Everyday Courage • Part 2 with Andy Stanley

Welcome to the Southside Church Podcast.

Weekly content that inspires all of us to follow Jesus.

Join us each week for a message from one of our fantastic communicators that provide practical ways to grow our faith, challenge ourselves, and to love others more.

And now, this week's message.

I've worked with Reese and his wife, Erin, for years, and they are amazing, amazing people.

It's a huge loss for us here at North Point Community Church, but it is a huge win for you.

So congratulations, Reese, and congratulations to Hamilton Mill Church.

Yeah.

Oh, look, we're clapping for you here.

Yeah.

So something that we um I think probably most of us, maybe all of us, have in common.

And if um you're from a different faith tradition, or you're not really a Christian, or somebody made you come to church with them, or they invited you to watch today, this is this is kind of an everybody thing.

It's not like a religious thing.

But most of us, or I should just put it this way, I think I think that the most difficult person for us to be um honest with sometimes is the person in the mirror.

Or to put it this way, the the things, and and I'm including myself, in fact, I'm gonna give you an illustration in a minute.

Um, things we need to admit to ourselves about ourselves are often difficult to admit.

Now, things that we ought to admit to ourselves aren't difficult for other people to admit to ourselves about ourselves, right?

But we push back because we look in the mirror and you're like, I just don't see that.

I mean, I I hear what you're saying, but I just don't see it.

So, and it's what I'm talking about are things like, I'll give you the extreme ones, things like jealousy.

You see, you know some jealous, you've met people who you're like, they're just jealous.

But you probably have never heard anybody say, I gotta tell you, I think I'm jealous.

I mean, it is difficult to admit jealousy, but it exists, but it is it's one of those things that we just don't see, or greed.

You've met some people, you're like, I think they're just greedy.

But you probably never met anybody that says, you know, my issue is I think I'm greedy.

I mean, you it's hard to see jealousy or greed in the mirror.

The other one that's hard to see in the mirror, um, which shouldn't be, it is anger.

And so here's what happens, and we all do this.

Before the embarrassing truth about ourselves can ding our conscience, we all do this.

We quickly substitute other words.

So we divert, so it's like jealous, no, no, no, I'm not jealous.

I'm just concerned that all that success he's having is gonna go to his head and it's gonna distract him from being a good parent and a good husband, and everybody else is like, no, we heard what you said, you're jealous.

No, I'm not, I'm just concerned, you know.

Greedy, I'm not greedy, I'm careful, I'm frugal, I'm a planner.

I'm just I'm just looking out for for our family, and you're you're thinking, yeah, but I mean, you would look, you know, you gave them a hundred dollars, you could have given them ten thousand dollars and never, you know, you're just it's like it's hard to see greed in the mirror.

And then anger, you know, I'm not angry, real quick story.

This is this was mine years ago.

I met with the counselor named Steve, and he kept explaining telling me about my anger and dealing with my anger towards a specific group of people, and I'm like, Steve, I'm not angry.

But it sounded more like this.

I'm not angry, you know, it's like I'm not angry, right?

And I would say over and over there, Steve, I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated.

I'm just frustrated.

See, we give a different word.

So my family one day, he called me out.

He was amazing.

I've quoted him so many times.

He said, Andy, what is the difference between being angry and being frustrated?

And I thought from it and I said, um, well, it sounds better.

It sounds better to just say, I'm frustrated.

He's like, Yeah, but there's no difference.

It's the same thing.

So we're all really good at this.

Now, the point of all that is that another thing we have a very difficult time seeing in the mirror and that we tend to re relabel because it's hard to admit this to ourselves about ourselves, is this fear.

Because, like jealousy and greed, we camouflage it with other terms.

We even camouflage it with other emotions because it's hard to admit when we're afraid.

But here's the thing, and here's what we're gonna talk about.

Until we admit it, until we correctly diagnose it, we can't move past it.

And I want you, I want us, regardless of your religious persuasion, to move past your fear.

So today is part two of our series, everyday courage.

Um, and to kind of go back and recap really what a little bit of what we said last time, um, something we've are all aware of, something we've seen, something we celebrate in movies and novels and books, and maybe something you've experienced is this that oftentimes a single act of courage by someone or a group of people, a single act of courage is often the catalyst or the instigator of something extraordinary.

That a single act of courage is often the catalyst for extraordinary.

That again, we we've all can stand up and tell our favorite um illustration of this from history.

Um, in the midst of disaster or change or tragedy or danger, someone decides not to wait for their fear to disappear.

Because fear don't disappear.

You pick it up and you carry it with you.

And there's always been a group of people or an individual who decided not to wait for their fear to disappear and they acted.

They did the unexpected, they did the unprecedented, they did the thing that other people were trying to muster the courage to do, but they did it and they went first.

And it set something good in motion.

And of course, history is just filled with examples of that, right?

Men and women who decided that in light of what was at stake, in light of what was at risk, in light of what needed to change, what they knew they needed to do, they, in spite of their fear, they acted.

And, as we talked about last time, in spite of what they thought might transpire, they didn't let projecting into the future keep them from what they needed to do in the moment.

And isn't this true?

Because when you read the books, when you see the movies, when you hear of these accounts, or even, you know, modern-day examples of this, you think to yourself, what I think to myself, we think, wow, I hope that if I ever face anything like that, if I ever was in a situation, maybe a life or death situation, I hope that I would have the courage to do what they did.

I hope that I would have the courage to respond or act the same way.

But meanwhile, meanwhile, back at home, back at work, back at school, meanwhile, in the context of our less than epic everyday lives, we may not face, as we sing, we may not face Goliath, but we all have our own giants, right?

We we don't peer up at literal walls lined with a literal enemy, but we all face walls from time to time that need to be scaled.

But because in those situations which are usually relational, but because we're not facing, this is important, because we're not facing immediate physical danger, we don't interpret our hesitation, our reluctance, or our unwillingness to act or engage or confront.

We don't, we don't see it, we don't label it for what it is.

We mislabel it.

We call it something else.

We don't call it fear.

We we say things like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

In fact, some of you are already starting this in your mind, so let me just join you in your mind.

I'm not, Andy, I'm not, Andy, it's not that I'm afraid.

And if you're not saying this yet, wait till the end of the message.

I I the issue for me is I'm not afraid.

Ready?

You don't understand.

Which I probably don't understand because I haven't heard your story.

And then you would say, because we've all said this, I I said this.

It's it's complicated.

It's complicated.

But to get us all on the same page, and don't raise your hand or shout out, but uh unless you're at a different campus, then we can't hear you here.

But anyway, can you think of a single, can you think of a single epic history making, you know, something worth writing about, something that most of us know about?

Can you think of a single epic history-making act of courage that wasn't complicated?

Can you imagine?

I mean, if you want to kind of put your complication within the proper context, can you imagine um explaining your complicated situation to Rosa Parks?

As she sat there, decided whether or not she's gonna get up?

Or can you imagine explaining your complicated situation?

Or can I imagine explaining my complicated situation to the signers of the Declaration of Independence?

It's like, guys, okay, real quick, I I know that you're about to give up your livelihoods, you're risking your life, you could lose everything, but you don't know my boss.

You never met my wife, you've never met my husband, you don't know what my dad is like.

I mean, my situation's complicated, and they're looking at us like, okay, we're busy, right?

But isn't it true that every single act of courage, the circumstances surrounding those epic acts of courage, they were all complicated situations.

And here's the thing the longer we make excuses not to act, the more complicated things become, especially relationally.

So, for many of us, maybe you, and I'm gonna push you hard today, for many of us, maybe you, the real issue isn't it's complicated.

The real issue is you're afraid.

You're afraid.

And here's the thing that just you want to do a thought exercise later, don't do it during the message, please, but if you want to do a thought exercise later, listen.

If you excuse, if you will excuse your reluctance to act, to confront, to step in, whatever the circumstances are, if you will excuse your reluctance to act out loud, in other words, say the words out loud.

If you do that long enough, eventually you will bump into the real culprit, which is fear.

Let me explain what I mean.

Oh, no, no, no, you don't, you don't, you don't understand what this is, you don't understand it.

It's complicated.

You see, if I, this is when you gotta what you gotta do out loud, if I, then he will probably.

If I, whatever it is, she may choose to, if I, they will, because that's what they always do.

Here's my point.

If a potential outcome, we talked about this last time, if a potential outcome is what's keeping you from doing what needs to be done, that is fear.

If a potential outcome is keeping you from what you need to do, if it's keeping you from what you know you should do, that's fear.

And having the courage, this is what I'm gonna push you on today, having the courage to rediagnose your reluctance and your hesitation to do what you know you should do may give you the courage, may give you the courage to do what you know you should do.

Because it is complicated, but everything's complicated.

And the longer you wait, the more complicated it's gonna get.

Now, in the time remaining today, I want to go super deep on one specific thing, one specific expression of fear.

I want to highlight a fear we have all, we all have a tendency, me included, a fear that we all have a tendency to mislabel.

Now, when I start what I'm about to do, some of you are gonna be tempted to just immediately just dismiss what I say out of hand.

Um, you're immediately gonna start having conversations in your mind with me.

I'm so I'm gonna ask you for just a few minutes, and this will be hard for some of you, and I'm more sensitive to your situation than you know, even though I don't know your story.

But if you do what I do long enough or you do what a pastor does long enough, you've heard everything.

You've heard every kind of heartbreaking story.

You've heard every kind of, you know, dysfunctional family, and here's the result story.

You've heard every kind of being mistreated at work, you you've heard it all.

So if you'll just trust me for a few minutes and at least be open to what I'm suggesting.

And if you'll try not to cross your arms, today I want to unpack the fear to forgive.

Now, we don't normally associate these two things, and the reason we don't is because we mislabel what is keeping us from forgiving.

So, at the risk of sounding terribly insensitive, today for a few minutes, I want to be terribly direct.

So let me just rip the scab off real quick, or the band-aid off.

That was gross.

Okay.

The band-aid that may rip.

Okay, anyway.

Look up here.

All everybody, some of you need to forgive someone, some of you need to forgive someone, once and for all, and move on with your life.

You may need to forgive something for something, someone for something big or little, something that was years ago, or maybe something that was just yesterday.

Career-related, um, parent-related, former employer related, a former spouse related, former fiancé related, current fiance related, a teacher.

Perhaps something of such magnitude, and I get this, I promise you, something of such magnitude that if you were to stand up in front of your church or in front of your friends and tell your entire story of what happened to you or what you went through, we may all be tempted to give you a pass.

To say, okay, everybody else needs to forgive.

There's no way you need to forgive.

You get to sit over in the pass section, and here's what you've done.

And I'm sensitive to this.

You've given, look up here, you've given yourself a pass.

You're, in fact, you're offended that I would even suggest such a thing without having first heard your story.

But because I care, it's time to forgive.

It is time to scale that wall and liberate yourself from your righteous and perhaps justified resentment.

It's time to confront the giant that continues to whisper and to make his or her or its way into all of your most important relationships.

It continues to breathe life into your low-grade anger.

That anger that just simmers beneath the surface, that goes with you wherever you go, anger that shows up in your marriage unexpectedly, the way you're raising your kids and discipline your kids and respond to your kids.

In fact, sometimes you surprise yourself.

You ask the question, where did that come from?

It didn't come from this current event.

Where did that come from?

The anger that's impacting that controls or fuels your temper, your criticism, gentlemen, your sarcasm?

Did you know there is no place for sarcasm within the context of family?

Zero?

Maybe it fuels the standards you have for everybody else that nobody else seems to be able to live up to?

Your inability to admit you're wrong, your inability to even see that you're wrong.

But your family sees it.

Your friends see it.

In fact, they your family and your friends they feel it, and sometimes they fear it.

And the reason you haven't forgiven, the reason you haven't moved on, the reason you've tried and failed to forgive is fear.

But you've labeled it something else, but it's fear.

And until you label it correctly, you cannot address it successfully.

And yes, I will admit, it's complicated, but please hear this next statement, even if you just check out after this.

It's complicated isn't a reason.

It's complicated is an observation that you've used as a reason.

And it's time for you to quit using it's complicated as an excuse.

And I want to say again what I said a minute ago.

The longer you wait, the more complicated it becomes.

But here's what's even worse: the longer you wait, the more complicated you become.

Besides, let's just be honest.

Let's have the courage to be honest.

You're waiting for something that will probably never happen.

An apology, they're not going to apologize.

They don't even know what they did.

An admission of guilt, they're never going to admit they're guilty, if they already would have, right?

You're waiting for them to have this somehow this awareness of how deeply they hurt you.

That's probably never ever going to happen.

You're waiting then for them to express regret for all they took from you.

Waiting, you realize that the longer you wait, you know what you're doing?

And you've heard this before, this isn't new.

In fact, somebody's already told you this.

Waiting is handing your heart and your mind and your emotions to the person that hurt you or the people that hurt you the most.

And again, we can't, nobody knows who said this originally, but it's true, and you've heard it a hundred times.

It's like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

What was taken from you can't be returned.

You can't be repaid.

No one can return your past, your childhood, a first marriage, right?

They can't replace that opportunity or the affection or the intimacy that they stole from you.

So it is time to forgive.

And here is the good news.

Ready for this?

This is, I mean, forgiveness is courageous.

Forgiveness is an expression of courage because forgiveness requires what acts of courage always require.

It requires you to make a sacrifice.

It's giving someone something they don't deserve.

And forgiveness is not acquittal.

Forgiveness isn't a declaration of you're not guilty.

Forgiveness is simply a declaration of you are guilty.

You did something, you actually owe me something, but you are doing the courageous thing.

You're canceling that debt.

Listen to this.

You are choosing, independent of them, to stop holding it over them.

Because your heart, mind, and your emotions don't belong to them.

Forgiveness is courageous.

It is the everyday brand and expression of courage.

Look up here.

You can do this.

You have everything you need to do this.

To show my age.

You have been wearing the ruby red slippers the whole time.

Eight of you got that.

Okay, look up here.

Look.

This is why.

This is why.

You know, if you, I mean, I say to you all the time, follow Jesus through a gospel, follow Jesus through the gospels, follow Jesus through the gospels.

When you follow Jesus through the gospels and you read what Jesus says about forgiveness, taken at face value, it is sometimes so offensive.

But this is what I'm saying is why Jesus insisted without ever hearing your story, why Jesus insisted before there was you to have a story to tell.

It's why he insisted that you should and I should forgive regardless.

If you grew up in church, you will remember this little exchange between Peter.

If you didn't grow up in church, this is, again, just find a Bible and just follow Jesus through Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

But Jesus was talking about forgiveness, and Peter's listening and he's thinking, okay, I hear what you're saying, but let's be practical, Jesus.

Let's be realistic, Jesus.

And so he raises his hand and he Ask Jesus a question about forgiveness.

He's like, you know, I hear what you're saying, and you know, I'm a follower, you know, I'm one of your guys, I was one of your first guys, you know.

But Lord, let's let's be real, let's be practical.

Lord, how how many times, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister?

And the implication is my same brother and the same sister, the same person who sins against me.

How about, I mean, I'm I'm a good guy, I'm a generous guy.

What about seven times?

What if I'm willing to forgive them seven times for them to repeating the same thing seven times?

Apparently, Peter had somebody in his life, like maybe you have in your life, who was a constant source of hurt and irritation.

And seven times for the same thing.

I mean, that's a gracious plenty.

Do you remember Jesus?

Yeah, most of you are like, oh, yeah, remember this.

Jesus answered.

This is why you should follow Jesus.

This is the, oh anyway, Jesus says, remember this?

Jesus answered, I tell you, Peter, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

And here's what they heard Jesus say.

Not seven times, an unlimited number of times.

And then to reiterate this, look at it for yourself.

Jesus tells them a parable.

Jesus tells them a parable to remind them that God's extravagant forgiveness paved the way for extravagant, I'll show you forgiveness.

Extravagant, I'll show them forgiveness.

Extravagant, I have the power to release you so you no longer control me.

That Jesus modeled extravagant forgiveness and showed us the way toward extravagant forgiveness that because you have everything you need to do this, your forgiveness is not dependent on anyone else.

You can do this.

It doesn't require that your situation become less complicated.

Do you know what it requires?

It requires courage because forgiveness is courageous.

And for somebody today listening or watching or in one of our rooms, your act to forgive may be one of the most courageous things you do in your life, but you won't do it until you're willing to acknowledge.

I'm afraid.

But you don't deserve to be held hostage to their ill treatment of you.

And Jesus has provided the way forward.

You don't have to be held hostage.

This is an invitation.

It sounds like I'm doing this.

Your Savior is saying, no, no, no.

This is an invitation to be free.

That God sent Jesus into the world to pave the way for us to be free, to ensure that we had all the tools we needed to move on.

He modeled the way.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul wraps up this long passage.

I've skipped some verses.

You can read the whole thing later.

Forgiving each other just as, not because of, not because they deserve it, not because, no, no, he said, no, this isn't, this isn't a reflection.

Your decision to forgive has very little to do with them.

It has everything to do with who you are now following.

You are choosing to no longer follow fear.

You are choosing to follow your king.

Just as in Christ God forgave you.

Now I'm about to throw down, this is almost not fair what I'm about to say.

But Luke records this for us.

Because Luke knew we needed to hear this.

Look up here.

Jesus forgave the men who nailed him to the cross.

From the cross.

He did not need anything from them to forgive them.

And he invites you, and he invites me to follow him.

So here's what I want you to consider.

And let me just say this.

I would imagine there are people who know you and are close to you that if they're listening to this, are silently saying, please, oh God, please let this get through to her.

Let this get through to him.

If I pay my children to watch this, I pray that because they feel it and sometimes they fear it.

And you don't want to live like that.

In fact, like I said a while ago, you hear things come out of your mouth, you think about things later on that you said or did, and you think, where did that come from?

What's wrong with me?

You're carrying that anger.

As Don Henley said, and it is eating you up inside, and it is leaking out on the people you love and who love you.

So the invitation is the standing invitation.

Jesus says, I want you to follow me, and I want you to follow me in this.

I want you to forgive as you've been forgiven.

So I want you to name your resistance for what it is it's fear.

And then do the thing.

Forgive.

And here's the promise.

You know this.

This is a you've you know this from other people's stories.

Your courage to forgive may in fact be the catalyst for extraordinary.

For you, for the people closest to you, for the people watching you who work with you.

And I want to give you a first step.

In fact, I want to give you three questions.

The second one's the most important.

Here's where to begin.

If you're thinking, okay, yeah, I may need to forgive, but it has nothing to do with fear.

Here's where to begin.

I want you to think later on, ask this question.

What do I have to fear?

What do I have to fear?

If I choose, what do I have to fear?

And then here's the most important question.

That's kind of the intro question.

Ready?

What do I have to lose?

What do I have to lose by forgiving?

What do I have to lose by forgiving?

And here's what I want to encourage you to do.

I dare you, the preacher's dare, it's a preacher dare.

I dare you to write down your answer to this second question.

What are you giving up by forgiving?

What will it force you?

What will it force you to let go of?

Write it down.

And here's why I want you to write it down.

I want you to expose it to the light, to get it out of your heart, to get it out of your emotions, to get it on paper, expose it to the light, and I want you to look at it, and here's my prediction.

When you look at it objectively written down, it will probably amount to very little.

And then ask yourself the third question.

How much longer do I intend to allow fear to boss me around?

How much longer do I plan to let fear be the boss of me?

And you say, Andy, that's kind of strong.

No, look, if you know you need to forgive, but you have refused to give, forgive for fear of what you're giving up, then fear has become your master.

And fear is a poor master.

So tell your fear out loud.

Fear, we're done.

You have enslaved me.

Jesus forgave me.

I'm following Jesus.

I'm no longer following fear.

I choose to forgive.

And when you make that decision, when you choose that act, when you choose what's unprecedented, especially when you think about what you've experienced at the hands of the decisions of other people, that is, as we talked about last week, that is the win.

What happens after that is not the win.

The win is your decision to follow Jesus.

The win is your decision to obey.

The win is to decision this your decision to do what Jesus asked you to do and to trust him with outcomes.

And instead of living in the I'm not sure, I don't know, what if, what if, what if, what if, to decide to live with the confidence that you have placed yourself and your hand and your future in the hands of God who loves you and sent his son to forgive you so you could forgive.

This is the win is to say yes to your king.

Now, for somebody listening today or watching today, I know this is so heavy, and it's like I'm telling you this is what you need to do, okay?

In just a few minutes, you can cross your arms and start arguing with me, but just one more minute.

For somebody today, that what I've said so far is all you need to hear.

You're like, Andy, okay, you're right.

You know, I've already thought about this, I've been considering this, other people have told me this.

Okay, you're you're right.

I'm gonna write it down.

I realize before I even write it down, I realize I have virtually, I have nothing to lose, I have everything to win.

But for some of you, your response legitimately is, Andy, I'm not arguing with you.

I I agree, I believe.

Those passages you showed me, I've read those a dozen times.

But I just can't seem to do it.

I've tried and tried and tried, and I just can't seem to let it go and move on.

And if that's you, as it turns out, there is, if if that's you, you just seem to have an inability.

You're willing to forgive, but there seems to be an inability.

If our if you have an inability to forgive, oftentimes, I would say most times, but we'll just say oftentimes, your inability to do what you know you need to do is actually linked to a second, even more insidious fear.

And that's what we're gonna talk about next time.

For some of you, you're good to go, you know what to do.

For others of you, it's like I've tried, I've tried, I've tried.

There is yet another insidious fear that we mislabel.

And until you correctly diagnose it, you can't move past it.

And again, that's what we're gonna talk about next time.

In part three of every day courage.

I'd love to pray for you.

And then here at North Point, we're gonna sing a song to dismiss.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father.

This lands with all of us differently.

Some of us are grateful that we heard this years ago and dealt with it.

Others of us are in the middle of it, others of us just don't buy it.

Father, for those from a different faith tradition, the whole Jesus thing kind of wigs them out a little bit, but there's there's something that lands with all of us with this.

So would you please, in your grace and mercy, give each of us the wisdom to know what to do with what we just heard?

And Father, I just pray for, I don't know, dozens, hundreds of people listening or watching, that this would be the breakthrough, that they would do the courageous thing because forgiving, forgiveness is courageous.

And I pray that it would be an almost immediate catalyst for extraordinary in their marriage with their children, with their who they're dating, with their relationships, with friends, whatever it might be, that you would bring their emotions and their hearts back into line with what is healthy, what is good, what is pure, what is right, what is holy, what is like Jesus.

So none of us can do that for anybody else.

So I pray that you would take it from here and take what is true and take your word and drive it deep into the crevices of our hearts so it could do its work and that you would have your way in each of our lives in Jesus' name.

Amen.