S15 || Better Things Ahead || Hebrews 6:9-18 || Session 15

When faith feels thin and church life shows more thorns than fruit, where do you turn for steady ground? We open Hebrews 6:9–18 and find a surprising lift: God remembers every act of love, calls us to serve until the end, and anchors our hope with an oath He swore by His own name. This isn’t self-help; it’s soul ballast. We move from the everyday trenches of showing up for people in our local church small groups to the towering heights of the Abrahamic covenant and the God who cannot lie.

We start with the “better things that accompany salvation,” clarifying why diligence matters and why love toward the saints should be our first reflex. The conversation gets practical about how real care happens in close-knit community, not just from the pulpit or staff. If you’ve ever wondered whether unseen service counts, Hebrews answers with a firm yes—God is not unjust to forget your work or your love for His name.

Then we climb into the theology that makes this hope unshakable. God promised Abraham land, a great nation, and blessing to all nations, and he ratified those promises by swearing an oath on Himself. That one-sided covenant underwrites our New Testament confidence: the Body of Christ's future doesn’t hinge on human strength, but on divine faithfulness. Waiting, like Abraham did, becomes an act of trust, not a mark of failure.

Finally, we explore Jesus as our true refuge and the anchor of our souls, the forerunner who has entered behind the veil as our High Priest. Hope isn’t a mood; it’s a mooring. When life rattles your confidence, this passage invites you to take hold of the hope set before you—sure, steadfast, and secured by Jesus Christ. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help others find these conversations.

Chapters

• 0:00 From Warning To Better Things
• 0:41 Introducing Hebrews 6:9–12
• 2:44 Assurance Through Community And Examples
• 4:18 Promises To The Church That Endure
• 6:40 Does God Remember Our Service
• 9:03 Loving The Saints First
• 11:03 Serve Until The End
• 13:07 Don’t Be Sluggish
• 14:30 Abraham And The Oath Of God
• 16:19 The Three Promises To Abraham
• 18:04 One-Sided Covenant And God’s “I Will”
• 20:14 Waiting Patiently For Fulfillment
• 22:23 Unchangeable Purpose And Strong Encouragement
• 24:07 Jesus Our Refuge And Anchor
• 26:15 Hope That Is Sure And Steadfast
• 28:10 Closing And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

In the first part of Hebrews 6, it warned Christians against falling away. And it explained that if you do, there's going to be thorns and thistles and ultimately burned ground. If we look around our churches today and even our own personal Christian life, sometimes we see a few thorns and thistles and a few burn spots here and there. The good news is that we don't stay there. The passage goes on to give us good news about the future of our Christian life and good news about the church. The one thing about our Lord is that he always has a better future ahead. And we're in for that today on Reasoning Through the Bible. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. And if you have your copy of the Bible, open it to the book of Hebrews, chapter six. And today we're going to learn about some very practical things that we as Christians can do in our churches and to those around us. So we're going to start reading. Steve, can you start at chapter six, verse nine, and read through verse 12?

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and instilled ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

SPEAKER_00: 2:01

This is very down-to-earth shoe leather advice, very practical advice for us as Christians individually and for those around us in our churches. It says in verse 9, we are convinced of better things concerning you. Well, the better things was in contrast to the verses just prior to this, where there was a danger of ignoring Christ and falling away. He says, We're convinced of better things for you because you are going to look forward to the good days ahead. You're going to stay firm. And Steve, is there a reason that we can have confidence that there's going to be good days ahead in our Christian lives and the church overall?

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

The main way I think that we have that assurance is through the examples of the ones who have gone before us, the ones of faith that have shown us the way and through the Christians that we have fellowship with. That's why you and I advocate that people get involved with a small group in their church. It's because that is a place where you're really going to grow in the faith and grow in the knowledge of God. Because through the interaction of fellow Christians, there's just something about it. It truly is like being around family, even though you're not blood relatives, you're spiritual brothers and sisters. And there's just such great enjoyment through that. So through their stories and through the stories of the saints that have gone on before us, I think that we have that assurance of what's going to happen into the future for us and the things that we look forward to happening.

SPEAKER_00: 3:42

I think we can have confidence that Christ is going to keep his church and that we're going to have good days ahead for us. He has good plans for us, just like we have good plans for our children. So we can be convinced that there are good days ahead. And I think no matter how much of a problem we're in today, we can have confidence that Christ has good plans for us in the future and good plans for our churches. We can tell some things about the church overall. If we look in the scriptures, there's branches of theology that study the church. So, Steve, what does the scriptures teach about the church overall? Does God make promises about the church?

SPEAKER_01: 4:25

When you say the church, Glenn, want to clarify that you're talking about the body of Christ. And we're given many promises as being members of the body of Christ. We're given the promise of eternal life. We're given the promise of having the glorified bodies. We're given the promise of a future kingdom here on earth that we're going to be participants in. And we're also told of a new heavens and a new earth that we're going to be part of. That's part of the eternal life that we're going to have. And the greatest thing about it is that we're going to be together with Jesus Christ. It's going to be a great thing whenever we get there. We're going to have a new body, new situation. The problems and issues of this current world are not going to be bothering us anymore. So there's plenty of promises that he's given us as members of the body of Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 5:19

I think we can look at the scriptures and have confidence that Christ will keep his church. And if we look at individual churches and individual towns, those will come and go. Churches will be started, they'll have a life, and they ultimately dissolve sometimes. So we have individual churches that may come and go and die and come to an end. But Christianity, the body of Christ, will always continue. And it's not because of us or any human effort, because we are weak. It will continue because He will keep it. Because he says here in Hebrews 6:9, we are convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation, so we can have the fruit of the Spirit that it talks about so greatly in the Bible. Then in verse 10, the question arises: does God remember the service that we do for him? Does God remember the acts of kindness and the acts of love that we do in the church? So, Steve, does God remember these things? Oftentimes we may think, well, I did this service in the church and nobody recognized it, nobody saw it. Does God see these things?

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

Jesus, in an example, told the disciples that he was talking with at the time, if the father knows the sparrow that's going to fall, how much more is he going to know and take care of you? God knows everything. Because he knows everything, we can take assurance that the things that we do, he's going to know about. Now, that doesn't mean that we should be trying to keep track of our good things versus our bad things. And he's done have a giant scale there in heaven that he's keeping track and the good things outweigh the bad things. It's a depiction of one of the attributes or characteristics of God, of his omniscience, his all-knowing. So I think that we can take confidence that yes, he knows everything we do from the smallest things that other people don't know about to some of the other things that are a little bit more visible. And in either case, Glenn, God has it, as he says in verse 10, the love which you have shown towards his name. So we have this picture here that once we become a believer in Jesus Christ, we become a new creature. We have a different outlook and a different attitude. And along with that comes things of ministering to not only other saints, but also to the community. We just become different as a person because we have these promises of eternal life that we talked about before, promises of a continued afterlife. That changes us here on earth. And whenever we do those things of ministering to the other saints, as the example is given here, or doing Christian things of sharing the gospel with others, God looks at it as being something that is showing love towards his name. So that should give us encouragement to do more of these things, knowing how God looks at it and how well pleased he is whenever we do them.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

God is indeed just and he rewards people correctly. In the end, he will right every wrong, he will correct every wrong, he will punish every misdeed, and he will reward every act of goodness and love. And it says here in verse 10 that God remembers the love you've showed, as you well pointed out, Steve. But it's the love towards his name in ministering to the saints, it says. So what do they remember? He remembers the love they had towards the saints. Love is the highest ethic. Love is the thing that is the greatest of all the morals. The greatest commandment, Jesus said, is to love God and our neighbor. So love is the highest ethic. And it says here that God remembers the love that we have towards the saints. Notice here at the end of 10, it specifically mentions the love to the saints, the other Christians in the church. The church should indeed minister to all people, the stranger, the alien. But Christians should be most especially loving towards people inside the church. We should look around our church for those that are in need and take care of those first. That is our first priority. And yes, we are to love those outside the church, but we are to especially love the saints, as it's mentioned here. Then in verse 11, the writer reminds them to keep loving, keep serving. It says, until the end. So Christian service never stops. We never really get to a point. Well, I'm going to retire from Christian service, or I'm going to get, you know, I've I've been doing this so long, I think I'm going to stop. No, no. Individual ministries may stop for various reasons and dry up, but we as Christians should serve until the end, it says. We should have a service inside our local church forever. Even if you're bedridden and can't get out, then we can pray. We can pray for the other people in the church. We always should have a service to the body. Our Christian service never stops. Wouldn't you agree, Steve?

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

Well, yes. And as I mentioned before, that small group is where you actually hear some of the needs of your fellow Christians because you're meeting with them on a regular basis. We've told the story before of coming across Christians and we ask them where they're going to church, and they say, Oh, I don't go to church anywhere anymore. You ask the reason why. Some of them sometimes say, Well, I had some sort of a sickness or illness, or I had something happen, and nobody from the church reached out to me. One of my first questions to them is, Well, did you let anybody know at the church that you were in need of some ministering? And sometimes, many times, their answer is, Well, no, they should automatically know that. And of course, that view that they have is also many times that it's the pastors that should be reaching out to them. But that's not what's being taught here in Hebrews. In verse 10, as it mentions here that God doesn't forget your work and the love which you have shown in his name to ministering of the saints, as you just pointed out. So it's really us individuals that should be ministering to all the other fellow Christians. That's where it really should be done. We shouldn't be leaving the ministering and the visit to the hospitals and the visiting to the old folks' homes, things like that, just to the pastors of our churches and the staff members. No, we should be doing it ourselves. And once again, that is really done through a small group. So I just can't encourage enough that anyone out there, if you're not involved in a small group in your church, get involved because that's really where you're going to find most of your ministering from the other fellow Christians.

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

The writer of Hebrews reminds these Hebrew Christians to keep loving, keep serving until the end. It says, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. He's saying, don't be sluggish, don't be lazy. All Christians should be hardworking. As Christians, we should be known as the hardest working people in the entire community. We should get tired in the work, but not of the work. We should work hard for the Lord. Don't halfway work for the Lord. Certainly don't work less for the Lord than you would for somebody outside the church. We should work hard for the Lord. We should look ourselves in the mirror every morning and every evening and saying, Have I given my all for the glory of the Lord? We should ask ourselves, Am I working hard for the Lord? That's what it tells us here. Don't be lazy. The Christian should be industrious. Then in the next part, we get in back up into the heights again. We have what we just talked about was down in the valley. It's down on the horizontal plane, talking about how we treat each other and how we work hard, don't be sluggish. And he immediately goes right back up into the rarefied air, into the heights, talking about key doctrines. So, Steve, can you start at verse 13 and read down through verse 20, and we'll find out about Abraham?

SPEAKER_01: 14:55

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 so, 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 heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil. Whereas Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

SPEAKER_00: 16:08

And that's really a mouthful. There's a lot there, and it's way up into the highest heights because this is great theology here. Let's go back and go through it verse at a time. Verse 13 talks about some key doctrines. Specifically, it says when God made the promise to Abraham, he says the promise, but actually there were three promises that God made to Abraham. Steve, what were the three promises in the Abrahamic covenant?

SPEAKER_01: 16:37

He said, I'm going to give you this land to live on and to dwell on. And at different times, he said, we go out and look, and wherever you see to the northwest and south and east, that's the land that you're going to have for you and your descendants. He said, I'm going to make a great nation of you. If you can count the stars in the heaven or the sands on the shore, that's how many descendants that you're going to have. And then he said, You're going to be a seed that's going to come from you that's going to bless all the other nations. So those three, the land, the great nation, and the seed, those were the three promises that were given to Abraham by God.

SPEAKER_00: 17:15

And of course, the writer here to the Hebrews, his audience knows exactly what all that was and which promise that he's speaking of here, because he quotes these things without explanation. As we get into some of the other passages, we'll have to periodically touch back into Genesis to remind us of the things that the audience here in Hebrews would know. So we have the land forever, Israel be a great nation, and through Israel all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Those are the three parts of the Abrahamic covenant. Now, here in Hebrews 6.13, God swore by himself to bring about his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the next verse, he's quoting, and he says, God swore, I will surely bless you. Way back in Genesis 17, God swore seven times in seven verses, I will. He says, I'm going to fulfill these promises over and over again. It's almost gets very tedious. I will do this. I will, I will. The promises God made in the Abrahamic covenant were one-sided, and they were dependent on God to fulfill them. Remember when the covenant was ratified in Genesis 15, God put Abraham to sleep, and God walked through the animals by himself in the form of a flaming torch and a smoking oven. So God alone made the sign of the covenant. God alone made the promise. He never required any obedience in Abraham's part for the three parts of the Abrahamic covenant. Once we got to Moses, there is a condition on obeying the law in order to get the blessings of the Mosaic covenant. But it says here in Hebrews and emphasizes the point that God swore by his own name that he made this promise. Hebrews 6.13 says God swore by himself because there is no one greater. Now it also says in verse 15 that Abraham patiently waited until God fulfilled the promise. Well, Abraham was 75 years old when God first made the promise. But he was 99 years old when God fulfilled the promise in the form of the son of Isaac. So it was 24 years in between the time where God made the promise and the promise of the child Isaac was born. So the question I think we should ask ourselves today is what the writer of Hebrews here is emphasizing is that Abraham waited patiently. Can we wait patiently? God has made promises to us in the past, and we have yet to see the fulfillment of them. So each of us should look ourselves in the mirror and say, Am I willing to wait patiently on the Lord? So, Steve, are you willing to wait patiently on the Lord?

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

This is one of the examples that I talked about earlier in this session, that we have the other people that have gone before us, the other saints, and their faith and through their stories, we can have confidence that things are going to take place in the future. And of course, this is one of the main ones here of Abraham and the faith that he had. And in that story, Glenn, when they come into the age of 99 and 100, God visits them and tells them, assuredly, that they are going to have a child, which is most unusual for people at that age to have children. But God assured Abraham, when I come back at this time next year, by that time you will have a child, you and Sarah. And of course, that was Isaac who you mentioned. So, yes, Abraham is a great example of us to wait patiently. We also have Job and the things that he went through, and through his unwavering faith in God, through all the circumstances that he was waiting patiently for God to deliver him from those situations. We just have so many different stories of people waiting patiently for God to deliver them that it gives us so much encouragement for whenever we encounter the strife of life that we can wait patiently for God. And of course, the ones that we mentioned before of eternal life and a glorified body, those things are going to happen whenever we pass on to the other side.

SPEAKER_00: 21:59

The reason why that is so critical and so important for us is no less than our New Testament salvation hinges on the Abrahamic covenant. Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And that, of course, comes through Jesus, the church's salvation, both Jew and Gentile, comes through this Abrahamic promise. As it says here in Hebrews 6 in verse 13, he not only made the promise to Abraham, but he swore by his own name, because there was no one else greater to swear by. And what did he swear? Verse 14, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you. So the promise and the oath were, I will do this. God made a promise to Abraham, he repeated it to Isaac, he repeated it to Jacob, saying, I am going to do this by my name. You can be assured that it will happen because he promised. It was not dependent on any good work done by Abraham or any obedience. All Abraham had to do was trust God. And Genesis 15, 6 says, Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness. How profound is this? Then here in Hebrews 6, 17, it speaks of God showing the heirs of the promise that was made to Abraham that his purpose is unchangeable. The purpose that God promised to Abraham way back in Genesis is still valid today. What purpose is Hebrews speaking about? Remember, there were three promises: the land, a great nation, and the blessing through Israel to all the nations. All three parts are still valid. Why? Because God made the oath on his own name. I will bring this about. Since God's nature is unchangeable, his promises are unchangeable. Then in verse 18, he's talking about it's impossible for God to lie. Then therefore we who have taken refuge, it says, will be encouraged. So that brings up a question, Steve. Have you taken refuge in Christ?

SPEAKER_01: 24:14

Jesus is our refuge. And the readers of Hebrews' ears would perk up whenever they read this part of the letter to them, because in the Old Testament, one of the things that God laid out for the people were cities of refuge. These were cities that were scattered around the countryside that allowed for people whenever they came into a situation of manslaughter or part of a crime where they could go into the city and stay protected until they had a fair hearing from the elders of that city. If it happened to be manslaughter, as I mentioned, where they happened to kill somebody else of another family member of another tribe accidentally, well, those other tribe members would want to take revenge on that person and kill them themselves. He went to that city of refuge and stayed there. They couldn't go into the city and drag him out. They had to go through the process of his story being heard with the elders that were there. So this really would ring home to the people that are hearing this, these Hebrews, and make them to maybe to an oh, okay, now I get it. Jesus is our refuge. Where sin no longer has a hold over us, where death no longer has its sting. So those type of things, whenever the writer of Hebrews uses these types of language where the people would really understand what he's talking about, Jesus Christ is our refuge. And he's there to protect us from the things of this earth and to be a high priest for us, among other things.

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

My friend, I've taken refuge in Christ. Have you taken refuge in Christ? The Bible tells us God is our refuge and strength of very present help in time of trouble in Psalm 46.1. Jeremiah knew about God's refuge. He said, Lord, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of distress. He said that in Jeremiah 16, 19. And even Jesus talked about coming to him. He said, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He said that in Matthew 11, 28. Jesus is our refuge. You're not going to find much refuge in the world. All you'll find is pain and suffering and unrighteousness. But if we go to him, he is our refuge and our strength. All right. The next discussion question comes out of this verse 18. It talks about a strong encouragement to take hold of the hope that's set before us. So, yes, we have refuge, but can we have an encouragement to take hold of the hope that's set before us? Steve, that sounds very sure. It sounds very certain. So can we be certain and encouraged, no matter what's going on in our lives? Can we take encouragement to take hold of the hope that's set before us in Jesus Christ?

SPEAKER_01: 27:28

That's what the people that went to these cities of refuge felt. They were encouraged that they would were there and that the no one else could come in there and get them and drag them out. That's what the whole purpose of the city of refuge was. So they felt safe there as long as they didn't leave that city. That's the same thing with us. We can take encouragement that we're going to be safe in Jesus Christ. We're going to be safe from Satan. He's not going to be able to come in and do any harm to us and all of that type from the cities of refuge that we now have by having refuge in Jesus Christ. So absolutely, we can be encouraged that we're going to be safe in the refuge of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 28:13

No matter what's going on in the world, no matter how bad it is out there or even in here, Christians can take refuge in Christ and we can have hope because we know that God's in control and he's in charge of things. It's his world. He set it up, he's moving the chess pieces around on the board, and we can trust him to know what he's doing. If you're not taking refuge in Christ, then you have no reason for encouragement. The world's just going to be a dark place that ends in chaos and suffering. We do not have hope because of our strength or our intelligence. You're not going to have hope in your money or your health because those things will go away and those things will turn into taskmasters. We have hope because God is faithful and the Christian is a child of the king. And we know that our king is strong and wise and in control. So that's why we can have hope. Oh, these wonderful passages back here in Hebrews, they're so encouraging. We're going to go ahead and stop here on that great note, but we encourage you to be back with us because there's still more of the Abrahamic covenant that we get to reason through next time.

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

Thank you so much for watching and listening, and God bless you.