My Anchor Holds

My Anchor Holds

Christ In You, the Hope of Glory

Colossians 1:24-29

Good morning on this amazing day that the Lord has made.  Today is what we would call a NEXUS.  What is a nexus?  It is a connection linking two or more things.

For example, today is Aldersgate Sunday, the day in 1738 that the founder of the Methodist Movement, John Wesley, attended a group Bible study and received assurance of his Salvation.

Today is Pentecost. The birthday of the Christian Church

Today is the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. A day we set aside to remember those who gave their all in protection of freedom.

Today is Confirmation Sunday. Where we celebrate these young people who have given their lives to Christ.

Today is one of the days we have set aside for a little celebration leading up to our big celebration of the 175th year of our church offering Christ on this corner of Corsicana, TX. And…

Today we welcome the Christ Church Youth Choir from College Station.

Any one of these would make today a significant day.  But the nexus of all these combined makes it Epic day.

I want to start by acknowledging a couple of things.

First, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the gravity of this day.  Yes, it is seen as the unofficial start of Summer.  Schools out and vacations are beginning… Many of us have a day off work tomorrow and, weather permitting, will go to the lake or some other outdoor activity… but we cannot forget the reason for this holiday.  Memorial Day is a day to pause and give thanks for those who stood in the breach for you.  It is a day to pause and think about those who gave their life defending you and protecting this nation.  There are many in this room today who saw the lives friends and fellow defenders of freedom ended violently and much too soon.  Many in this room had friends, family, and loved ones who left for war and did not return.  That is what Memorial Day is about.  Now, I’m not going to tell you not to enjoy yourself tomorrow… Renee and I sure will.  But as you do, as you enjoy the day… take time to reflect on why you have this day to enjoy, and say a prayer for the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Guardsmen who made it possible for you to have this day. Amen…

Second, today is what many consider the birthday of the Christian Church.  From a Jewish perspective, Pentecost of the 50th day after The Passover.  It is the Feast of Weeks… today marks the end of a week of weeks… (for the arithmetically challenged… 7 days in a week X 7 weeks… 7X7=49.) Today is the first day after the week of weeks.  It was a significant celebration called Shavout, meaning weeks, and was initially a harvest festival.  Jerusalem was the epicenter of the celebration and people from all over the world would gather for this feast day.

On that day nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus had ascended into heaven and the disciples were waiting.  They were gathered in the upper room… we know the 11 were there, + Matthias (Judas’ replacement) as well as others including some of the women who were followers of Jesus.  Jesus had promised them that the comforter, the Holy Spirit would come to them in a new way… and the Spirit did come… like a rushing mighty wind.  The indwelling of the Holy Spirit empowered them to go and share the good news of Jesus.  They walked out of the Upper Room with confidence and began preaching to the thousands who had gathered.  What was even more amazing was the fact that all these people heard the Gospel proclaimed in their own language.  On that day, as many as 3000 souls were added to the kingdom and the church was born.

Throughout the history of the church this has been a day set aside to celebrate the beginning of the church, including setting the day aside for Baptisms and Confirmation celebrations.  Next to Easter Sunday, I believe Pentecost is the most common time for students to confirm their faith.

So, today, we gather on that great day of revival to celebrate these students who have made the decision to give their lives to Christ and join this church. We are doing that in a big way.  After my sermon, each of these students will come forward and through the laying on of hands, we will confirm their faith in Jesus Christ and welcome them as members of this church.  Between now and then, I want to talk about the Anchor window and why the symbolism of this window is so meaningful for today.

Sermon Slide

This window is labelled, “Christ in you, the Hope of Glory.”  And we have heard the passage from Colossians 1 that the title comes from.  But, I want to read one more Scripture for you today before we pray and get farther into the sermon.

Keep your finger in Colossians, but flip over to Hebrews 6:19-20

Hebrews 6:19-20

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

Don’t worry, we won’t get into the Order of Melchizedek here today… that is a longer discussion for another time, but we will focus on our hope as an anchor for the soul. 

But first, let’s pause in prayer.

<Prayer>

Sermon Slide

The Anchor is a symbol of hope… of the believer’s unshakable hope in Christ and the eternal salvation offered in Him.  Think about what an anchor does… in boating, it is what stabilizes and holds a boat or a ship in place.  In many ways, it is a foundation for the boat in turbulent waters.  While the ship may be tossed back and forth because of what is going on around it, the anchor holds the ship steady and secure.

In the early church, when being a follower of Jesus was considered a crime and Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire, believers would mark the catacombs, the tombs, with an anchor… secretly revealing their hope in Christ.  It was a way for other believers to know that they were in a safe place.  In fact, in the 1stCentury, the primary symbol of our faith was not the cross, it was an anchor.  So, the symbolism of this window, and the Rose window with the anchor is much more than just a pretty picture.  It symbolizes the earliest image that followers of Jesus recognized.

The rest of the window is important as well.  Notice the stormy sky. 

Confirmands… let me talk to you for a minute… just ignore all these other people, this is for you.  As you give your life to Christ, as you become a follower of Jesus, you receive the abundant, complete, life that Jesus offered when he said that he came so that we might have life abundantly.  In Christ your salvation is secure in this life and the next… living into eternity.  But that doesn’t mean you won’t have hardship.  That stormy sky in the background reminds us that we will live in stormy times.  Bad things can still happen.  Death happens. Pain happens. Sickness happens. Like we mentioned earlier, this is Memorial Day and we remember people who lost their lives protecting us.  Jesus never promised that nothing bad would ever happen to us.  What he promised was that he would be with us.  In the midst of the storms of life… in the middle of the rough seas… Jesus is our anchor… Jesus holds us steady… Jesus is our hope.

Even in death.  From a color perspective, the Brown Robe is worn here as a symbol of death, even spiritual death… but the Green Cape or Shawl you see symbolizes the regeneration of the soul.  As it says in Ephesians 2:3-5

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

We were dead… in our sin, we were spiritually dead, but Christ has covered us with his righteousness.  He has made us new… But God, who is rich in mercy… because of his great love for us… we have been made alive in Jesus Christ.

Sermon Slide

Or, as Paul put it in his letter to Colosse, the great mystery of God has been revealed… Christ in you, the hope of Glory.  Salvation is not just for the select few.  Jesus came to us all.  He walked among us, gave himself for us, died a horrible death and rose again that we might have the abundant life promised to us.  The Hope we have… the sanctification, the perfection we are going on toward, is found through Christ in us, among us, with us. 

As we read in Romans 8:11, the Spirit that lives in you is the same Spirit… the same power… that raised Christ from the dead!  This spirit indwells you, it brings life, to your mortal bodies!

As Tony Evans put it in his Commentary, “[Paul] wanted to facilitate the spiritual development of [the Churches] members and to expose them to the mystery —that is, to the fact that Christ indwells every believer so that they increasingly reflect his character, conduct, attitude, and actions as they use God’s Word to deal with life.”

We grow into the Hope of Glory, with Christ in us, as we live out what Jesus has taught us. 

Confirmands, we have spent a lot of time together.  Sunday mornings, some of you making up missed topics on Wednesday, our retreat together at Latham Springs… We have studied God’s word together and we have learned a lot.  You became familiar with words like sin, salvation, prevenient, justification, sanctification, glorification and a lot more.  But there are two things that it all comes back to.

1.  The Bible.  This is where we see God revealed to us.  This is where we learn all the things that Jesus taught us.  We can’t know God if we don’t spend time in God’s Word.  As we study our Bibles we discover daily the hope that we have in Jesus Christ… the anchor that holds us in the storms of life. and

2. Everything we have talked about comes back to grace.  God’s unmerited favor.  As we talked about last week in our final session.  Ephesians 2:8-9 remind us that it is by grace that we have been saved, not of our own works, so that we can’t boast… we can’t brag about anything.  It is all about God’s grace.

I want to wrap up, as we get ready to have you come forward for Confirmation, I want to share something I heard this past week in one of my morning devotionals.

“There’s a chant rising to prominence in our conflicted society these days: “No justice! No peace!”” 

It has become a rally cry at protests.  What they are saying is, until there is justice for whatever cause or whatever person that has been wronged… there will be no peace.

“The louder it gets the further we seem to get from the other.”  You know the saying, ‘2 wrongs don’t make a right.’  Breaking the law and harming others and their property doesn’t bring justice and it leads to less peace. 

“Might the truth be: “No grace. No peace”?  Grace brought the greatest justice through the gravest injustice: the death of Jesus. Peace brought the greatest victory from the gravest loss: the resurrection of Jesus.”

The anchor that holds… the hope that we have is in the grace brought by the death of Jesus Christ and the peace delivered through His resurrection.

It is my prayer for you as the Confirmation Class of 2026, that you will know – that you will experience grace… that you will know -that you will experience peace… and in that knowing, you will rest in the hope, as secure as an anchor for your soul.

Let us pray…