Taylor Birkhimer
Hebrews 6:19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
Driving around, you may have noticed the signs on your neighbor’s front lawn that say: “In this house, we believe black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything.” It has been described as “the secular creed.” A creed is something that is a statement or confession of belief. There is a book written about this very sign called for its namesake titled, “The Secular Creed” and it talks about how this sign is post-Christian in nature. Post-Christian in this sense is that the ideas proclaimed are only possible because they stand on a Christian intellectual heritage. It does not mean the ideas are Christian themselves but are only able to be held because the intellectual heritage of Christianity paved the way.
What leads us to discouragement, fear, and despair?
How do you feel about the secular creed and the progressive post-Christian ideologies our culture promotes? It is easy for many of us to become discouraged because we feel as though we as Christians have lost the culture war and the culture is drifting further and further into liberal ideologies like the ideas espoused in the secular creed. I know parents of youth in particular feel uneasy about the environment the youth are growing up in.
This brings me to the main point of this article: when we are prone to discouragement, fear, and despair because of the brokenness of this world, we must hold fast to Jesus as our steadfast anchor of the soul.
I’m not sure what you fear or what might lead you to discouragement. For Abraham in Hebrews 6:13-20, he was waiting years upon years for the promises of God to be realized for him. For us, maybe it is the secular environment we find ourselves in, or maybe it’s personal doubts and struggles, or problems in our family. Regardless of what it is, these Bible verses are urging us to anchor ourselves to Jesus.
So, what do you fear? What brings you discouragement, or leads you to doubt the promises of God? Whatever comes to mind, remember that as we go on.
Abraham and the Promise of God
Abraham is given as an example throughout the book of Hebrews and the Old Testament as a faithful recipient of God’s promises and in many cases one to imitate. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. (Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23)” But we also know that Abraham’s life was not all blessing and no trial and neither was he faithful perfect in all times. Abraham waited 25 years from the time God promised him offspring and land until Isaac was born and that was after Abraham was already an old man. Further, God called Abraham to offer Isaac as an offering – to sacrifice his son for whom he had waited so long. Abraham did not waver in his faith, thinking God would raise Isaac from the dead.
In verse 13, it says that God swore to Abraham based upon God’s self. This points us to something unique about the ancient Near Eastern history that Abraham was a part of. Whenever one person swore an oath or made a covenant with another person, the penalty for violating that oath was death. These verses in Hebrews not only focus on God’s promises to Abraham of offspring with the direct quotation from Genesis 22, but also encompass all of the promises God made to Abraham including the covenant ceremony in Genesis 15.
In Genesis 15, we see God’s covenant ceremony with Abraham. Starting in Genesis 15:9, God tells Abraham to take some animals and cut them in half. This was the normal covenant ceremony, as both parties would cut the animals in half, let their blood flow through the middle, and each party would walk between the sliced animals to illustrate very vividly that they would become like the animals if either part should violate the covenant. When God swore to Abraham, he swore by himself – by his very life.
What is incredible about Genesis 15, is that God is the only one who passes through the sliced animals. God made an oath not only to fulfill his side of the covenant but also Abraham’s. You can think of tension in the Old Testament narrative because we see very quickly that Abraham does not live up to his end of the covenant. By the covenant ritual, God should die. But how can God die? We now know, at that moment the Lord God placed the death penalty upon his Son Jesus Christ. We see the gospel in the atonement central to the message of Scripture all throughout, and especially here with Abraham.
What does all of this stuff about Abraham have to do with us? As I teach youth, I am always thinking of the question, “ok so what?” and in this passage, there is a very clear connection between God’s promises to Abraham and us. Look again at verse 17 where God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise. Who are the heirs of the promise? The promises to Abraham were not only for the Jews – his direct descendants, but God’s promises to Abraham have global significance in that all who walk in the faith of Abraham are descendants of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). That means if you are here today and your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are who verse 17 says is “the heirs of the promise.”
The author tells us in the second part of verse 18 what the purpose is of God’s showing more convincingly his promises to the heirs of the promise. The second part of verse 18 says that “we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” What is that hope? Verse 19-20 “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.”
How do we anchor ourselves on Jesus?
The author of Hebrews is so clever as he describes Jesus as being an anchor. I’m not a sailor, but I know anchors go down deep into the ocean to anchor a ship in its place. What’s great about this analogy is that our anchor is not one that goes down deep, but goes up deep into heaven, into the holies of holies in the Priestly order sitting next to the right hand of God. There’s a lot more that can be said about that, but the point is that Jesus is the anchor of our souls and a source of hope.
If our household had a creed posted, what would it say? Would it expose any idols? What would a creed look like to show that Jesus is the anchor of our families? Would our families’ creed reveal that we have anchored ourselves in Jesus or something else?
I am the youth minister for our church and so I have a special duty to both the youth and their families, so as I seek to apply this text, I want to focus on how we can apply it within our families.
When I think about Jesus being the anchor of our families, two passages come to mind:
Joshua 24:15 – And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (ESV)
Joshua makes a statement that this household will serve the Lord. Deuteronomy gives us a picture of what serving the Lord looks like:
Deuteronomy 6:6–9 – And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (ESV)
In the world of youth ministry, all the experts are talking about how we can reach the next generation of youth so that they would live for Christ, and they would have Jesus as the anchor of their souls. So much of what the experts are focusing on right now is the importance of the family in reaching the next generation. As a youth pastor, I get maybe 2-4 hours a week with your students; you get much more. As a youth pastor, your kids come under my leadership when they’re around 11 or 12. They come under your leadership when they are conceived. Even in the passages we just read in the Bible emphasize that parents are the primary disciples of their kids. How are we going to reach the next generation? The church is not on the frontlines of that battlefield alone, but the family is there as well. It’s not even the church that carries the first responsibility, it’s the family. In the Scriptures, the primary emphasis is on fathers and parents to pass the faith along, but as grandparents, aunties, uncles, cousins, and older siblings we can do this too.
So how can we anchor our families in Jesus and thus reach the next generation? The heavy news is this burden is heavy, but the good news is that being faithful is not that hard and each of us can do it.
Come to church
It may seem so simple, but yet this is so important for many reasons. God did not create us to do the Christian walk in isolation, but in community with others. We can worship God on our own, but so much emphasis on Scripture is coming together as his corporate people to worship him. When we come to church we are encouraged and we hear the Word of God.
Coming to church every Sunday is not always easy. Life can be really busy at times, and there are some legitimate reasons to miss Sunday worship or to tune into the livestream. For the vast majority of us, for the vast majority of the time, we should be physically present at church for corporate worship. This shows that we value what God values. This shows that during the busyness of life, we will not allow it to take over the most important things. Thus, passing that value down to the younger ones in our family.
If we confess this as a creed, it would be “In this house, we will worship the Lord together with the church.”
Anchor your soul in Jesus, and live as salt and light before your family
Anchoring our souls to Jesus also has profound personal significance and this is the most clear application of the passage. We first must trust in Jesus, repent of our sins, and follow him. We must find joy in the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We must not only know about Jesus, but we must know Jesus and trust him personally. Then, we can be the salt and light of our families and world.
It is a powerful instrument in God’s hand for children to grow up seeing their parents pray, read the Bible, and commune with God. It is a powerful tool in God’s hand to lead them to Jesus when we can admit our shortcomings to our kids. This can be so hard. When we get impatient with our children and lash out in anger, can we admit our wrongdoing and ask for forgiveness? It’s easier to blame our children or the circumstances, but the reality of the gospel is that all of us are sinners. Can we live out a genuine gospel lifestyle in our homes that is willing to admit when we are wrong and ask for forgiveness? The gospel is not that we must perfectly obey God’s commands, the gospel is that we are sinners and on our own can never obey God’s commands. But the good news is that Jesus died for our sins. That truth frees us to admit when we are wrong, not only to God, but also to others. This is how we can be salt and light to our families.
Do worship and spiritual formation at home
Deuteronomy 6 which we read just a little bit ago talks about how we ought to teach our children about the law of God in everyday life – when we sit in our homes, wake up, and walk about our day. Do you talk to your children about the hope you have in Jesus as the anchor of your soul? Do you teach them the Word of God? Do you read Scripture together, pray together, or worship together at home? If the only time we look at God’s Word or worship him is at church, then it raises the question of whether or not we are truly following him or just putting on a face. If Jesus is the anchor of our souls, if he is the hope we proclaim, then our lives should overflow with Jesus.
Doing worship and spiritual formation at home is not super complicated and is something you can start small today. If you’re starting from nothing, pray together before a meal or before bed. Pick up the Bible and read a few verses in the evening and sing worship songs together. It doesn’t need to be every day, but a couple of times a week.
Another thing we can particularly do for our children and grandchildren is to catechize them. Catechesis is an ancient spiritual discipline that the church has practiced since almost the beginning. It might involve memorizing certain creeds like the 10 commandments or the Lord’s prayer. My son just turned 3, and we have already begun catechizing him. We will ask him, “What is life all about?” and he will reply “Jesus on the cross.” We are very busy, and so we will frequently ask him these questions while we’re driving in the car. This is what Deuteronomy means when it says to teach these things to our children when we go down and come up. Use the time intentionally.
As I share all of these things, the older your children are the more difficult it will be to put these things into practice. Start when your children are 1, not when they are 11 or even 5. Remember, we will never be perfect, but let our lives reflect the One who is perfect, Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
Here’s my plea for you: First, make Jesus the anchor of your soul, and second, live your life in a way that reflects the truth that Jesus is the anchor of your soul, and lead others, first and foremost your own family to see this beautiful truth.
I want us to close by remembering what we thought of at the beginning, when I asked what it is that you fear. Bring this to Jesus and find hope in him in the midst of that uncertainty. Let me close by reciting the important truth that Jesus is our hope as we see from the New City Catechism question 1:
What is our only hope in life and death?
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.