Courage

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. --1Corinthians 16:13

Today on the radio I heard a sermon by Dr. Wayne Braudrick, senior pastor of Frisco Bible Church. He was making a point in support of his greater thesis, namely that we live in an age of entitlement.  The worldly feeling of entitlement--I deserve it, I'm gonna get mine, me/my/mine--has bled over into the church.  He said when outlaws take over a situation and they order all of the men to leave, almost all of the time the men will compliantly obey, leaving the women and children in grave danger.  What does this have to do with entitlement? The men who choose not to stand up and risk death or endangerment are almost always thinking, "I am entitled to a long life; if I stand up to these thugs, I may die. So I will obey them and maybe get to live a few more years."  What does this have to do with Christians?  Most of us would do the same thing in the same situation.

We all see what can happen when a few men stand up against evil, like the heroes of 9/11 that were on the plane headed to the White House.  They stood up to the hijackers, and foiled their plan.  But we also know that when we stand up to evil, we make ourselves vulnerable.  Although that plane did not hit the White House as planned, it did crash into a field in Pennsylvania. Most of us want to avoid that outcome at all costs. So instead of risking life and limb, we go along to get along, following like sheep led to the slaughter.

Standing up to evil doesn't always mean we risk certain death.  But it is a risk.  Standing up to a person in authority may mean that you don't get promoted; speaking the truth to power may get you suspended from school, or branded as a religious nut, or shunned by the group.  It takes courage to stand up for what is right.  Isaiah 59:4 says, "No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity.  They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil."  See the slippery slope there?  When no one stands for true justice, looters and rioters will fill the void with vengeance, trading one kind of injustice for another. (Remember Ferguson, Missouri?  What did that accomplish?)

So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us.  We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes.  At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.  We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves.  We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away. --Isaiah 59:9-11

May it never be!  God grant us the courage to stand up for what is right.  Paul said, "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by (my) life or by (my) death." (Philippians 1:20)

Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice for my sin, an atonement for my soul.  What am I willing to sacrifice for?  I confess that I am not even willing to fast (go without food for a day) for a good cause.  My flesh is so weak! It is easy to say that I would die for Him, but in my heart of hearts I have to ask myself: would I really?  May the Holy Spirit give me the courage of my convictions on that day.

When I was growing up, I heard a lot of adults speak about prophetic scriptures.  They would say that in the end times, the Antichrist would put his mark on all men, and any who did not have the mark of the beast could not buy or sell.  The prospect of starving to death for my faith was not very appealing to me, so I cast about for an out.  What would happen, I asked innocently, if we Christians just lied about our religion?  In our hearts we could hold on to faith in Him, but when it came time to punch our meal ticket, why couldn't we just say whatever it took to stay alive?  The most common answer I remember getting to that question was, "Well, Jesus said, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father in heaven." (Matthew 10:33).  Now, this put me in a doctrinal bind--I was raised Baptist, and one of the foundational doctrines of the Baptist church is the Security of the Believer.  John 10:29 says, "My Father who is greater than all has given them to me, and no one can snatch them out of my hand."  Romans 8:35 says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" The question is answered emphatically in verses 38 and 39: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  So if Jesus is Lord, would my telling a lie about him keep me from heaven?  Especially if I lied (knowing the truth in my heart) in order to avoid trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword--isn't that a good excuse?

Friend, there is no excuse.  Satan is the father of lies; the demons know the truth, but they will not be in heaven with God.  What you say with your mouth matters.  "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."  It doesn't say or, as in confess or believe.  It clearly says confess and believe.  Hebrews 3:6 says, "But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house.  And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast."  Look carefully at Hebrews 6:4-6 now:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

My Baptist upbringing interpreted this verse to mean that once you are saved, you can't possibly lose your salvation, because in order to be saved again, Christ would have to come to be born and crucified again for our sins.  But a straightforward reading of this verse indicates that even if a person has shared in the Holy Spirit, and has tasted the goodness of God, and has seen the power of the Son--even that person can fall away.  His words convict him; his confession that Jesus is not Lord in essence crucifies Christ again.  That person cannot be brought back to repentance.  That is why Jesus said, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.  Away from me you evildoers'."  That is why Peter wrote, "If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them." (2 Peter 2:20-21).

My point is not to discourage anyone.  I do not want to condemn, or to cause any to stumble.  Do not question your salvation--if you have believed in Jesus to save you, that is the only faith that is necessary for salvation.  But the time will come where confessing Him as Lord will be a capital crime.  Do not fall away.  "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."  Do not leave or forsake him.

When newsman Dan Rather was promoted to anchor on the CBS Evening News in 1981, he started by signing off every night with the word "Courage."  This was ridiculed by other media figures at the time, and one late night talk show host started signing off his broadcast with random words--one night it was "valor", and the next it was "hot dogs."  Dan Rather succumbed to pressure, and  stopped signing off with that word.  He never said it again on the air, until his report on September 11, 2001.  On that night, it took on new meaning.  Friends, do not forsake the Lord until His return. On that day, I promise you, confessing Him as Lord will take on new meaning, and will have much greater consequences.

 

Temptation vs. Self Control

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. --Matthew 6:13

(But the fruit of the spirit is) gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law. --Galatians 5:23

Last week I was in one of those phone stores in a strip shopping center.  The store-front was maybe fifteen feet wide, and the store was about fifty feet deep.  Not much in the way of retail space, at least not when compared with some of the box discount stores you hear so much about these days.  I was in line behind an older gentleman, in his late sixties.  He was asking the clerk to help him set up his new phone, because he, like me, was technologically challenged.  However, at various and randomly spaced times, he would run to the front of the store and yell at three unruly children.  The kids were maybe 7, 9, and 11 years old.  They had found a single swivel chair in the corner and were fighting each other about who should sit in it as the others spun it around.

When the gentleman came back to his place in line, after threatening to withhold television, internet, and their supper from the children, he said to me, almost apologetically, "We are raising our great grand-children.  Their parents have...gone away.  They don't have much discipline."  I smiled at him encouragingly, and encouraged him in this special calling.  But as I was leaving, I thought to myself that the gentleman was providing a great deal of discipline to these children.  What they were lacking was self control.

I thought back at all of the times I had gotten into trouble, when my parents (or my boss, or even God) had to discipline me.  They were times when I had been tempted to do things I knew in my heart were not the right thing to do, but I had a lack of self control.  I wanted the pleasure associated with the sinful act, with no regard to the consequences.  Much like the children in the story above, I wanted my turn in the spinning chair, because it looked like fun.  No matter that the chair was not meant for that purpose.

When Jesus showed His disciples how to pray, each of the phrases he used dealt with a specific need that we have.  "Our Father" deals with our need for relationship.  "Hallowed be your name" deals with our need for worship and reverence.  "Your kingdom come" deals with our need for hope.  "Your will be done" deals with our need for selflessness.  "Give us today our daily bread" deals with our physical needs.  "Forgive us our debts" obviously deals with our need for forgiveness, because we will fall short.  "As we forgive our debtors" deals with our need to treat others as God treats us.  These last two phrases, "Lead us not into temptation" and "deliver us from the evil one" deal with our need to battle sin in our lives.  We need to defeat every force that would keep us from our fulfillment in Christ.

But this doesn't mean we should adopt a lifestyle of asceticism.  Temptation was the last concept addressed in the Lord's Prayer; self control was the last attribute of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Scripture.  It was mentioned (so it is important), but it was not the primary focus.  Paul spoke to this in his letter to the Christians in Galatia. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1).  We are free from sin through the power of Christ, but we do not want to go to the other extreme, where we attempt to gain God's favor by self denial and denouncing all worldly pleasures.  Jesus ate, and enjoyed good food.  He laughed, and enjoyed good fellowship (not only with devout Jews in the synagogue, but also with tax collectors and other sinners).  Yet in all this, He did not sin.  It is by His Spirit that we should enjoy life without falling into sin.  "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." (Galatians 5:16)

There is a Facebook meme that has big block letters, declaring "God saw you do that!"  This is true both for the good things we do out of the spotlight, as well as the sins we commit under cover of darkness.  "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13).  Are we then to live in constant fear of God's divine retribution? I don't think so.  "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2Timothy 1:7).

Jesus is God who became man and lived with us (Emanuel).  He knows what we are going through.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

I have found that when I am not focusing on my purpose in Christ, my mind wanders.  Like Lot's wife, who looked back longingly to Sodom and Gomorrah when God had told them to escape, I find myself looking back to sins I have habitually committed, and longing to go back there.  But when I focus all my energy on the task that God has set before me, there is no time for looking back; there is no room for remembrance of evil.  In the case of Lot's wife, when she clearly did not want to leave the sinful place, she was destroyed along with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.  For myself, I do not want to be destroyed when Satan and his demons are thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).  I do not want my life's work to be consumed by fire, like wood, hay, and stubble but rather to be refined by the fire, like gold, silver, and precious stones (1Corinthians 3:12)