Episode 1. Take Courage
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If you ask someone whether they want to be a winner or a loser at life – well, it’s a bit of a no-brainer isn’t it? The problem is though, in order to win, you need courage. And courage is a …
If you ask someone whether they want to be a winner or a loser at life – well, it’s a bit of a no-brainer isn’t it? The problem is though, in order to win, you need courage. And courage is a funny thing, it’s something we all want to have, but very few want to actually have to use. Because courage, well, it’s something you only ever need, it’s something you only ever deploy, when you’re afraid.
Courage is a funny thing. It’s something we all want to have but we never want to use. Think about it. Do you want to be a courageous person, someone with the resolve and the strength to make it through the difficult times; those dark and stormy days. Of course you do, so do I, we all do.
It’s just that we never ever want to travel through those difficult times. We want our lives to be pleasant and comfortable and happy. We want everyone around us to like us and to be kind to us. But of course, life’s just not like that.
Those dark and stormy days do come. In fact, sometimes they’re like seasons. They linger on like the winter that just doesn’t seem to want to end. And the longer the winter goes on, the longer it’s dark and scary, the harder it gets. The more we’re prone to feeling defeated, the more we become victims of our circumstances.
No, courage is definitely something we want to have but never ever want to have to use. Problem is the only place where we develop our courage, where we grow our courage, where we test our courage, is in those dark and difficult places. And that, my friend, is the truth of it. That’s what we’re going to be unpacking today on the program – courage.
When I look back on my life, the last decade and a half that I’ve been walking with Jesus instead of away from Him, there have been so many times when circumstances have wanted to overwhelm me.
Do you remember the story of the disciple Peter who saw Jesus walking towards his boat out on the Sea of Galilee? A great big storm happening, the disciples in the boat, they thought they were going to drown. They see Jesus walking on the water towards them and they thought they’d seen a ghost. But Peter says, “Lord, if it’s you I’m coming out”. So Jesus calls him and Peter jumps out of the boat and starts walking towards Jesus.
A pretty gutsy move. A great big storm blowing, he got out of the boat in the middle of the storm. What a mighty faith but listen to what happened to him along the way while he’s walking on the water, in the storm, towards Jesus. It comes from Matthew chapter 14, verse 30:
But when Peter noticed the strong wind he became frightened and began to sink and he cried, “Lord, save me.
To tell you the truth, it’s happened to me so many times. You sort of take this step out into the storm and you get out there and you’re doing what God’s called you to do. Whether it’s in ministry or previously when I had my own business or in my family or with friends. Believing that God is good, that He’s with me, He’ll help me to do all the good things for His glory. And then, all of a sudden, your eyes come off Him and you focus on the reality of your circumstances, like Peter. And you start sinking. You get that sinking feeling.
Last week and again this week on the program we’re just doing a little series called More Than Conquerors. The apostle Paul’s words are so powerful. It’s in a letter to the Roman Church in the New Testament. Romans chapter 8, verses 35 to 39. Have a listen:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor present things nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
The issue is not that every time when we’re in trouble God will come and wave His magic wand and make it all perfect again. He doesn’t work that way. Often He lets those dark seasons linger on.
He lets us walk through the wildernesses of life. The issue is that while we’re in those dark places, as Paul had been many times as he writes in that passage we just read. I mean many times his life was threatened.
When we’re in those places this issue is that the circumstances won’t crush us. That we won’t be torn apart and cast asunder by the difficulties in life. And today and over the next couple of days we’re going to be exploring probably the most important ingredient in being a conqueror and that’s, well that’s courage.
The Old Testament, the first time it talks about having courage is when a man called Joshua is in an incredibly difficult place. The twelve tribes of Israel were, for many centuries, captives in Egypt and eventually God called Moses to get His people out of there, did some amazing miracles. Moses leads them through the Red Sea.
They spend forty years in the wilderness and they’re about to cross over into the Promised Land which they would have to take by fighting battle after battle with the people that already lived there. And their trusted and proven leader of forty years, Moses, has just dropped dead.
And God appoints Moses’ second in charge, Joshua, to take over at this critical time in Israel’s history. It must have been an incredibly scary place. Couldn’t God have done this earlier? Or couldn’t Moses have lasted long enough to lead them through at least the first couple of battles in the Promised Land until they got their confidence up?
No, right at this point, right on the threshold of all those battles, just before they cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land. At the single most inconvenient time God takes Moses and puts Joshua in charge.
Notice God’s timing. It’s so often the case. It’s so often the most inconvenient scary time. We’re going to read just three verses of what God says to Joshua right at the beginning of the book in the Old Testament called Joshua. Joshua chapter 1, verse 6. God says:
Be strong and courageous for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.
Joshua chapter 1, verse 7:
Only be strong and very courageous being careful to act according with all in the Law that my servant Moses commanded to you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left so that you may be successful wherever you go.
Joshua chapter 1, verse 9:
I hereby command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Three times. Three times God commands Joshua to be strong and courageous. Three times. Do you think that God thought it was important for Joshua to be courageous, to have courage? Do you think?
Get a grip here! We want to have courage but so often when things happen at the most inconvenient possible time. When things all of a sudden turn scary in our lives, we want to go and hide under a rock somewhere. And that’s a natural reaction, truly it is. We all have that reaction at sometime. I certainly do.
Courage is counter intuitive. Courage is stepping out and doing it anyway even though there’s danger and risk and even though we’re afraid. Let me tell you something, there can be no victory in those places unless we decide to have courage. Unless we decide to listen to God’s command, to get out there and do it anyway even when we’re afraid because we know that the Lord our God is with us wherever we go.
My friend, you and I, we live on a battlefield, and if we want to win the battle we need to get on a war footing. We need to take courage and be courageous.
We’re going to be exploring that some more over the next few days on the program because that’s easier said than done. But let me just finish up with this thought. God wants you and me to be more than conquerors. He wants us to experience His victory in every part of our lives. But if we want to lay hold of that victory, we need to obey His command. This is what it is:
I hereby command you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
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