Some of us … [clear throat] … are old enough to remember this song. It goes like this [start song]:
“The next time you’re found with your chin on the ground…
“There’s a lot to be learned … so look around.
“Just what makes that little old ant think He’ll move that rubber tree plant?
Anyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant.”
Common … sing it with me if you know it!
“But he’s got high hopes … he’s got high hopes …
“He’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes.”
“So anytime you’re getting low … instead of lettin go … just remember that ant!
“Oops there goes another rubber tree plant …
“Oops there goes another rubber tree plant” … [stop the music].
Ah … that’s probably enough of that, amen?
The world doesn’t seem to be offering us much in the way of hope these days, does it? Boom! Out of nowhere we find our world turned upside down and inside out by this pandemic and when you turn on the news you don’t hear a call to rally and pull together. We hear fighting, finger pointing … our leaders playing the blame game and partisan politics. Of course, this is nothing new. There was plenty of fighting and finger point before this pandemic hit … left versus right … Republicans versus Democrats … conservatives versus liberals … black versus white … gays versus straights … and, of course, the government versus the media.
All of this fighting and name-calling and shouting and finger-pointing all of the time … well, it can make us feel uneasy … anxious … uncertain … insecure … maybe even fearful, am I right? It creates a chronic sense of hopelessness and helplessness … you know what I mean? Have you felt it? I mean … even before the pandemic, there was a sagging sense of growing despair in the heart of Americans. I think that the poet and author Dorothy Sayers beautifully captured this growing sense of despair that has been creeping into our collective psyche when she wrote: "In the world it is called ‘Tolerance’ but in Hell it’s called ‘Despair’ … the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing … and remains alive because there is nothing worth dying for.” Wow … amen?
While I don’t believe that it’s gotten that bad, I do believe that if we’re not careful, if things don’t change, we could end up in the kind of “despair” that Ms. Sayer described … believing in nothing, caring for nothing, seeking nothing, enjoying nothing, hating nothing, living for nothing, and living only because there’s nothing worth dying for. Right now, I believe that we are at a point of just being chronically dissatisfied. Perhaps the true source of despair and hopelessness among so many people today is simply the recognition or growing awareness that life is just not what it ought to be or what we hoped it would be … that some of the things which promised satisfaction and joy have not delivered on their promises. And the result is a pervasive sense of malaise … of uneasiness … like an itch that just can’t be scratched, if you know what I mean … an irritating sense of frustration that comes from reaching for that undefinable something that is somehow always just beyond our reach … you know what I’m talking about?
So we chase … but we never quite arrive. We go after this … and when that fails to satisfy that itch, we go after something else ... and then something else … and then something else … and the more we chase and the more we fail, the more we become jaded and frustrated. It leaves us feeling hopeless and helpless. More and more people are feeling like there’s nothing that they can do that will make a difference in their lives, in the world, and it leaves them feeling more and more frustrated and more and more hopeless and helpless. Maybe you’re one of those people … maybe not … but I’m willing to bet that we all know someone who feels like that … probably more than one, am I right?
Well … guess what?!
I have good news … great news in fact! The problem today isn’t a lack of hope … trust me. Humans, as a rule, are very hopeful creatures. Hope is at the very core of our essence, our existence. It’s a vital, critical part of who we are as human beings. Science and medicine and human experience have proven time and time and time again that we simply cannot exist without hope. Hope is the very stuff of life. Believe it or not, my sisters and brothers, the problem isn’t hope. Nope! To hope is human. The problem is not the absence or lack of hope but what we put our hope in.
The goal of this sermon series that I’m doing is to take you on a journey through a book filled with hope. That book is the … the Bible! My “hope” … did you catch that? … my “hope” is that is that you can or will develop a strong sense of hope in your own life and in your own heart no matter what’s going on in the world around you. Without that hope, I truly believe that we will sink into a sea of uncertainty and despair that will lead us to believe in nothing, care for nothing, know nothing, interfere with nothing, enjoy nothing, hate nothing, find purpose in nothing, live for nothing, and remain alive because there is nothing worth dying for. The Bible … the Word of God … says that we have a lot to believe in, a lot to care for, a lot to enjoy, a lot to hate, a lot to live for, … and to die for.
Hope is not some “high apple pie in the sky” thing. In order for hope to be useful, to be effective it has to be based on facts … on reality … otherwise it’s just fantasy … wishful thinking … whistling in the dark … or just sheer delusion and insanity. For example, I hope that I win the lottery this coming week … but guess what? I don’t have a lottery ticket … never bought one before. So, while I may be “hopeful” that I will win the lottery, guess what? That’s insane. Without a ticket I’ve got zero chance of winning a dollar, let alone millions, am I right?
If hope is based on fantasy or delusion … if hope is based on something that is impossible, that could never happen … then that isn’t hope … that could never be hope. In order for hope to have any value for us whatsoever, it has to be based on reality. It has to be based on possibility. No reality, no hope. No possibility, no hope, understand?
The Bible is filled with hope … the Bible gives us hope … because it offers us hope based on reality … based on possibility … not some “high apple pie in the sky” cheery disposition that always looks on the bright side of life even though there is no basis for our optimism … and the Bible can do that because it is the Word of God.
The kind of hope that you find in the Bible is based on experience … it’s based on certainty … it’s based on truth … not some” high apple pie in the sky” cheery disposition … not some wishful thinking or whistling in the dark. Since our God is a God of hope and our hope is based on the Word of God, we are called to be beacons of “hope” … real hope … for a world that is struggling with hopelessness.
The author of the Book of Hebrews was writing to a group of Christians who were facing hardship and persecution because of their faith. In his letter, the author was trying to give them hope … the kind of hope that they could cling to during the desperate, troubled times that they were experiencing and the troubled times that lay ahead of them … the kind of hope that we are clinging to now … the kind of hope that will get us through the troubled times that lay ahead of us.
When you don’t have hope, you want to just give up … to lay down and die. Hope … real hope … is what gives us the strength to hang on, to persevere, to keep moving forward even though our future seems so uncertain. The author of Hebrews was trying to get these persecuted Christians to hang on, to persevere, to keep moving forward by highlighting and reminding them of the truth of Jesus Christ and the future of their salvation which they could put their hope in because Jesus had already secured it for them … and for us, amen? For us Christians, our salvation is not some speculative wishful thinking but a fact, a certainty, amen?
The author of Hebrews was trying to instill “Biblical” hope in his readers and listeners … not some hope based on fanciful denial of their present difficult reality but a rock-solid attitude of hope that would produce a spirit of joy because it was based on the proven Word of God. God is a person, a being of His Word and the Bible is filled with plenty of proof that God keeps His promises.
The author of Hebrews uses a very powerful visual metaphor to illustrate his point. He describes our hope as a “sure and steadfast anchor” (Hebrews 6:18). Our hope in God, our hope in His promises is an “anchor” that will … not possibly … not maybe … our hope in God and in His promises will hold us steady in the storms of life. The hope that we cling to in our current despair is the hope and truth of our future salvation … and that is the best hope there is, my brothers and sister … the best hope that there is, amen? Don’t think so? Listen carefully to how those around you talk who don’t have this hope.
The author of Hebrews uses Abraham as an example of person who had absolute hope in the certainty of God’s promise and his future salvation. In verse 13, the writer of this letter challenges us to follow the example of Abraham who, through faith and patience, inherited the promises of God. He does this by going back to Genesis 22, where God swore an oath to Abraham that He would surely bless him and multiply his family. The author of Hebrews then applies God’s promise to the heirs of that promise … first to the children of Israel and then to us, heirs to the promise through Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews gives us four reasons why our hope of salvation in Christ is certain.
First … our hope of salvation is certain because God has never failed to keep the promises that He has made to anyone who has trust in Him. Abraham is a powerful example of a person who trusted God against all odds only to discover that God is faithful. In Romans 4, the Apostle Paul praised Abraham’s faith and called him “the father of all who believe” (v. 11) because “in hope against hope [Abraham] believed” (v. 18).
Abraham’s life is the story of God making promises to Abraham and Abraham having faith in the One making the promises. When God appeared to Abraham, Abraham was living in the city of Ur … and his name wasn’t “Abraham” but “Abram.” God commanded Abram to leave Ur and go to a place … some unknown, unnamed, unspecified place … that God would show him … and it wasn’t like Abram just shrugged his shoulders and said “sure.” It must have been quite a struggle for him. You didn’t just load up a U-Haul in those days and head out on the interstate lined with restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, and hotels … and even though we leave family and friends behind, Abram didn’t have a cell phone or e-mail or social platforms like Facebook to keep in touch with the folks back home like we do today. Moving hundreds of miles away like Abram did meant possibly never hearing familiar voices or seeing familiar faces ever again. It meant traveling through unfamiliar territory, facing unknown dangers, to live, well … he didn’t know where … yet. He just gathered up his belongings, pulled up stakes … literally … and headed off on the promise that God had something … some place … in mind for him. I don’t know if we even have the capacity today to understand what a tremendous act of faith and trust that truly was for Abram to just pack up and move and not even know where he was going simply because God asked him to, amen?
So … Abram obeys and heads out into his unknown future. God not only told Abram that He had a special place picked out for Abram but that Abram, who was childless at the time, would have many heirs … so many, in fact, that God was going to have to change his name from “Abram” … which means “father” … to “Abraham” … which means “exalted father” or “father of many” … “father of a multitude” … quite a promise, given the obvious truth that Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren and well past her child-bearing years. Abram was no spring chicken himself. If they were going to have children, it would have had to have happened a long time ago. They had long since resigned themselves to the sad fact that they weren’t going to have any children.
Now … I want you to picture this. You come to a new town and you start to settle in. One of the neighbors comes over to introduce himself and, of course, they want to know what your name is. Put yourself in Abraham’s 75-year-old shoes for a moment.
“Howdy, neighbor, my name’s Jonathan, what’s yours?”
“Ah, Abraham.”
“’Abraham’ … ‘exalted father’ … nice to meet you ‘father of many’ … say, with a name like that you must have some brood, eh?”
“Well … actually … I don’t have any children.”
“All grown up, eh?”
“No … just never had any … not yet anyways … expecting it to happen any day now.”
I can picture his neighbor going home and saying to his wife, “Hey, Martha … just our luck … the new neighbor’s a real crack pot.”
Twenty-four years later … twenty-four years … God appears to Abraham and reaffirms the promise that He made to Abraham that He would make it possible for “Abraham” to live up to name, “the father of a multitude.” It was hard to believe when he was 75, but now that Abraham is 99 years old. Sure, he now had a son … Ishmael … but God had promised that Abraham and Sarah would have a son. Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Sarah’s servant girl, Hagar … and, besides, one son does not a multitude make.
When Abraham died at the age of 175, he had fathered two sons … both of whom went on to have children. Ishmael’s heirs multiplied and grew into the nation of Islam. Abraham had two grandsons through Isaac … the twins, Esau and Jacob. Esau’s heirs became the powerful tribe of Edomites and Jacob’s twelve sons became the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.
“By faith,” says the author of Hebrews, “Abraham stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9-10). Even though Abraham didn’t live to see his multitude of heirs, history has validated the fact that God did, indeed, keep His word to Abraham. Today his descendants are both physically and spiritually “as many as the stars of Heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore” (Hebrews 11:12).
You and I are living proof that anyone who trusts in God’s promises are never disappointed because we are among the many children of Abraham. We are the result of God having blessed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are the recipients of God’s blessing upon the multitude of Abraham’s heirs for it was out of the multitude of Abraham’s heirs that God created and raised up an heir of His own … His own Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Like Abraham, we may not see the promises of God come to full flower in our lifetime, but God is utterly trustworthy when it comes to keeping His word. If He has promised eternal salvation to the one who has faith in His Son, Jesus … you can count on it!
Our hope of future salvation is certain because God has never failed to keep the promises that He has made to anyone who has trust in Him … and second, our hope of future salvation, says the author of Hebrews, is also certain because God’s purposes are unchangeable. In verse 17, he says: “In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it by an oath.”
“Heirs of the promise” … that’s us! God swore and oath to us, the “heirs of the promise.” He did this by installing His Son as “a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (v. 20). This might not be clear to us at first, but what the author of Hebrews is claiming is that after thousands of years, God kept His promise to us, “the heirs of the promise” to raise up out of the nation of Israel a high priest for us on the order of Melchizedek … His Son, Jesus Christ … to save His people … the “heirs of the promise” … for His name’s sake.
Hope is the ingredient that keeps us going between the promise and the fulfillment of that promise. God’s promises are what kept Abraham going. Abraham woke up every morning not knowing what God was up to … and neither do we. Hope is the thing that gets us up in the morning. Hope is what keeps us going forward and onward when every cell in our body and everyone around us is yelling at us to quit. Hope is what keeps our dreams alive while we are waiting on God to keep His promise.
Third, according to the author of Hebrews, our hope of future salvation is certain because God is not a liar! Did you know that? Of course, you know that, right? You know it but are you willing to stake your life upon it? Verse 18 states the obvious: … “it is impossible that God would prove false.” If God lied, He would deny His very nature as the God of Truth … whose very word is truth. Besides, who would worship a liar? Not me! Who would give up their life, their hopes, their dreams to worship and follow a liar? Would you? I truly love how C.S. Lewis so boldly and clearly spelled this out: “You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
If Jesus has entered the inner shrine behind the curtain as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek and atoned for our sins, then guess what, my brothers and sisters … you can bet your life on it. I have.
God has never lied to us … not once! When we doubt His promises … especially His promise of salvation for those who believe in Jesus Christ … aren’t we calling God a liar? Do you believe God’s promises concerning His son … or are you calling God a liar? As C.S. Lewis pointed out, either what the Bible … the Word of God … says about Jesus is true or it is a total lie … it can’t be both. It can’t be true for some people and not true for others … you follow me?
Our hope of future salvation is certain because … one … God’s promises have never failed … two … his purposes are unchangeable … three … God is incapable of lying … and last, but not least … God backs up His promises.
The fact that God … the All-Powerful, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Creator of the All That Is and Was and Ever Will Be … makes us a promise and says that He will keep it for us, that should be sufficient for us, amen? Who are we to challenge God’s word … to put God on trial? Ask Job what happened to him when he challenged God to explain Himself. But God … the All-Powerful, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Creator of the All That Is and Was and Ever Will Be … reassures us that He intends to keep His word by swearing an oath. And let me reassure you, when God swears an oath, make no mistake about it … it’s a done deal, amen?
I love verse 13. It says that God made a promise to Abraham but He had to swear the oath in His own name because there was no one greater by whom He could swear such an oath. It reminds me of that scene from the movie “O God,” where God is about to testify in a courtroom and has to put His hand on the Bible and swear that He will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth …“so help me me!” As the writer of Hebrews points out: “Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as a confirmation puts an end to all dispute.” In other words, if I pledge to do something in someone’s name, I am saying that that person is responsible for holding me to that promise and helping me to keep my word. It is a guarantee to the person I’m swearing the oath to that they will get what’s promised to them … either by me or by the person backing up my oath. As the author of Hebrews points out, God doesn’t have or need anyone to hold Him responsible for keeping His word … because God always keeps His word and always fulfills His obligations … so He has no need of a backer or guarantor.
There is no one who has the power to make God do anything that He doesn’t want to do … and this is the indisputable proof of God’s love for us. God doesn’t have to do anything He doesn’t want to do and no one can make God do what He doesn’t want to do. So, when God makes us promises and He keeps His promises it isn’t because He has to but because He wants to … because He loves us. He only swears an oath, says the author of Hebrews, as a way of reassuring us, of giving us peace of mind even though, technically, He doesn’t need to swear any oaths because we believe … we know … that He will keep His promises. These are the two immutable things that the author of Hebrews is talking about in verse 18. God doesn’t lie. He doesn’t have to. If He makes a promise, He intends to keep it and He swears by an oath to us that He will keep it. If He makes us a promise and doesn’t keep it, He’s a liar … He’s false … He’s unreliable … He’s unpredictable … when He makes a promise will He keep it or not? If human beings swear by someone greater … meaning God … and our oath to God is confirmation that puts an end to all dispute, as the author of Hebrews claims, then how much more can we put our trust and faith in the promises of God that are backed up by His oath?
Two unchangeable or immutable things … God’s promise and God’s oath. These two things become the “anchor” by which we can secure the hope of our future salvation! If God’s promises never fail … if God’s purposes are unchangeable … if God is incapable of lying … and if God backs up His promises … then we have what the author of Hebrews called “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (v. 19).
A sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. I hope and pray that I can do justice to this glorious, beautiful, powerful, and effective image … I really do! When a ship entered a harbor in the days of the New Testament writers, they would send out “forerunners.” “Forerunners” were men who would take the anchor rope in a smaller boat or dingy and row into it into the harbor. Once they reached shore, they would jump out of their dingy and tie the rope to a large rock or rocks placed along the shore for that purpose. What you may not have noticed is that I said that these “forerunners” would take the anchor rope and row into the harbor and tie the anchor rope to a rock. You see, “anchors” … the big metal hooked shaped things that we picture … hadn’t been invented yet. But here’s the cool part! The rock that the sailors tied the ship’s rope to were called … “anchoria” … “anchoria” … which is why we call the big metal hook-shaped things that we use today “anchors.” Pretty cool, eh? Once the rope or ropes were secured to the “anchoria,” the men on the ship would grab hold of the rope or ropes and literally pull their ship into the harbor.
Hold on to that image. I want you to picture sailors from the ship getting into smaller boats … rowing into the harbor … jumping out of those boats … and securing the larger ship to the “achoria” or rock placed on the shore for that purpose. You got it? Good. Now picture the crew onboard the main ship pulling on those ropes as they safely guide the main ship into the harbor … and once in the harbor, the “anchoria” keeps their ship from just floating away. So, the “anchoria” serves two purposes … the first is to guide the ship into the harbor and the second is to hold it there.
Now, picture this. God poured Himself out and became human … Jesus … Immanuel. Jesus is God’s “forerunner.” He comes from the vastness of Heaven to the little port or harbor of earth … where He becomes the “anchoria” by which God comes to us. Jesus enters behind the curtain of the Temple where He becomes our “anchoria,” our High Priest forever.
Jesus is then crucified … He is sacrificed on the cross … and the Temple veil is torn … but Jesus is now behind a different veil … the curtain or veil that separates life from death … Heaven from earth. He become our High Priest, our Heavenly “anchoria.” Jesus is both the “forerunner” who then becomes the “anchoria” so that God can safely guide us into the harbor of Heaven … the port of eternal life with God. Didn’t I tell you that the author’s use of the image of an “anchor” … or “anchoria” … was beautiful? Amen! Jesus is both our forerunner and He is our sure and steadfast “achoria” who secures our hope in these present, troubled times … and He is also our forerunner and our “anchoria” in Heaven, guiding our souls safely into the eternal harbor of God’s arms.
But … just like the sailors in the dingy and the sailors on the main boat, we have our part to do as well. An anchor is absolutely useless if it isn’t tied to the boat, amen? Christ can’t do us any good unless we’re tied to Him! In verse 18, the author of Hebrews identifies those to whom he is writing … along with himself … as “we who have taken refuge” in Jesus. His Hebrew readers would have immediately thought of the refuge cities that God had ordered to be established in Numbers 35. These were cities were a person guilty of manslaughter could flee from the those who sought to avenge blood for blood. The author of Hebrews draws a graphic connection to the actual sanctuary cites in the Old Testament with that of Jesus, who is our refuge, our sanctuary where sinners go to flee from the wrath of Sin …. With a capital “S” … the ultimate Blood Avenger.
The author of Hebrews describes Jesus as our High Priest within the curtain where God’s holy Presence meant instant death to any sinner who dare to go there. Every sinner needs a refuge from God’s coming judgment. His Son, Jesus Christ, is that refuge.
What good is a “refuge,” however, if one doesn’t seek refuge there? Have you sought the refuge of Jesus Christ? Have you trusted in Christ alone to save you from your sins? If you are your own high priest, if you are your own “anchoria,” if you see any one and any other thing as your refuge other than Jesus Christ, guess what, my brothers and sisters? You are in serious trouble. If your “refuge” is your good works, guess what? That’s not going to do you any good. Your “refuge” must be Jesus Christ. The only “anchoria” that can hold in any storm is Jesus Christ.
So … we must first tie a rope to our anchor. The next thing we must do is take hold of that rope … to seize the hope that is set before us, amen? Our salvation is secure because it rests on the promises and unchangeable purposes of God. It is not our feeble grasp of God but His firm gasp on us that secures our hope of Heaven.
We must first tie a rope to our anchor … then we must take hold of that rope … and then we must stay in the boat. In spiritual terms, we must find our refuge in Christ … we must put our hope and trust in Christ … and then we must wait on God. The certain hope of our future salvation is an anchor to steady our souls while we wait on God in our present storm … and that anchor is Jesus Christ.
The main reason that a ship needs an anchor is so that the ship can ride out the storm and not get blown out to sea or dashed to pieces on the rocks along the shore. Even in a safe harbor, a ship needs an anchor so that it will not drift away or drift aimlessly, or crash into another ship, or ended up beached on some rocks or on the shore. Whether in the storms of life or in the harbor during times of calm, we all need an anchor for our lives so that we do not drift aimlessly … so that we don’t end up crashing into someone or something and end up sinking or destroying our lives … or worse, our eternal souls, amen?
God’s sure promises give us strong encouragement to take hold of the hope that He has set before us. Ultimately, we don’t hope in hope itself … our hope is in Jesus Christ and in all that is promised to us because of Him. Our anchor is the certain hope of salvation that God has provided for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. If we take hold of the hope of His salvation in the storms of life, we will have the anchor that our souls need to endure.
I want to close with two short stories … both true. One was about a Christian man who made a trip to Russia in 1993. He felt conspicuous walking down the streets of Moscow and could not figure out why. He wanted to blend in but it was obvious from the way that everyone was staring at him that they could tell that he was not a Russian.
Frustrated and confused, he asked the group of Russian educators that he was working with what was giving him away. Was it his American style clothes that made him stand out. “No, no,” his colleagues assured him, “it’s not your clothes.” “What is it then?” he asked. The Russian professors huddled together and whispered for several minutes and then one of them turned to him and said, very politely, “It is your face.” “My face!” he exclaimed. “How does my face give away the fact that I’m not a Russian?” The professors put their heads together and commenced whispering again. Finally, one of the professors turned to him and said, “Everyone can see from your face that you have hope.” As Christians living in a world that the Apostle Paul described as “having no hope and without God” (Ephesians 2:12), we should stand out as people of hope, don’t you think?
My second story is about an older Christian who was asked about the source of his triumphant attitude. He explained to his inquisitor that he had read the last book of the Bible, so he knew how the story ended. “I’m on the winning side,” he smiled.
We have a High Priest within the veil. He has promised to save all who take refuge in Him. If you haven’t already, I beg of you to take hold of our certain hope in Jesus today … right now … amen?
Let us pray:
To You, Lord, we lift our hands, we lift our heads, we lift our hearts in prayer. We put our trust in You, believing that Your Word is true. We lift up to You our longing for hope in a despairing world. We lift up to You our need for hope in a time of deep hopelessness in our world. We lift up to You our deep desire for hope in a bleak and sometimes depressing world.
You promised hope to the Israelites and You kept Your promise. You promised hope in the coming of Your Son and He has become the hope for the world. You promised hope to the early church and that hope was not denied. You promised hope for us and we pray for Your continued faithfulness.
Lord, we pray for strength when our faith falters. We pray for You to pour out Your love so that it fills our lives and splashes over and fills the voids in the hearts and lives of those around us.
Fill our lives with confidence in You. Fill us with Your joy and peace as we go through our uncertain future right now. Keep our minds focused on You … our hearts filled with You … and our hands stretched out to You.
In the name of our refuge, our forerunner, our anchor, our hope, our future salvation, Jesus Christ, we pray.
And all the heirs of the promise join with me in making it so by saying “Amen!”
