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predestined because of his power, that we will become more like him. Are you becoming more like him?

Is that taking place in your life? The scriptures say that if you've truly been redeemed, Jesus is so powerful, he is going to change you.

And you will become more conformed and more connected to the Son of God.

It will happen. The question I have to ask you is, is it happening? Because he says that those that are like Jesus are the ones that through faith and patience inherit the promises. So be imitators of those. So now the writer of Hebrews being brilliant in his teaching, he now realizes he needs to give these Hebrews a little reminder because they're just struggling with where they stand now. And look, we're going to get real deep on this as we get on into chapter eight and whatever is this. I know that I don't get ahead, but let me just throw that out here. Listen, how many of you are Gentiles?

The new covenant was not for us. We benefited from it and we got grafted in.

But the promises the prophets were talking about of God and the new covenant was for the Hebrews.

It wasn't for the church. The church just happened to arise out of the new promise. You ever heard Paul talk about the mystery of the church? It's a mystery because we got a bunch of Gentiles in here now. And so we benefit from the new covenant. Praise God for that when I say benefit. Redemption, remission of sins, the Holy Spirit. Yes, we're in on all that.

But there's something more that the Hebrew was promised that we weren't.

And so what he wants to do is he wants to remind them of that. God's kind of taking care of us, and he made a covenant with us, and he hasn't left that covenant.

It's just a new, better covenant. But what it what is it came out of the old covenant it's the fulfillment of everything God promised us because you got to go back because one of the biggest problems the Hebrews still have is they think they're being asked to be Gentiles they're not we. We're grafted into them. They are not grafted into us.

And so that's what the writer wants to remind them. You haven't left your Hebrewness by going on into the new covenant. So look what he goes. He's going to go back and remind them of that, that God's prepared to help them with this. Look at 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.

Now, that's a deep statement. God is prepared to help them. God has promised, or if you want to use the word, he pledged to see them home safely.

And he's saying, do you remember Abraham? The Hebrews loved Abraham.

Have you ever gone out and been a speaker, and you're like, I need to do something? As a matter of fact, I know I've done this. Comedians, by the way, in case you're wondering, they do this.

You know what comedians do when they hit a town? They go somewhere and find out all the funny things about the town. They ain't never been there, most of them.

But if you've got a certain funny and where things are, and then they work it into the act because they know the minute they mentioned something you're familiar with, you light up and go, oh, he knows our town. Well, if you want to get the Hebrews back, listen to you again, bring up Abraham. Okay. So he brings up Abraham, which is very, very smart. And he says, look, is very, very smart. And he says, look, remember this. If you have your Bible, let's go to Genesis, Genesis 22, Genesis 22. Now we did a study on Genesis. We went all the way through Genesis, word by word. I met some people this past weekend that they're just now going through that Bible study. So if you want to find those archives, you can by going to themanchurch.com. Just use that media button there and you can search back through all the studies we've done, and you can find Genesis.

So in Genesis, we see chapter 22, verses 16 through 18.

This is what he's going to remind them of in this wonderful moment between Abraham and God.

And he said, An angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, now in 16, 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. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.

And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall be the nations of his enemies and in your offspring shall be the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice so abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to bersheba bersheba and abraham lived in bersheba and then it goes on talking about all this so the bottom line is when did this happen after abraham was after Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac.

So as soon as God saw that faith, and he saw that obedience, and I love that what the writer of Hebrews says, after Abraham passed this test, he says, God swore by himself, because he had nothing higher. There was nothing higher for God to do other than to say, if I say it, it's my word, it will be done because I don't contradict myself.

I'm it. I'm the standard. And the writer of Hebrews is saying this promise was made by God himself. It wasn't by some man who referred to God. It was God himself. Now this is good. So why is he preparing them for this? Because what he's saying is, now let's look to Jesus.

Because now Jesus has come back and we're there again. He's even above Abraham.

Remember when everybody started tearing their clothes? When Jesus said something about Abraham, the guy says, you know, Abraham, what are you, 30-something years old?

And he said, before Abraham, I am. And everybody just went crazy. But what he's saying is now God has done what we needed.

He became 100% man while also remaining 100% God. And now when Jesus comes, we're now back to that standard that Abraham had when God himself spoke directly to Abraham.

We got that again in Jesus. He's speaking directly. We're talking to God. God went to Calvary.

God has now done the remission of sin. God has been resurrected. He has defeated eternal death.

resurrected. He has defeated eternal death. And so what he's saying now, if God has told us as a man, Matthew 28, 20, that he'll be with us always to the end of the age, we can take him at his word again. He has not abandoned us. He's going to see us through on this. We're not doing this alone God's with us we need to remember that church Jesus didn't send us out without him he said he goes with us we have no excuse but he even when they were confused and they said you didn't even tell us what we're supposed to say he said you I will give you through my Holy Spirit what to say have you ever been in a situation and you were caught off guard by it and all of a sudden you were talking about the gospel somehow you're like oh my goodness i don't even know where that came from it came from the holy spirit if you got the holy spirit just have faith all he's asking for is obedience he does everything i mean honestly you think an idiot like me can be part of what's going on with the manchurch.com and all that?

Well, are you kidding me? I mean, I think a lot of people look at my life and say, I didn't believe that God was doing miracles today until I saw Burgess.

Then I realized that he's still doing miracles. I mean, he's still doing miracles. My wife still can't believe it. She goes, I still can't get over your studying the Bible.

I don't even know what to do. I can't believe it. I'll throw something out every now and then and even teach her something here or there so um it's not it's not a lot but it's every now and then so so anyway so it's so funny people who heard her speak this weekend they were like oh wow you didn't exaggerate and i'm like no i didn't exaggerate i said how about that and they said how about that i asked the woman in charge of this weekend, who was the point person. I said, what did the premier speakers tell you about both of us coming? Because if we both come, it goes through them.

And she said, well, they told us that when Sherry gets here, that we'll need to go ahead and she's not going to go eat. She wants her microphone on. She wants to go into an area we have set aside to continue to prepare. She wants to know where she's going to be standing. She wants to go into an area we have set aside to continue to prepare she wants to know where she's going to be standing she wants to know exactly how the the service is going to go i said what did they say about me rick will go eat and he may not even know what town he's in so uh i said wow that's a little different uh so uh and uh so uh so there first they told me that while i was eating but uh uh so so anyway all right so then we get And so there.

First, they told me that while I was eating. But so anyway. All right. So then we get into the next thing. Okay. Get into it. We're going into verse 15.

Right. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. So we're talking.

He knows this, that now Abraham passed the test. We know that Abraham knew that this was coming. He did not know when it was coming, but he patiently waited for God when he was about to sacrifice Isaac. He had enough faith that he knew that whatever God was doing, remember what the writer of Hebrews will tell us later when we get to the heroes of the faith? One of the things that gave Abraham confidence about if he had to sacrifice Isaac was what? That God would just raise him from the dead. Why? Because God said that he was going to produce a nation through the seed of Abraham. This is the only son he had that was in the right lineage because what he did that produced Ishmael was not God's plan. So here was the line that he was talking about in Isaac.

So Abraham so trusted God, we need to get here sometimes, where he says, I don't know how you're going to do this.

I just know you will. Can y'all apply that today? On all the situations that are in here, all the situations that are out there, you may be right now going, I don't know how in the world God's going to do this. I just know he will. Another Sherry quote, I don't always like his tactics, but I can't argue with his results.

He gets it done, what he's going to do. And you may not like the way he does it, but he'll get it done. So if we have this promise that he's with us, it, but he'll get it done. So if we have this promise that he's with us, then we can move into 17 and 18. So 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 remember, this is really cool, what's going to happen here, is once God guaranteed what he was going to do, he did that by his own name.

And then in 18a, I want you to look what it says next. So that by two, it might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before.

So let's look at 18 a and B so if God said this then it's true if God swore by himself we can count on it he has now come as 100% God 100% man and what we need to know is that God is jealous that his word be trusted okay Okay, if you have your Bible, go to Psalm 138.

Psalm 138. This is David. Psalm 138. And listen to what David is writing about God being jealous that his word be kept.

138 verse 2. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

God understands our human weakness. And the writer reminds us that God cannot lie.

And the writer reminds us that God cannot lie. And he said, so by two unchangeable things, which he just talked about in 16 and 17, he said, so for people swear by something greater than themselves, this is 16, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. God doesn't have to do that because he is the standard, which we talked about, 17. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, that's the Hebrews, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with the oath.

Then we get to 18. So that by two unchangeable things, the two things in 16 and 17, 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. God told us there was a new covenant coming. God told us there was something better coming. And God told us exactly what was going to happen.

God told us this was his son. God told us this would be the final remission of sin.

God told us about this covenant just like he told us about the old covenant. And if we believed he didn't lie about the old covenant, we can't think he's lying now.

So if you're looking for refuge, where do you find refuge? In a God you can trust. He cannot lie.

Do you take refuge in that? You know, I can't tell you the number of times, even again, this week, last week and in the beginning of this week, I've already had to deal with two more families who had children who died.

And what's the first thing that I start talking about? The promises of God. The first thing, John 16, 33, I say this so that you'll have peace in this world. You will face tribulation, but I've overcome the world.

And then I remind them that they're told in the Psalms that God is near to the brokenhearted.

So he will be. I also remind them of 1 Peter 1, verse 6 and 7. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you've been grieved by various trials to test the genuineness of your faith that it may result in the glorification of Jesus Christ.

You've been given an opportunity to glorify Jesus. God has spoken to this. He's not silent on any of this. And then of course, what Sherry and I have said to many couples, this is not his final plan. Let's go to Revelation 21 and you see that every tear is wiped away and death will be no more. There'll be no more sickness. There'll be no more mourning. This is all going to be over. This is not the final plan. And do not give hope. And the only hope you got right now is in God. But he can be trusted. That's not something that you go, well, at least I got that.

No, that ought to be what gets us up out of the bed every day. So then he gets into the second part of 18 and he's saying, just as God pledged himself to Abraham, he has pledged himself to the second part of 18, and he's saying just as God pledged himself to Abraham, he has pledged himself to the new covenant.

He's pledged himself to the church. Remember the old covenant. Now, I want to talk on 18b.

This gets a little bit deep because you'd have to study the Old Testament to understand the way things were handled.

Because when he said, if you look at this in the second part, he says, for we have fled for refuge, that we might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Let me tell you where they see that and when that would awaken to Hebrew. Do y'all remember if you committed the sin of manslaughter? It means you killed somebody by accident. You didn't know, you didn't mean to kill them, you did.

Now, what is he pointing to right now? The Hebrews putting Jesus on the cross. In those days, if you committed manslaughter, there were cities of refuge that you could go to.

And if you went to those cities for manslaughter, then the avenger, the executioner, would not come there.

Now, you couldn't stay where you were. You had to leave. But they were really, in those days, what we have, some of these cities that said they're going to be these cities now where anybody can come in there, no matter where you come from. Of course, they're all regretting that now because their cities are ruined.

But anyway, but in these days, you would just go to these cities that were assigned for manslaughter.

And then the only way that you could go back to your life was if the sitting high priest died.

If the sitting high priest died, you were now unconditionally forgiven and back to your life.

As long as the high priest was alive, if you left that city of refuge, then he had the right to execute you for manslaughter.

of refuge and he had the right to execute you for manslaughter. So what he's saying to them is we have the ultimate city of refuge in the high priest that took his own life for us.

He did rise from the dead, but he allowed himself to be crucified on the cross. So the high priest, the ultimate high priest, has now come back through his death on the cross and given to us unconditional refuge. So they're hearing a deep concept right here, but they're relating it to what they knew of the old covenant, the cities of refuge and what happened if you had committed manslaughter. So what he's saying is you're going to be forgiven for putting Jesus on the cross.

As he said, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. And you now have full access to the final city of refuge in the ultimate high priest who gave his life for us.

And that's something really good to hear. It's also something good for us to hear. And he's saying your guilt is now gone.

You've been freed unconditionally in the new covenant. 19. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. I bet y'all getting ahead of me on this one. We can all see this one. This one we know, but if not, let's review.

He says this new covenant and Jesus is so secure. And I hope you have this in your life because it really is in the toughest of days.

There's been great hymns and praise songs written about it. There's something quite wonderful about no matter what I'm in, my soul is anchored to Jesus. It ain't going anywhere because I have the anchor of Jesus. And the writer of Hebrews is reminding them that there's an anchor for the soul. You can be sure you can be steadfast.

And then what does this curtain mean? The anchor has taken us to the other side of the curtain, the Holy of Holies. Remember when Jesus was crucified and it says that that that curtain that separated everybody except the priest that was chosen at the time to go into the holy of holies it says that curtain went right down the middle and it was split and the holy of holies was open to everyone and he says this is our anchor an anchor of our soul jesus is not we don't have to have a a human high priest that goes behind that curtain and gets into the Holy of Holies and we all go, I hope God speaks to him.

What he's saying is we don't have to be taken into the Holy of Holies because if we're in Christ, he is the Holy of Holies.

Good night, y'all. He is the Holy of Holies. It's been fulfilled. We're anchored. You're always in the Holy of holies it's been fulfilled we're anchored you're always in the holy of holies you have access you don't anybody go in there for you jesus takes you in there he is it all those people are trying to talk to him he's talked to us're all in. You don't have to go behind some curtain and talk to some person. I don't know where in the world we came up with that. Now, if we want to confess our sins to each other and help each other, sure, but you can do that with anybody who's a brother.

But ultimately, we confess to Jesus. He's the ultimate high priest. He's the ultimate high priest.

He is superior to anything else. And so he's doing something an earthly priest could never do. He is the forerunner of everyone who comes to the place where the rest of us follow. He has gone into the Holy of Holies, and thanks be to him, all his followers now go into the holy of holies with him and of course this is going to lead us into melchizedek here we go you know i look forward to heaven when god finally says, you know, I laughed a lot watching you try to do the Melchizedek thing. That was humorous to me. But here's the point, though. He's trying to get them there in 20, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Now, why is he telling us this? Now, we're going to launch next week. We're going on a Melchizedek ride next week, okay? But remember when this was first brought up and why it was brought up. It was brought up because they were struggling with the fact that Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not from Levi.

And they had learned that everybody who was a high priest came from Aaron's lineage, which is the tribe of Levi.

And then the writer of Hebrews says, don't get ahead of yourself now. Anybody remember Melchizedek?

He was not from the line of Aaron.