Will Your Anchor Hold?

There’s a Stirring # 8   

 

             

            Picture this situation. You got a group of people stranded on a deserted island. A young woman says, “Everyone listen up! I found the plane’s radio equipment. I think we can get off this island.”

            Then a guy calls from down the beach. “Everyone listen up! I found the plane’s beverage cart. It is full of Bud light.”

            The pilot says, “Here we go!” He and all of the passengers, with great joy, go running madly toward the beverage cart.

            They are partying and celebrating with sheer exuberance. They start grabbing the bottles of beer and opening them up.

            One of the passengers fondles a beer bottle and says with deep emotion, “We're going to be okay.” And then he screams, “We're going to be okay!”

            Meanwhile, the woman who had found the radio equipment looks at the rest of passengers with an expression that says, “I cannot believe this. I can get us off this island, except for the fact I'm surrounded by a bunch of morons.”

            This was a commercial presented by BUD LIGHT during the 2010 Super Bowl. (To view the clip, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dmpi0ydX0U

            Now, before we get too hard on them, remember this: that is the story of humanity.

We see this commercial acted out in the Bible over and over again. Moses comes out to God’s people and announces, “Great news! We have the opportunity to have salvation, fellowship, relationship, and communion with the Holy God!” Meanwhile, somebody else comes out and shouts, “Hey, I’ve got some gold, and I can make a golden calf!” The people shout, “Yahoo!” and head toward Aaron.

            Or Moses proclaims to the people, “Great news, you can walk with the Holy God, and he will feed you manna and quail and take care of you.”

            Someone else calls out, “Hey, they’ve got cucumbers and onions back in Egypt.”

            “Wahoo!” and the crowd heads back to Egypt.

             Throughout scripture there are like-minded people, abandoning the greatness of God for ___________. Read the Bible; fill in the blanks. There are literally dozens of examples.

            Here’s the catch, we all have a blank. What’s in your blank?

            Each one of us has a blank that consists of something that will get us so excited we will chase it, and lose sight of God. In God’s eyes, this is every bit as frivolous as people on a beach pursuing a beverage cart instead of turning toward their only hope of deliverance: a radio.

            What’s in your blank? I have had various ones in my life. Now, it might be that I love to preach at Shiloh. I have no dream job I am holding out for; this is my dream job. I can’t imagine retiring. Retire to what? However, if I live long enough, I will have to retire. Then what? If my blank is preaching at Shiloh, I will be in trouble.

            I cannot define myself by this job. I’ve seen people do that in various fields, haven’t you? It never ends pretty.

            As nice as it is, my job won’t save me. My ministry won’t save me. My ministry pales in comparison to salvation and the chance to relate to the Heavenly Father, and to His Son, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

            What’s in your blank? Parents often fill in their children’s blanks with the wrong things. Deut. 6:6-9 addresses the issue of what to place inside the blanks of our children: 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. NIV 1984

            Parents have the chance to share with their children the saving message of Jesus, equip them to walk with Jesus forever, and, just like the commercial, somebody calls all out to them, “Hey, I just found the plane’s beverage cart…” The parents then go running over to the “beverage cart” with their kids, and they leave behind the plane’s radio, which will help rescue their kids from the shipwreck of a fallen world.

            Let’s think about some of the ways we parents fill in the blanks for our kids today:

Sports

            Guys, if you are on the road, you honor the spirit and call of the book of Hebrews, and you take your family to meet with a local church for worship and encouragement; or you serve as a missionary. You host a worship service in your motel room. You commit to leading your family in this and make it an opportunity for mission work. You invite other players and families to come enjoy a Kingdom blessing.

            Do not lead your kid in some athletic competition that he or she will someday have to give up, all the while neglecting your spiritual leadership responsibility to equip your family.

            Listen, I appreciate the value of sports. I have arisen at five in the morning and played full-court, one-on-one basketball with one of my kids, and I will do it again if another kid wants to. I make myself available to my kids for practice. However, can I give you some free advice? Statistically, your kids are not going to receive an athletic scholarship.            

            If they do, it is not going to be because you went all over the country and obsessed over that sport. Talent trumps everything.

            I had to learn this the hard way. My college football coach said I always had a place on the team because I was the team’s hardest worker. I always had a place—on the bench. That was, of course, if I paid my way through college.

            No one obsessed more and worked harder on sports growing up than I did. And I missed out on a lot because of it. If your kid has the talent, you don’t have to play him in twenty different leagues. The scouts will find talent.

            Why do you think colleges are in trouble all of the time for having athletes on their teams with police records longer than Al Capone’s? These athletes are not working out hard in their respective sports. They are too busy doing the things that land them in jail. Yet, they receive scholarships… because they have talent. Talent triumphs everything.

            If your kid has talent, I guarantee you he’s going to get a scholarship, even if he has a well-balanced life. If he does not, I don’t care if you work him out twelve hours a day; it’s not going to matter. Plus-you will have collateral damage to deal with from dragging him all around the country.

            Do you know how many talented high school athletes I have known who have received full scholarships to major universities who have walked away? They were simply burned out.

            To recap, I’m not telling you to forgo a trip to the Youth Soccer World Cup, I’m just saying balance your child’s life. And don’t lose sight over what is more important.

School/Academics

            Home school, public school, and Christian school-- I’ve tried them all with my kids. All have strengths and weaknesses.

            Here is the test: if your children are not growing spiritually stronger with their local church’s youth group because they have so much going on with their school’s activities, they’re blank is filled with the wrong item.

            We lived in a place one time, where I felt sorry for the youth minister. He could never get any kid to go a youth activity because they had committed everything to the public school.

            Home school can be wonderful as long as you remember it is a para-church organization. Some parents substitute the home school or co-op for the church. Folks, there is no “home school heaven.” There are no homeschoolers in heaven, who bypassed the church. After the cross, the only humans the Bible speaks of as being in heaven are those of the church. Many seem to ignore this.

            The same goes for Christian schools. I teach a senior Bible class at a Christian school called East Texas Christian Academy. I love ETCA, but there is no “ETCA heaven.” I’ve seen parents who have equipped their kids to spend a lifetime in the community of ETCA, but not to spend a lifetime in the community of Christ—His church.

            Godly parents, who love their children, equip them to love the Lord and love His church.

            Let’s transition now to the individual level. How about the blank of:

Personal Happiness

            For some people, the blank is a happy life—as pain free as possible. The talk of Hebrews is disturbing because it signals we might live lives of toil and pain for the Lord.

            And, if your blank is filled with a desire to live a pain free life, ended by dying in your sleep, you want to avoid a call of Jesus that can mess that up.

            I’ve got to admit this is tempting to me too. I want to live a fulfilling, pain-free life, and die in the pulpit. If not that, then die in my sleep.

            Here’s the problem, I’ve known people who went to sleep and then did not wake up. For the Christians, it was great; they went to heaven. But their families were devastated—“If I could have only said, ‘Goodbye….’”

            The alternative is something I have seen more—if you live long enough, and you don’t die in your own bed in your sleep, your body will eventually wear out. A lot of times these people have lived lives I would love to live, but it takes a long time for their bodies to die.

            Your body will not want to let go if you live long enough. You will end up in a hospital bed, and it will take your body a long time to let go of life. Your family will gather around your bedside, and they will hear a machine make this relentless sound: “BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.” They will watch a dot rise and fall, while waiting for it to flat-line. That will be hard on your family. It could be hard on you too.

            So unless the Lord returns and burns up this earth (destroying the blanks of many other people), you and I are going to have a difficult way out.

             (I did read about a guy in Weatherford a couple of years ago, who was still practicing law. He was one hundred years old. I'll cut him some slack!)

            Hebrews talks about a person’s blank, 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears (Heb. 12:16-17.)

            Isaac had said to Esau in “Bud Light” language, “We are stranded on this planet, but I found a box that I think can get us off.”

            Then Jacob hollered, “Hey, I’ve got some soup!”

            And Esau said, “Here we go!”

            The preacher of Hebrews talks to these Christians about what should be in their blanks. It has to do with a promise of hope. He talks about the hope God offers. Look at Hebrews chapter six, 13 For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying:  14 “I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.”           

 15 Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.

            These Christians needed to know that their hard way of life—facing persecution—was all headed toward a good goal. What they were tempted to do was to abandon Jesus for false hopes and mirages. It was like finding salvation in the plane’s radio and abandoning it for the illusion of a good time to be found in the beverage bin.           

            The preacher reminds them of the story of Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham. He fulfilled that promise. It took a long time, but God came through.             These Christians were becoming discouraged because they expected their hopes to be fulfilled instantly. (I'm glad we don't have that problem anymore!)            

            Abraham, according to verse 15, had to patiently endure. Maybe you are feeling that way right now; maybe you are having to endure for the hope. If so, listen to these words, 16 Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. 17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. NLT

           

            Then the Preacher of Hebrews says that you can count on God delivering, 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

            These Christians felt like refugees, and they needed something to hold on to. So the Bible in verse 19 uses an image that it uses nowhere else–an anchor. That anchor for the Christians is God's promise. It is rock solid.

            He says, “God has promised to get you off of this planet. You place a relationship with the God of this promise, in your blank.” Furthermore, he adds this, 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. ESV

            He calls this hope an anchor. What is an anchor for? In a boat, it is what holds you steady in a storm.

            Where is your anchor? Can I recommend the one other place we can turn?

            (Warning! Sarcasm Alert!)

            How about your retirement? That is safe, isn’t it?

            How about in your government? They will take care of you, because they care, right?

            Listen, if you think you can trust fallen human beings to take care of your health, you are sadly mistaken. Even with the best intentions, it will not happen.

Beware of Ungodly Expectations.

            You know who are the biggest threats to civilization: those who have nothing to lose--those who have sold out to a cause higher than themselves.

            Since they are focused on a cause greater than themselves, they are not focused on themselves. They have nothing to lose, which means they have low expectations. That means they can withstand anything.

            That is why terrorists who have these qualities are so dangerous. That is why we lost the war in Viet Nam. The Viet Cong was willing to fight until literally the last man, woman, and child was dead.

            We American Christians, on the other hand, chase our frivolous blanks and get diverted. We have anchors that cannot hold. When our expectations are unmet because we are chasing after frivolous blanks, and our paper anchors don’t hold, we lose our Kingdom effectiveness. We can even cease to function in the Kingdom.

           

            Ungodly expectations are nothing more than elevated idols.

            When they are unmet, we have trouble coping.

            What if we had nothing to lose because we sold it out to Jesus?

            What if we could withstand everything because of the hope of what we have to gain?

            There is a song in our church song book based on Heb. 6:19-20. It asks the same question this preacher does:

Will Your Anchor hold in the storms of life,

When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?

When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,

Will your anchor drift or firm remain?

            Your anchor is your blank.

            What are you putting in your blank?

            Will your anchor hold?