Hebrews 4-6: Get Your Hopes Down

Check out our spoken word video inspired by today's passage: Get Your Hopes Down

We trace Hebrews 4–6 from the warning about hardened hearts to the promise of rest, then center on Jesus as our great high priest and the anchor of hope. Along the way, we share a personal season of closed doors and why anchored hope beats chasing kites.

• why God’s rest still stands and how to enter it
• the Word exposing motives and desires
• Jesus as great high priest who sympathises
• moving from milk to solid food and maturity
• a sober warning about falling away
• assurance grounded in God’s oath to Abraham
• hope as an anchor behind the curtain
• practicing anchored hope in daily setbacks

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Hebrews Still Matters
• 1:56 Entering God’s Rest Explained
• 3:51 The Word That Discerns The Heart
• 4:39 Jesus Our Great High Priest
• 6:51 Milk, Solid Food, And Maturity
• 7:57 A Stern Warning And Better Things
• 8:54 Abraham’s Oath And Certain Hope
• 9:47 Hope As Anchor, Not Kite
• 12:31 Living Anchored In The Present
• 13:41 A Creative Take On Hope

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike, and we are in the book of Hebrews. Last episode, when we introduced this book, we talked about how this is kind of like a sermon geared specifically for Jews who had been very faithful to the traditions of the Torah and what we would call the Old Testament. However, we're struggling with accepting Jesus as the Messiah and how to process the reality that God was inviting new people into his family, people who were not Jews. This book was also helpful for Jewish now Christians as well as Gentile Christians to figure out, okay, what are the most important things to remember here about our faith and what are some things that we need to maybe let go of? And so for us today, we're left with a really clear explanation of what do we believe. I think this is very valuable for us today, even if we're not in one of those original categories of maybe who this letter was intended for, we get to benefit from a great perspective of what do we know about the Old Testament, what do we know about the New Testament, and how do we live in light of those today? Last episode, the author ended with a parallel looking back to the Israelites in the wilderness as they rebelled, as they wandered and hardened their hearts, and not learning about this God who brought them out of Egypt, their God, who set them apart to be his people. They rejected that, and so they were not able to enter the promised land on their first go-around because of it. They were not able to enter God's rest, the promised land. And that is where the author continues the conversation today here in chapter four, and we'll go through chapter six in the New English Translation. Therefore we must be wary that while the promise of entering his rest remains open, none of you may seem to have come short of it. For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did, but the message they heard did them no good, since they didn't join in with those who heard it in faith. For we who have believed enter that rest. As he has said, as I swore in my anger, they will never enter my rest. And yet God's works were accomplished from the foundation of the world. For he's spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. But to repeat the text cited earlier, they will never enter my rest. Therefore it remains for some to enter it, yet those to whom it was previously proclaimed did not enter because of disobedience. So God again ordains a certain day. Today, speaking through David after so long a time as in the words quoted before, oh that today you would listen as he speaks. Don't harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterward about another day. Consequently, a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. For the one who enters God's rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works. Thus we must make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following the same pattern of disobedience. For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit and joints from marrow. It's able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart, and no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession, for we don't have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let's confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help. For every high priest is taken from among the people and appointed to represent them before God, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He's able to deal compassionately with those who are ignorant and erring, since he's also subject to weakness, and for this reason he's obligated to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. And no one assumes this honor on his own initiative, but only when called to it by God, as in fact Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming high priest, but the one who glorified him was God, who said to him, You are my son, today I have fathered you. And also in another place, God says, You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. Okay, now during his earthly life, Christ offered both requests and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his devotion. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered, and by being perfected in this way, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. And he was designated by God as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. On this topic we have much to say, and it's difficult to explain since you have become sluggish in hearing. For though you should, in fact, be teachers by this time, you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God's utterances. You've gone back to needing milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil. Therefore, we must progress beyond the elementary instructions about Christ and move on to maturity, not laying this foundation again, repentance from dead works and faith in God, teaching about ritual washings, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And well, this is what we intend to do, if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God and the miracles of the coming age, and then have committed apostasy to renew them again to repentance, since they are crucifying the Son of God for themselves all over again and holding him up to contempt. For the ground that has soaked up the rain that frequently falls on it and yields useful vegetation for those who tend it receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it's useless and about to be cursed. Its fate is to be burned. But in your case, dear friends, even though we speak like this, we're convinced of better things relating to salvation. For God's not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you've demonstrated for his name in having served and continuing to serve the saints. But we passionately want each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of your hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and perseverance, inherit the promises. Now, when God made his promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you greatly and multiply your descendants abundantly. And so by persevering, Abraham inherited the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and the oath serves as a confirmation to end all dispute. In the same way, God wanted to demonstrate more clearly to the heirs of his promise that his purpose was unchangeable, and so he intervened with an oath, so that we who have found refuge in him may find strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things since it's impossible for God to lie. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain, where Jesus, our forerunner, entered on our behalf, since he became a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. We'll stop there. We'll talk more about Melchizedek next time, as Hebrews does. But for now I want to talk about chapter six, verse 19, talking about hope. When COVID and the quarantine hit, I found myself without the ministry that I had been doing full time for 10 years. And after that, no doors were opening up. God was not allowing me to get a job. I could not get a job for the life of me. I don't know how to tell you. I just could not get a job. There were no opportunities. I felt stuck and hopeless, frankly. I had hopes for new ministry and really honestly good things. But God was just saying no. And I just felt so hopeless. Like, well, then what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to hope for if there's nothing? Proverbs 13, 12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. And I was there for years with a sick heart. Just because I had felt like my hope for what God was doing and growing kept being deferred, kept being put off, kept being told no, kept having doors closed in my face. And so I ended up hoping less. Just not hoping, not getting my hopes up, because I didn't want them to come crashing down. And I realized part of the problem was that my hopes were up, kind of like a kite. And I've flown kites before. I have a parafoil kite in the basement right now. Obviously not flying, but I've taken it on the beach too. And out there, I remember I was flying one time and I was so busy looking up at the kite, trying to keep it up and trying to make sure that it wasn't getting tangled and everything. And I was not watching where I was going because then I hit some, I don't know, rock or something on the beach, I didn't even see, and I just came crashing down and scraped my leg, and it was not fun. I think we tend to see our hopes like kites up there, far away, in the distance. If only we could reach them or somehow bring it down to us, then we could have what we're hoping for. But the problem is that when we're so focused on our hopes up, then we're not paying attention to where we're going now. We're not paying attention to what's around us, and we're likely to trip and fall and get hurt. So that's why the author of Hebrews does not say your hope is like a kite. Isn't it weird that he says our hope is like an anchor? Our hope is like an anchor for our souls, not lifting us up high and away, but anchoring us down. What do you do with an anchor? You don't stare at it, you don't really even think about it, frankly, but you set it, you trust that it's set and it's going to do its job while you go about your work on deck in the present, where you are, doing what you need to do. So that no matter what waves or storms come, you know that you are safe as your hope is anchored. A few years ago there was a contest that was about making a video, and the theme was hope. And make a make a video about hope. What does hope mean to you? And the winner receives, oh gosh, something like$20,000. So, in hopes of trying to, maybe this is how God will provide for us, we made a video about what hope means to us. Did we win? No. But this video served as a personal exploration and declaration of the hope that we find in Christ as inspired by this verse in Hebrews. It's spoken words, so it's poetic, it's artistic. And if you would like to check it out, I'm gonna put the link to the video in the episode description for this episode. So in your podcast player, check out the episode description. The link will be there. You can check it out. Enjoy it. I hope it blesses you, and I hope it reminds you to get your hopes not up, but get your hopes down. That's the Thinking Out Loud thought for the day.