible for God to lie. He’s given us the promise. He’s not going to lie. And yet he goes further.

Parents, moms, dads, this is our heavenly Father. This is the way he treats us. He doesn’t say, “I promised, close your mouth. Don’t call me a liar if you’re going to ask for more proof.” No, he says, “I’ll give you more. I’ll swear by my own name.” Isn’t that wonderful? I think it’s just tremendous that the Lord God—and two things which are impossible for him to lie—we have it.

The purpose of all this, then, for us, of this Abraham example, is that we might have strong consolation. The end of all this is to encourage weak, timid, unbelieving, faint-hearted souls—that we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

In Hebrews, hope is never used in a subjective “I hope it happens” way. Hope in Hebrews is always a sure reality, an objective truth. You see, so we get that all messed up. We don’t think of hope that way, but that’s what it is. The great hope is not something we hope happens. It is the firm reality, the objective truth of what God has promised to us.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast. Sure—it won’t move. It’s a combination of two words: not moving and steadfast, a place you can get a firm step, you know, a firm foothold. Word I was looking for—this is “sure.” This anchor of the soul: sure and steadfast.

And which enters the presence behind the veil—the holy of holies is where this hope and anchor, sort of, are in the imagery here. That’s where they’re at. They’re anchored in the presence behind the veil where the forerunner—wonderful word—the one who goes before, a scout, someone who goes ahead, as the pioneer of that new land that’s not been entered into by humanity.

Jesus is the forerunner going into the holy of holies, not just on earth, but into heaven. He’s the first.

So we have evidence, you know. Heaven is empty of saints until Jesus comes. Abraham’s bosom is where they reside. The forerunner enters the holy of holies in heaven for us, and he goes, and that’s where our hope is now—in the presence of Jesus, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And then I’ve given you 7:1 because that’s the next section we’ll talk about next week. Abraham will be tied to Melchizedek. And what kind of priest is Jesus Christ? Notice by the way here that Jesus’s work is emphasized as it speaks of him of the order of Melchizedek. In other words, before it says “the order of Melchizedek,” it says that “the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus.” So the work of Jesus is tied to him being a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Next week it won’t be his work. It’ll be his office that makes him after the order of Melchizedek. So here we have the work of Jesus as opposed to his office. What’s important about that is another condescension by God. As he’s trying to give these Hebrews—he is giving these Hebrews—strong consolation and an anchor for their soul. He ties them not just to the office of Jesus, but he ties them to their act, Jesus’s actual work for them as high priest—dying in their stead, entering the holy of holies, etc.

And I’ve sort of given you a little structure here. It seems to me that we lay hold, you know, we flee for refuge—where to? The city of refuge. To the holy of holies. To the altar is where we flee for refuge. You see, that’s where we should be fleeing for refuge, and that matches up with Jesus piercing the veil, going into the holy of holies.

You know, Joab in the Old Testament tried to grab on to the horns of the altar to avoid the death penalty. Solomon said, “Pull him off and kill him.” There’s no sanctuary that’s ultimate in God’s word. Job had the right idea. We cling to where Jesus has done his work and where he presents that blood in the holy of holies. And that’s sort of pictured for us here.

We have strong consolation because the forerunner has gone before us. So we know where we’re going and what’s happening here. You see? That matches up. And the work of Jesus Christ is tied to this immutable thing. How is it that the promise and the oath were fulfilled through the work—the high priestly work—of Jesus Christ? So it’s a wonderful text, giving us great consolation and pointing us to this objective hope based on the work of Jesus Christ, in reminding us of that reality.

Now I mentioned Genesis 22:16. Turn there because that’s the historical action that’s being portrayed here. And I want to make a point here about this.

Genesis 22:16 and following. Now, here’s the setup: Abram is first called out of Haran and is told that God will multiply them and give him children. He waits 25 years, has Isaac. Isaac grows up, and then God says, “Sacrifice him. Take him up to the mountain.” And Abram does it. And it’s after he does it that this verse comes. Okay? So that’s the context here.

It’s important because the Hebrews—they’ve been doing good. They’re like you and I. They’re like you and I who may be going through rough sailing right now. You’ve done good. You pass tests, and then God comes to you and meets you and assures you. Now by this twofold witness, that you’re going to be blessed. You know, the Lopezes—you know, they went through that test. Abram went through the test, and then God comes alongside and reiterates the promise that he said several times already, and now he swears to it.

I mean, he goes out of his way. That’s interesting, too, pastorally, don’t you think? We usually put all that stuff at the front end of a test, but it’s pretty important once people have come through a test. You see? They’re kind of weakened through it, maybe, to come alongside with this kind of promise.

Well, here’s what God says:

By myself, I have sworn, says the Lord. Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son. Blessing, I will bless you. Multiplying, I will multiply you, 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. That’s important too, and we’ll come back to that next week. Melchizedek meets Abram after the slaughter of the kings.

These are optimistic texts. God is going to bless them, and they’re going to possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

So that’s the context. God comes to someone and reaffirms the promise. It’s a victorious, this-world sort of promise, and it’s given by God to those who may be tempted to become weak and distrusting of God in the context of their faith—just like the Hebrews, and perhaps just like you or I today.

Abram’s experience is pointed to here, and it’s first and foremost Abram’s experience as a demonstration that God is faithful, his words are reliable. His every—you know, in Joshua it says there are no falling words that come from God. Not God’s word doesn’t fall to the ground like ours do so often. You know, God’s word has its power, its impact. It will come to pass. And Abram is this great demonstration to us of that.

Notice again, as we’ve said before, there is continuity in Hebrews. There’s that radical discontinuity to give New Testament Christians consolation. He points them to the Old Testament story of Abram.

Now, what we want to do is turn to the next page of your outlines, and we’re going to have some remarks on the text. Okay.

First observation on this is that we are to be imitators. Calvin said that in this text or the one just that precedes it—the introductory text—that to sloth, God opposes imitation. So this is what I’ve said. So he gives us this God-given remedy for sloth. It is imitation. An example is better than just abstract truth or teaching. That’s okay. That’s all God wants to give us. But here he goes beyond it. Beyond the command to have patience, he gives us—a concrete example. This is pastoring. This is fathering. This is being good moms and dads to our kids. An abstract truth is followed up by a specific, concrete example.

I’ve got a quote from Calvin: “Examples convey to us a more impressive idea of things. When a naked truth is set before us, it does not so much affect us as when we see what is required of us fulfilled in the person of Abraham.”

You know, the word is preached, and I’m going to have a quote when we go to the communion table from Robert Bruce, Scottish pastor of the 16th century. The word is preached, somewhat abstractly, words, and then God has your senses enlivened at the table to guarantee to you the great promises of consolation, the anchor of the soul, that come to you through the preaching of the word.

So every Lord’s service is kind of this repeated idea that God adds these concrete examples. The Lord’s Supper specifically here.

And then my last little line in this section is from the outside in. Howard Hughes. Well, I was watching a DVD on this new movie, The Aviator, and the Special Futures. Howard Hughes had what they now call obsessive-compulsive disorder. And it was interesting to me. The doctor that treats these kind of people basically said it’s kind of, you know, mind over matter or mind over mind. The idea is to recognize you have these tendencies to become obsessive and thus compulsive with behavior, and to simply understand it’s coming and, by the assertion of will, to conquer it.

But it was interesting as I was watching this that they said that actors, when they are imitating people like Howard Hughes, their brain—they’ve done brain imaging of actors, and these brain images supposedly—I don’t know, but supposedly—show that the blood flow and the endorphins in the brain match the person they’re imitating. They don’t look like themselves anymore in their mind. Their brain is doing something different. They’re imitating someone, and their actual brain chemistry changes to reflect that.

Now, that’s real interesting. Lots of implications for brain chemistry and how we treat it, right? Well, here my point is that we always talk about God working from the inside out. And there’s some truth to that, of course, obviously. But so often God works from the outside in.

God says, “Imitate people. Mimic the godly ones.” You know, he tells us in the Bible to know those that have the rule and authority over you—whose faith follow. Well, it didn’t say “follow.” It says, “Imitate their faith. Imitate their walk.” Paul over and over again says, “Be imitators of me, even as I imitate Jesus.”

So “What would Jesus do?” is not a bad thing, but our text says, “What would Abraham do in this situation?” Hebrews? Well, he’d exercise patience. In order to exercise that patience, you need to know who Abraham was, right? In order to imitate Abraham, you got to know the Bible. You got to know who Abraham was. And you got to go back and read his life and then try to be like him. Track Abraham in your actions. What would Paul do? That’s what he says to do.

So often God works on the outside into us. Baptism is a picture of that. Water is applied on the outside. You’re joined to a whole new environment of people. And that’s a big way that God changes you. You see, so I said this before, frequently from this pulpit the last couple of years, but here I have to say it again.

You want to change? Don’t sit around waiting for God to, you know, show you the light interior to yourself. Start acting different. Start imitating people. If you got problems with your tongue, think of someone in the church whose speech is really good. Start trying to think how would they say something right? They have problems with patience? Think of a patient guy. Think of Abraham in the Bible. Think of people you know at the church.

Children, you’re supposed to imitate your moms and your dads, right? And other godly people. You’re supposed to act like them. And you do it whether you try or not. You start walking like them or your face will take on muscle things. You know, in older couples, their faces start to look alike. And I’m convinced that at least part of that is that their muscular pattern of their face. They’re sort of imitating one another. Might sound strange, but I think that happens. You can make your face look a lot different by the way you use all those muscles. There’s lots of them in your face.

And my point is that an awful lot of times we talk about a godly walk and then we sort of leave people without one of the ways that God says you’re to achieve a godly walk. And that main way is you’re supposed to act godly—external acts of obedience and submission to God, and in this case, through imitation of others. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

Don’t feel like you’re a hypocrite. In fact, you’re a hypocrite if you don’t do it, because God says that you’re a child of the King. God says Jesus has given you his patience. God says he has called you and given you all these characteristics. And when you fail to imitate people who have those characteristics, that’s when you’re really being ultimately hypocritical with the real you.

So imitate godly people. The Bible is full of this, and over and over again in the New Testament we’re told that we’re to imitate people—people who are godly, not just Jesus. You know, “What would Jesus do?” How are you going to do that when you’re thinking about a husband relating to his wife? There’s ways you can do it. But the point is that Jesus has a specific ministry in the Gospels. And so we are not always pointed to Jesus. We are almost never pointed to Jesus using this term of imitation.

Now, we are indirectly. Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate the Lord.” So there is that going on. But more often than not, we shouldn’t be asking “What would Jesus do?” We’re probably going to mess that up because it’s too far removed from our reality. We’re going to turn Jesus into something that maybe he wouldn’t do—what you think he would be doing. But it’s easy to see the godly people around us who are themselves imitating the walk of Christ and other godly people. That’s real important. It’s real important for achieving this calmness to our soul, the strong consolation, the patience that keeps us with that.

Okay. Secondly, specifically, we’re supposed to imitate Abraham.

We’re supposed to imitate people, and specifically we’re supposed to imitate Abraham. Seed, land, Isaac, burial plot. You know, he was promised a number of stars in the sky—seed. He was promised all the promised land. But the only thing he ever got, you know, was Isaac as a son and a little burial plot in the promised land. And that was it.

Now, he got those things. He patiently waited for those things, and he waited until after he died for the rest of it. You see? So patience. We’re to imitate Abraham, knowing his story.

Abraham is the father of the faithful. That’s one reason why we’re pointed to Abraham here. We know that we’re the faith of Abraham. We just saw we’re heirs of the promise. Same thing.

By the way, faith—the faith of Abraham—implies that, of course, what we’re talking about here is the grace of God to us, not our works. The fact that we have this inheritance, we are heirs of the promise, says the same thing—that we’re not going to inherit this stuff through works. It’s the gracious promises of God, tied to his immutable counsel in all eternity: “that blessing he will bless you.” You should believe that right now when I tell you that God, in his immutable counsel, tells you that the promise is to you as one of the heirs of Abraham: “Blessing he will bless you.”

You should rest on that sure reliance, that sure consolation, and the end result should be you should be patient as you go through whatever it is in your life right now that drives you toward impatience, doubt, and wrong activities.

He’s the father of the faithful. We’ll see that in chapter 11, the hall of fame, the hall of faith in Hebrews. When we get to that, I’ll show you that it has a structure of matching elements. At the very heart, the central force sections have to do with Abraham and Sarah and Isaac. So he’s the heart of the hall of faith. And that’s another reason to get it going here by pointing these folks to Abraham. He’s going to become the center of what faith is described in Hebrews 11.

And as I said, it’s a pertinent example for the Hebrews because this text—Genesis 22:16—followed, you know, Abraham’s being difficultly wrestling over problems and doing a hard thing. And so the author pastorally acknowledges the hard thing that they’ve been engaged in doing: affirming the faith in the midst of a metropolitan community and persecution by the Jews.

Patience here, then, is not the patience of Job. James 5:11 says, “You’ve heard of the patience of Job.” And I would say, “Well, now you’re hearing about the patience of Abraham.” When this particular author wants to think of someone from the Old Testament linking to patience, it’s not Job. It’s Abram, because I think it was a lot longer patiently that Abraham had to wait than Job. I don’t know how long he was afflicted. But I do know that Abraham had to wait 25 years to get Isaac. Then he was asked to offer him up, and he never did get that promised land or all those children he was looking forward to getting. Well, he did, because he patiently waited till his death and transformation, and then of course he sees it all as coming to him.

I mentioned here that there are three falls. Well, you know, I think it’s important to understand books of the Bible in a summary sort of a way. And Abraham is very important in the flow of Genesis. Genesis starts with creation and fall, ends with the world being saved, right? Jacob blesses Pharaoh. Pharaoh is converted. That’s what that means. Joseph runs everything as we read about in the responsive reading. But that happens through a series of falls.

Adam impatiently tries to grab that ruling, discerning good and evil. Cain strikes out in hatred instead of kindness against his brother. And then the sons of God—Sethites, the Sethites are the people that come from Seth, the godly line—the sons of God are not holy. They intermarry with the daughters of men. In other words, beautiful pagan girls who didn’t love Yahweh. They inter-married wrong.

And then the rest of Genesis, we see all that being reversed. First, we have Abraham. And unlike impatient Adam, Abraham has the patience of Abraham. You know, the stuff that’s being pointed to in today’s text. He’s patient, patient, patient, patient. That’s Abraham.

And then along comes Jacob. And he doesn’t strike out at Esau. As ungodly as that man was, he is goes so far as to show kindness to Esau when he re-enters the land as the owner of the land. He blesses Esau with gifts and blessings, and Esau receives the blessing from Jacob, picturing us receiving the blessing from the greater Jacob.

So Jacob shows brotherly kindness, unlike Cain who struck out in hatred. Joseph resists the wiles of Potiphar’s wife. He resists, you know, sexual temptation. He doesn’t go after the pagan gals, and when they go after him, he runs. You see, he’s holy.

So these attributes, see, these are cardinal attributes here: patience, kindness, holiness. When God describes love in 1 Corinthians 13, he says love is patient and love is kind. That’s what love is. And we have love that’s linked to a holiness and consecration to God. These are not small attributes.

Parents, you should teach your kids, particularly when they’re kids, the thing they need most of all is patience. That’s what Adam failed to have as a little kid—brand new made and all that stuff. Kids are impatient. We all tend to be. And as our culture becomes more and more immature, then we’re going to exhibit more and more impatience. Our children should know that the three great virtues the book of Genesis focuses us on are patience, kindness, and holiness. You got those three, you’re doing really well, kids. And moms and dads, you too: patience, kindness, and holiness.

And here we have Abram. Let me tell you kind of a long story in a short way. I just thought it’d be a little illustration of patience. So in 1983 we start Parents Education Association. You know, Howard L. and I get this thing going, and he’s got this idea to try to get involved politically. And then we get involved in one race and one race only. We defeat Annette Farmer, who at that time was chairman of the House Education Committee, who had tried to make a mandatory requirement to census of all private schoolers. We won in the providence of God. You know, lots of other people are helping, of course, but the guy that won out East Multnomah County lied on his resume. So they wouldn’t seat him in the Oregon House, and as a result the precinct people get to choose basically the successor. And they chose a guy named John Menace, who’s a member of Bible Temple at the time, charismatic policeman, solid guy—John Menace. And he goes down to the Oregon legislature, and he serves several terms down there, and then he gets term-limited out. So he becomes a state senator and does good there. And when he becomes the state senator, his seat’s empty. So his wife Karen Menace gets elected to his seat. And she’s been there ever since. And she’s the speaker of the house.

So 22 years later, small acts, patiently trying to chip away at a little thing in Salem, patiently waiting as the Menaces work out what they’re doing. We now have Karen as speaker of the house, and she is the one person I believe—this I could be wrong, but I think I’m right—she is the one person that so far and continue to pray—so far has been able to keep this state from adopting the most liberal domestic union or civil union, homosexual, transsexual, whatever other perversion is out there, civil rights bill in the country—single-handedly, taken a lot of work, a lot of strategy.

You see, patience, patience working out this stuff. Some people don’t understand this. In spite of her being the one person to keep us in the place we want to be, some men naming the name of Christ think she’s horrible, picketing her house, going to run a third party candidate to make sure the Democrat wins in her seat. Why? Because she settled for a 20% cut in abortion funding instead of trying to push through the elimination of all abortion funding, which the Democratic Senate and the Democratic governor would never sign.

She settled. She worked. She’s got the long-term patiently rolling back that abortion funding. If we have the House, the Senate, the Republican governorship, great.

So patience—so important in every area of our lives—that we have the patience of Abraham. He’s the one we’re to imitate.

Third, rooting our consolation and assurance in the character of God. Ultimately, that’s it, right? Abraham wasn’t ultimately trusting just the words of God, the legal document. Those words reflect the character of God. So, like Abraham, we are to trust the character of God as he’s demonstrated him to be.

He is immutable. The immutability of God is not an abstract doctrine, but one of great consolation. You know, the immutability of God—that’s a doctrine, and immutability means he can’t change, won’t change, unchangeable. And you hear these doctrines bandied about. But see, it’s so important. The tremendous implications of that. We have a God who is not like us. He doesn’t change. He is immutable. Unchangeable.

That word of blessing to you will not change. You see, it’s immutable. The text tells us unchangeable because it reflects the very character of God—that he isn’t like us.

Listen to what Balaam said. They asked Balaam to curse God’s people. He says, “God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good?”

God controlled the pagan. Just like Balaam’s ass could speak the words of God, so can Balaam. This is the word of God to us. He’s not like you or I. We doubt him. We shouldn’t. He’s immutable. He’s unchangeable. These decrees for you of blessing is unchangeable.

Now the context for that in Numbers, by the way, the very next verse says, “Behold, I have received a command to bless.” He has blessed. And I can’t reverse it. He has commanded that you, Abram’s seed, then the Israelites, were going to be blessed, and all the powers of darkness—there’s no enchantment against Israel. There’s no divination against Jacob. Nothing that man can do can alter that truth—that the immutability of God is strong consolation and an anchor for our soul, sure and steadfast, because he doesn’t change, and that doesn’t change.

It’s linked in Balaam’s words and in the holy scriptures to his decision to bless you, to bless you. That’s what’s happening. Blessing is flowing to you from the immutability of God and his word and his promises to us.

So, like Abraham, we rely. We rely upon the God who is faithful and who is immutable. He changes not, and we rely upon that in his word.

Not only is he immutable, he—there’s a condescension of God that’s manifold. See, he’s saying God gave his word to Abraham. That should have been enough. God says it. Whether or not you believe it, that seals it, right? But God didn’t stop. He then adds to that oath. He swears to Abraham. You see, he adds things to what he tells us—not because he’s going to change and he’s trying to convince himself, but he’s assuring a weak and frail people. He condescends to us repeatedly, over and over again in the text. He does stuff that he doesn’t have to do.

The whole text is that purpose. He’s already told them, “Don’t be slothful. Stand firm.” Could have stopped there, but he doesn’t. He never does. He adds condescendingly to us.

Now, think about Abraham. He’s a guy you can imitate. Think of patient people around you. Think of steadfast people who gone through real difficulties. You see, I’ve given them to you. He said, “They’re part of my gift.” You see? So he goes over and over and over in our lives assuring us of the truths that we should take at face value once given from him.

God is wonderfully condescending, over and over assuring us of his blessings to us.

And then, of course, we have the self-sacrifice of God. That’s our anchor, in the end of the day, right? At the end of the text, what do we have? Jesus, Savior, his blood providing entrance into the holy of holies in heaven. So the focus at the end is certainly it focuses on God’s immutability. It focuses on God’s condescension—and over and over going out of his way to assure us of things. And then finally it focuses on the fact that he goes so far as to sacrifice his only son for our sakes. The self-sacrifice of God is our anchor. The character of God: unchanging, condescending, self-sacrificial.

Psalm 138: “I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth. For thou hast magnified thy word above thy name.”

That word of promise—a blessing—he has magnified it above his very person. And his name, Jesus, went to the cross to secure the blessings of that word. You see, ultimately there’s the great demonstration. There’s no changeableness to God in terms of the strong consolation he wants you to have.

That anchor, sure and steadfast for your soul, is founded in the self-sacrificial work of God. And you know, in the text in Psalm 138, that’s the context for the statement: “He will perfect that which concerneth me because of his character, because of who he is. Thou changest not thy compassions—they fail not.”

We’ll sing that in a couple of minutes. But that’s who God is. And it’s the character of God that provides that strong consolation and anchor for us.

I watched Charlie in the Chocolate Factory this last week, and mixed, you know, mixed. They’re always mixed. I don’t know what it is, but a lot of these movies I like the first half hour, and after that. And there was a wonderful thing that happened in the first few minutes of that story. I’m not giving anything away, okay? There’s a narrator, and you know the story: there’s going to be a chocolate bar, and several of them will have these gold tickets. And one holder of the gold ticket will inherit everything—all the chocolate factory—and kind of a picture of all blessings in the world.

And there’s Charlie, who is a wonderful kid—kind, patient, cares for his parents and then for the two sets of grandparents. They all live together in poverty—hole in the roof through which snow comes in, you know—and he’s just a great family, you know, all gathered together in their poverty but loving one another, right? And the narrator says, “Is that Charlie? He doesn’t know it yet, but Charlie was the most lucky boy in the whole world.”

That’s who we are. We don’t really know it now. We hear the words of God to us, and we take them, we believe them. But I thought that’s just like us, you know? We go through our struggles, our poverties, our times of trouble, are being tossed around in the sea of life, and we don’t realize the degree to which we are the most blessed people on the face of the world, on the face of the earth.

I have not seen, the Bible says, nor ear heard nor thoughts accomplished—what does the text specifically say? 1 Corinthians 2:9: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Goes on to say he’s revealed it to us by the Scripture, by the Spirit, but only in part.

Believe today, beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ, heirs of the promise, that God is blessing you and blessing you. He will bless you more. He is multiplying you, and multiplying you, he will multiply you. I, your eye has not seen, your ear has not heard, it’s not entered into your thoughts—the wonderful gifts that God has for you. If you endure to the end, as you endure to the end, that God will usher you into this sort of blessing you can only partially imagine.

Willy Wonka, you know, is the chocolate factory—is a reflection of his personality and all the blessings of God’s character. You see, this is what is laid up for us as a sure anchor for our souls.

What’s your anchor today? Where are you fleeing for refuge? We’re in a world tossed and turned. A world that threatens us.

I thought about when I preached in Moscow. I preached on the first half of Matthew 28—the soldiers who lied, saying that those who took Jesus’s body at night and stole it. They were assured that their lives would be made safe by the rulers of the Jews. How foolish. I mean, these guards had just experienced the angels knocking them down as if they were dead men. And they’re going to trust in these rulers who couldn’t keep the tomb empty? They know the truth. And yet, in their self-deception, you see, they believe the lie instead. And they believe the lie about how they could hang on to their life.

Where are you fleeing today for refuge? What’s your anchor in the midst of your difficulties? Is it hoping for temporal answers to your problems? Are you looking to doctors? Are you looking to counseling? Are you looking to your own will and your own abilities to work yourself out of problems?

God uses all that stuff, but he will not use it ultimately unless we are fleeing for refuge to that holy of holies in heaven. That’s where our hope is set. That’s the sure anchor of our soul that God has placed in heaven.

As we approach that anchor, as we make that the place we flee for refuge, God says that we are then given the strong consolation of the knowledge of his blessings to us. We have an anchor then that is not able to be moved and provides a firm foothold for us in the midst of our difficulties.

Are you looking to yourself or to people ultimately as your refuge, your anchor? Forget it. This is the great passage probably in all the New Testament of assurance of God’s blessings to you. And the entire passage is meant to point you away from yourself, to look into the heaven of heavenly—the heavenly heaven of heaven—holy place, holy of holies, to look to Jesus Christ, away from yourself, to the unchangeable God, to the God who has condescended throughout all your life in thousands of ways to repeat to you over and over his love, his blessings, and his plans for you. Looking to the God who ultimately sent his only son to die for you.

This is the source of assurance, consolation, the sure anchor of the soul. All other places are shifting ground.

As the song says, God says he’s brought us here to proclaim to us the wonderful promises and assure it over and over again to us with his oath, with his actions, and ultimately he’ll assure us one more time at this table, assuring us that blessings are flowing to us.

Let’s thank him.

Lord God, we thank you. Forgive us our doubt. Forgive us our weakness. And yet, Lord God, even our doubt and weakness leads us to a stronger appreciation of your love and care for us, seeing that you go out of your way in so many ways to assure us of your blessings to us.

As we come forward, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, knowing indeed that you love us, that blessing you will bless us, that multiplying us you will multiply us.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.