Matt Hagee - The Hope of Inheritance
Hope is an essential ingredient in the life of every human being. Without hope, you may exist, but you will not live the life that Christ came to give you. According to John 10, it says Christ came to give life more abundantly. And in order for you to live that life, you must be filled with hope. Hope is your expectation that the God who promised you is able to do what he said he would do. When you read the Word of God, it says that our God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask, think or imagine.
Now, for us, it might be difficult to fathom an individual who could do anything beyond what we could ask, think or imagine. But when it comes to God, it is impossible for God to lie. Church, it is impossible for God to lie. That means that whatever he's promised you, he will perform it. Whatever he has told you in his word, it doesn't matter how much time it takes, it doesn't matter what you go through. It doesn't matter all of the setbacks you face. If God said it, he has to do it because it is impossible for God to lie. So how is it that we have a God who cannot lie? And yet we fail to believe in Him? It's because we do not understand what hope truly is.
Hope is essential. This is why Paul listed hope in 1 Corinthians 13. He said, "Now abides faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love". Look at this verse as an equation. What connects faith and love? Hope. Stuck between your faith and God's love is hope. Love is the greatest. Why? Because love comes from God. The Bible says God is love. The Bible tells us in John 3:16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God is the giver of love. It pours out from heaven. Faith is what you give to God from your life here on Earth. Hebrews 11. It says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God".
If you came here today trying God, try again. Because you don't try God, you have faith in God. Now, when you have faith in God and you send your faith to Heaven, the challenge in your life exists whenever there's a distance between what you're believing for and what he's pouring out in love. And that's where hope comes in. Hope connects you to that promise. Hope is your expectation that God will perform what he promised He would perform when he's ready to perform it in your life, when you are prepared to receive it. A lot of people want God to do what they want to do right away. It's what I call "are we there yet Christians". How many of you have taken that road trip? You tell your kids we're going on a road trip and you ain't past the mailbox and they go, "Are we there yet"?
God's got some kids that are like that. They find a promise. They hear a word. They receive a revelation from God in their life. And the next thing they start asking is, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet"? This is why Paul tells this church in Hebrews "We have the full assurance of hope". Say that with me. "We have the full assurance of hope". How do we have a full assurance? Because God said it plain and simple. He said it. And even still you hear it, and you go, "How is it impossible for somebody to lie"? Well, you have to understand this. You're not talking about a man. You're talking about God. You could go to some of the brightest minds on earth and ask them questions, and they will answer those questions like this. "I think so". Why? Because they don't have full certainty. There's a margin, a measure of doubt. They think that there might be a chance that they could be wrong.
Well, guess what? When God answers the question, there is no margin of doubt. There is no error or chance that he could be wrong. He knows everything. So whenever he says that he's going to do something, he already has the power to do what he said he could do and he already knows that he's going to do it. So if he knows everything and he can do everything, he cannot tell a lie because once he says it, it has to be done. This is why Paul begins Hebrews 6 by saying, Let's leave behind the elementary things. He's saying, quit asking God when we're going to get there and just believe that if he said you're going, it's already done. He said, "For when God made a promise to Abraham," He uses Abraham here as an example. Why? Because he's writing to the Hebrews.
Understand that the people he's writing to believe in Jesus Christ, they have accepted him as the Son of God. They've accepted him as the risen Savior. But they come from a Jewish tradition. They're not only Jewish in their faith, they're Jewish in their nationality. So for them to leave Judaism for Christianity was a major jump. And when they left, they left expecting Jesus Christ to come back. Why? Acts 1, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here gazing? This same Jesus you will see just as you saw him go". They were waiting for Jesus to return in their lifetime. They believed that he was coming back sooner than later. And yet many years have passed and decades have gone on. And those who didn't think that they would ever see death before Jesus came back, they've died. And those who never thought they'd be persecuted, they've been persecuted underneath Roman emperors and those that thought it was going to be different, it wasn't different. And they're wondering, where's Jesus?
And Paul says, listen, guys, don't get sluggish. Don't give up hope. Remain diligent all the way to the end in the full assurance. And if you find it hard to believe, just look to those, verse 12, imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Paul gives these people some great life advice. If you want to be successful, find somebody who's successful and imitate them. And the reason I say that is because there's a lot of people who are imitating the behaviors of individuals who've never succeeded at much. They've been branded and they've been marketed, and they make you think they're really good at what they do. But the truth is, they're held up by a bunch of other stuff. If you want to be successful, you find somebody who's successful at what you want to be successful at and just do what they do.
You know, I often watch young kids as they imitate individuals and you think, why did they do that? And then we'll get together as a family and somebody will pop in one of them old VHS tapes, and I'm on that tape and I'm like, "Why did I do that"? And thankfully, what happens over time is you grow out of those foolish and immature things. Amen? Amen. And what Paul is telling these believers is it's time for you to grow out of the foolish and immature things. Stop hanging around people who are complaining about what God's not doing and start talking to people who are praising God for who he is and what he has done. Stop spending your time debating with people who do not believe and start standing with people who have the boldness to declare their faith. Stop arguing with others who just want to argue for argument's sake and be the kind of individual who's surrounding yourself with those who grow your faith.
Whenever you need to see a spiritual breakthrough, go hang out with somebody who's had a spiritual breakthrough and then let their experience encourage you. When you need a healing, go find somebody that God has healed and spend some time with them and let their faith encourage you. When you need a mountain to move, go stand next to somebody who's seen mountains move and say, Hold my hand while I speak to that mountain. Because if two or three of us coming together in agreement concerning anything, whatever we ask in Jesus name, he'll do it. Child of God, you've got somebody in your life who can pull heaven down to earth on your behalf. Go stand with them. Go walk with them, go talk with them. But whatever you do, don't give up hope!
Paul says you look to those people and you imitate them because they lived in the full assurance of hope. And then he gets very involved in the details of Abraham's life in Hebrews 6. If Abraham wasn't enough throughout the rest of the Book of Hebrews, we come to the chapter in Hebrews 11 where he's talking about the heroes of the faith, and he gets all the way to the heroes of the faith. And he says, "For what more should I say? Because time would fail me to tell you how they through faith". And he says they subdued kingdoms, they worked righteousness, they obtained promises, they stopped lions, they quenched violence. They escaped the sword. Out of weakness they were made strong. They received their dead back to life. And then he says, but while they got a testimony, they didn't obtain the promise because God provided something better. Say that with me. God provided something better for us.
Abraham had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. Moses had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. Joshua had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. David had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. Daniel had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. Elijah had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. Elisha had a testimony, but he didn't get the promise. How much farther do I have to go before you realize that there's a whole lot of people that came before you that didn't get what you've got from God today. Don't sit here and wonder, does he love me? Does he care for me? What's he going to do for me? He did it all when he gave you the promise.
And what was that promise? Hebrews 12. It says, "Looking unto Jesus". Jesus was the promise. God gave us something better. It was Jesus Christ. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith". What did he do? Just like Abraham endured, Jesus endured, Just like Moses endured. Jesus endured. Just like David endured. Jesus endured. If you're wondering why you have to endure in your life, because if Jesus did it, you will too. Well, what did he receive once he had endured? His inheritance. He endured the cross, he despised the shame. And the verse says, "He sat down at the right hand side of the father". He said, I waited and I worked. And I did what you sent me to do and now I'll receive what you said I could have.
And Paul tells us back in Hebrews 6, he says, "If you don't have this full assurance of hope, if you don't have faith and patience, you will not inherit the promise". You say, well, "I don't read that in my Bible". Well, if he says faith and patience is how you inherit, if you don't have faith and patience, guess what you don't? Inherit. Why? Because there's a danger when you don't take God at his word. Verse 13 through 19. I know I read a lot of scripture today, probably more than some of y'all read a month. Paul is underneath the power of the Holy Spirit, telling God's children how God makes a promise. And He begins by saying that whenever God makes a promise, he promises by himself because he cannot find anyone greater.
Have you ever made a promise? And somebody wanted validation that you were going to do what you said? Remember when we were kids and somebody say, Really? You go, scout's honor. You didn't even have to be in the scouts. If you could just hold up three fingers, it was like Scout's honor. But it says, when God is looking for something that he can put the substance of an oath in, he makes the oath by him because he can't find anything greater than him. And so what he's saying is, when you treat me, God, with the same suspicion that you do other men, you let go of hope and you don't get my promise and you don't get your inheritance in your life. It's not that you've cut God's power off. It's that you've disconnected yourself from God's power.
Read in the Gospels where it says that when Jesus went to Nazareth, he could do no mighty works there. It didn't say he couldn't do work. It said because those people didn't believe who he was and what he was, he couldn't do the work because they disconnected themselves from the power. So when God makes you a promise, he's making the promise based on himself. And when you look at him and go really? Do you really mean it? Promise? Prove to me you mean it. God just says, "No". If I'm not good enough, and if my word is not good enough, and my immutability, which means my unchanging ness, he says, go check me all the way back to Genesis and follow me all the way to Revelation and see where I shifted and turned. I haven't moved. I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. If all of that is not enough, then you're disconnected. You lose what I promised you. But I still have the power and I still have the promise.
And so God shows us verse 18 that by two immutable things, His Word and his will, it is impossible for God to lie that we might have strong consolation. What kind of consolation? Strong consolation. Why is it strong consolation? You know, whenever you've had a bad day, it's one thing for a friend to come by and go, "Hey, man, it's gonna get better". I appreciate that. That's encouragement, but it's all together different when I've had a bad day and Dad reaches out and he puts his hand of consolation on my life and he says, "Son, I believe in you. It's going to get better. It's going to get better, it's going to get better".
Father God, through his word and through his will, He gives us fatherly consolation. This is not just somebody. This is the one and only who's wrapping His arms around you and saying, "I've got you. I'll keep you. I know you. I promised you. I get you when nobody else does. I get you when you don't get me. Don't let go of my word. Don't let go of my promise. Keep holding on to hope because I promise you this: you're going to make it. My word will come to pass. What I said I would do, I will do. Hope in me. Don't let go of me". He wraps his arms around you and he gives you the consolation that only a father can give. And it gives you the ability to say, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength".
And then if that don't beat all, in verse 19, he says, "Because this hope we have as an anchor of the soul". And then he describes where our soul is anchored. It's sure and it's steadfast, and it enters the presence behind the veil. Now, remember, he's talking to people who understand Judaism. If he'd have wrote this to another group of believers, they would have needed an explanation. But because he's writing to children of Abraham and he's writing to those who grew up in the law of Moses, they understand what behind the veil means. When God wanted to live with his children, he told Moses how to design the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle was God's blueprint for his presence to come be with his children. This is where the Bible says, "In his presence is the fullness of joy". David said, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord". Why? Because in the House of the Lord, that's the temple. That's the tabernacle. There's God's presence.
So He begins to describe to them the veil. And what he's talking about is a pathway that leads from the beginning of the outer court into the inner court, into the holy place, and then into the holiest of holies behind the veil. Now, only on certain days could the high priest go into the holy of holies. And if he came at the wrong time, or if he came at the wrong way, a sinful man in the presence of a holy God would be killed. It was just the holiness of God that would strike him dead. They would actually tie a rope around the high priest's foot with a bell on it. And if the bell quit ringing, they'd start dragging him out and they'd look at the associate pastor saying, "It's your Sunday". "You preach today".
God took holiness seriously. And so what he is saying, Paul, is that the way that you know, even if the consolation of your father isn't enough, and the fact that God is not able to lie isn't enough, the way that you know that the promise of God is real and it's going to come to pass is that it is the anchor of your soul. And the way that the anchor of your soul got behind the veil is that Jesus carried the burden of your soul to a place called Calvary. And when he got to Calvary and he said, It is finished, he tore down that veil that kept you from the presence of God. And he took every promise that was in the Word of God for your life. And he anchored it right behind the anchor of God's promises.
And he said, As long as you have faith in God and you hold on with expectation to hope, you may drift and you may toss and you may turn and you may seem like you're getting a long way from where you started. But if you've got a hold of hope, sooner or later, that hope is going to pull you back to the anchor that you're solid in, to the word that has never failed you, to the thing that God has promised you. You don't have to give up today because God's got you. Just hold on in hope. It doesn't matter what you go through. You've got an anchor that says you can go through a storm of sickness and you're anchored to a healer. You can go to a place of need and you're anchored to a provider. You can go to a place of loneliness. And you're anchored to a friend that's closer than a brother.
And then whenever you start to pull on this rope, you don't get farther away from him. When you start to pull on this rope, He brings you back into his presence where there is the fullness of joy. And at the right hand there are pleasures ever more. I don't know who I'm talking to here today, but somebody is holding on to the rope and they're hoping that God's going to come through. Don't let go. God's got you! He cannot lie. He will not lie. If he said it, he'll do it. Give the Lord a handclap of praise!
This is why we used to sing, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name". I have an anchor and it's on Christ the solid rock I stand. It doesn't matter how strong the winds of life blow. I have an anchor. It doesn't matter how hard the waves hit the side of my boat. I have an anchor. It doesn't matter what they predict for the weather. "Oh, don't go sailing today. It's not going to be smooth seas out there in the economy". It don't matter. I've got an anchor. And my anchor cannot lie. And my anchor knows everything. And my anchor can do everything. Therefore, who am I to say, "What hope do I have"? My hope is in God and God alone. Would you stand in his presence?
Father, today we thank you for the solid rock of your truth, of your word, of your grace and your mercy. We thank you that every promise is yes and amen in Christ Jesus, that there isn't one thing that you've ever promised that you failed to perform. So for every promise that you've made, we rejoice that it is already kept for everything that we've asked for. We believe in faith that we should receive because we ask in faith, believing, doubting nothing, knowing that with God all things are possible. We thank you for this in the mighty name of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior, amen and amen.