Introduction
Are you in a season where you feel tempted to drift from Jesus, tired, discouraged, or quietly wondering if enduring is even worth it? The central teaching I want to press into your heart is this: God gives unshakable hope to help you endure, by calling you to faith and patience, grounded in His unchanging promise and His unbreakable oath.
Hebrews 6 holds both: last week’s intense warning about the danger of drifting away from Christ, and now a strong encouragement about how to keep going. Like a good parent who follows discipline with reassurance, God warns us seriously and then strengthens us tenderly. To help us feel this, think about the 2010 Chilean mine collapse. Thirty-three miners were trapped 2,000 feet underground for 69 days. What kept them alive was not the certainty of an immediate solution, but a hope that didn’t die, confidence that rescue from above was coming. That’s what Hebrews is doing for us: it doesn’t promise that today gets easy, but it gives us a hope “from above” that enables endurance.
Main Points
Are you in a season where you feel tempted to drift from Jesus, tired, discouraged, or quietly wondering if enduring is even worth it? The central teaching I want to press into your heart is this: God gives unshakable hope to help you endure, by calling you to faith and patience, grounded in His unchanging promise and His unbreakable oath.
Hebrews 6 holds both: last week’s intense warning about the danger of drifting away from Christ, and now a strong encouragement about how to keep going. Like a good parent who follows discipline with reassurance, God warns us seriously and then strengthens us tenderly.
To help us feel this, think about the 2010 Chilean mine collapse. Thirty-three miners were trapped 2,000 feet underground for 69 days. What kept them alive was not the certainty of an immediate solution, but a hope that didn’t die, confidence that rescue from above was coming. That’s what Hebrews is doing for us: it doesn’t promise that today gets easy, but it gives us a hope “from above” that enables endurance.
Faith And Patience Inherit Promises
Hebrews 6:10–12 frames the encouragement:
- God is “not unjust to forget your work and labor of love” (v.10).
- We are to show “diligence to the full assurance of hope” (v.11).
- We must not become “sluggish,” but imitate those who through “faith and patience inherit the promises” (v.12).
That phrase is the “equation” for endurance: faith + patience = inheriting God’s promises. You can’t separate them. Patience without faith becomes mere grit. Faith without patience becomes shallow optimism. But together they produce durable hope.
And notice: Scripture doesn’t merely tell you to try harder, it tells you to imitate people who have already walked this road and finished well. Hebrews will later give a whole gallery of such lives (Hebrews 11). Here, it starts with Abraham.
Abraham Shows Enduring Hope
Hebrews 6:13–15 points to Abraham: God made a promise, Abraham endured, and he obtained what God promised.
To imitate Abraham, I need you to feel the long storyline of his hope. God’s promises to Abraham unfold across years:
- Genesis 12: Leave your land; I will make you a great nation; I’ll bless those who bless you and protect you.
- Genesis 13: After conflict and separation from Lot, God reaffirms the land promise and says Abraham’s offspring will be like the dust of the earth.
- Genesis 15: Abraham wrestles honestly, “I don’t have a son.” God promises a son from his own body and compares his descendants to the stars.
- Genesis 22: God climaxes the promise: through Abraham’s “seed” the nations will be blessed.
Hebrews summarizes the key: “after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (Heb. 6:15). That endurance wasn’t tidy. It included drama, doubt, and seasons where Abraham could not see how God would possibly do what He said. Yet Abraham kept trusting.
And Abraham waited a long time, about 25 years from the initial promise to holding Isaac. Biblical hope is not an instant cure; it’s an anchored confidence that keeps walking.
Tested Obedience Reveals Real Faith
Hebrews highlights God’s oath-connected promise from Genesis 22 for a reason: that is where Abraham’s faith was tested most deeply.
Genesis 22 records God saying, in effect: Give Me back the son I gave you. Abraham is asked to offer Isaac, the very child tied to every promise.
Hebrews 11:17–19 explains Abraham’s inner logic: he concluded that God could raise the dead. In other words, Abraham trusted God’s character so strongly that even an unbearable command could not cancel God’s promise.
This is vital for you and me: enduring faith doesn’t mean you never feel the weight of obedience. It means that under the weight, you still cling to God’s trustworthiness.
And it all foreshadows Jesus. Isaac was not the final substance, he was a shadow. Jesus is the true “seed” through whom all nations are blessed. Jesus even says Abraham “rejoiced to see My day” (John 8:56). Abraham’s hope ultimately reached forward to Christ.
God’s Promise And Oath Cannot Fail
Now Hebrews turns from Abraham’s side of the equation (faith and patience) to God’s side (why you can trust Him at all).
Hebrews 6:16–18 explains that in human life, people swear by something greater to end disputes. But God has no one greater. So when God wants to show you certainty, He swears by Himself.
Then Hebrews gives a stunning phrase: “two immutable things”, two unchangeable realities that make hope rational and strong:
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God’s promise (His word). God cannot lie. If God says it, it is true. Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”
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God’s oath (His sworn guarantee). God stakes His own name and character on the promise. James 1:17 reminds us God has “no variation or shadow of turning.” Hebrews later echoes this stability: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
This means God doesn’t offer you vague encouragement. He offers you a double certainty: His word and His sworn self. That’s why Hebrews says we can have “strong consolation” (strong encouragement) in distress.
Lay Hold Of Hope As Refuge
Hebrews 6:18 describes believers as those “who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.”
That language matters. When life caves in, when darkness, temptation, headlines, personal losses, or lingering sin press in, you don’t merely “power through.” You flee to refuge and you grab hold of hope.
And you do it by remembering: God has already spoken; God has already sworn; God cannot lie; God does not change.
Think again of Easter. Mark 16:6 says Jesus “has risen… just as He said.” The resurrection is God’s living proof that His word holds, even when everything looks dead. Your circumstances do not edit God’s promises. If He said it, it will happen.
So when you’re battling sin that keeps entangling you, when you wonder if you’ll ever be free, when you’re exhausted by a long season of waiting, this is not the moment to drift. This is the moment to run to refuge and grip the hope God has set in front of you.
Conclusion
I’m calling you to endure the Christian life the way Hebrews teaches: imitate enduring faith (like Abraham), and anchor your hope in God’s unchanging promise and oath. The warning against drifting is real, but so is God’s encouragement. Hope “from above” is what keeps you alive and moving forward when the timeline is long and the path is hard.
Faith and patience are not optional accessories, they are how we inherit what God has promised. And God’s promises are not wishful thinking, because He has bound them to His own unchanging character.
Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name and ask that You would strengthen my faith and deepen my patience. When I am tempted to drift, make me quick to flee to You as my refuge. Remind me that Your word stands forever, that You cannot lie, and that You do not change. Help me lay hold of the hope set before me, especially in seasons of pressure, waiting, and temptation. Teach me to imitate the faith of those who endured before me, and fix my eyes on Jesus, the fulfillment of every promise. Amen.
Conclusion
I’m calling you to endure the Christian life the way Hebrews teaches: imitate enduring faith (like Abraham), and anchor your hope in God’s unchanging promise and oath. The warning against drifting is real, but so is God’s encouragement. Hope “from above” is what keeps you alive and moving forward when the timeline is long and the path is hard.
Faith and patience are not optional accessories, they are how we inherit what God has promised. And God’s promises are not wishful thinking, because He has bound them to His own unchanging character.
Closing Prayer
Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name and ask that You would strengthen my faith and deepen my patience. When I am tempted to drift, make me quick to flee to You as my refuge. Remind me that Your word stands forever, that You cannot lie, and that You do not change. Help me lay hold of the hope set before me, especially in seasons of pressure, waiting, and temptation. Teach me to imitate the faith of those who endured before me, and fix my eyes on Jesus, the fulfillment of every promise. Amen.