This morning's text is taken from the book of Hebrew chapter 6, and I'll be reading

verses 13 through 18. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying,

I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.

And thus having patiently waited he obtained the promise.

For men swear by one greater than themselves and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the airs of the promise the unchangeableness

of his purpose interposed with an oath in order that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,

we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. God's purpose in this text for us this morning and his purpose for the ministry of his

Holy Spirit right here among us right now I believe is to impress very powerfully, life-changingly upon your minds and your hearts his desire for you to have strong encouragement.

God means to minister by the word and the spirit this morning, strong encouragement into this congregation and into your heart and into your family.

That's very clear to me from this text. I do not doubt that he appointed this text months ago and appointed your presence

here this morning in ways that you perhaps did not your self-plan, that you might be strongly encouraged.

Versus 17 and 18 are the main point of the text.

I told Rod not to read verses 19 and 20 because as I prepared

this text I was so overwhelmed by the truth of what we're going to look at this morning. There was no way I could do

verses 19 and 20 also in one sermon, so that's going to stand by itself next Sunday.

And in fact, the image for next Sunday of the upside down anchor that goes up instead of down.

The anchor in heaven is one I just couldn't tack on the end. I was clicking along here. I had about 10,000 bites.

I said, that's the end of the sermon. I got to include two more verses. So I almost ended by saying,

and we have a great hope, and it's like an anchor in heaven, into the holy of holies,

hooked around Jesus.

And I said, that's a sermon.

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