God's Unbreakable Promise

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0:00It's great to be with you all today. God's good. He's steadfast and he is merciful. He sees you. He sees where you're at. He loves you and he's drawn near to you today. So be encouraged that we worship a God who seeks after us. He seeks. He comes to seek after those who are lost like you and me. When our daughters were little, they each had a favorite item. Um, uh, the favorite item changed over time. You parents know how it is. Um, they have a favorite item that they had with them.

0:36They brought with them wherever they went. And it was some, it was a stuffed animal sometimes, or it was a blanket, something like that in, in a great big world, um, that that treasured thing was, was a comfort. It was a constant thing that was with them wherever they went. The day would change, the weather would change, their feelings would change, but that loved object would not. It would be there for them. One time, Nikki and I, I went out for a date and left the girls with a sitter.

1:10And we came back late, uh, past their bedtime. And we came back to the sound of Brie still awake upstairs and a very frazzled looking babysitter who said to us, we couldn't find her blanket. And that explained the whole situation. Couldn't find the blanket. Brie couldn't get to sleep. Sitter didn't know what to do. It was, it was a scene. It, in life, so many things change and so often they change for the worse. We, we, we, we long for some stability in our lives.

1:47We want something to rest on, something that we can count on. We search for something constant, but we are constantly disappointed by what we grab onto and try to say, this is the stability. This is the constant thing. Like Brie, we, we can't rest because the thing that we thought would always be there suddenly isn't sometimes. We can't get to sleep. We can't rest. We were, the constant that we were counting on was the wrong one. Today we're invited to consider in this passage the security that comes from the God who never changes.

2:29Never, never changes. We're going to get a little bit further in the extent to which he never changes and how much we can count on him because of that. He is constant and so it's his promise to us. So people of God, we're in a sermon series on the book of Hebrews called Toward an Enduring Faith. This passage reminds us that our endurance in faith comes from holding on to nothing in this world, but holding on to the unbreakable promise of God. So let's come to Hebrews today to be encouraged, to be strengthened by what God has for us here in this text.

3:06This is the word of God. It's sure and it's true. It's gracious and it's merciful and it's for you today. It's for me today. So let's pay attention to it. Let's receive it as what it is. It's the very word of God for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself saying, surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation.

3:50So 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. 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 have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

4:37Pray with me. Lord, we come now to your unchanging word. Lord, reveal to us just how sure it is, just how shaky the things that we tend to trust in, the people that we tend to trust in, Lord, none of them provide the constancy and the stability that we need from you. Lord, redirect us to your sure promises, to your faithful character. Encourage us, Lord. Encourage us right now with the ways that each one of us needs. The stability and the constancy that only you provide.

5:18Jesus, we pray this in your name. God's unbreakable promise to steady us in an uncertain life. God gave a gracious and sure promise. So at the end of the last passage, the author encouraged us to be imitators. The last thing he said in verse 12, be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises. And here he gives us an example of someone who did just that. The example of Abraham. Now, I'm not going to completely go into Abraham's life.

6:02That's going to come a little bit later in Hebrews. But Abraham's life could be summed up in this way. God called and he obeyed. But his path was a journey of faith. It was a walk of faith. God told him of things to come that were humanly impossible. Impossibilities in his life. He had to go that direction and follow God, even though he didn't see how it was going to happen. And on top of that, God was not operating on Abraham's schedule.

6:38Abraham believed God, but there was a lot of waiting. So much waiting. Decades of waiting. He waited years and years and years for God to do even the smallest thing towards what he had promised. All while he was in a foreign land. Among a foreign people. Away from his kin. He was following God by faith. Sometimes that waiting, it didn't go well. He did things to protect his own interests, to protect himself, to provide for himself, just like we always do.

7:16His faith wasn't perfect, but he kept going. 25 years after God gave him the word about his own offspring, Abraham and Sarah finally had a son. Isaac. Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah was 90. I've got a hard time imagining getting up in the middle of the night to feed a baby at 100 years old.

7:48But as difficult as the waiting was, the most difficult call came after that. God spoke to Abraham and he said, take your son. Listen to this. Your only son, Isaac. Whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. And offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.

8:22It's not that difficult for any of us to imagine what probably went through Abraham's mind. God, this does not make any sense. How could sacrificing a child be in your will? That's not who you are.

8:45And why him? Why now? I've waited 25 years, God, for some sign that you are actually doing what you said you would do. Things are finally moving forward.

9:04What are you doing? And of course, the cry of any parent. How could you expect me to make this sacrifice? How could you ask this of me, God? I love him.

9:24How can I give him up? So often it's not just, it's what God calls us to do that's hard, but it's also not knowing why. Because Abraham wasn't told why. And we oftentimes don't know why. Why is this happening? God, we trust that you are sovereign over my life. You're writing my story. But why this? Why this circumstance?

9:58Our own story doesn't make sense to us. How can that be, we think? First, there's the waiting. The long seasons that we have good desires, fervent prayers, and nothing seems to be happening. And then when things finally do happen, sometimes those things seem to contradict the very things that we think God was going to do.

10:27Unfolding events seem like regression, like moving backwards. What are you doing, God? Lord, we say, are you and I not even on the same page? How do we keep going? How do we endure in those kind of situations? That's why it's so valuable to have the account of Abraham. He was a real person, friends. He was not Superman.

10:58It could have just as easily been any of you that God called thousands of years ago. He was just an ordinary person, trying to obey God in a really difficult situation.

11:14And praise God, he did. It's amazing. We don't know what his inner dialogue was, but we know that he trusted God. Even when it was confusing and sad. He took Isaac up that mountain with a heart that was hurting but was still faithful. He said to his son, a small window into his heart, when his son says, I see everything else, but I don't see the sacrifice. Papa, what's going on? And Abraham says, don't worry, son. The Lord himself will provide us the sacrifice.

11:58Hurting but faithful. Following God. And right when that blade was raised over his only son, the living embodiment of God's word to him, God speaks. Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. I'm telling you all this because this is the moment that this passage in Hebrews is referring to. This is the time. This is the part of Genesis that he's quoting.

12:44Verse 14 in our passage is a quote from Genesis 22. Right after this test that Abraham endured. God told him this. By myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son. Your only son. I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. By myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this. This is what I will do.

13:27This is the event that today's passage in Hebrews is all about. But, endurance in faith, in a really difficult and confusing situation, Abraham faced a difficulty and he stayed true. He patiently waited and he obtained the promise. Because of his faith, God makes a promise.

13:57So you've heard the promise from Genesis 22. I want to point out two things that this passage in Hebrews says about that promise. First, this promise is gracious. Listen, much of God's work is known to him alone. He does not let us in on very much of what he does. He knows what he's doing. But he keeps a lot of it to himself. And he doesn't have to do that. He doesn't have to tell us anything. It's his prerogative. He's God and we're not. In the same way, God did not have to reveal this to Abraham.

14:37He didn't have to give him this promise. He could have kept his purposes entirely to himself. But God desired to show more convincingly the unchanging character of his purpose. God wanted to convince Abraham. He wanted to overcome every last bit of doubt that was in Abraham's heart. He could see Abraham needed some reassurance to keep going. And so he didn't, even though he didn't have to, God guaranteed it with an oath. Think about that. The living God condescending to a man to pledge an oath to him.

15:22How gracious, how kind of God to reveal anything to us, much less pledge himself in an oath. We've seen so far in Hebrews that God gives his people warnings to help them endure. But he also gives us promises. He gives us both of those things. He's a good father.

15:52This promise was not just for Abraham's benefit, but for ours too. It's for your benefit and my benefit. In verse 17, it says that God was giving this reassurance to the heirs of the promise. To the heirs of the promise. If Jesus is your Savior through faith, that is you. You are an heir of the promise. Paul says this in Galatians. If you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. Heirs according to promise. I mean, it doesn't get much clearer than that, right?

16:27God made this promise thousands of years ago so that you sitting right here in 2025 right now could be reassured of his sure word to you in your life if you belong to Christ by faith. That's what this means. He is gracious towards you.

16:51That's why these accounts of the true work of God in the Old Testament matter. That's why we read them. That's why we preach them. That's why we study them and we anchor ourselves to them. Because they matter to us right now. You and I are heirs according to the promise. If you are Christ's. Our God is like a surgeon who knows that his patient needs a life-saving procedure. But also knows that his patient has had really bad experiences with other doctors.

17:26And is not quite sure what to make of what's going to happen from here. Not quite ready to go under the knife. And instead of getting indignant, God, the surgeon, says, let me reassure you. I'm going to make you a promise. I don't do this very often, but let me give you a promise. I promise you. You will make it through this procedure. You will endure. You will live. Because he knows that patient needs the word from the surgeon. The word of assurance.

18:16You know, some doctors, you press them to this certain point and they get a little frustrated with you. Why are you asking so many questions? Do you see how gracious your father is, your father in heaven? That he would speak to you this reassuring word. Don't discount it just because it came to Abraham thousands of years ago. It's for you right now. God is reassuring you. Keep going. I have promised. And I will not change my mind.

18:52The second thing is that this promise is sure. It's gracious and it's sure. It's the surest of all the sure things you can imagine. There's no other sure bet that's as sure as this one. It's more sure than the sun coming up tomorrow. It's more sure than your taxes being due next year.

19:14It's more sure than anything. It's sure because it's based on two unchangeable things. Here are those things. God's unchangeable purpose and his unchanging word. His purpose and his word. Every oath has two elements, right? The thing that you swear by. The thing that you put your hand on. And then the thing that you swear to do. That's what an oath is. In our country, people oftentimes swear on the Bible. When they're getting ready to testify. Or when they take public office.

19:52It's a way of acknowledging that someone greater than you is listening to the words that you're saying. That you will be held accountable to what you're pledging to do. That's why we do that. Now God didn't have anyone greater that he could swear to. So he swore by himself. He tells Abraham. There's no one greater than God. He's like, well, I got nothing else. I'm going to swear by myself.

20:24He does not change. He does not pass away. In our prior house, I discovered a few years in that our windows came with a lifetime warranty. That transferred to the new owner. I thought, this is great. I'm going to. I've got some windows that need replacing. I looked into it. Turns out, the manufacturer went out of business.

20:47Lifetime warranty that transfers to the new owner is not much good if the manufacturer goes belly up. God will never pass away. It's good that he swore on himself because he will not change. And that means his purpose will never change. The purpose to redeem and save his people. It was an agreement between the three persons of the Trinity before the world began. That's the purpose of God. If he doesn't change, his purpose will never change. So when he swears by himself, he's swearing by an unchangeable purpose, a decision in his mind to save and redeem lost sinners.

21:36The other element of the promise is the thing that he swore to do. An oath, a vow. Everybody knows that an oath or a vow, those are things that it's not just a collection of words. It's not just ordinary speech. It's not like anything else. A promise is binding. You're supposed to follow through on it. You're committed now. A promise is something that we're supposed to rely on. And the pain of a broken promise reminds us that those were not just words.

22:21Those words meant something extra. Something stronger. Something beyond ordinary language. Broken promises leave scars. Because that oath meant something.

22:36Each oath violated or vow not kept makes us a little less likely to trust again. That's why the author is careful to remind us that our God, it's impossible for him to lie.

22:55He will not break his vow. He will not fail to keep his promise. He's not like the others. Dear ones, he's not like the others in your life that have broken promises and have failed to keep the vows that they made towards you.

23:17He's not like them. It's impossible for him to lie. It's impossible for him to go back on his word. Look again at this promise. I read part of it earlier. Here's the rest of it. He said, Abraham, I'll bless you. Then he said, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. Now, now look at this. God swore to bless and multiply Abraham, but he also swore that his offspring, that's singular there.

23:56His offspring singular would overcome his enemies. God swore that in that offspring singular, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That offspring is Jesus, the son of God and the son of man. That's who he was talking about. In him, people from every tribe, tongue and nation are becoming redeemed and being saved. The promise is coming true. We have more, even more than what Abraham saw. We see God fulfilling his very word, his promise to us.

24:33God does not lie. He does not change. When he makes a promise, it's gracious and it's sure and we can count on it. So now, friends, we're steady. I want to help you rest on this promise today and be more steady than you came in here. God gave us this unshakable promise so that we could live this way. We have we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. It was Jesus who went behind the curtain as our priests, our sacrifice to intercede for us before the father.

25:18Here, Jesus is called our forerunner. This connects with God's promise being our anchor because in Greek forerunner, it's got a nautical reference to it. In the Mediterranean, there are a lot of harbors, but many of those harbors are hard to access because of sandbars that surround them. At low tide, ships can't enter in because they might run aground, so they send out a smaller boat called a prodomos, a forerunner. That forerunner is carrying an anchor connected to that larger ship.

26:02But the forerunner can make it past those sandbars and deposits that anchor in the harbor. Now that large ship can wait. It can wait whatever storm is happening out there in the sea. It can wait until the tide comes in and raises up until it sails into the harbor. It can wait sure and safe because that anchor has been deposited in the harbor by the forerunner. That's what Jesus has done for us. He went to the inner place and deposited that anchor that is tethered to us by the promise of God and the faithfulness of Christ.

26:44You're safe. You can endure any storm. You're not going to drift away. Because you are tethered to the anchor. Jesus has gone ahead of us as our forerunner. Because of his work, anyone who belongs to him is kept safe. We're tethered to God himself. We can endure any storm, any distress, any difficulty, any loss. That is your sure anchor. That is your constant in your life. That's what you should rest on. Friends, it is important to know, to be settled on what you are anchored to.

27:27What your anchor is before the storms come. Make that decision now. Before the storms come in your life. In November of 1572, Scottish pastor John Knox lay on his deathbed. With him was his wife, Margaret. Margaret was reading the Bible to him. 1 Corinthians 15. Other passages. John turned to her and he said, Go to where I cast my first anchor.

28:06And she knew exactly where he meant. John 17. The high priestly prayer of Jesus. This passage had been an early and a constant source of peace and encouragement for him.

28:23Margaret turned to that chapter and she read the entire thing to her husband. She read things that Jesus said to his father. Things like this. All mine are yours. And yours are mine. And I am glorified in them. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am. I made known to them your name. And I will continue to make it known.

28:58She finished the chapter. And John turned to her and said, What a comfort that is. And six hours later, he died. These words of Christ, this saving promise, John Knox called this his first anchor. When he was on his deathbed, facing a difficult trial, he knew where to go. He knew what was his first anchor.

29:34Even his wife knew what he was referring to. He was not casting about. He was not uncertain what to do in this moment. He knew where to go. My first anchor. Friends, where will you turn to when life is hard? When difficulty happens? When you need strength and encouragement, what is your first anchor? Remember, I pray that it is God's promise through Christ.

30:09It's better than a blanket or a stuffed animal. It's better than any person in your life, any job you have. Any identity you try to form for yourself, those are not strong enough anchors when the storms of life come. But the promises of God are. Because that is what he has given to us to keep us steady. His oath of salvation, it's gracious and it's sure, and by it, we endure. It's hurt. Why? Here we go.