Biblical Courage - [Psalm 27:14]

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Dear God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for bringing us this morning here to worship you.
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Lord, as we open up your word, we pray that you would instruct us, you would teach us, you would lead us in our walk this morning and in the week ahead.
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We come at this time into your hand. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Alright, so today's subject is biblical courage.
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A little while back, we looked at humility. And as I was thinking of some of the characteristics of believers,
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I saw humility as one of the pieces of the puzzle. You know, when God made man, there's so many aspects to humanity that we have.
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And one of the things that should characterize us is humility. But with the fall, everything is kind of fragmented and we've kind of all fallen apart.
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And when you take the pieces and put them together again, humility is one of them that I think we need to work hard. And the
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Bible emphasizes it a lot for believers. We need to work at it because by nature we are proud after the fall.
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And one of the complementary sides of humility is courage. And so I thought, you know, today, let's look at what the
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Bible says about biblical courage, the way God meant us to have.
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So here is a quotation. I think this would kind of set us off this morning. Here is a man who said he was standing for something courageously.
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And he said, if I change my stance today, who will speak up? I am mindful that I can be assassinated anytime, but I want to live in history as a courageous man.
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This person, his name was Shabazz Bhatti, and he was a Pakistani Christian politician.
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And as many of you know, he was assassinated last week and there was a funeral there. I do not know about his theology, whether he was genuinely a
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Christian or not. But he did stand up for something that was not very popular. And some
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Taliban assassins actually killed him. He stood up for something boldly, even though he knew the consequences.
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When we think of biblical courage, what are some of the names that come to mind? Who are some biblical characters that you can think of?
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Daniel. OK. Daniel says Daniel. Joseph and he stood up for one of the more common one would be
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Genesis 39 when he was accused falsely. But yeah, he stood up there.
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Excellent example that Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
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So one man standing up against the entire nation. And here is every other false prophet. And he has no fear.
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It seems at least when he stands up, Caleb. So Joshua and Caleb entering the promised land.
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And what did Caleb say or do? Yeah. Good example.
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Yeah. And I like Caleb even more in his old age. Give me those hills where nobody else wants to go.
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Janet. John Bunyan. Excellent. Can you give us why? And I think
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Bunyan's kind of courage is a little more unique. And I think we will see some of those examples, too. Here is his wife and children, and he needs to support them.
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He has a choice. He can choose not to preach the gospel and come out and support his family.
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But he says he can't do that. So he is almost on his own accord in prison and has to trust
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God for his family and everything else. And great examples. Jesus. We will get to that.
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I want to pick one specific example of Jesus Christ as our model for courage this morning. So let's, with all those examples in our minds, let's look at a definition of courage just from the dictionary.
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It's the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, and pain without fear.
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It is to have courage of one's convictions to act in accordance with one's beliefs, especially in spite of criticism.
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It's actually an inward quality. It's not necessarily what you actually do, but what is it inside you that propels you to act courageously or boldly.
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So does the Bible command us to have courage? Be strong and of good courage.
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Excellent. The cowardly as one of the characteristics of those who do not inherit the kingdom.
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I'm going to just use a couple of verses here and then keep that as our banner. Look at a few examples of what courage is not, what courage is.
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And then we will look at an example of Jesus Christ and some instructions for us as believers.
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And then we will spend the rest of our time in a psalm that is a good example,
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I think, for all of us to strengthen those weak arms and then go out into battle.
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So that's my goal today. We will try to move quickly so we can go through this. So this one of the commands that I have is from the song from Psalm 27.
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Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the
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Lord. This is the song. This is the end of the song. After the psalmist has prayed to God, he and he exhorts the believer to wait and and have and be courageous as you wait for God's deliverance.
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So let's now look at what courage is not. Even before we do that, let's look at it from the worldly side of things.
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You know, courage is something I think even the people in the world would admire, whereas humility is something that not necessarily is as attractive.
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Can you give me some examples of worldly courage? People you see who are not necessarily Christians are courageous for.
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Like my father -in -law, when he would try to get in war, try to protect the troops or take a bullet.
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Yeah. So he had a purple heart and he actually was wounded in the line of duty. Excellent.
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Can you give an example? Excellent example.
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So you look at it as a sense of minority against a majority. But if the minority is not necessarily standing for the truth, then although they may look courageous, there's really no weight behind that.
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Excellent example. Yeah. He's very well known for his speeches and for rallying the troops, as you will, and and leading on.
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Excellent. Yes. People throughout the world will stand up. And so the same thing on the positive side.
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You know, someone who stands up against injustice, but and willing to give up their lives.
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Now, let me ask you something for all of these. What is the source of courage for the people in the world?
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Why would someone throw himself on the bomb or take a bullet or stand up?
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All right. So one of the motivation factors would be their selves.
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A principle. So something that you you think is so important that you would be willing to even die for it.
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Yeah. So this is something that I believe is right. And I will give my life for that.
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That's right. So sometimes the courage is cumulative, not necessarily individual.
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Yeah. And that's an excellent example. We need to look at that more closely. But many a time it is not necessarily courage, but bravado or even foolishness.
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But if they succeeded that, OK, you know, everything turned out fine. But there are many who didn't.
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And you don't care about their stories. Actually, we have a few biblical verses.
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I want us to just quickly put in our mind as we think of these. So as we think of the world, there are very various reasons, self, maybe even love for someone else, like a parent who loves the child so much that they would sacrifice and be courageous to support the child.
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But it doesn't seem humanly possible for ideals, for for various reasons.
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But God is not the main motivating factor behind this courage. It is something other than God.
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And like Charlie was pointing out, sometimes these acts of courage may not necessarily be warranted.
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You know, they could be for the wrong reasons or they could have been actually dangerous.
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Not a wise thing to have been so -called courageous. That could have been just bravado and folly. I have a few verses.
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So the way I want to do it is if some of you would be willing to read these verses, just lift your hands. I'll give you a few verses so all of us can quickly read them.
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So can I see a few hands? I need about eight people who can read this.
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OK, Brian, can you take Psalm 107, 26 and Jeremiah 4, 9,
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Ezekiel 22, 14, Proverbs 7, 13, 22, 14,
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Proverbs 21, 29, Proverbs 28, 1.
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I need one more. And 2 Samuel 4, 1.
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So let's go through those verses. We'll quickly skim them and then we'll go to the biblical courage. Yes.
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Give me a reference and then your verse. And we'll read the
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Ezekiel passage and we'll talk about it. So here are two examples where God has set his face against the people.
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So normally when we think of calamity, we think of it in human terms, whether it is natural or man -made.
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But when God puts his affliction upon us, when he sets his face against us, what
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God says here through his prophets is your courage cannot stand. No matter how much you put your feet together and your lock your arms together, nothing is going to stand because when
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I bring calamity, that's going to blow away all your courage. So those are two examples of how the worldly courage or in this case, actually apostate
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Israel's courage cannot stand up against God. And who has Psalm 107? This is, for those of you who know
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Psalm 107, this is the people who take their voyages in ships. So the ones who are going to heaven are not in spacecraft.
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They are on a ship on a very high wave. And then when they fall down from there, you know, it's terrifying.
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And it's just a force of nature. And these people who went out there, you know, brave and courageous out to sea ferries were overcome by the nature's power and knew that they had really nothing in which to deal with this problem that has come their way.
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Humanly, it was impossible. And it talks about the courage that actually flees when you are in those circumstances.
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So there are times, no matter how courageous you might be, you know that your end is near and there's really nothing you can do.
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So that's just a human example. Proverbs 7 .13 Proverbs 7 .13
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Yes. She seizes him and kisses him. And with a bold face she says to him,
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I had to offer you. For those of you who know
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Proverbs 7, Eric Johansen preached on this last Sunday evening. Or the previous
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Sunday evening. This is about the adulterous woman who talks about her husband being away and then seducing another man.
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And of course it takes a lot of courage to do something that's stupid. But there is no honor, there is nothing right, there is no value in what she was doing.
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And what Solomon says here is, she just puts on a bold face. She just thinks, okay, you know,
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I'm going to get what I want and I'm just going to be bold about it. But that was going to be destruction as a result of her actions.
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Proverbs 21 .29 A wicked man displays a bold face. And one of the ways, especially in the world we live in, we see people who, in the workforce, in areas where people would just want to project a strong sense of who they are.
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What is it that they, I am very good at this job, I'm very good at this, and I'm going to just sell myself.
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You know, that's the society we live in. That's how you need to project yourself. You're not going to get a job.
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I had a friend who was interviewing and he was weak and kind. Nobody was calling him back.
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You need to say, I can do it. I've done all this before and I will do it again. And when you look at it from the aspect of righteousness and evil, the one who is wicked, who is set in his ways, just goes forth boldly doing whatever he thinks he can.
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And the end of that would be destruction. Whereas for the believer, we don't just walk headlong into whatever path we choose, but rather we examine it in the light of the
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Lord. We want to make sure what we do is godly before we actually step and go forth boldly.
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And the last verse is 2 Samuel 4 .1. And for those of you knowing this background,
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Isbusheth was the son of Saul. So you have the armies of David and the armies of Saul fighting after Saul and Jonathan are dead.
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And who was the commander for David's armies? Job. And Abner was the commander for Isbusheth.
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And good or bad, Abner is now killed. And Isbusheth had put his trust in his commander.
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So his commander was the man who was going to help his line survive.
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And now that man is dead and there is no longer courage because he had placed his trust in a human being.
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And when that man is gone, there is no more hope or courage for Isbusheth. So just a few examples of how we can have courage in the wrong things or not have courage because we do not have the strength in and of ourselves.
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So with this in mind, what about biblical courage? So what should biblical courage look like?
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What should be its source? Excellent.
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Actually, the verse, Psalm 27, we are going to look at is, The Lord is my light and my salvation.
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Whom shall I fear? Normally, when we think of courage, think of, in the definition, difficulty, danger and pain that come from some source.
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So if the source is anything other than God, that is not the place where you need to be afraid of.
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But rather, you need to be looking up to God as the measure of your actions, no matter what the danger is.
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And on the flip side, we do need to fear God because God is the one to whom we are ultimately accountable.
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So, good example. So, yes. Yeah, this.
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Yes, this is not a biblical dictionary. I have a longer definition, but I don't think any of them has the righteousness aspect of it.
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One of the things it says to act in accordance to one's beliefs, but that's as close as the world can come.
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But you're right. A true biblical courage has to have righteousness or the will of God behind it.
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So the source of the Christian's courage is always and completely in God alone.
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The verse that we started off with, wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the
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Lord. It is in God that we take our courage. It is not in our own abilities. It's not in what even what
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God has provided for us, but it is in God himself. And that's always the source for the
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Christian's courage. And secondly, it would be wise in two senses.
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Unlike the world, which sometimes just goes headlong and then into destruction. The Christian, like we read from Proverbs, one of the
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Proverbs that we read, you want to be aware of what God has called you to.
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Is this something that you need to act upon? And when you do, do you understand the consequences of what your actions would be?
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You just don't go foolishly into something and say, I was bold for these actions. We're going to look at a bunch of examples again.
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But before we do that, I want to give a caution. I mentioned that biblical courage always takes its source in God.
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A very famous rallying cry in the church in the past used to be this dare to be a
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Daniel. Have you heard that? I honestly didn't know about it till I. Does anyone know what that is, dare to be a
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Daniel? And why that means? Yes, I think they call it the evangelism strategy for the twins.
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So from nine to 13, it's a, it is a strategy where children, you do not want to be peer pressured by the rest of your classmates, but rather be bold and courageous for God.
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I don't think that necessarily is wrong, but there was something else that was even before Billy Graham.
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Okay. I found this hymn, which is called Dare to be a Daniel. Does anybody know this hymn?
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You do? Okay. Well, if you all don't know it, I don't want to spoil your, I thought
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I was the only one who didn't know that. So the point of this hymn is very simple. You know, you know what
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Daniel did. Daniel stood courageously before an entire nation before the king.
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And he said, you know, I'm not going to eat the food that the king offers to me. If I, you know, just see that I will prove
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God to you in one sense. And if God, if the king doesn't like it, then so be it. Take off our heads. And or Daniel's friends in bow down to the statue and we will not.
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And they demonstrated courage at the face of death. And God proved them.
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He walked with them in the in the furnace where they were thrown. So these are examples of Christians who are believers who actually trusted in God.
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Now, when you say that to be a Daniel, there is a there is something that you need to watch out for, which is, you know, here are these men.
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Here's what they did. And therefore, I want to do it too. In the New Testament, you have something like that that happened.
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Can you think of something that people did that way and didn't turn out all that well?
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Pharisees and Sadducees. Pharisees and Sadducees. OK. They're just doing it. They're not. They're doing it outward work instead of an inward circumcised heart.
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It's just an outward sign of I want to be like you. Excellent. So you just look at the outside. It's beautiful. Or, you know, this is what seems admirable.
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And I'm going to do it without really a heart change. That's what
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I was thinking of. So Paul cast out demons by the power of God. And here are these fake
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Jewish exorcists who come around and try to do the same. And the devil says, I know
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Jesus. I know Paul. Who are you? Give them a routing. So the point is, it's not about these men who demonstrated the power of God courageously.
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But rather, in the God in whom these men worship. So when you talk about dare to be a
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Daniel, be very careful. Because it's so easy to be caught up in the outward. To say, oh, all this is very nice.
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And I want to be just the same. And there is actually a sinful pride there where you're not really thinking of bringing honor to God.
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But rather, just be as famous as Daniel was. And so even when we emulate
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Christians and biblical models, we want to always remember. It's not about these men. It's never about these men.
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We will see one of the examples here. It's about the God who enabled these men. And the trust and the faith that these men had in their
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God. That helped them walk through these difficult times. So let's pick a few more verses.
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If I can have a few hands that can read. Acts 4 .13.
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Acts 4 .31. Ephesians 3 .12.
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Dave? Can I have you have Daniel 10 .19? And Acts 23 .11.
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So Brian, can you? Now, as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize them as having come back to Jesus.
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So Acts 4. Early church. The apostles are boldly proclaiming the
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Jewish authorities who have just crucified Jesus Christ. Bring them in to question them. And Peter has no fear when he is speaking before these men.
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We want to honor Christ. And these men had no education. Humanly, they did not have the qualifications to stand up and speak before these
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Jewish leaders. But the source of their courage, source of their knowledge, source of their ability, everything that they had to speak, came from their association with Jesus Christ.
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And so that's Acts 4 .13. Who has 31? Acts 4 .31.
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And when they had prayed, the place in which they gathered together was shaken, and they were filled with the
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Holy Spirit, and continued to speak the word of God. So this follows right after this, where the apostles are now released.
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They were imprisoned, or they were going to be charged and possibly not permitted to speak.
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But they beat them, sent them out. And then the church prays together. And then they see an enabling by the
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Spirit of God. So here they are strengthened by God himself, by the Holy Spirit.
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And then they now speak with even more boldness. Although the opposition is mounting, they have no fear because God is strengthening them inwardly.
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Ephesians, once again, this is talking about something different.
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So Ephesians 3, you are looking at courage that we have to approach
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God. So Brian was talking about fearing God or fearing men. Here, Paul is writing about the boldness that believers have to access
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God's own throne. And sometimes we just take it for granted as Christians. Yeah, yeah, I went and prayed this morning.
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And if you just think about what it meant in the Old Covenant, it was only the high priest goes once a year into the
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Holy of Holies. Here we have complete access, in Hebrews you read, into the throne of grace.
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Romans 5, we can just walk forth into God's presence. And that takes a little bit of courage, which
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I think sometimes we may be a little foolhardy, you know, walking into this prayer this morning. Oh, Lord, thank you so much.
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And I had a good day. I'm not even thinking sometimes what I'm saying. I'm just praying. When we remember who this
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God is and whose presence we are, when we petition, when we praise, I think you rightly would need that kind of courage which we have through Jesus Christ because he has provided for us.
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Dave, do you also have Daniel 10? That's okay.
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Can I have... No, that's fine, Dave. Can I have Daniel 10, 19 in the back?
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This is Daniel. He's a little older now than when he was a teenager and, you know, jumping against the king.
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And here he is praying, and he has an angelic visitation.
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This angelic visitor was withheld by the Prince of Persia, which was a principality that was at work.
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And here he is coming, and this angel, when Daniel sees him, he just feels like he should die.
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He has no strength anymore to even converse with this angelic being in front of him.
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And then the angel speaks to him, encourages him. And Daniel says, I was encouraged.
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I was given courage by what this visitor spoke to me. There are things that are greater and far more dangerous than the rising seas and the tornadoes that come our way.
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And Daniel, instead of the food and the false idol worship that he had faced as a young man, now he looks at something even more fearsome, which is
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God's presence and his angels in whose presence he is now.
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But my point is this. It's not about Daniel and his own ability to be strong, but rather the strength that Daniel receives from this angelic visitor.
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And the last one we have is Acts 23, 11. Following night, the Lord stood by him and said,
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Take courage. So this is
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Paul. He has just finished speaking to the Jewish people. They want to rip him apart.
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The Romans have kept him for protection. And there is a conspiracy to kill him.
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And just before the conspiracy is revealed, the next few verses will reveal that, God says, well, if you thought the heat was not enough in Jerusalem, we'll now go to Rome.
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Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, if you will, small province of the Empire of Rome.
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Now you go to the center of the capital, Pagan City, and these emperors in the future we will see will come at the
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Christians with force. But that's where you need to go. And I'm the one who's going to send you. And I will give you the courage that you need to speak there.
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So before it happens, God strengthens Paul directly so he can actually speak faithfully in Rome.
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So here are a few examples of Christians who have found their strength in God and God ordained means rather than in themselves.
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Now, with that, I want to just turn to Matthew 26, because I think the greatest example of courage that we can ever look at is
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Jesus Christ himself. When we think of, I didn't cover this.
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David, we think of David and Goliath. Young man, when the whole nation is standing.
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Those who went to Israel, did you visit the Valley of Elah? Can you tell us what it is like?
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Sure. One of any of you who've been there. It's a very vast land that is as flat as can be.
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You can see for miles. And it's beautiful. It's green. It's beautiful.
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And the valley there, is it like a narrow ravine or is it like a wide space?
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To me, if I'm thinking right, it's a big area that you can see from the spot of Baal.
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The prophets of Baal? Okay. I think you can see it from that area.
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Okay. It's not a narrow valley. Okay, thank you. I always have this cotton book pictures of the river going through and then there is
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David and Goliath on one side and David. We saw that too. Okay. I can't remember how to explain it.
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That's okay. So, the point is this. You have a battle. This is from 1
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Samuel 17. We'll come to Matthew 26 in a minute. In 1 Samuel 17, you have the
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Philistine army standing up over there. You have King Saul and the Israelite army on this side.
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And the Philistine army comes and puts out a challenge. Blasphemes the God of Israel and says, you know, we have this champion
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Goliath. Let one of your men who has the courage come and fight against him and whoever wins, wins the battle.
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And the King Saul, who was head and shoulders above the rest of Israel, was also the ordained king, had the authority to fight.
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But there was no courage in him to stand up against this heathen who was blaspheming
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God. But instead, what we see is young David, when he comes, he has something very different to say.
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So, in verse 45 of 1 Samuel 17, David said, you come at me with sword and spear and javelin.
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But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day, the
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Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the
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Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth. And all the earth may know that there is a
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God in Israel and that all this assembly may know the Israelites, that the
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Lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand.
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The norm in ancient warfare was they would do, my Hebrew prophet said, cash talk.
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Their job is to come and speak low of your enemy and make your courage go away, make you feel afraid.
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And David here comes and he's not talking about his own strength, but in the strength of the God who is going to fight the battle for him.
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And as you know, the end of the story was God vindicated David's faith because God had put that faith in him and he proved himself strong through a strappling youth.
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I mean, Goliath saw him and he was, you're too beneath me to even fight. That was a contempt that he had for David.
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But God rescued Israel through this nation. It's also wonderful to see how
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God convinced Israelites and Saul to let David fight. Who would want a young kid to fight, lose, and then have your nation defeated?
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And it's very interesting when you see what David says to Saul, he says,
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God will rescue me. It's not my strength, but God has proved himself to me in the past.
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The same God who's going to defeat Goliath is the one who helped me defeat these.
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And I'm sure Saul was thinking, OK, lion, bear, wild beasts, Goliath.
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I think that's a fair fight. You know, God had actually demonstrated his power to David before. But here was a case of victory.
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And now I want us to look at Matthew 26, which is a totally different scenario altogether.
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I think for sake of time, we will probably finish with this. We won't get into our psalm today.
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So in Matthew 26, beginning at verse 36, then Jesus went with them to a place called
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Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.
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And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
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Then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
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Remain here and watch with me. So as all of you know, this is the last night in the life of Jesus Christ.
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He has come to the culmination of his purpose. He knew all along that this was the reason he has come here.
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He was born as a baby. He lived a perfect life. He did his ministry on earth for this one final culmination, the cross on which he needs to die.
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And that's what he has come. And as you heard in the messages, that was the eternal. What does
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Pastor Mike call it? The Trinitarian Council, where in eternity past, this was decided that Jesus Christ would come and die on the cross on behalf of sinners.
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And here it is a few hours away before this entire purpose of history is to be culminated.
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And Jesus knows the consequences of his actions. And there he says, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
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Remain here and watch with me. Part of courage is always dealing with the problem in your heart and your mind and settling it before you actually act in those circumstances in which you are placed.
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So here Christ is seeing the cross, the physical agony that he's going to suffer, the spiritual agony of separation from God the
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Father and bearing the sin, what he as God hates just as thoroughly as the Father does, and bearing it upon himself and the punishment of sin on himself too.
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So all these things are in his mind as he is contemplating it. He goes and prays, and we see in verse 39, going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, my father, if it is possible, let this cup, the cup of your wrath, pass from me.
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Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Jesus was not wavering in his resolve to obey the
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Father's will. But as a human, he felt the weight. There is a term,
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I didn't write this down. When we think of weak knees, who's the king,
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Belshazzar, when he saw the finger writing on the wall, we read that his knees basically shook and he lost courage, he knew that this was judgment upon him.
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When we think of buckling legs, you are looking at a weight that is upon you, not necessarily physical, but a situation that is just so enormous that you can no longer bear yourself up.
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That's what happened to Belshazzar, his legs started to buckle. Here you have Jesus Christ looking at the enormity of the suffering that is before him.
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And he does not rely on himself. Throughout the life of Jesus Christ, even though he is
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God, completely divine and sinless, he as a human fully and completely relies on God and God alone.
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And even here, when he comes to the culmination, the greatest test that he is going to face, he comes to God the
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Father and lays his petition before him. And that's an excellent model for all of us today. When we face our weight that is beyond us, the place that we need to find our strength is in God the
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Father, in God himself, even though he is the one who has ordained that particular trial in us.
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So he comes before God, lays his petition before him and says, if it is your will, I do not take joy in drinking this cup of your wrath.
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He goes back to his disciples, they are still sleeping, they can't watch within one hour. Comes back again, verse 42, and he says,
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Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And he takes great courage in knowing that the
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Father in whom he trusts is sufficient for all his needs, even though the path through which he needs to get through is not something that he is going to enjoy.
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It is going to be like a defeat before he can see the end. And in fact, throughout the life of Christ, when you look at the glory, especially in the
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Gospel of John, the glory is always in the suffering when you actually trust
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God and demonstrate that you believe in him. So the courage that comes out of it is your relationship with God that is proved in the midst of that trial.
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And there is a throne waiting on the other side. There is a crown that will be given.
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And there is a resurrection that is to come. But you need to walk through that cross.
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You need to walk through that valley of the shadow of death. And will you trust in God through that time?
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And that is the demonstration of God's power in our life. And it showcases the courage that we as believers are called to.
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So we have just a couple of minutes that we have left. What I wanted to do was just throw out a few practical examples.
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So you and I may not necessarily face an assassin's bullet tomorrow.
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Or we are not living in Libya where you can have some rebels break down your walls and helicopters shoot you down and your family.
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Our trials may seem a little more mundane in comparison to these. But in each of our lives, in the places that we are called to live, that specific trial is what
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God wants us to live courageously through. Those specific trials are the ones where God wants to prove his power in your life and in the lives of those around you.
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So I had a few written down, but you can just throw some examples out as well.
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I had a few external examples like when financial strains just overwhelm you. When help of yourself or your loved ones just goes so bad that it seems that there is no hope.
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When relationships with loved ones break and you are in a place where you need to act, but there seems to be no pleasant way to act.
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Or the ones that are even more dangerous are the ones that are inwardly in your own heart. When your mind struggles with what is right and wrong.
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Or when your mind does not have the fortitude to act upon what you know is right. When your emotions just seem to be playing in all different directions.
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Are not as focused upon the will of God as you would like it to be. What would you do right now?
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Let me stop here. So I just threw out a few examples. There is plenty more, but give me, seeing what we have seen from the scriptures, what do you see a
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Christian's response, a courageous response in trials like these on others? Excellent.
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So God says that His grace is sufficient for us in our time of trial. He never tempts us.
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He never puts a trial for which we are insufficiently matched.
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So if God would place us in a place of trial, we can always be sure that God also gives us everything that we need in order to walk faithfully through that time.
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And to step one step back is to know scripture. So when you know this, you know that you are not there as an orphan abandoned in battle.
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You have your father with you in the midst of your trial. Excellent example. I will never leave you or forsake you.
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That used to be my favorite verse. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Because when you lose all hope, there is some verses that you just cling on to.
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And each of us has our own favorite one. Not necessarily scriptural. Scripture to back this up.
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Examples of how you actually walk through those trials. On your knees.
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And that's normally the hardest thing for us to do in the midst of a trial, isn't it? When something comes our way, if you're a man, the first thing you want to do is just figure out how to solve this problem.
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And that's to the exclusion of spending time before God. Not realizing like Daniel and all the other biblical examples.
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All that we saw. Trusted in the presence of God. And that was what our psalm was to be.
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Wait for the Lord. Receive the courage from Him. And He is the one who will deliver you. It's not in our own strength at any time.
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I'm sorry, go ahead. Very true.
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You mentioned a couple of things. Yes, please. Right.
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Not just objectively. I know we're not really big on feelings. Experience that to be able to be courageous too.
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Right. Your objective truth in your mind needs to be a subjective reality.
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And that's what prayer is ultimately. When you go before God with His word. And you know for yourself that you should be able to trust
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God in this trial. And I think we'll stop here. But I want to just, just a practical example.
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One of the issues that we struggle with when the trial comes is. I think the biggest trial for us as Christians is.
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Not to look up to God. Because it is God who is the source of our strength. And we need to always remember to go back to God.
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And rest in Him before we act according to His will. And the second problem.
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And I think when I used emotions was. Sometimes when the trial comes our way. It's like a wave that just turns us upside down.
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And you have no idea what even the trial is. You just know that you're upside down. And many a time that's the struggle that we have as believers.
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Is to know what we need to do. And when you talked about you know taking away all the chaff. And then you know just focus on the essential.
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And God gives us those. He promises to help us in the inward man. It's not necessarily about you know taking that Goliath down.
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But rather to get that David out there. And face that Goliath. And the word as we had a few examples.
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Promises are God's strength in that time of need. So let's stop here.
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And is there any questions before we close? Yes. It's wise to remember.
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Excellent example. The world is watching us. And even other believers are. And our weakness is what
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God uses to demonstrate His strength. Great, great words. So as we finish.
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Today we have. Is Erickson Kabinta here? He is not. He's probably in Mike's office in the discipleship class.
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Oh, okay. Thank you. So if some of you want to join for prayer in the high school class.
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We will be starting something between Sunday school hour and the service. So we can actually just pray for the church and for the needs here as a group before the service starts.
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So we'll just do that for 10, 15 minutes. So if you want to, if any of you want to join us, please come to the high school room and we will pray.
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But let's close now. Dear God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you,
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Lord, for this morning. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.
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Help us, O Lord, to cling to you. To worship you in the midst of our trials.
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And give us the courage to live lives that are reflective of your goodness and of your power when life seems to be falling away underneath us.
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We commit the rest of our time here this morning. We commit this service into your hands. Use it,