Ed Fuller - The Character of Courage

You know, it's uh it's been a long time.

It's probably been six years since I've taught.

And as I was telling the guys in our community group, it's gonna be a little nerve-wracking uh having gotten up here six years ago, but then coming back.

So um it's gonna be a blessing today.

So before we get started, let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll read our scripture.

Father God, we thank you for this day.

Lord, this weekend we've celebrated the freedom that we have in this country, the independence that we have gained.

Father, we pray for those that have spilled their blood for this country and for those that have made it to where we can stand here and preach your word.

Father, we ask your grace and mercy upon us.

Pray that you'll be with us this morning as we study biblical courage and what that looks like, and pray that you'll watch over our hearts and minds.

May your spirit attend to our souls.

In your precious name we pray.

Amen.

All right.

So we're gonna study Matthew 10, uh, 26 to 28.

Do not be afraid of them, for there's nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known.

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight.

What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body, but can kill the soul.

Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both the soul and the body.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

So, for those of you that know me, I I I spent 21 years in the Navy.

Um, and so when we were discussing about me coming and teaching, we were I was trying to figure out what I was gonna what I was gonna teach on.

I've taught James before a long time ago, and I love it.

And I want a different perspective on James, so I said, I'll lead James to James.

And I said, you know what's gonna be Fourth of July weekend, and the motto for the Navy when I was in, of course, I've been retired for 15 years, but it was honor, courage, and commitment.

And as I started studying, one of the things that came to mind was courage and biblical courage.

And looking at what we're going through in our communities today and looking at um the conversations we're having, it just struck me as one that I know I wanted to teach on.

So, growing up in South Texas, my mother, who died a year ago this month, would always teach my brothers and I about honor, about integrity, and about courage.

And as a single mom raising us three boys, it was it was always challenging because of the trials and tribulations that we saw our mother go through, the fear that we saw her just trying to survive and raise three boys.

And it was it was always encouraging for her to come home at night and to help us really understand what it was to be men.

Um our dad wasn't around, so she had to play both mom and dad.

And it was to have a godly woman like that raise us was amazing.

So I promised a lot of my friends that I wouldn't tell too many Navy stories because I've got 21 years of them, many different ports.

Um there was one that struck me that really hit home about a friend, I befriended, um, UmCourage.

And so it's about 1987, and we're out to sea for about three, four months.

And for those of you that might remember, the USS Stark was hit by a missile in the Persian Gulf, and uh one of our sister ships out of San Diego.

And that ship, uh 31 men died that day, and we as a sister ship would went to them to help them out, to take those that survived and anything that we could to help them out.

And so this guy that uh one of the guys we transported from their ship to ours through helicopter worked in this similar division, IT and administration, that I did.

And we got him a place to sleep, and just to try to make things a little bit normal in his life, he came in you know into our office and he would just kind of help whenever he could, and he was going through a lot emotionally, as you can imagine, what he saw, what he experienced.

And so it was about the third day that we're out on the deck and it's a beautiful sunset, and we're sailing along, and he tells the story.

It was quiet.

I didn't ask him anything, I didn't probe because I knew that if he wanted to talk, he would talk.

And so we're standing there, and the first thing he says was the smell was horrendous, and the fear in my heart was great.

And it just was like, wow, this is kind of a deep thing that he's gonna hit and right off the bat.

And so he proceeds to tell the story.

When the missile hit, he was in the office, which is below the flight deck, which is below the main deck, and fear overcome him bad, and he froze, and chaos rang out, and he didn't quite know what to do.

And he said, All of a sudden, I gained my composure, and we gotta get out of here.

And so he helped a bunch of friends, he helped other people, um, there were some visitors on board the ship, apparently, and so he helped them come out, and he said, and he told me, he used this word, he said, the courage, I don't know where it came from to come out from that burning ship to not only help save others, but to save my own life.

We're gonna talk about courage this morning and what that looks like.

We're gonna talk about fear and what that looks like, not just from a military perspective that I know a lot about, but from life and most specifically from the Bible.

You know, even for that gentleman to lose his courage, there's great leaders that have lost their courage, from Patton and MacArthur and Schwarzkopf and even Napoleon.

I read a story uh about him as he was leading into a great battle.

He battle was his army was getting beat bad.

And he looked down at the drummer boy and he said, sound retreat.

And the drummer boy looked back at him and said, Sir, they never taught us retreat.

Okay, sound charge.

And he did, and they went on to win the battle.

But it's a matter of even great men that have that are renowned are going to have opportunities where they lose their courage.

They're gonna have fear within them, just like you and I do.

So let's look at the definition and the nouns and the differences between courage and fear.

Courage is the quality of a confident character, not to be afraid, intimidated easily, but being without incautious or inconsiderate.

While fear, uncountable, a strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.

So, what does fear look like in your lives?

Do you have courage, the biblical courage that a godly person should have?

That's what we're going to talk about.

So, in our current study of James, um, he challenges us on true dialogue to really listen and engage, be ready to give an answer.

Each one of us should be reading our Bibles every day.

So we're understanding and gaining more knowledge about God and really understanding about what it is that He would have us do in our lives.

But in our study of James, he's also talking about courage and about our faith and what does that look like.

One of the things that struck me as I started really searching and researching courage was not just about the brave men and women, not just in the military, but just in life in general, was there's an aspect of fear to this.

Fear is something that you look into the face of it and it's scary.

It drives you away.

Uh fear is we avoid things, we don't go towards them.

Fear does not confront.

And then I started looking at James and I were kind of chatting about it and looking at what does what does fear?

Fear masks something else.

And it's very true.

As I started researching that, it might look like stress or fatigue or anger or regret.

And one of the biggest things that got me was indecisive.

Wow, you can be indecisive, and that's kind of it's exhibiting that inner fear that if I make the wrong decision, this may happen.

If I make the right decision, well, I'm just getting lucky.

How many of you guys, and I'm presupposing guys, because that's just the typical thing from a southern boy, um, when you went to go ask your wife to marry him, how how many of you guys were fearful?

I know, I know, Matthew, you and me and you and me.

You're the only one that's admitting it, yeah.

Well, we have to go back to even prior to that because when I started dating, I was fearful of it.

I didn't want to, I was a very proud guy.

I didn't want to be rejected at all.

And so I'd ask a couple girls out.

One said no, that hurt.

Another one, she was crazy.

And then I ran into this gal.

My son was uh, he had a baseball tournament and he had pitched way too many innings.

Uh he was 12, 14 years old, and uh loves baseball, and so we took him into a clinic to get some uh chiropractic work on his shoulder to make she make sure he was fine, but also to get some massage therapy.

And there was this gal that was sitting behind the desk, and I was just like, wow, she's cute.

I wonder if she would go out with me.

This is what I'm thinking, and so then I make an appointment to come back because I wanted an excuse to see her again.

So I made an appointment to get a massage.

Well, then I left and went out to my car and I was going home, and I was fearful this whole time of rejection, of indecisive because I had experienced it before.

What am I gonna do if she says no?

Then I'm gonna go in and get my massage, and I'm gonna look like a real, what I thought was a fool.

So then I get on the phone and I said, um, and she says, yes.

And I said, so I wanted to know about my appointment, uh, when it when it was, and she said, the one you made five minutes ago.

I said, yeah, and she said she told me the time.

And I'm sitting there debating and arguing with myself because I was so indecisive.

And finally, I said, Oh, what the hell?

Do you want to go out sometime?

And of course, the rest is history.

But that those are little things in our life that we're gonna experience.

We don't we don't recognize them as fear, but then the antithesis to that, we don't recognize the courage that we have, and we need to.

And where does that courage come from?

What happens to it?

So we're gonna get into our text, enough stories, because I could be here a while.

Um chapter nine, as I read the scripture this morning, we're in chapter 10.

Chapter 9, Jesus is going about um healing and teaching and gathering his disciples, and one of which was Matthew, a tax collector.

And then as uh we see in verse 9, 37 to 38, he's telling them, and he says to his disciples, the harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into this harvest.

And then we get to Matthew 10, verse 5.

Matthew 10:5

This is where Jesus is preparing, uh, gathering all of his disciples to send out the twelve.

Now, this is not the great commission that happens in Matthew 28, but he's gathering all of them.

And in 16 through 25, he's warning them about what they're going to endure, what they're gonna encounter, the trials and tribulations, verbally, could be physically, that they're gonna endure.

And that's where that's where we pick it up in verses 28, where we see Jesus really understanding the heart of these men, and they're fearful.

They're fearful about what they're gonna do.

They've never done this, they've never got up and preached.

I have before, but there's others that when you get up the first time and you preach and you have these bright lights staring at you, and all you see these little white dots, it's it's it's it's terrifying sometimes.

And so he's trying to help them calm down.

He's trying to help them really say, you know what, it's going to be okay.

And that's where we pick it up in verse 26.

And he says, Do not be afraid.

For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden.

So when we look at this, do not be afraid, this brings a trap, a perplexing sin.

He's been teaching them all along what to say, what to do, what the true message is, the way as it's called.

And when you are going about in your teaching, think about your own situations when you've shared the gospel or you've told somebody about church.

You've said, here, um, they tell you a story about a situation that they're going through, and you say, Well, I'm a Christian, and this is what I think.

You're automatically opening yourself up for that.

And depending on what you say and how you react, you can act out verbally, it could be physically if somebody gets aggressive with you.

But really, when you have that situation come about and you get into, and he tells you, don't be afraid, at that very moment, you're gonna, it's gonna be a telltale sign of your heart.

Where is your heart?

What are you seeing?

What are you thinking?

And that that is gonna be something that you're gonna have to understand is what am I going to do in that situation?

Verse 27.

When I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight, what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

What he's telling them, what I tell you in the dark.

So if you think about it, when they would go out amongst the people and teach during the day, they would come in at night and they would almost, you know, I work in software companies, so call it like a retro, you know, an agile software.

We're gonna retro.

We're gonna see what went on, how did things go?

They're meeting at dark at night in one of the uh one of the houses.

And he's telling them remain focused, remain on the path that God has you.

Don't get discouraged, be faithful.

Understand that God is with you, understand that the Holy Spirit is with you and that he will guide you.

In verse 28, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both the soul and the body in hell.

This this is one that as I studied it really gave me pause because do not be afraid of those who can kill the body.

If we think about those that we share the gospel with, or even if think about the the trials that are going on right now in our community where you've got riots, you've got protesting going on.

Those people, if you've been in those situations, you may be afraid that you may get hurt.

And these guys, these disciples are going out and teaching, and they're they're really fearful of what may happen.

And he's just trying to comfort them to be courageous, to be at ease, and don't get upset, and realize they're not gonna, they're not, they may kill your body, they may beat you as they did him, but you know what?

They're never gonna take your soul because that belongs to the Lord.

And it's that comfort that he's trying to give them.

You know, something that I've learned just in listening to various pastors when you're working through something, don't relent.

If you believe it to be true, then charge forward.

Have faith, be courageous, understand that God's gonna give you the peace, he's gonna give you the words, he's gonna give you the comfort.

Remain steadfast.

And most of all, if you believe it's God's will and if you believe he's in it, then act like it.

That's something that resonated with me when I heard this preach from this pulpit a long time ago.

If you believe what you're doing is right, and you believe this is what God would have you to do, then act like it.

Be one of those people of courageous mindsets that said, you know what, this is right, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna for I'm gonna forge forward and I'm gonna continue on.

One of the things is as I grew up in the South, is that we learned, my mom taught us from day one that we could understand.

It doesn't matter what you're going through, it doesn't matter what somebody says to you.

You choose your actions, your attitudes, and your moods.

And when I was younger, I just thought, yeah, it's just mom.

Mom's just being, you know, whatever.

But as I got older, and as I would go through various experiences, whether it be at work or whether it would be with my four kids, or whether it would be with my dog, we choose our actions.

We choose whether we're going to be kind, whether we're gonna be gentle, or whether we're gonna be harsh or crass, or the attitude, having a positive attitude.

How many of us can really have a positive attitude when something's going wrong or when something's not going where the way it's expected?

Um, we're trying to sell our townhouse to move closer to family, and it's not going the way Julie would like it.

You know, so trying to have a positive attitude with her can be challenging because she is like, why, why, why?

And I'm like, just wait, wait, wait.

Doesn't work all the time.

But it's our moods.

We really, we, we really do control our moods.

Now, my kids always would say, You made me mad.

No.

There was a situation where strife was there, but then you choose whether you're going to get mad.

In the same way in this, we're either going to choose fear or we're going to choose to be courageous and understand that if God is working in and through you, He's going to bless you.

Growing up in the Southern Baptist, for those of you that have or have been around that teaching, for me, the one thing that I took away was there's a lot of do's and don'ts and a lot of restrictions.

And yes, we talked about the love of God.

Yes, we talked about how his selvific love would cleanse us from our unrighteousness.

But really, I walked away from that, leaving, going to the Navy, wondering, there's got to be more to this.

This can't be all there is.

This doesn't seem like it.

And then when I moved from um Oklahoma City to Minneapolis, St.

Paul, Minnesota.

And before you guys start wondering what's a Navy guy doing in Minnesota, you know, there there's things that we've got to do administratively.

So at that time I had picked up worked in administration, but then I got my first computer in 1989.

It was in 8086.

It was a dual floppy.

And uh learning DOS uh and learning code.

Command line.

It was it was fun.

But because I had done administration and I had uh been one of those first people in my area to pick up computers, I got added to the Navy's Inspector General audit team.

So this was an occasion for me to go to Minnesota, further my career.

I was finishing my undergrad at night, and uh we would go from Minnesota all the way to Kansas, all the way over to Oregon and up.

We had the Pacific Northwest.

And this is when Clinton was in uh office and he had reduced the military budget.

And I was very sad.

Not just that he had reduced the budget, but this means that because I was the team lead on this audit team, that I had seven crabby old women, seriously, they were all almost at retirement, in a 15-passenger van traveling all over the Pacific Northwest.

That was not fun.

I'm in the back of the van writing research paper, doing all the stuff, because this is before laptops.

So you're having to go to the library, get a stack of books, sit in the back of the van, research, write all your papers, and then the next trip I take the books back and do this all over again.

I did this for two and a half years.

So as I go to Minnesota, I love the job, didn't like some of the traveling, but I met this lady in a Bible study at my church.

And she was attending our church, but she was also attending um Bible study at Bethlehem at John Piper's church.

And this is where I was introduced to John Piper.

And she told me, she says, you know, I because I was asking a lot of questions in this Bible study.

And she said, you know, you really should read uh John Piper's book, The Tulip.

And this was my introduction into Calvinism.

This was my introduction into reform theology.

And man, it was just it was like a kid in a candy store because I couldn't read enough, I couldn't understand enough, and I couldn't ask enough questions.

And so I really respected John Piper, I still do.

I respect John Piper's study.

There's a lot of topics that uh he does, and he actually did an article on biblical courage.

And he says this about biblical courage.

Christian courage is the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly cost.

Because God promises to help you and save you on account of Christ.

As an act of courage, it will likely be painful.

The pain may be physical, as in war and rescue operations, or the pain may be mental, as in confrontation or controversy.

And he says, Where then shall we get this courage?

So he's got five points that I want to go over.

The first one was from being forgiven and being righteous.

If you can imagine, in Matthew 9, 2, the wicked flee when no one pursues, but righteous are the bold as a lion.

Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralic, take courage, your sins are forgiven.

Think back to when you accepted Christ as your Savior.

Think back to when you were saved and just the overwhelming joy of being forgiven.

It was amazing for me.

It was amazing to understand that when I was growing up in the Southern Baptist, I didn't really quite understand the sovereignty of God.

And we'll talk about that in a second.

I really didn't understand what it meant to be forgiven.

You know, you hear stories about people that live such a treacherous life of debauchery, uh, whether it's drugs or alcohol or they get into crime of all sorts.

And then they come to a saving faith where they go from the depths to where God would have them up here.

That understanding of how they're saved is amazing.

But when you grow up, a middle-class white guy, how much can you be thankful?

You know, it's like, oh, I've saved you from your sins.

We used to play bumper cars when I was growing up in high school.

If you guys know what that meant with real cars, with steel bumpers, we would actually bumper cars, anyways.

The things that I did didn't seem worth forgiving.

The things that I did didn't seem that bad at the time.

And really being forgiven, and as I got older, I really understood what it meant to be righteous through the reading of God's word, through other godly men that would show me what it meant to look like to be a godly man.

The next one, from trusting God and hoping in Him.

Be strong and let your heart take courage.

All you who hope in the Lord, 2 Corinthians 3.12, be strong and let your heart take courage.

This is where, if we think back to our topic of courage, you really need to trust in God.

When you're in a fearful situation, the one thing that's gonna help you get through that is prayer.

It's not grabbing grabbing yourself by the bootstraps and saying, I'm gonna do this myself.

No, there's gonna be occasions where you're not gonna be able to do this.

You're going to need the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through you, giving you wisdom, giving you discernment, bringing other men and godly women into your life to speak to you, to help you, to where you can hope in Him.

The next one, from being filled with the Spirit.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

So this is right around in Acts at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Uh before this, they didn't really have it per se.

Um, they didn't.

It's not per se, they didn't.

And so being filled with the Holy Spirit as a Christian, you have that little conscious in your head saying, you shouldn't do this, you should do this, this is what God would have you to do.

That's the Holy Spirit working in and through you, speaking to you, guiding you in your thoughts and in your actions.

From God's promise to be with you in Joshua 1.9, I have not commanded you.

Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous.

Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

We really need to understand this and take this to heart.

That God is with you.

Be courageous in whatever it is.

It doesn't matter if you're witnessing to your neighbor, if you're having struggles at work, or in today's society, if you're struggling with, you know, a topic of partiality that uh Chris talked about last week, or you talk about racism that we're talking about in our public today.

We need to be comforted that from God's promise, He's with you.

And as a Christian, we're called to love everybody.

We don't make a distinction between right and wrong.

Okay, you know what?

Uh Miguel, Miguel, I thought you did wrong, so I'm not gonna love you.

That's not what he says.

I'm gonna love Miguel no matter what.

No matter what.

It doesn't matter because we're brothers in Christ.

And you've got that neighbor who may not know Christ.

You're still show that person the same love that God shows you.

Because if you remember, you were dead in your sins and dead in your trespasses, and God still loved you.

And you need to remember that.

And the last one, from being sure that God is sovereign over battles, be strong and let us know ourselves.

Be courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God.

May God, excuse me, and may the Lord do what is good in his sight.

2 Samuel.

The sovereignty of God is one that as I started really understanding reform theology, this is really what gave me comfort was the sovereignty of God.

Because it's not happenstance.

Things don't happen for a reason, for some odd reason.

It's it's the sovereignty of God.

And so, as I mentioned earlier, if you believe God is in it, act like it.

The sovereignty of God is in what you're doing, and he's guiding your path.

It really helps us to understand.

Scripture guides our thoughts and our actions.

And as we look through this, I mentioned there's men and women of the military, and I could probably go here for a whole day talking about stories of them exhibiting not just physical courage, but biblical courage.

I met some godly men and women in the military that continued to encourage me in my faith, and vice versa.

But there's men and women in the Bible that we need to consider as understanding they exhibited courage.

We think about Solomon, a wise man, but he failed to finish well.

How about Daniel going through the trials and tribulations and being having a uh uh king manipulated and having an edict spoken that they would eat only the king's meat?

And so he ends up being thrown in the lion's den.

Did he show fear?

Did he show weakness?

He didn't.

He knew that the sovereignty of God had, this was God's plan for him.

And if this is how God was going to take him, so be it.

He was gonna stick with it.

And he didn't fear, and the Lord sent an angel to be with him.

Or a story that we all tell our kids about David and Goliath.

You know, as you read this story, David being the youngest in his family, a sheepherder.

If you read the story, you're really gonna understand his frustration of why the army was just sitting back, fearful of Goliath.

Because David would say, if you believe as God is in it, and if you believe this is God's will, then be like Napoleon, charge forward, and act like it and conquer him.

And so it took the Holy Spirit working, excuse me, in and through leaders for David to be sent out.

David's like, I'll go.

I'm not afraid of Goliath.

And he didn't, and he slayed him.

Or how about women in the Bible?

We sometimes forget about them.

How about Esther?

You've got Mordecai, her brother, was urging her to influence the king's decision, the deadly decree.

And if you understand the times, it wasn't the queen could not just go up to the king and say, Here's what I'd like you to do, here's what you must consider.

That didn't happen.

That was not the times, and that was not what happened.

But Esther humbly requested that first all the Jews in Susa gather for three days of fasting, demonstrating her belief in God.

What courage it must have taken for her to go to the king and request this.

Think about a time when you had a situation like that where you were just fearful of going to your boss, going to the CEO to make a request because it just wasn't something you would normally do, or you were fearful of what the outcome may be.

Deborah was hesitant to obey the Lord.

But uh excuse me, uh Barak was hesitant to obey.

We're talking about Deborah, but Deborah boldly reminded him of God's promise to go before them and the blessings that come with obedience.

As we look at trying to really understand biblical wisdom and really understanding biblical courage, there's one thing that I really, as I've talked about it in this, that would really help all of us is prayer.

And, you know, in keeping with good RCD tradition, it wouldn't be a good sermon if we didn't reference Tim Keller.

And so he's a man that I love, and um he wrote a book on prayer, experiencing awe and intimacy with God.

And in chapter 14, he talks about the struggle and to ask.

And he says in there, we add we have not because we have not asked him.

When you are in a fearful situation, and you don't think you've got the courage, you need to get on your knees and pray.

That's what Tim was talking about.

The struggles we have with our own hearts and minds, really understanding the situation that we're in.

When we're struggling with fear, it's hard to really grasp courage.

But that's where prayer comes into play.

We really need to humble ourselves and go before the Lord and to seek his will and to ask for forgiveness for our lack of faith and not trusting in him to work in and through you.

So seek his will.

So the next time you pray for courage, do you think God's gonna give you courage?

Or is he gonna give you an opportunity to be courageous?

And that's gonna be hard for some of us because it's not like he's just going to zap you and you're gonna all of a sudden have it.

No.

You're gonna have to work in it, you're gonna have to work through it.

Just like we talked about earlier.

You're going to struggle with your own internal anxieties and fear, and you're going to face it.

But if you trust in him, he will give you the courage to overcome whatever your fear is.

The one thing that this lesson has taught me, I've always known about being courageous about courage, but what it really taught me was, as in Matthew 10, 26, do not be afraid.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It doesn't matter what it is.

Go to him in prayer.

Now we're going to take communion, and this is a special time.

This is a special time for those that know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

And Luke 22, 19 through 20.

And he took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given to you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And likewise he took the cup, and after they had eaten, saying, This is the cup that is poured out for you.

It is the new covenant in my blood.

If you need some help opening your little new cups, there's a little cellophane piece on top.

You pull that off and the wafers on top, and then you pull the second tab for the wine.

Let me pray.

Father God, we thank you for this day.

Lord, it's been an exciting day for me to come and share what you have laid upon my heart.

Lord, it's even been a more blessed day knowing my Father is down south preaching at the same time.

Father, I pray that you would be with us, be with him in his congregation.

Lord, as we go about our week, I pray that we would overcome the fears in our life.

I pray that we would love you and honor you, glorify you and be courageous.

And if we think that you're in it, then act like it.

Father, I pray for biblical courage for all of us that as we experience our day, we experience the trials and tribulations, that you would be with us.

Father, I pray for this communion.

I pray for the example that it sets of our commitment publicly to all of those around that we love you and we honor you.

Lord, we ask this in your Son's precious name.

Amen.