PastorTim

Courageous Living

Journeying through the life of the early church in the book of Acts I recently came upon the amazing life of a church leader in Damascus named Ananias. A lesser known of the first century church perhaps, but a hero of faith and courage, nonetheless. He was willing to stand and obey the voice of God in the face of fear and potential danger.

We are navigating through rough waters as a culture and in many ways, we are woefully unprepared. We are information rich, and we have more amazing technology at our fingertips than our forefathers could have dreamed of. And yet we are often lacking something far more important… character.

The building blocks of character are many. The four classic Greek virtues include prudence, justice, temperance and courage and the three Christian virtues faith, hope and love come quickly to mind. The fourth of the seven I mention is courage. Understand that courage is not a lack of fear. It is the courage to do what’s right in the face of fear.

Jerry Root & Stan Guthrie in Sacrament of Evangelism writes, “it’s the habit of saying yes to the right action even at the risk of pain or loss.” Courage never gives up; courage sticks with the task until it’s done. Courage faces one’s fears and does the right thing in spite of it.

Dietrich Bonhoffer was just such an example of this virtue called courage. On his last day on earth, Bonhoffer held a brief service for his fellow prisoners. A contemporary who was there describes the scene. “He hardly finished his last prayer when the door was opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said, ‘Prisoner Bonhoffer, get ready to come with us.’ Those words, ‘come with us,’ for all prisoners had come to mean only one thing the scaffold. We bade him good-bye. ... ‘This is the end,’ he said, ‘For me the beginning of life ...’ Next day, at Flossenburg: he was hanged!”Bonhoffer and others like him throughout the ages had the courage to stand up to evil in the name of Christ and pay the ultimate price.

Do we have the courage to lay it all on the line? Do we have the courage to speak up for the biblical model of masculinity, marriage, and human sexuality when we know that we’ll be called bigots, homophobes and maybe worse? Do we have the courage to say aloud that abortion is the taking of innocent life when we risk being called antiquated in our views?  It takes courage to take a stand and risk unpopularity and ridicule. Remember this however, if we lose our religious freedoms to stand for and teach a biblical worldview then we will lose all other freedoms as well.

If the church is courageous, then the nation will reflect the biblical values on which it was built. I believe there was a moment in the conversation that Ananias knew for sure; The Lord has me covered here. Of all the things for God to ask of me, to minister to Saul of Tarsus! Yet if God calls, I will answer knowing I can stand. Courage and strength come from the Lord!

Years back in the Los Angeles Times Paul Harvey shared this incredible story, “One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the foundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child's arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray's free hand felt something, possibly a rock protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. "If I can just hang on until help comes," he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard's Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can't swim.”

May I suggest that in our culture today not only little girls, but entire families are being swept away by the current of casual Christianity, a secular worldview and a watered-down notion of what it is to stand for truth and righteousness. May the God of heaven raise up a new courageous generation of heroes of the faith who will in the words of Paul, “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

 

Godly Fathers know best

As we prepare to celebrate Dad’s in America this weekend, we cannot help but to notice the stark contrast between what culture says is noble and necessary in the lives of children and what truly matters to the tender hearts and minds of little boys and girls. A Godly fathers influence in the life of a child is a priceless and lasting gift, a gift realized not only in this life, but in the life to come. As Frederick Douglas said, ““It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

It was Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council who observed, “Having a father “is essential. It’s foundational, especially for young men to be successful, both educationally and when they move into the work environment,”

Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia observes, “A working father acts as “a symbol” who helps a young male or adolescent sees “his own dad getting up in the morning, getting to work on time, you know, providing an example in that way,” said Wilcox Tuesday. Having a father in the home is important financially, because “dads are much more likely to devote their money to their kids and help their kids either go to trade school or go to college, and flourish in those arenas, and then go on and get a job.”

My good friend Dr. Kenyn Cureton share this wonderful illustration, “I heard a story about a dirt-poor farmer. He and his family lived in shack on a modest spread. They were happy to labor and laugh and love together as a family. The father worked hard and taught his only son the satisfaction of honest toil. A rich farmer came to visit one day. The poor father and son were chopping weeds in waist high corn. He observed that the corn was tall enough that the weeds wouldn’t hurt. “You and your boy needn’t work so hard.” The poor father wiped sweat off his brow and replied: “Maybe, but I’m not just raisin’ corn, I’m raisin’ a boy.” Later that boy graduated as the valedictorian of his class. Brimming with pride, the father remarked to his wife: “That boy is the best crop I ever raised!” He had prepared him for success in life through hard work.”

The biggest problem we face in America according to Farrell and John Gray in “The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It,” is dad deprivation. Because of divorce and parents never marrying, “only about half of children will spend the duration of their childhood with both of their biological parents.” It truly is a national crisis. To again quote Brad Wilcox, “Absent fathers are particularly detrimental to boys, who miss a model of what it means to be a good man. Such boys are more likely to die by suicide, to have issues with drugs, and to commit violent crimes, among other things. Strikingly, young men without both parents are more likely to go to prison than graduate from college.

This past week’s celebration of D-Day reminded us afresh of the amazing courage and fortitude displayed by the young men of the greatest generation. The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, does a wonderful job year-round, commemorating this crucial event that saved Western civilization. The town, which fittingly was called Liberty when founded in 1782, was chosen because of the Bedford Boys. Thousands of American towns lost sons, brothers and fathers on D- Day, but Bedford (population 3,000) lost 22 young men — the worst per capita loss in the country. Nineteen were killed in the early hours of D-Day at Omaha Beach, and three others died later. Their stories were immortalized in Alex Kershaw’s 2001 book, “The Bedford Boys: One American Town’s Ultimate Sacrifice.” About 100 other Bedford residents also died in WWII, according to the memorial.” Writes Robert Knight a columnist for The Washington Times.

As we look back with admiration and appreciation for those men of yesteryear, we are perhaps tempted to lament our current cultural situation. We can also be challenged and inspired to make a difference here and now. By pouring our time and influence lovingly and effectively into a new generation of boys and oung men, sharing with them and modeling a strong and courageous example of Biblical masculinity. Not everyone will like it or embrace it, but doing what is right and necessary has always faced a challenge or two.

This Father’s Day, let’s celebrate the wonderful fathers in our lives, let’s recommit our efforts into adding value to and mentoring young fathers we know and love. And let’s raise up a new generation of children who seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness! Happy Father’s Day!

 

 

The Danger of Pride

C.S. Lewis, in his masterful work Mere Christianity wrote, “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” The word of God allows us special insight into the heart of a man who personally experienced the danger of lifting one’s heart up in pride. “At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me.  Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” Listen to the words of experience!

My good friend Dr. Everett Piper in his recent Washington Times article shares, “It’s June, and for the rest of the month, we will be inundated with our country’s monthlong celebration of pride. We will see it everywhere. It will be pervasive. The rainbow’s ever-increasing colors will be inescapable. We will see it in the news. We’ll see it at Target. We’ll see it in Walmart. We’ll see it in our public parks and at our schools. We’ll see it in our theaters. We’ll see it on T-shirts, umbrellas, bumper stickers, and even at our churches.

In case you’ve forgotten, up until about five minutes ago, in the course of human history, pride was listed as one of the seven deadly sins. But that is no longer the case. Rather than being considered sacrilege, pride is now sanctified. Pride has become America’s ultimate virtue. Pride is now our nation’s summum bonum. Pride is our highest good. Not courage. Not chivalry. Not modesty, maternity, sacrifice, chastity, family or fatherhood. Not confession or repentance, but pride.”

Nearly 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton wrote that if he had “only one sermon to preach, it would be a sermon against pride.” Pride, he said, “is a poison so very poisonous that it not only poisons the virtues; it even poisons the other vices.” He went on: “It is amazing to me that [we] really have so very little to say about the cause and cure of a moral condition that poisons nearly every family and every circle of friends. There is hardly [anyone] who has anything to say about it that is half so illuminating as the literal exactitude of the old maxim of the priest: that pride is from hell.”

On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln called the nation to prayer… “And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

The book of Proverbs has quite a bit to say about pride. “These six [things] doth the LORD hate: yea, seven [are] an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.”… “Pride [goeth] before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better [it is to be] of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.”

Just as Adam and Eve fell prey to the lies and deception of Satan in Genesis chapter three, Satan still attempts to cause men and women to inflate their self-worth and to replace the role of God in their lives. We are tempted to tell God the creator, “I’ll decide what’s good and evil, right and wrong in my life.” That my friend, is a dangerous place to be.

 

A stand that must be taken

As far back as I can remember, the grand old party was steadfast in its defense and clarity on the issue of the sanctity of human life. It is what, for many Christian conservative Americans you would call a non-negotiable. Not because of the rigidity of our political moorings, but because we believe that the word of God is clear and speaks with all authority on the issue of life. You see, if that is not first in our political priorities, then nothing else need be considered. If life is not considered sacred from conception until death, then the very scriptures upon which our government was founded becomes damaged beyond repair.

In a speech given at the 2024 Lincoln Day Dinner in Muskegon County, Michigan on May 21, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said, “The right to life transcends other political debates and the interests of any and all political parties and candidates. It is truly the right without which no other right has any meaning. In his last speech before his death on April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln said, “Important principles may and must be inflexible.” Please don’t mistake my words as partisan. Advocates for the sanctity of human life want all political parties to embrace what our Founders declared as the first among the rights with which we are endowed by our Creator. On this, we are and must be inflexible.”

It was Francis Schaeffer who believed that mass abortion was simply the outworking of a revived hedonistic attitude which put a person’s happiness above a sacred respect for human life... In the final analysis, he wrote, abortion is an all-out attack on the precious image of God which is made known through humankind. “The unborn child is a human being created in the image of God, and to deny this is to deny the authority of the Bible.

As Georgie Boorman of the Federalist observed recently, “the world has witnessed godless regimes that have devalued and destroyed life at will all the while American culture has historically stood in stark contrast against this backdrop of death and misery. It’s not because we Americans are inherently better than any other people group. It is because this nation was founded on Christian principles, namely that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. First among those rights is life... What we are seeing now is a return to a world that does not know God and does not want to know God.”

Tony continues, “What are we to think when Republican leaders suggest reconsidering the party’s stance on the sanctity of human life, on constitutional protection for the unborn, and on a commitment that has lasted over half a century? That the Republican Platform, for the first time in half a century, may sound a retreat on this core principle? In such a situation, the alarm cannot be sounded too soon or too loud. We, champions of the God-given right to life, are under no illusions. The ravages of the Sexual Revolution are all around us. Today, we even debate whether mutilating the bodies of children in vain attempts to change their sex is a good thing. Shame on us. Under these circumstances, standing for the sanctity of each and every human life is hard. But,“Important principles may and must be inflexible.”

Let’s rededicate ourselves to this battle for true freedom — the freedom that celebrates life and refuses to destroy it. Over the next two months, this battle will play out over a single document, the national Republican Platform, but its object and prize are the soul of a nation. Let’s stir the spirit of the American people, of every party and persuasion, to rediscover the gift of life and our duty to uphold it in every sphere. My friends, we must be inflexible on this important principle of the sanctity of human life — the future depends upon it.

We will most likely always have differences about many things but when it comes to the issue of life and the sanctity of human life, there is and cannot be the discussion or position of compromise. God said through Moses, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live…” As Christians and as Americans, we must choose life as well!

I believe the old saying “the fruit of our lives grows on the trees of others!” The seeds you and I sow will grow to maturity and a harvest. This is true of any harvest... You always glean exactly what you sow. You can’t plant beans and harvest watermelon! You always glean more than you sow. It only takes two kernels of corn to raise up strong stalks bearing ears filled with thousands of kernels!  Paul wrote to the church at Galatia and said, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.” The stand for life, is a stand we must take!