The epistle today from the sixth chapter of the book of Hebrews begins with God’s promise to Abraham: “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” In a beautiful sermon on this scripture, St John Chrysostom preached: “The things which happened in regard to Abraham … give us confidence concerning the things to come…. [God] shows [us] that while we are still in the world, and not yet departed from life, we are already among the promises.” This sermon is called “God’s promises—old and new.” The question we can each consider is: What does it mean to live, in St John Chrysostom’s phrase, “among the promises” for my life? What is God promising each of us, young or old, whatever our abilities or weaknesses, whatever our wealth or poverty? What has God promised us in the past? What is He promising us now? What might He promise us in the rest of our lives here on earth?

I don’t know. I don’t know what God is promising you. That is for you to discover yourself? Children, can you remember someone promising you something? . . .  St John Chrysostom advises us that we each can, and I quote, “lay hold of the hope set before us.” That’s helpful advice about receiving God’s promises. Take a minute and consider, children as well as adults, what is the hope that is set before you in your mind? What do we hope for—right now? And for tomorrow and the years to come in your life and my life—what are our hopes?

In Hebrews 6, “this hope” is described as, and I quote: “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil” [end of quote]. St John Chrysostom points out “how very suitable an image [the author of Hebrews] has discovered: for he did not say ‘foundation’ but ‘anchor.’ For that which is in the tossing sea,” preached St John Chrysostom, “and seems not to be very firmly fixed . . . is shaken and yet is not shaken” [end of quote]. In other words, our lives are not founded on promises. We can’t be sure in the midst of “the tossing sea” of our lives with our very own personal and possibly private problems whether promises for which we hope will actually happen to us and when those promises might happen. Yet those promises—those personal hopes for our lives will grow, and are already with the Lord.

Hebrews 6 makes this incredible statement that, and I repeat, “This hope we have . . . enters the Presence behind the veil.” The book of Hebrews was written before 70 A.D. at a time when the Second Temple where the Jews worshiped was the place to come if you wished to experience the Presence of God in your life. This is the same veil that St Matthew, St. Mark and St Luke all write in their Gospels “was torn in two from top to bottom” when Jesus Christ was crucified. To say that your hope “enters the Presence behind the veil” means that you have come within the most holy place in The Temple, where only the designated priest goes. In other words, your hope—your hope of receiving a particular promise from God—is being offered directly to Him. 

Now, just because each of us offer our hopes to God and He hears us does not mean we will all receive the promises we seek. As Psalm 36 from the Greek translation (that is, Psalm 37 in the Hebrew) states, all of us have to, and I quote: “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” We know what we want, but we do not know what the Lord wants for us or when or how He will give us His blessings. Being peaceful is an important attitude to bring to the Lord along with our hopes.

We each learn slowly to trust God. Three scriptural passages from St Paul offer us helpful guidelines to turn our hopes into promises from God. First, in Romans, chapter 4, verse 16, St Paul reminds us “it is by faith . . . in accordance with grace . . . that the promise will be guaranteed” to both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ. We are all sons and daughters of God, because as St Paul phrases it in Galatians, chapter 3, verse 27, “all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Finally, in St Paul’s words to the people of Athens in Acts 17, verses 27 and 28, God “is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist.”

Those three passages from the New Testament from Romans 4, Galatians 3 and Acts 17 are worthy of further study. If we wish to turn our personal hopes into promises received from God, we need to spend some time each day in prayer, drawing quietly and calmly closer to Christ and a Christ-like way of life. We can each do that. We can each consider carefully what are our hopes and then trust God to turn those hopes into promises from Him if those hopes are part of a Christ-like way of life.