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November 7, 2004
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Hebrews
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"An Anchor for the Soul"
Hebrews 6: 9-20
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Prakash was lying on his deathbed in India. Constant worrying had taken its toll on his young body. It had all started when he realized his life had no meaning. Daily he would worship and offer sacrifices to his gods and goddesses. Then one day it dawned on him: For all his sincere devotion, his deities had never responded to him. They felt distant, removed.
So Prakash ceased to worship them. His life until then had only been an illusion, he realized. All his sacrifices had been in vain. What more was there to live for? He only grew sadder as the days went by.
How many people in the states are like this man. People with empty eyes, and faces lined with strain. People who are working too hard, too long, traveling too many places, without anything in their lives to give them a grounding.
You've seen them perhaps even some days in your own mirror.
People cannot live without hope.
Biblical hope is not just "wishful thinking" - I hope the weather is nice today;
Nor is it the finger-crossing, lip-biting hope you have as the place kicker goes for a field-goal in the last 10 seconds when you are down by two points.
No, the hope we need and have is more solid than that. This passage tells us it is a sure thing. The hope we have is based upon God's promise, that He will surely bless us as we place of faith in Him. But it is hope based upon more than a promise. For in verse 17 it says God confirmed that promise with an oath in order "to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised."
Hope based upon God's promise and God's oath for what: a future, heaven, a good destiny with Jesus.
This passage tells us we have this hope as a sure thing, a guarantee in heaven. How do we know it is guaranteed even if God promised and took an oath on top of the promise? Because, my friends, it is impossible for God to lie.
- "It may be impossible for God to lie, but it is certainly possible for people to lie.
People have lied to us. They have broken promises. They may have even sworn in the name of God regarding a promised course of action, only to break their word and our hearts.
"History may make it difficult for us to believe anyone, even God. But God is not like people. In this sense, he is foreign to our experience.
It sounds like a simple thing that most of us would assent to: God doesn't lie. But after the trite recitations are out of our mouths, how many of us have to confess that we simply don't trust God? We need to move outside our experience, through the scriptures, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to the deep and life-changing belief that God doesn't lie, that it is impossible for him to do so. God will not deceive you. You may think he has deceived you, but he has not. You may think he will deceive you, but he will not."
(emphasis mine, http://pbc.org/old-pbc1/dp/grant/hebrews/heb10.html)
- So, this passage comes to us who have turned and fled to take hold of this hope God offers us, it is hope that is an anchor for our souls.
If the Bible says hope is an anchor for our souls, then you may rest assured your soul and mine needs an anchor and that our souls also are in danger of drifting.
The soul is the immaterial part of our being that is the seat of our will, emotions and personality. It is the center of who we are. Until we are born again, our souls are the whole of our lives for we are soul led, flesh led people. When born again, God severs the soul from the spirit within us (Hebrews 4:12-13), we are spiritually reborn and can be spirit led.
But that soul part of us, that place of emotions and will and personality, needs to be anchored and the anchor we need is this hope of a future. IT is the certain destiny ahead that anchors our souls for this life.
If we are uncertain of our spiritual heritage, then we will seek to be anchored in this world. Our souls will put down anchor in places that are sure to disappoint and disillusion us.
Some people anchor their souls to people-- married couples become enmeshed with one another, finding identity through the life of their partner instead of finding identity, hope and life in Christ. Such soul ties to people can be seen in attachment to a leader, a pastor, a boss, a friend, but it is an anchor that will fail. For people will fail.
Others anchor themselves to places-- the house they live in, the town, the beauty of an area. When the storms of life threaten these places, all will be shaken to the core of their beings for the places we live, the homes we live in are no place to cast anchor.
The patriarchs did not mind living in tents, we will later read in Hebrews 11, for they "admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth… they (were) longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them" (11:13-16). In another place it says that Abraham was looking forward to "the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (11:10).
They were anchored to heaven and could face the insecurity and the instability of earth because this was not where their lives were anchored.
Still others are anchored by their priorities through job or event or personal achievement to become someone they are not. Some believe that wealth will be the anchor of their lives: they live for the bigger bonus, the ability to just buy a car without having to adjust the budget, the big lotto win.
And what do these people discover after they have won it all? Simply this: they have taken themselves with them. You may be able to afford the new dessert in the NYC restaurant which is a One Thousand Dollar Sundae, but it is still a Sundae, it is still ice cream and no matter how wonderful it tastes or looks as it goes in, it will come out in much worse shape.
As a character in a Ted Dekker novel called Heaven's Wager begins to face the fact that money does not solve his problems, the author has him ponder his life:
"No matter how much money he carried in his wallet, individual moments did not change. Hopes and dreams might, but the string of moments that made up life did not. If he was walking down the hall, placing one foot in front of the other, he was doing just that, regardless of what his wallet packed. If he was pushing the call button for the elevator, it was just that, no more and no less, regardless of the number of bills in his back pocket" (c. 2000, Nashville: Word Publishing, p. 310, ubp).
The reality is the soul within you is not ultimately satisfied by anything on this earth. It has bee made for bigger hopes, bigger dreams than just the stuff of earth.
That is why this passage tells us we have a basis of hope in heaven - we have a place, and a person and a priority in which our soul can find its true anchor. And once we are thus anchored, the storms in this world are less severe for our true home is yet to come.
- Prakash needed an anchor for his soul, and spiritual life in his spirit.
His health was failing rapidly. He could die at any given moment. And he would have died except that another man whose hope was not rooted upon earth but in heaven came to visit.
This man knew the living God. He prayed with Prakash with deep compassion and then shared a message of hope with the frail man: He told Prakash of Jesus, a responsive God who cares for the lost and hurting.
Prakash could hardly believe it! A God like this exists? he thought in wonder. He listened as the pastor further explained the Gospel to him. This was music to his broken heart-a gracious, forgiving God! He gladly put his trust in Jesus for salvation. "My deliverance filled me with joy and happiness," Prakash relates. And as the pastor prayed that day, the Lord healed his body as well. At age 20, Prakash is enrolled at a Gospel for Asia Bible College, preparing to reach others with the Good News of a God who heals both body and soul. (Gospel for Asia, prayer point e-newsletter, November 1, 2004).
Now that Prakash has discovered the true, Living God who has made promise by oath to him that his life has deep meaning while on earth, he has someone to live for who makes all the difference.
Prakash will now join those who make a difference on earth simply because their minds are occupied with heaven. If we know our future, if our hope is a firm and secure anchor upon which we can rely, then we need not fear earthly storms for God is always bigger.
We can be a people who say with the Psalmist: "we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." (Psalm 46:2)
And when those storms come on earth, we will experience just how anchored we are in heaven.
Bobbie and Sue could tell you they discovered their lives were fairly anchored on earth as they endured hurricane after hurricane hitting their Orlando neighborhood. The fears of the heart were revealed, their needs for greater depth with Jesus, greater trust in Him, greater hope in that future home were uncovered. They could not speak with the Psalmist, "therefore we will not fear," for they were petrified.
IS your soul anchored in heaven? Or do you still seek to find your foundation and hope upon earth?
Hear God's assurance: "I have promised and I have sworn in my own name" that you have a future with me, if you have placed your trust in me.
There was a man who abandoned all he had on earth in order to live anchored to heaven.
He was William Borden, heir to the Borden diary. He graduated high school in 1903 and decided to spend a year traveling around the world, during which he encountered many desperate people and situations.
It was during this year as an 18 year old that William decided to forego his inheritance and become a missionary. He wrote two words in the front cover of his Bible: No Reserves.
His parents sent him to Yale for his college education and there he became a respected leader and at one time had 1,000 of the 1,300 students in his weekly Bible Study. He also developed Yale Hope which was a group that reached out to the homeless surrounding Yale. He then went to Princeton for a theological degree and upon graduation bough himself a oneway ticket to Cairo. While traveling there to study Arabic so that he could help reach the Muslims, he wrote two more words in the front cover of his Bible: No Retreats.
Upon arriving in Egypt, William set to studying, but became sick and after five days died of cerebral meningitis. AS he was dying at age 25, he wrote in the cover of his Bible: "No Regrets".
Some who do not understand God's ways will say: "what a waste". But actually, there is no more fitting way to give this life than in confidence in heaven and obedience upon earth.
Since Borden's life was anchored in heaven, there were no regrets.
And God used his short life to inspire thousands of people over the past century to likewise live with their souls anchored to the promised hope of a future.
Is your soul so anchored?
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