Selected Scriptures

September 2, 2018

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

Download the bulletin.

Download the Kid’s Korner.

The sermon starts at 16:55 in the audio file.

Or, The Courage That Is Not Mundane

This morning I want to remind us about some of what we have, and how we came to have it, and what we must do daily to preserve it and press on. We live in a time of abundant blessings, both spiritual and physical, and we owe them all to Christ. Christ Himself is also the fountain of many faithful Christians who have worked good works from which we benefit.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises one character asks another how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” the man replies. “Gradually and then suddenly.” Of course the “suddenly” only seemed sudden because he wasn’t paying attention to the “gradually.” Long, slow, gradual forces work both for bad and for good. We would profit more from this process if we paid more attention to our history, and in particular to those who did their daily work in the name of the Lord.

Even with minimal attention, it is hard not to be edified by considering the progress, not of Man, but of Christ’s salvation of men and His grace through them into the world for the last two millenniums (or at least since 1066). Much of that progress has come at a great cost in the midst of serious conflicts.

We don’t get to choose if we’re in a battle or not. God established an antithesis on earth, a hostile dividing line between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. We cannot get out of the fight, we do not choose whether or not to be soldiers. We can choose what type of soldiers to be.

But, who really wants to fight? We all want to win, or most of us do. Those who are Christians want Jesus to win, but we have to think about how involved we’re going to be.

We’re often a fearful people. We fear criticism or maybe worse, being pushed to the margin. We hate when others condemn us by ignoring us. We fear loss of reputation, loss of connections. We fear that others may recognize that we don’t know what we’re talking about. We fear that we might mess up. We fear that we might have to change something, suffer for something.

We need courage.

Finding Courage – The Fruit of Conviction

But courage doesn’t come easy. Courage is not an ornament that can be borrowed or purchased and hung on a branch. It isn’t about education; just reading a book won’t give you courage. It isn’t about money; having a lot of money can’t give you courage. It isn’t about status; some of the most panicky people are popular. It is all about heart.

To be courageous means to demonstrate conviction at the time of a decision. Courage rises from conviction. Courage is like fruit; it grows out of deep roots. We need to have our hearts filled first before we’re willing to face difficulties, let alone fight enemies.

Why aren’t there more modern day stories of Christian courage? There are so few courageous Christians because there are so few Christians with any deep, thorough, burning passions. Consider: what are you doing daily/weekly to develop your life-system beliefs, the way you believe that the world works, who is in charge of this spinning mass of problems, what you’re supposed to be doing on it? Text messaging, Facebook stalking, and World of Warcraft isn’t securing the ballast of your ship.

Defining Courage – A Fullness of Heart

The roots of conviction grow out of the soil of our hearts.

The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, meaning heart, so courage is “heart-age,” the quality of having heart, having inner strength. To encourage someone is to give them heart, to put into and fill up their heart. To discourage is to take away from their heart, to drill a drainage hole in the bottom of the tank.

That means that a lack of courage is not first an external problem when faced with an[...]