Keeping your head in the game

Hebrews 6:19 says, [19] Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast . . .

"That's saying, 'A sure fix; a thing that holds us steady and that's what our future glory is about," says Jordan. "We're watching the world change dramatically in front of us. America has sort of been a little blip where there's been a bubble of protection in our culture that really is the overflow of the social-economic impact of the Protestant Reformation, but that truth that produces that has been eclipsed; it's fallen in the streets. As David said, 'If the foundation be destroyed what shall the righteous do?' Well, you're watching the building falling down around you.

"We're going like the rest of the world. I talked to a man recently who had just spent a month in Thailand and the culture he saw there is where our culture is going now. What that culture is is the culture the Apostle Paul lived in. There isn't anything drastic and new in the world. It might be new to you but it isn't new to the world and the course of the world is there.

"The culture we're moving into is the same type of pagan world Paul lived in, and can I tell you, he did pretty good. He wrote these books. Believers in the Bible functioned, worked and lived in a world like that. So there will be a world for you to live in successfully for God's glory and that helmet of salvation gives you the capacity to think; keep your head in the game of life in the world as you find it.

"Paul writes in Colossians 1:3-5, 'We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.'

"There we go again. Faith, hope and charity. These are the characteristics of what a full mature Christian life is about. Our hope comes to us through the gospel of the grace of God. At the end of verse 6 is, 'since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.' Paul talks about how you knew the grace of God in truth. Our hope isn't in what we do and what we accomplish; it's in what Christ has accomplished for us and who God has made us in Him.

"Why did He save you? He saved you to put you into the Body of Christ. Ephesians 2 says, [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

"He's got something for you to do. God has a plan for your life, not just for now but for eternity. Not just in time but for forever, and that forever life that you have is yours right now. You don't wait to go to heaven to get it; it's there for you right now.

"The place where we're going to spend eternity and the place we're going to be functioning is in the government in the heavens and that's why Paul goes on down through this chapter describing all that.

"He gives you the details of it so you can understand it's not just a cliche; there's some actual things involved in what God's doing and you're participating in the business and the work and the plan of your Father.

"After he describes all this great cosmic plan that He has in His Son, he says, [21] And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
[22] In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
[23] If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

"You get to participate in it because you've been reconciled unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he says, 'If you continue . . . ' The level of participation you have in the functioning in 'the ages to come' if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled . . . and notice, 'be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.'

"My point to you is the hope that the gospel gives us of that future glory and participation with Christ in His exaltation, if you move away from that . . . if that hope isn't what keeps your mind . . .

"You need to have a firm, clear understanding of what it is; you need to have that constantly in your understanding about what life is all about and participating in it.

"Paul calls it 'looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior.' This is where the joy of the Lord comes into your life. This gives you the capacity to speak well of life, of your life.

"Romans 15: [13] Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

"It's in our believing. He fills us with joy in peace in believing that you may abound in hope. That word abounding is it's just bursting out of you. It's your faith, resting in an understanding of that hope that allows the Spirit of God to fill your life with joy and peace, because the circumstances you're living in are not the internal reality of your life. You keep your head in the game by looking to what's real; to what your future is really all about."

(new article tomorrow)