Hold Fast to Confidence

We are at the start of a new school year. This Sunday is Rally Day.  Join us at the Courtyard entrance to meet with adult Sunday School teachers as well as enjoy some snacks in the courtyard.  Since we are still finishing the sanctuary, we are limited in space but not enthusiasm!  It is always a great time of renewal.  At the 9:00 and 11:00 am services, we will also have a “blessing of the backpacks” in which we will pray over our children as they start a new school year!  Our new sermon series will begin this Sunday as well.  It will be an exciting day!  The new sermon series to kick off the fall is Hold Fast.  Sailors since ancient times would tattoo this singular phrase across their eight fingers.  Some contend that the early sailors believed it made them stronger and better able to pull their load, whether hoisting a sail or raising an anchor.  It could also be used for values and beliefs.  This simple phrase and tattoo also reminded them to hold on to the best things, such as courage, hope, love, and joy.  The writer of Hebrews uses this term twice in Hebrews 3:6-15. He understands that these believers were adrift and struggling to confront their circumstances.  They were in a wilderness of fear and persecution.  How were they going to make it through the adversity and pressure that they were facing?  The title of the first sermon is Hold Fast to Confidence. We can identify with these Christians.  The nature of modern life is acidic to our hearts and souls. It eats away at our confidence. There are plenty of voices that confront, confound, and confuse our faith, and these threaten to harden our hearts for self-preservation.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, this Apostle encourages and empowers us to hold fast to the living God. Not just to survive but to thrive even in adversity and uncertainty! We pray that you will sense this strength and power as you read Hebrews 3:6-15. 

Hebrews 3:6-15: But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. ⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, ⁸ do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, ⁹ where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. ¹⁰ That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ ¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'” ¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.   ¹⁵ As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”  (NIV)