Latest / Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX / Hope Sure and Steadfast - Hebrews 6 | Elder James Moseley | 09-27-2026

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Hope Sure and Steadfast - Hebrews 6 | Elder James Moseley | 09-27-2026 · Grace Primitive Baptist Church - Houston, TX

• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: The thought that I have on my mind this morning, I trust, is of the Lord.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Relying heavily on his guidance and his spirit that it might um I'll be filled with uh his spirit that together um what we look in to God's word, that it will the words will be um fitting, that'll be timely, that they'll be edifying to each and every one that hears it, that the Lord will do um his work in taking uh the broken words of man, infusing it with his spirit, and feeding each one exactly what we need when we need it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um the thought that I have in my mind, I trust, um this morning is on the subject of hope.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Of hope.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful blessing, it's a wonderful gift that God has given us of hope.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is not backward looking as much as it is forward-looking.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is uh based in what um has happened, in taking the evidence that the Lord has shown us and saying, this is true of what he has done, what Christ has done for us, it's evidentiarily based.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It has uh reason to say there's a forward-looking, there's a forward expectation, and that's really the meaning of the word hope, is an expectation of something that is to come, that is to occur and happen.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's forward-looking, but it's based on a foundation of what has been, of what has occurred, and what has been evidenced and given to us.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is never empty-based.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um the hope that we trust look at this morning is the hope of heaven and immortal glory that his people have to look forward to.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That heaven is some is a place, is uh um where God is, God has always been, where his presence and his the peace and the sweet bliss that is in heaven is laid up, reserved for each and every one of his children, that he chose before the foundation of the world, and that Christ came and successfully died on the cross for.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: That home that we have in heaven is a hope, an expectation, and unlike how sometimes we we think of um when we use the word hope about certain things as we go through life, uh sometimes we can kind of degrade or downplay that word hope as maybe like a wish or a um preference of what we would want it to be.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the hope that's spoken of and taught in God's word.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: This hope is sure.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: This one is solid, that is, it's unwavering, it is um it's absolute, the hope that we have.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you like to look in the Hebrew letter with me, I'd like to look at uh this on the subject of hope.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 6.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: As I try to say, the hope that we have is based on what is, what God has shown us, what God has promised to his people.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It has evidence to it.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's on a like a solid footing, as it were.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not wishy-washy, it's not it, it could, it could happen or it couldn't happen, and man, we would rather it be over here.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is absolute, it's immutable.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Hebrews 6, we'll start here in verse 13.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: We have this account where I trust the Apostle Paul writing this letter to the Hebrews, um, he is pointing their minds back to their father Abraham and what God would cause him to go through an experience in a natural sense, which would point to, in a bigger picture, a spiritual truth that is our preservation in Christ Jesus and our inheritance that we have with heaven and immortal glory being our home.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself, saying, Surely, blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply thee.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: God had met, by his choosing, had met Abram there, and I believe that was back in um maybe the twelfth chapter of Genesis.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: We can go back and read where God had first given Abram the promise to an old man who was of 75 years old.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: You think about that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Think about an individual, a man who's 75, he has no children, but God would meet him and choose Abram out and would promise by his word, you're going to have a family.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And your family is going to be so great in number.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he causes Abram to look up into the sky, and I trust at nighttime, and he says, uh, Abram, I'm paraphrasing, but Abram, look up and see the stars of the sky.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good representation of how large this family that's going to come from you is.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And remembering, he's an old man at this point.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But he's making a promise from God, from his truth, from his very character of who he is, God's purpose and God's counsel within himself is Abram is chosen out by me, and he's going to have a family.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That family is going to be of a great, vast number.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then he told him about that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he made him that promise.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to reiterate this promise in other chapters in Genesis.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get to a portion of an account of God talking to changing his name to Abraham.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but God would show him by an oath, or he would demonstrate to Abraham just how sure this promise is, that he would have a family.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: This family would be of a great number.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he would have a land that would be given to him.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um there would be a night where he would have Abraham take different animals, a heifer, a goat, and a sheep, and some um some birds, and he would divide them in sunder, he would split them in half, and he would set the halves of each one of those animals on the right hand and on the left hand, making a space between.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: This was a custom at the time, from what I understand.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: This was a custom of the at the time where they would do two individuals who were going to enter into a promise one with another, a covenant, or a contract, as it were.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: We understand contracts in this life, that between different parties, that they would come to an agreement, and sometimes a verbal uh contract is enough to satisfy both parties that I promise this is what I'm gonna do, uh, and then this will be my part, and your part would be whatever it might be.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that isn't good enough, and sometimes they'll we'll have to shake hands on it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not just your word, but you shake hands, and that's our promise.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, that's good enough.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: For some, like banks, that's not good enough nowadays.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do they enter into?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: They go to a contract or a written paper to where you see all the details laid out that this is what each party is responsible uh to hold to, and then at the very bottom of that contract, what do they do?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: They sign it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's not enough.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: They have to go to a to a notary notary republic, notary public, where they stamp it, and then that stamp gives even more validation to it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So what they're doing is they're getting more levels of confidence that what each party is promising to do and that they're gonna uphold their end of the promise, that's all down so both parties can see it and feel the confidence that that thing is valid, that it's solid, that it's not gonna fall apart, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this custom at the time was like that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was a customary, almost ceremonial thing where they would split animals in half and then they would pass through the split body pieces, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of a gruesome uh scene, but what they're saying as they pass through this thing together, they're saying, if I break my end of the contract, if I don't do my part of what I promise to do, may this happen to me.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: This splitting asunder, this destruction of even me myself, if I don't uphold my end of the bargain, of the contract, as it were.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he has Abraham do this and kind of set this up, but then by God in his perfect wisdom, what he would do is he would cause Abraham to be in a deep sleep, and then God himself, in a smoking uh furnace and a burning lamp, with Abram in a deep sleep, God passed through the pieces himself.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was God who passed through those pieces.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: See, what he's saying is, I am gonna do my part, and it's gonna be independent of you doing your part.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: All you're gonna do is witness what God has promised he will do.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been a totally different scene had he said, Abraham walked through it with me.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thing is, we would not uphold, we would not be able to uphold our part of it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: God is the one who passed through in the promise making of the pieces.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: God's the promiser, God's the guarantor of the contract, of the covenant that he covenanted within himself.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's um the promise that God had made.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave that promise, his purpose, his intent, his counsel that he would have a people that would be secure unto himself, and he would give that promise to Abraham.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 15, it says, and so, and so, after he had patiently endured, and that was Abraham, when Abraham had patiently endured, there was some waiting.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was some waiting and watching and trusting and by faith, continuing to walk each and every day, uh looking backward at the evidence that he had.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: When God gave him the promise at 75 years old that he would have a family, because at that time he had no children, but he did have a promise.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: What he did have was something that was solid.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have the fulfillment of it, he didn't have the end of it, which was his first child, and that child to have other children, because that number would have to continue to increase to be as the stars of the sky.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right now it was at zero.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But what Abraham had was the promise that God had given him.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: He had what God showed him in that ceremonial walking through the pieces.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: He had that to hold on to.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: He had the evidence, and he also had something that was forward-looking, which was the hope.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: The hope, the looking forward, the expectation that it hasn't come yet, but it will come.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: It will come.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do we know that?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because God has promised it to me.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: God has showed it, and God cannot lie.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: What God has told me is solid and steadfast.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: When he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise, for men verily swear by the greater, and an oath of confirmation is to them the end of all strife.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Again, there it's talking about how we, in with the way we enter our agreements and our covenants one with another, when we swear, we swear by something greater than ourselves.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: A power that's beyond us.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's all of his elect family, that we are the heirs of promise.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not heirs of chance, not heirs of opportunity, but we're heirs of promise.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: That God has promised his people that we would be with him, that he'll never leave us, that'll never forsake us.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us great and wonderful promises, both here in our lifetime, as we go through this patiently enduring until we wait for the fulfillment of what God has promised us, that home in heaven.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's some patiently enduring as we go through those years.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: There were years that happened between 75 when God had promised Abraham.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: He had no children at that time, and then 100 years old, and Abraham had Isaac.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham saw that first true fulfillment of what God had promised him, that you're going to have a family.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was some patiently enduring as he went through that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: God has given his heirs of promise, timely promises, and eternal promise that our home is heaven, and there's nothing that could uh undo that or undermine that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: The promises that he has given us.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He continues as it to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel and confirmed it by an oath.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Immutable means unchangeable.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot change it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's solid and it his counsel, well let me say it this way.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, in his character, he cannot change.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The aspects of him, that he is uh sovereign, that he is um omnipotent, that he is uh omniscient, all the characters of God and his greatness and his sovereignty and his righteousness, everything that is about God, that he is uh consistently uh who he is and what he is, and his nature and his character, and he is immutable.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when he speaks words of promise, they are solid, they're immutable.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: That he won't change them, and no other power or influence would cause it to change.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: God is immutable, and his word is immutable, his counsel.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was in the mind and the purpose of God before the he even made anything, before he spoke, let there be light.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: God purposed in himself that he would have his family, his people.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when you take the natural illustration of God promising Abraham that from him would be this great uh number of individuals that were of his seed, of his family, as the stars are of the sky, or as in other places we read, as the sands of the seashore, that's a great, vast number.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: That natural example set next to the elect family of God, that is such a great and vast number, and I believe it to be so much more than those that he did not choose, that he did not love with an everlasting love before the world was.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in all things that Jesus Christ has the premanence, and it's not um just barely in the majority, but I think I believe it's in a vastly larger number that his people that he knew before the world was and chose to himself based off of his um his sovereign love for them and placing them within Jesus Christ's in covenant.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: All of that happened within the very covenant mind of God and his purpose and what he told himself that they will be my people and I will be into them their God.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was his word and it was his promise to himself.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: See, that that covenant promise that he made was not uh to us or including us into that, I won't say conversation, but within the mind of God, we were not invited to that conversation, as it were.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was God within his very mind, in his immutable, unchangeable counsel within himself.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So right there, there's a promise being made.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is a promise that's made, and it's between God and to God, between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a promise that's made.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, that should be enough to satisfy us that if God promised within himself that he would have a people and that they would be predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself at the end of all time, that we, all his uh objects of love would be with him in heaven and immortal glory.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: That should be enough to satisfy us, but God willingly, more abundantly to show unto us.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, he went beyond even that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the very um nature of our God, our the love of our God, that he would go beyond, go beyond just his covenant promise that he made within himself, it says, confirmed it by an oath.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: This oath is what God would show us.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you set that next to God telling Abraham, you're gonna have, um, you're gonna be my people and you're gonna have a great family.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was God promising Abraham.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's on top of God's purpose and covenant within himself.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is now a covenant uh to Abraham, and he has given us that same uh covenant oath.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sorry, the immutable oath that he has given us that heaven will be our home some sweet day.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 18.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, to kind of uh clarify what kind of one of us thinking on that is there's the immutable uh covenant of God, his in in the mind and the purpose of God, and then you have the immutable oath, which is for him to tell us in our mind, that we would to see it and to know it in the mind of God, but then also in the mind of man.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 18 it says, that by two immutable things, and those things are his counsel and his oath, by two immutable or unchangeable things in which it is impossible, it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has given us not only that he promised within himself, and he promised us two unchangeable promises, that it's it's it's like contract and second contract.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like uh you've got all the signatures, all the stamps of promise, you've got everything in front of you that what God has told us is true and valid and unchangeable and unmovable, and and you something can't come in and thwart what God has done, that no, uh there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: He has given us all the confidence and the consolation that what God has promised us is true and solid.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: That makes you feel like you're in a place that can't be moved, that you're standing in a on a solid, firm place.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's where he gets into this.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, that we might have a strong consolation.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple things I think about when I see that who fled for refuge.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can kind of point that to is in the Old Testament um Mosaic law, there was a law that if there was one who um had um committed like manslaughter, killed an individual, that the family would uh of the one who was slain would have um kind of within in themselves, they would go after that individual.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: But if that individual who um committed that uh manslaughter, If they were to run to a one of a couple of different cities of refuge is what they're known as, that the avengers of blood or the family of the one who was slain who were coming after them, if they were to run to that city and end up in that city safe, they had safety, kind of in that city of refuge, that they flee for refuge until the high priest were to pass away.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are guilty, we are blood guilty in our sins and trespasses and in sins, but we have a city of refuge to run to, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we are safe in him until the death of the high priest, but we know that we have a high priest that lives forever, that he is a different high priest that has no beginning of days nor end of days.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So our safety is forever.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is our city of refuge.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when we flee for refuge, we where we land at him.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: He is our safety, he is our city of refuge.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Another place of refuge which fits this next verse that we are about to read, is there are ships that if they're tossed in the sea, that they themselves could flee for refuge, which would be harbors.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: They would uh drive to particular harbors, they would sell to particular harbors, and in those harbors they would find safety, a safe haven or a safe place for them to drop anchor and to get away from the storm of the refuge.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: He is our safe harbor, he is our safe place that the storms would abade and we would be in a place of peace.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Either way it might be, when we flee for refuge, there is but one place to go, and that is to him.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is our safety, he is our refuge, he is our peace, he is our consolation.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that hope that we have, that forward looking, is always him that uh lay hold upon the hope set before us.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then verse 19.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: This this picture of this solid, safe, secure, unmovable, unchangeable place, this hope that's forward looking is like an anchor of a ship.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It says verse 19, whose hope, or which hope we have as an anchor of the soul.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is an anchor of the soul.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It says both sure and steadfast, which entereth into the that within the veil.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Unlike a ship who a which ship would find us a place to stop and to stay, that they would drop anchor, and that anchor would go all the way down, and it would land at the very uh seabed, and it and that place would hold the ship to a certain place.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Without it being able to drift off, that anchor holds it steady and sure.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this L, this uh anchor goes within the veil, which flips it instead of going down, it goes upward into heaven itself, through the veil, and at the right hand of God, that is where our anchor is.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Our anchor goes upward into heaven through the veil.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is our anchor.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is our hope, and he is sure and steadfast.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: He is our promise, he is our peace, he is our unchangeable oath, he is our immutable counsel of God that we are able to look at, look back at what God has promised us, which would allow us to look forward and have an earnest expectation, earnest hope that heaven and immortal glory is our home.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, it says, Whither the forerunner is for us.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you thankful to know by God's promise that God is for us?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is for you.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is for you.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if God be for us, who can be against us, we read.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: God is for us, he is altogether for us, he's always been for his people.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is on our side, he fights for us, he is um our the captain of our salvation who walks before us and wins the battle, and then we are more than victors through Jesus Christ, more than conquerors through him who loved us with an everlasting love.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is for us.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And his promises say that he is for us, and he'll never leave us or forsake us.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: The forerunner is for us, entered, even Jesus, made a high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, he is likened unto He is our high priest, but he's a better high priest.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: In all ways, Jesus Christ is a better high priest.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is on our behalf, he but he stands as the mediator between us and our the sins that we feel, the heaviness that we have, the persecutions, tribulations, and trials that we go through in our lives.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: He uh is one who stands as our daysman between two, that being God and man, he is altogether a better high priest.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those that lived in the Old Testament um times, they had a high priest who they could go to and take their burdens and their the the feelings of their sins to, and he would go in a ceremonial way, he would go on their behalf to speak on their behalf to God.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we have a better high priest because he um doesn't do it in a ceremonial way, he does it in an actual way.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: At this very moment, and throughout all of our lives, we have one who stands at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for his people, that he's able to take the very um burdens and feelings of our infirmities, and he knows exactly what we we feel and what we're going through, what we're tempted with, and he's able to take them perfectly to the ear of God and speak on our behalf, that the Lord would hear his son and see us through the very finished blood, finished work of Jesus Christ, through the blood that he shed on the cross for us.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: He sees us as righteous through his perfect and um spotless son.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's our high priest, one that doesn't have a beginning of days and no end of days, um, one that won't pass the torch off to the next high priest, as it were, one that is of an everlasting priesthood.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um that is our high priest after the order of Melchizedek, kind of in that in that thought.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there we have in Hebrews, we have God showing in a natural promise that he gave Abraham, and what we find is God promised that his family would end up being this vast number of individuals.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: You go down the line, does that occur?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Does that end up being fulfilled?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: How much more what all of that pointed to, what all that was a schoolmaster and a demonstration of what is um what God was really pointing towards, which was his family, his family, that though they be um cursed with um death and trespasses and sins because of the original sin there in the garden, uh God, by his great love and his promise that he made within himself in covenant before the world was, that we would not be lost in that um fallen state of trespasses and sins against him, that there would be one who would come and rescue us from that state, and that he would send his son to die for all of their sins, that promise was made by God within himself, that we would be his people and he would be our God.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if there was anything that we could do to mess that up, we would do that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: But because of God and his promise within himself, that should be enough.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then he goes beyond that and he promises us in his word that he would do everything that is required to take us to heaven in immortal glory.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that he did do that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that he would, but that he did accomplish that.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: That when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: He sent forth the only one who could rescue us, the only one who was perfect and righteous and who could stand on our behalf, the only one who could bear the sins of us and endure the cross, despising the shame.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that he would lay down his life by his own power, and after three days and three nights, take it up again by his own power, uh, showing the victory over death itself.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And him being the forerunner, there's ones that follow after, and the ones that follow after are his entire family.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the promise that God so profoundly and again and again in his word, everything harmonizes with that very promise is that he has done all that's required, that heaven will be our home, that there's nothing left to do, that his people will be with him.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: He promised within himself, he promised to us by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: He is immutable.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um 1 Peter, this I believe this uh is a beautiful companion text to what we read in in Hebrews.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 Peter chapter 1, we can read here, starting here the um third verse, which said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, right there we see that it's according to, it's based on not anything that we would or could do ourselves, but it's according to his abundant mercy.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's according to his love and his grace towards us, to his divine favor towards his people.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: According to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's a change.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 2 talks about um in you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we were from a natural state.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: But God made a change within his people.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a being born again, being begotten again.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: This change that happens within the seed of Adam, this change happens.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when this change happens, there's things that accompany that change.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's things that immediately and perfectly that they don't improve over time.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are already perfect at the moment that God puts it within us and he speaks a new life within us.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: We read about the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, long-suffering, meekness, temperance, those ninefold fruit of the Spirit.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I got them all.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um hope is one of them.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is it's not listed there, but hope, that true hope that we have, not a wishful mind, preference of what we what might be or won't be, but truly a hope that we have is a solid, unmovable thing.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And here it talks about the hope that we get in this being born again, being begotten again, that when he visits us and changes our inward self, that there's a new creature within us, with that, it says, begotten us again, unto a lively hope.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: That lively hope that we have within us.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is something within the born again child of God, which is a promise.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a promise inside of you.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're born again of the Spirit, there is something there that is God speaking constantly, perfectly, immutably, saying, You are mine.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have secured heaven for you.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: You will be there with me.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: That nothing can come in and mess that up, can take it away.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's none that can snatch us from the very hand of God.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's something within us that's a lively hope, a lively expectation.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's based off of what God has done and what God has promised us, but it's forward-looking and it is confident, assured, and steadfast.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's an anchor within me that says heaven is my home, that one day when this life is over, there is a sweet rest.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: That the very moment where we close our eyes in death, that immediately we're in the presence of God, and there's the satisfying end to this world, and that's going to be where we're in the very presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the very first thing that I'll see when I pass from this life will be Him, the one who died on the cross for me, and I what happens throughout all eternity, um we'll see and we'll be satisfied with.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know this.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I we show up to heaven, we will see our Savior and we will be satisfied, and we'll be in the very presence of our Almighty God.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um all of that, all of that that we will experience, we have a promise now within us.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have it within you.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was given to you by God, by his grace and mercy in regeneration and being born and begotten again of the Holy Spirit.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It talks about being born from above, born again into a lively hope.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that um I love that account in John chapter 4 where he meets that Samaritan woman there at the well.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the well, um, it's a place where you go when you're thirsty, when you're parched, when it's hot, when it you need to be renourished and and she, I believe, was going for natural water to be rejuvenated and refreshed.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then after with this conversation that uh the Lord would show her and teach her, he talks about um natural water, but he says, Oh, there's a living water springing up into eternal life.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: That that water he gives his people.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: That water is something that's not outward, but it's something that's inward within us, and he gives us that living water.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that that ties closely to the lively hope that we have, that's something that we can go back um to again and again and feel refreshed, feel reassured, the consolation that we need to feel and hear from our Lord.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we have to go out externally to, but it's something that he has placed within us.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: He has given us that hope, that living water to go and to drink of and to feel refreshed and renewed unto a lively hope.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: It says, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's because he lives, is that we will live also.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's his resurrection from the dead that we can uh be confident and stand in hope that we will rise from that from death.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: He is the first fruits of the crop, and we are the rest of the yield.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is the forerunner, and we are those that follow.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's always him first and then his people.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of him and then us.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's always in that order.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Jesus Christ from the dead, in verse 4, it says to.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, we have a from and a to.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: From the dead, to an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love how it it reiterates again and again that our inheritance that we have with him, that promise of the hope of immortal glory, is something that is in uh incorruptible, it's undefiled, it fadeth not away, reserved.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: It seems all that it seems kind of redundant that he would he would go through each one of these uh describing um ways of talking about heaven and our inheritance.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: What I what that points to me is the immutability, it's unchangeable.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying that it's almost like he's saying it's gonna be assured.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, tell me more.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be reassured again.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he tells us again and again that it cannot be defiled, it cannot be corrupted, it cannot, um you cannot lose it.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's reserved.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's consistent with reassuring us.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's given us all the comforting words of consolation about our home in heaven, our place in heaven.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: It says, who are kept, and that's us, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and I believe that faith unto salvation is his faithfulness, the faithfulness that God and what he promised within himself, and then the promise that he made to his people, the unchangeableness of his faithfulness keeps us unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice, what it says here in verse 6, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: He made us a promise, he made a promise within himself in covenant, he made a promise to us that heaven would be our home.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Two immutable things in which God is impossible to lie.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Setting this next to what we read in Hebrews 6, it says, Though now for a season, if need be you be through heaviness, through manifold temptations, and a trying of our faith, that sounds a whole lot like what we read in Hebrews 6 about when Abraham had patiently endured.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: What followed?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: He obtained the promise.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was some time that he had to go through waiting and watching and looking forward to what would God would show in the fulfillment of the promise that he had made.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: That there was some patiently enduring and walking and waiting and knowing and holding on to the hope.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did he have times where maybe it was a little bit more difficult for him to absolutely as we go through our lives and through our trials, and we have not seen it come to pass that home that he has promised us yet, that day lay ahead of us.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: When Abraham was 77 years old, he was early on in the promise, and it was just as sure as when Abraham was 99 and almost about to be a hundred.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: That promise was still just as secure, and he had to patiently endure and patiently wait and patiently hold on to the promise that God had made us, and he had hope that was forward-looking as we go through our lives.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: The promise that God has made for us then is just as sure now as it will be before the moment of our death.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us hope.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us promise, and it is sure and steadfast.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is that anchor that is within us, and it goes right up into the veil, and it's at the right hand of God.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is our hope.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, our rescuer.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: He is our promise, he is our hope, he is our anchor, he is our rock, he is the thing that is that we can look toward.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: His resurrection from the death is the very thing that we can look forward to, and it shows us that it is immutable.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Contract has been signed.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: He has done all the promising, and we are the uh beneficiaries of his promise.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're holding that right now within us, within our very selves.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have that, that lively hope within us.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then for us is to lay hold on that.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: That that laying hold is um it's there.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a grabbing on to it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's um enjoying being.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: In that embrace of that lively hope that he placed within us, that the trial of your faith, and there is a trial of our faith, patiently enduring, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto the praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: The patiently enduring that we go through during this time of our lives, as we await the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, there's a trying of our faith, and at the end of that faith, what we find is it is, we're going to find out all it the sufferings of this present time that sometimes are many and much and heavy as we go through life, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we finally see the fulfillment of God's promise in heaven and immortal glory, um what we're gonna find out is um he was absolutely right in what he had promised us, that it is um beyond words, beyond understanding, whom having not seen ye love, in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing ye rejoice, with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 9 is an interesting verse, because it it seems to sound like the receiving of our the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls, almost is like when we're in heaven.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the receiving of our faith, the end of our faith and the salvation of our souls.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I would submit to you that this, the end of our faith and the salvation of our souls, is something that we already get to receive right here in our lives while we wait for that day to come.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because it talks about after this that the salvation of our souls and the end of our faith is Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's a right here and now.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Our end of our faith is He is the very end of our faith.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: He is He is what it's all pointing to, and we have Him now.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to wait to look and to embrace Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to wait to embrace, to receive and embrace the um salvation of our souls.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: He is the salvation of our souls.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the hope that we have is is now.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: The promise that God has given us is now, and that's the thing that we can receive, embrace, and and hold up within ourselves.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have the salvation of our souls, Jesus Christ.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Run to the very city of refuge, uh, settlers, move to the to the harbor of safe haven, and our anchor is sure and steadfast.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: The imagery that he gives us throughout all these things are consistent.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: The promise he made Abraham and him showing that, the city of refuge, um, this all I mean, all of these things, it all tells us that because of what Jesus Christ has promised and fulfilled and done and accomplished, that's our consolation.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have all the consolation.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have all the sure the surety that what God has said will be, will be.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it it already is it's solid now.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just for us to embrace it, and that um will bring it, that will keep in our minds and our hearts in a place where we feel steady.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: But whether we do or we don't um grab onto it or embrace it, it embrace it, it's still there.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: We still have the lively hope within us.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um but receive it, receive it.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that this has uh been a blessing, instructional, but more than that, honoring, glorying, glorifying to his great and holy name, who has done all things for us and who is our hope.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you desire to join with Grace Kerner Baptist Church, let your desire be known.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm await upon you.