ANCHORS FOR THE SOUL
I Cor. 15:1-8
INTRO.- Anchors and fishing.
ILL.- Two men were out fishing on Sunday morning and were feeling pretty guilty, especially since the fish weren’t biting. One said to the other, "I guess I should have stayed home and gone to church this morning."
The other man replied, "I COULDN’T HAVE GONE TO CHURCH ANYWAY, MY WIFE’S SICK IN BED."
Those two fisherman may have been anchored, but they weren’t anchored deeply.
ILL.- Hurricane warnings. Labor Day weekend, 1979 in Miami, Florida. While most of the nation played, the people of Miami watched. Hurricane David was coming their way, leaving a trail of flooded islands and homeless people in the Caribbean.
Floridians were preparing for David’s coming. Windows were taped up, canned goods were bought, flashlights tested.
On the Miami River some single guys were trying to figure out the best way to protect their houseboat. None of them had ever lived on a houseboat before, much less weathered a hurricane.
They were coming to the end of their rope when suddenly a man named Phil showed up. He knew boats. He spoke the lingo and knew the knots. He said to those young men, "Tie her to land and you’ll regret it. Those trees are gonna get eaten by the hurricane. Your only hope is to anchor deep. Place four anchors in four different directions, leave the rope slack, and pray for the best."
YOUR ONLY HOPE IS TO ANCHOR DEEP. Good advice for weathering hurricanes and good advice for weathering life’s hurricanes.
Every now and then we humans get caught in a storm...a human storm of emotion, dread, anxiety, and fear. It could be our marriage, our mate, our career, our children, etc.
We all try to anchor in some form or another. But often we don’t anchor in the right direction or deeply enough.
ILL.- One day a certain old, rich man of a miserable disposition visited a rabbi, who took the rich man by the hand and led him to a window. "Look out there," he said. The rich man looked into the street. "What do you see?" asked the rabbi. "I see men, women, and children," answered the rich man.
Again the rabbi took him by the hand and this time led him to a mirror. "Now what do you see?" "Now I see myself," the rich man replied.
Then the rabbi said, "Behold, in the window there is glass, and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass of the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others, but you see only yourself."
Brothers and sisters, whenever silver or money is added to our lives we have a tendency to lose sight of things. We become more preoccupied with ourselves rather than others. We are self-centered rather than people-centered. AND WE ARE ANCHORED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
I thought of this last Sunday night when the Academy Awards were on TV. Most actors and actresses have anchored in the wrong direction. Their world is themselves.
Their world is the applause of the world. And I thought, "They have their reward here and now, but we will get our reward in another place, a lasting place, a beautiful place, an unselfish place."
We all cast our anchor in the wrong direction at times. We are sometimes plagued with futility, failure or finality in life.
- Things are going well, but something is missing. Futility.
- We blew it. Instead of standing tall, we fell short. Failure.
- The funeral. Tears. Casket. Dirt. Finality.
We need to anchor deep and in the right direction. It’s our only hope. We must anchor ourselves to Christ. He is our only hope. Through His death and resurrection we anchor deeply.
PROP.- There are three anchor points we need to think about:
1- My life is not futile
2- My failures are not fatal
3- My death is not final
I. MY LIFE IS NOT FUTILE
ILL.- One night a thief broke into the single-room apartment of French novelist Honore de Balzac. Trying to avoid waking Balzac, the intruder quietly picked the lock on the writer’s desk. Suddenly the silence was broken by a sarcastic laugh from the bed, where Balzac lay watching the thief. "Why do you laugh?" asked the thief. "I am laughing to think what risks you take to try to find money in a desk by night where (I) the legal owner can never find any by day."
To some, life may be about a futile as trying to find money in a desk where there is none. That’s kind of like looking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. THERE IS NONE TO BE FOUND.
How futile is that search! Here’s another way to look at it.
ILL.- German Tennis star Boris Becker was at the very top of the tennis world at one time and yet he was on the brink of suicide. He said, "I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed ... It’s the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. I was a puppet on a string."
Many people have discovered that no matter what they do in life they have no peace within and they have no joy without. Or happiness in life. Life is completely futile to them.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you wondered, "What is my life is all about? Why am I here? What’s the use of going to work every day at a job I don’t even like? etc."
I am sure that many people feel this way.
I Cor. 15:1 Paul said, "I want to remind you of the gospel..."
The gospel of Jesus Christ gives meaning to life! Because of Christ my life is not futile! This is the way we must think, because it is true!
If Jesus is indeed the way, the truth and the life, then He also gives meaning to our lives. No matter what we do or where we live!
My life is not futile even though I work at a job I despise. My life is not futile even though my marriage is often that way. My life is not futile even though I am plagued with financial troubles and my child is a mess. My life is not futile even though my health is failing fast and my heart is aching constantly. MY LIFE IS NOT FUTILE!
My life has meaning because of Christ. As Paul said in Phil. 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
My life is not futile because no matter what I am faced with I am going to live for Christ and that’s the best kind of life there! And when it’s over it will even be better! It will be the best!
II. MY FAILURES ARE NOT FATAL
ILL.- The handwriting was shaky. The stationery was lined loose-leaf. The ink was black and the tone was desperate. The note was dated Feb. 6, 1974 and was addressed to the U.S. government. It read, "I am sending ten dollars for blankets I stole while I was in WWII. My mind could not rest. Sorry I’m late."
It was signed, "an ex-GI." And there was a PS, "I want to be ready to meet God."
ILL.- Here’s another. A Salem, Ohio, man submitted one dollar with the following note: "When I was a boy I put a few pennies on the railroad track and the train flattened them. I also used a dime and a quarter in a silver-coating experiment in high school. I understand there is a law against defacing our money. I have not seen it but I desire to be a law-abiding citizen."
Anxiety over a 30-year mistake? Regret over smashed pennies? It’s almost comical, isn’t it?
Brothers and sisters, don’t you wish all your mistakes and failures were no worse than those? I could deal with them, couldn’t you?
Regardless of the sin, the sin problem is a problem that we all have to deal with. Sin is common to all. Failures are familiar.
ILL.- Will Rogers’ stage specialty used to be rope tricks. One day, on stage, in the middle of his act, he got tangled in is lariat. Instead of getting upset, he drawled, "A rope ain’t so bad to get tangled up in if it ain’t around your neck."
Even famous people fail occasionally. Will Rogers may have failed at certain times, doing certain things, but he was not a failure in life. Far from it.
ILL.- A Japanese proverb reads: "Even a monkey sometimes falls from a tree." Everybody sins. Everybody fails.
ILL.- During a lesson in a medical college one of the students was asked by the professor, "How much is a dose of (giving the technical name of a strong poison)." "A teaspoonful," was the ready reply.
The professor made no comment, but the student, 15 minutes later realized that he had made a mistake, and said: "Professor, I want to change my answer to that question."
"It’s too late, sir," responded the professor, looking at his watch; "your patient has been dead fourteen minutes."
If that young man had been practicing medicine his mistake would have been fatal. But our failures are not fatal!
I Cor. 15:3 Paul said, "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins..."
Christ died for our sins! For our failures! Our failures are not fatal! In Him, they are dealt with, taken away, cleansed.
Rom. 4:7-8 "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
Blessed are they. I say we are! Our failures are not fatal! The Lord has and is the final word when it comes to our failures.
ILL.- One time a little four year old girl took a crayon and drew a picture on the wall. Her daddy saw it, lifted her onto his lap and said, "Is that a good thing to do?" "No," she said. "What does Daddy do when you write on the wall?" "You spank me."
"What do you think Daddy should do this time?" "Love."
This is what we wish our Heavenly Father would do when we have failed, when we have sinned. Our father’s grace is strongest when our devotion is weakest. Our failures are not fatal. Christ died for our sins.
III. MY DEATH IS NOT FINAL
ILL.- Pete and Tony were great baseball fans. They were talking about baseball one day and Pete said, "I wonder if there is baseball in heaven." Tony replied, "I don’t know."
Soon after that Tony died. One day he called Pete from heaven and Pete said, "Tony, you gotta’ tell me. Is there baseball in heaven?"
Tony said, "Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is that you’re pitching tomorrow."
Most people are not looking forward to death and the reason is because they think all there is to life is this life.
To them, death is final. Zip. It’s all over. The ball game is over. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s over. WRONG.
I Cor. 15:3-4 "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..."
There it is! There’s the answer to our death. Because He lives, we too will live! Because He lives in glory, so shall we live in glory! Because He lives in peace, we shall too!
ILL.- The year 1899 marked the deaths of two well-known men. Dwight L Moody, the famous evangelist and Robert Ingersoll, the famous lawyer, orator and political leader.
The two men had many similarities. Both were raised in a Christian home. Both were skilled speakers. Both drew huge crowds when they spoke. But there was a striking difference between them - their view of God.
Ingersoll was an agnostic. He had no belief in the eternal. He stressed the importance of living only in the here and now. He made light of the Bible. He said the Bible was a fable, an obscenity, a humbug, a sham and a lie.
He believed there was a God, but did not believe that God cared personally for each of us. Dwight L Moody had a different conviction. He dedicated his life to presenting a resurrected King to a dying people. He embraced the Bible as the hope for humanity and the cross as a turning point of history.
He left behind a legacy of written and spoken words, churches and changed lives!
Two men. Both powerful speakers and influential leaders. One rejected God; the other embraced Him.
The impact of their decisions is seen even more clearly in the way they died.
Ingersoll died suddenly. The news of his death stunned his family. His body was kept at home for several days because his wife was reluctant to part with it. It was eventually removed for the sake of the family’s health.
Ingersoll’s remains were cremated and the printed funeral program left his solemn instruction, "There will be no singing." NO WONDER. NO HOPE. NO SINGING.
Moody’s legacy was different. On December 22, 1899, Moody woke to his last winter dawn. His last slow measured words were, "Earth recedes, heaven opens before me."
His son Will hurried across the room to his father’s side and said, "Father are you dreaming?" he asked. "NO! this is no dream, Will," Moody said. "It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. God is calling me, and I must GO. Don’t call me back."
It was a graduation day. A day he hoped for and not feared. There was no despair. Loved ones gathered around to sing praises to God.
Many people remembered the words the evangelist had spoken earlier that year. He had said, "Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I was born of the flesh in 1837, I was born of the spirit in 1855. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the spirit shall live forever."
Dwight Moody had the solid anchor for his soul! He knew that his death was not final! Nor is ours, because we are anchored to Christ the Savior.
CONCLUSION-----------------------------------
ILL.- Years ago the S-4 submarine was rammed by another ship and quickly sank. The entire crew was trapped in its prison house of death. Ships rushed to the scene of disaster off the coast of Massachusetts.
A diver placed his helmeted ear to the side of the vessel and listened. He heard a tapping noise. Someone was tapping out a question in the dots and dashes of the Morse Code. The question came slowly: "Is... there... any... hope?"
This seems to be the cry of humanity: "Is there any hope?" Yes, our only hope is in Christ. We must anchor to Him.
In Christ:
1- your life is not futile
2- your failures are not fatal
3- your death is not final
