Conviction, Commitment and Courage

The last time I was here, I talked about transformation. I talked about metamorphosis, if you will remember, and how God, when we respond to His call and we follow Him, He puts us through a process of change in the rest of our lives. And when we look back years after we have committed to God and after we have given ourselves to Him and been led by Him, we hope that maybe we can see, we should see, that we are different people now than we were before, and different people now than if we had never known God's truth. That's the process He puts us through as He develops us and prepares us for His Kingdom. And we talk about this a lot, but I always want you to keep that in your mind, that God has a purpose for you now and extends beyond this physical life.

That what He's looking at is different than what we look at oftentimes. He's looking at eternity for you and me, not just the here and now, although He's very well of the here and now, and what we need to learn and what we need to do in order to be ready for that time when Christ returns and establishes His Kingdom. Today I want to talk about Christianity, and I want to talk about our lives as Christians living the true Christianity from the Bible.

There's going to be a little thread as we go through this, and the little thread is the letter C, because if you've been paying attention, you've already heard me use some words that begin with the letter C that pertain to our calling and our choice to follow God.

And they are life of change that we need to live. There's many things in our lives, as God calls us, that we need to understand. And when He calls us, just like He made known His truth to Adam and Eve, He gives us the choice. And every single person, either today or in the second resurrection, will have the choice. Do you follow God? Do you take Him the tree of life, or do you follow your own way? Do you take Him the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

We all know the story of Adam and Eve. They had that choice. They saw God, and He told them, take Him the tree of life. But then they allowed themselves to be deceived. They let themselves be led astray. And they took instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was their choice. God doesn't force us to choose any way. But for those of us that are sitting here today, He has given us a choice. One way that He opens up leads to everything good. We understand, if we follow that way, what true joy means. We understand what true peace means. We understand what it means to live a life that's full in a way that people who don't have God's calling know.

But if we choose the other way, we choose what the world experiences today. We choose a life that is futile. We choose a life where there's pain, broken marriages, broken homes, unhappy youth, unfulfilled dreams, unfulfilled lives, war, suffering, poverty. Everything evil, bad, or that we don't want in the world today comes as a result of rejecting God. And when Emu and Adam, Adam and Eve, rejected God, that's what they hoisted upon humanity. And we still live under the influence of the God of this world, Satan, who very much wants people to be apart from God, and very much enjoys the fact that people live miserable lives with no future.

But that's not the case for us. God calls us. He opens our minds. If we're here today, I hope that we have made the once and for all choice to follow God. And as we choose Him, because He tells us when He opens our minds, I've stepped before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing, choose life. But He doesn't make us choose that.

He lets us make that choice. I hope we've chosen that, and I hope that we're walking along that path. And then as we live the remaining decades of our life, or years of our life, whatever it is, there's three other letter C's that I want to talk about today that are important as we progress through this.

Let's turn over to John 16 and see the first of those C words. In John 16, we have Christ speaking to His disciples after that last Passover. And as He's speaking to them, He says many things to them that they may not have understood at that time. Later on, they were going to understand what He was talking about. One of the things He talks about to them is that it's good for Him to go away. And to them, that may have seemed like just a very strange thing for Him to say.

How could it possibly be good for Christ, who you're walking with, to go away? But He explains to them that when He does, there will be an advantage, another spirit that will or His spirit that will be with Him. Chapter 16 of John verse 7. He says, "...Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away. For if I don't go away, the Helper will not come to you." Now, in other parts of these, He also calls that Helper the Comforter. Let her see.

The Holy Spirit. But if I depart, I will send the Comforter, the Helper, the Holy Spirit to you. And when the Spirit has come, it will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because they don't believe in Me. Of righteousness, because they go to My Father and you see Me no more. Of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judge. When the Holy Spirit comes, it will convict the world of sin. And the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. You know, as we use the word convict in our everyday language today, if we convict the criminal, he's gone before a jury, he's gone before a judge, they've seen what he's done, and he's convicted.

The termination is he's guilty. Well, if he's convicted, he's guilty, right? Convict the world of sin. What does convict mean? What is God trying to convey here? What would Christ mean when He says it will convict the world of sin? Well, the word, the Greek word translated convict here is the lanko. E-L-E-N, I think there's a G in there someplace, C-H-O. What it literally means is to convince people, to convince someone of the truth, to reprove them, or to cross-examine a witness. Now, that's kind of a strange word it would seem for Christ to use here. It will convict the world of sin.

And in some places in the Bible, we might say, well, convince is the word that would be used here. But convince is just too easy of a word. It doesn't have the meaning. It doesn't have the weight. That convict and the Greek word is supposed to convey here. When God convicts the world of sin, when He convicts us, He's looking for much more than just to convince us His way is truth. Because, you know, I might be able to sit down with you, and I might be able to, from the Scriptures, prove to you and convince you that the Sabbath day is the seventh day of the week.

But that doesn't convict you at all. You might say, fine. Okay, I'll agree. The Sabbath day is the seventh day of the week, but I'm still not going to observe it. I still believe that the world and the churches of the world had the right to change the day to whatever they wanted to. When someone is convicted, it means there is no doubt left in their mind.

It is something that is so powerful, that hits you so much in the face, that you cannot ignore it, and you know it at a level that you just know it. You know, when I think of the word convict, we, in other parts of our lives or other areas, we may be convicted of something that we, in some cases, just may hope that it isn't true.

And I remember years ago with one of my clients, I had a nurse that worked for me, and I kept hearing things about her that she was undermining us with administration a little bit. But she was a nice person. She did the good job, and I thought, no, she's not doing that. That's just someone making, you know, some comments about that. And I kind of just buried my head.

But things then began to come to me, but there was absolutely no way I could ignore it. The fact is, that's exactly what she was doing. She was there, and she was doing everything she could to, well, whatever, to upset our time with them. And when I was convicted of that, I knew I had to do something about it. I no longer could ignore it. I could no longer just rush it off as that.

I could just hear her say, I've got more things to do. That was an important thing to do. I couldn't ignore it. But at that time, in that case, it was too late. When God convicts us, when He calls us, when we study His Bible, when we know that we know the truth, we're convicted. One Bible dictionary says that the essence of this word, a lanko, is that it lays the heavy weight on our minds and our hearts, something that we just absolutely know to be true, that we can't ignore it, we can't just shove it aside, we may choose to ignore it, but we simply cannot just, the rest of our lives, we will know what we know, and that heavy weight will be a yoke on our neck, or else we will accept and follow God's way and have the freedom of living His life and experiencing what He wants us to experience.

To be convicted is an important part of our calling. You know, the Holy Spirit is one convicting agent. When God works with us and when His Holy Spirit is in us, when we read the pages of the Bible, we know it's the truth. You know, we look at it and we may early on think, oh, I wish that wasn't true, I wish that I could prove that this and this was something else, but we know. And we come to the point where we know it, we can't ignore it, and we do it. So the Holy Spirit is one convicting agent. Whether we choose to follow it or not, we know. And we know when we know, and when we know, we're accountable for what we know.

The other convicting agent is the Word of God. The only source of pure truth in the world today in our universe is the Bible sitting on your laps. Over in one chapter over in chapter 17 in verse 17, Jesus Christ says this about His disciples, you and me, the ones He's speaking to at that time as well. He says, sanctify them or set them apart by truth. Your Word is truth. When we read this Bible, when God opens our minds to understand it, it convicts us. We know all the pieces fit together. We understand more and more His plan. We know that He's alive. We know that He exists. We know that He's working out a plan. We know that He's involved in our lives because we can see the changes that are going on. We can see how we understand more and more. As we meditate on the things of God, as we heard in the sermonette, it kind of fills in the blanks, connects all the dots, and we begin to see God's plan and appreciate it.

So when we are convicted of God, we understand it. What does it feel like, though? What does it feel like? Let's go back and see a couple of men here who were convicted. They were called. They were chosen. They chose to follow God. But there's a point where we can see that they are really convicted, and they get it. They get it right down to their hearts, minds, and soul. Let's go back to Job. We all know the man Job is a tremendous example, and we learn some tremendous lessons from him.

And we know that he lived a good life. Even in the early chapters of Job—we're going to go to chapter 42—early chapters of Job, God says what a blameless man he is. He just obeyed God's law, and as Satan challenged God about him, God said he's a blameless man. But then he went through trials, or went through some trials. He had to learn some things about himself that were hidden in his life. And there came a time when he was convicted of who he was. Through the discourses with his friends, you see a Job who became very self-righteous, patted himself on the back for the things that he had done. But he began to see that it wasn't him who did it, it was God who did it, and it was him who had a problem that he had to come to acknowledge. Chapter 42 of Job, verse 2. I know, Job says, that you, God, can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, Job says, I've uttered what I didn't understand. Things too wonderful for me, which I didn't know. Listen, please, and let me speak. You said, I will question you, and you will answer me. And then Job says, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now, my eye sees you. I thought I knew before, but now I see you. Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. When he was convicted of the truth, when he understood at a level who he was and the sin that he was living, how it was contrary to God's way of life, Job abhorred himself.

He repented. When he was convicted, he took that step of repenting of this sin and then moving on to a life of change, letting God change him. When we're convicted, we yield totally to him. We see ourselves, our natural selves, in the same eyes that he sees, and we abhor what we see. And we see that our own natural selves can't possibly be part of the kingdom of God. It's God who has to change in his Holy Spirit that has to live in us, direct us, guide us, and we have to make the choice daily to yield to it and to follow him. But we're convicted, and we know that that's what we must do. Let's go over to John. We were in John before. Let's go back to John. John's clicked.

In this chapter, Christ is speaking to people who were with him the day before, and about 5,000 of them were there. When he dismissed them, they had no food, and with the five loaves and two fishes, or if it's reversed, he fed them all. So they came back to follow him the next day, and then he began talking about the bread of life. And he was comparing it to the bread that they ate in the manner that they knew well that their fathers were fed in the wilderness. And he said, here's the bread of life that's going to give you eternal life. And he talked about his flesh being that life. Words that were difficult for them to understand, things that went right over their head. They just didn't get it, what he was saying. Words that were hard to understand.

They wanted to follow Christ, perhaps because of the physical things that he could do, because of the healings and everything good that he did among them. But when he spoke these words, many of them left, as we find in verse 66 of John 6.

From that time, it says, many of his disciples went back, and they walked with him no more.

They just didn't get it. This was where the dividing point was. We don't understand these words. We're not going to follow you anymore. And Jesus said to the 12 who were with him, do you also want to go away? Do you also want to go away? What about these words I've said? Do you believe them, or do you also want to take the path that the rest of these people have taken? And Simon Peter answered and said to him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

You see, Peter and the disciples, they were convicted. They knew that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. They knew that he was sent. Now, Peter didn't say, hey, we understand all your words, we get it perfectly. He just said, where else are we going to go? There's only one source of truth.

We know, Jesus Christ, that you're the Messiah sent from heaven. We know that you have only man's best interest at heart. We know that it's your will and the will of the Father in heaven that all men will repent and be given eternal life. If we turn from you, Peter is saying, where will we go? We're convicted. We may not get what you're saying right now, but we trust you. We believe you. Where will we go? He says, you have the words of eternal life.

Do we believe that? Do we really believe that these words that God recorded for us, preserved for us, these are the words of eternal life?

Because if we're really convicted that these are the words of eternal life, that Jesus Christ came to earth, was born as the human, suffered an agonizing death so that our sins could be forgiven and was resurrected so we have the hope of eternal life, if we really believe that, then we would be convicted. And no matter what came our way, we wouldn't turn back.

We wouldn't let a rumor about something that someone did turn us away from the truth.

We wouldn't let some obstacle in our life turn us away from the truth. We wouldn't follow a strange voice. We would know exactly what the voice of Jesus Christ is, and we would follow Him. And we wouldn't be deceived, and we wouldn't be listening to the winds of doctrine or the winds of men's lips. We would follow Him. If we were convicted, we would follow Him, and we would know we may not get this right now. We may not understand the trial we're going through right now. We may not understand what's going on in our lives. We may not understand why that person did that, but we'll follow you. Where else will we go?

There's no other place for eternal life than to follow Jesus Christ.

And Peter says we've also come to believe. And as he says, believe, remember that when we read those words, believe, it means with all his heart, all his soul, and a belief demands action. Also, we have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

They knew. They may not have understood everything He said at that time, and you know, well, some of the places where Peter would say something that Christ would rebuke him for.

But He didn't let that upset Him. He didn't let that deter Him. He knew. He was convicted.

He understood what God had opened His mind to, and He wasn't going to let anything take that away from Him. Some people, unfortunately, have allowed God's blessings and God's gift of calling them, go by the wayside. Some that have even been, maybe, well, I'm going to say, convicted over the years and decided to go a different way because of this, that, or whatever reason. I know some of them. Some of them are relatives. And they can give the impression of being happy, but you see within them something missing, something missing. There's not the fire that was there before. A hole that's in their lives is filled by other things that may cause them problems. Because when you know the truth of God and when you turn away from it, I don't believe you can ever be the same again. And we learn when God calls. If we want peace and if we want the stability and if we want the establishment that comes from God, we learn to follow Him. And sometimes that's difficult for humans to do. We all well know the verse in Romans 8-7 that the natural mind isn't subject to the law of God. It's enmity against God. We can't be subject to His law. We can't be subject to that unless we yield to the Holy Spirit. Paul was one of those people who fought against Jesus Christ. Let's turn back over to Acts 9. In this chapter, Paul, who took delight in persecuting people who were Christians and who chose to live that way of life and believed that Jesus Christ was Messiah, he stopped on the road to Damascus. And Christ left no doubt in his mind who it was, who he was persecuting. And in verse 4, Christ says to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

It's hard for you to kick against the goads. It's hard for you to kick against the goads.

Well, Paul may have been doing just that. Perhaps what Christ was saying is, I've been knocking on the door, Paul, but you've been kicking against the goads. It's hard to kick against the goads.

That phrase refers back, according to the commentaries, to a Syrian proverb that talks about oxen. We don't live in a rural society today, so we hear about what oxen do, but we don't really have oxen. But oxen are used to pull the plows and everything through the fields.

There's something called the goad, kind of like a spur. If the ox just moves forward, this goad will just kind of ease him in that direction. If he goes that way, maybe there's a little bit of sensation, but there's not much sensation. If he just follows what the master of that ox is trying to get him to do, to move forward and complete the job. But if he reads this, if he arches his back, if he tries to move backwards and go in a different way, those goads dig into his ribs, and it hurts. It hurts. And so what Christ is telling Paul here is, if you will just follow me. Don't fight. Yield to me. It's hard for you to press against the ghost. It's painful. Life is painful. If any of us, every decide, we want to go back and do things the way society around us does it. We want to let go of our truth. Life will be hard. It will be empty. It will be futile.

And there will be a come, there's a day coming, when I feel for people who have made that choice over the years, when Christ says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when people realize what they left behind and the choice that they made. None of us. And I don't want any of you to be in that. Don't kick against the goads.

Follow Him. He's given you the blessing of His calling. He's given you the blessing of His Holy Spirit that convicts us and that makes us know, if we yield to it, that this is the absolute truth.

When you're convicted, we repent. We change. And we do what the second C is, we commit to Him.

We commit to Him.

Commitment is a tough thing for some people. Often we think about it in terms of marriage and we hear about the stories about the bachelor who has a hard time committing to someone. He's got commitment issues.

I hope none of us have commitment issues where it comes to God. Because when we're called, when we make the choice, when we're convicted and we know that this is the truth, the next step is to commit to Him. I won't turn to Luke 9, verse 62. You can mark it down in your notes. But Luke 9, 62 says, anyone having put his hand to the plow and looking back is not fit for the kingdom of God. When we do those things I talked about, all those C words, we commit. We follow God. We give our lives to Him and we allow Him to lead us from that time forward. Let's turn back to Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6 and verse 14.

Well, let's look at verse 13. You shall fear, Deuteronomy 6.13, the eternal your God and serve Him.

And then it says, and shall take oath in His name. But you shall fear the eternal your God and serve Him, one God when you commit to Him. Not one God of many, one God who is above all and the only God in our life. One God that we trust in, that we rely on, that we believe in, that we trust is leading us to His kingdom. One God. Verse 14. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you, for the eternal your God is a jealous God among you. He doesn't want to share His place in your life with any other gods, just Him. That's what commitment is. Just like when we commit to one wife or one husband for the rest of our lives, we commit to one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for the rest of our eternal lives.

In Matthew 22.

Matthew 22.

In verse 37. Jesus Christ. Who is the God of the Old Testament we know?

Who recorded those words that we just read in Deuteronomy 6, the many other places that He says the same things and gave us the law, the Ten Commandments, the way of life. It says this in verse 37. He said, He responding to the lawyer who asked the question, You shall love the eternal your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And then He recounts the second one as well, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two, hang all the law and the prophets. On these two commandments, hang all the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, prophets, and the prophecies as well. Commit to Him.

In the same book of Matthew, we have the story of the young rich man. It's in Matthew 19.

And you remember that story. The young man had heard of Jesus Christ and even believed that He had the key to eternal life. And he came to Christ and he said, Tell me, what must I do to receive eternal life? Do you remember what Christ answered? He first said, Keep the commandments.

And then he listed them. Live this way of life. Follow the way of life that defines what life will be for eternity. And the young man said, I've done all those things. I've lived that way from the time that I was young. And then Christ gave him the admonition that revealed to him and Christ, He wasn't yet committed to Him. He said, If you love me and you as a wealthy man, give away everything that you have. Take all your wealth, stellar all your belongings, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me. The young man thought about it instead of, I can't do that. I'm not ready to do that. I'm committed and I believe that I'm not ready to separate my wealth from me.

I'd say many of us, and I'll include myself, maybe in that same boat with the young rich man.

We haven't been told that yet in our lives. Sell all that you have. Let's see how committed you are to me, God might say. Give away everything you've got and just rely on me. Just trust in me.

Just depend on me. Just realize that everything, all your future, relies on me.

Give it all away and follow me.

How many of us could say in an instant, yes, I will? It's a tough one, isn't it?

How committed was the young rich man?

Well, commitment is developed over a lifetime. We learn little by little, year by year. It's one of the reasons God calls us and we spend the rest of our lifetimes following Him. Because as we do that, we become more convicted in His way, we understand more and more of His plan, and we become more and more committed to Him. So that as years go by and as He works with us and as He changes our minds, one day we can say, yes, I could give it all away. I am committed to you and I will follow you and I don't have any other gods or things that are so important to me that I would simply give it all up to you. It's one of the things that God is looking for us to do. Start a few chapters back in Matthew 16. And if you're not there today, you know, don't go from here and say, I give up. No, just understand that this is a guidepost along the way of what God is developing in us. Matthew 16, verse 24. To His disciples then, to His disciples today, Christ says, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. Give up the things that are pleasing to him. Give up his own ideas and ways. Replace them with Mine. Give up his will, replace it with My will over the course of your lifetime. If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. And take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life, the things that are important to him that say, wait, that's where I can't go. I can't yet give that up. God knows. He's developing. He's working with all of us. His Holy Spirit brings us to where He wants us to be. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life, who's willing to give it up, to commit totally to God, will find it. It's a tough one.

But we have some examples in the Bible of people who have done that.

The apostles, as you read their life, they left up, they left their professions, and they followed Him. And they trusted in Him. A notable woman in the Old Testament was called, convicted, and committed to God. Let's turn back and read about her back in the book of Ruth.

Ruth, of course, was a Moabite. She married into an Israelite family when they moved over to the land of Moab. She lived with her husband and his family. She began to understand and to know and to appreciate the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As she did that, she responded to that call. There was a time in her life that she had to make a choice. Now that she knew, would she choose to stay with the God she had come to know as the true God, or would she go back to her family and her life in Moab? Verse 15 of Ruth 1. Naomi, her mother-in-law, said, Look, Ruth, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Go ahead, return after your sister-in-law. Come on, your sister-in-law went back. Go back to your family. Go back to the way life was before you knew us. Just live that way. Orpah did it. Ruth, why wouldn't you do it too? But Ruth said, Ruth, who saw the truth, Ruth, who appreciated and came to know and love the true God, said, Entreat me, Naomi, not to leave you. Entreat me not to turn back from you and from following after you. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried, the eternal soul due to me, and more also, if anything but death, parts you and me. The same choice you and I made. She had her chance to go back to Moab, back to her family, back to her old way of life. She said, No way. What I've seen and what I know now, I am convicted. I absolutely know that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is the true God. His way of life is the way I will follow. I will stick with you, Naomi. I will stick with your family and your God will be my God. I will give up all my past life. I will give up everything because I'm going to follow God. She was called. She chose. She was convicted, and she committed with all her heart, soul, and mind. And she followed God the rest of her life, and he blessed her for it. From her came King David, a man after God's own heart. You can name off a number of other people who committed to God. Abraham, who, against the tradition of that day, was willing to move wherever God wanted him to move. And over the course of his lifetime, God continued to work with him and strengthen him to the point where God said, after years of waiting for his son, Isaac, he said, kill him. Sacrifice him to meet. And Abraham was so committed to God after a lifetime of walking with him, seeing him, hearing him, that he was willing to give it all up. He was so committed, he was willing to do even that. And God said, I know, Abraham, you won't withhold anything from me. You're that committed to me. You know, God doesn't do anything to us, but he doesn't do himself. He gave up his son because he was so committed to mankind and to his plan that he so wanted to see you and me have the opportunity of eternal life and what he had in store that he was willing to give up his son, that you and I might have that opportunity. Committed to his plan.

Well, the next theme we'll talk about comes as a result of being convicted and being committed to God. Let's go back to the book of Joshua and read the first few verses there and see what that word is. Another one of the words that will be part of our lives as we live as Christians. Joshua 1, verse 1. After the death of Moses, the servants of the eternal, it came to pass that God spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now therefore, arised, go over this Jordan, you and all his people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness in this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, all this shall be your territory. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and be of good courage.

There's your third C word for the day. Be strong and of good courage. For to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. First Evan, only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don't turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law will not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

Haven't I commanded you? Be strong and be of good courage. Don't be afraid. Don't be dismayed for the eternal your God is with you wherever you go.

Three times. Four if we want to count the do not be afraid comment. God says, be of good courage.

As you go on your journey through life toward the kingdom of God, be convicted, be committed, and from those things be courageous. We know the Holy Spirit gives us courage. It's the spirit of power in 2 Timothy 1 verse 7. It's not the spirit of timidity. It's not the spirit that holds back.

It's the spirit of courage that allows us to go through the things of life because certainly courage will be required sometime in our lives. There was courage required of the Israelites as they marched forward with a new leader in Joshua, someone they knew, but Moses had died. And now they were following Joshua, who was following God as he led them into the Promised Land. But they were going to face things that might have caused them to lack courage. When they came in and they saw Jericho in the fortified city and the walls around that, all they had to do was look at that and say, we've got to turn back. How can we conquer this city? They're far too numerous for us, and many times as you read about them, that's exactly what they did or wanted to do. But they had to be told, be of good courage. Know that God is with you. Know that he will follow you. Be convicted. Be committed. Know that you follow God and know that there is nothing impossible for him to do. Be of good courage. In Matthew 8, there's an incident on the spea. Christ worked with his apostles, a couple of them, where he taught them some big lessons. In Matthew 8 is one we don't talk about as much as we do about the one with Peter walking on the water. But let's turn back to Matthew 8. Matthew 8 in verse 23.

Verse 23, when Christ got into a boat, his disciples followed him.

And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea so that the boat was covered with the waves. But Christ was asleep. The disciples weren't asleep. All they could see was mortality. Here's these waves that are coming up that are about to overtake us. The boat can capsize. We can drown. But Christ was asleep. Those waves weren't bothering him.

Then his disciples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us. We're perishing.

But Christ said to them, Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?

And then he rebuked the sea, and everything was calm. And they marveled, Who is this that can even command the wind to stand still? And it did.

Why are you fearful, he said? Don't you know, he might have been saying to them, that I'm with you. There's nothing that can overtake you if I'm with you. He was asleep.

He was at perfect peace during that storm. And as we go through our lives, waves can come up against us. Waves of financial stress. Waves of health stress. Waves of relationship stress. Waves of doubt where we, instead of following Christ, pay more attention to what people are doing or saying than what he is doing or saying and where his will is. All those waves that can come up against us, and that could cause us to fear and say, what do we do? Do we turn back? Do we look back at the world behind us? Do we look at society? How do we save ourselves? We don't save ourselves. Christ saves us.

He's the one who calms the winds. He's the one who has all that at his command.

Look to him. As God has the little waves come up in our life, he teaches us. Trust in me.

Look to me. I can calm those storms. And as we pass that test, maybe little larger waves come our way. And we learn whatever comes our way, have courage. Face it. But don't have courage in ourselves. Don't have courage in the things of society. Let that courage be based on the only one who is worthy to have it based in, and that is Jesus Christ, who is our Savior and who is the King that is going to come and establish his kingdom on earth. That's where courage needs to be faced.

And our life is going to require courage. If you look ahead in the prophecies of the Bible, you see things there that are going to take some courage on our part.

If they happen today, God knows many of us wouldn't be ready. But over the course of our lifetimes, he builds that courage. He builds that trust in him. We do the things that we'll see in a minute, that build that courage. But sometimes they start off small. But, you know, living God's way of life does take some courage. It takes courage when you first know the truth and you go to your family and say, we're not keeping those holidays anymore. That's not the way we honor God.

God doesn't want to be honored by the traditions and practices that people do to their other gods. He wants to be honored the way he says in the Bible, and that's what we're doing from now on.

You may not know what the reaction of your family is going to be. It takes a little bit of courage. But if you're convicted, and if you're committed, you'll do it, it can take some courage to go to your boss and say, I won't work on that Sabbath day anymore.

I won't work on that holy day anymore. Those are times set aside by God, and those holy times I will not work on it. And here we're looking at someone who has the power of our paycheck in their hands. But if we're convicted, and if we're committed, we'll trust God. We'll do it.

Any number of things in your life that you can look at and say takes a little bit of courage to do that. But as we cross each wave, each tempest, each wind, we stand more and more courageous as we are convicted and committed to God.

As you look through the book of Acts, or read through it, you see the apostles facing some things in a way that they couldn't have faced back at the time that Jesus Christ was on earth, or at least their history and the way they handled some things weren't. Let's look at Acts 4 for a moment. Just prior to this, the day of Pentecost had come, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church at that time. And Peter and John went out, and they began to speak boldly in the name of Jesus Christ. And what they were saying didn't go over so well with everyone. Let's look in verse 13. Because the men and the officers that put Jesus Christ to death really did want that message to be stopped on earth. And when they looked around and they saw verse 13, the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. They were impressed. Well, these people didn't go through our colleges. They didn't go through our seminaries. How could they talk this way? But then they realized that they had been with Jesus. A message that they didn't want to hear. Down in verse 18.

So they knew these people had the power and life and death after them, and they were called before them. They commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John looked at them and said, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And they further threatened them. But they didn't let those threats stop them. They continued to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God that Jesus Christ spoke. Back in Acts 16, we have the apostle Paul and Silas. And as they go about, and as they're preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, there are people that are upset with them as well.

Here in chapter 16, Paul has just called out the demon of a girl and freed her from that. But apparently the merchants of that city were making some money off of her because of what she said and the idols that they were manufacturing. And with the departure of that demon, they saw their livelihood disappearing. So in Acts 16, verse 19, says, when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas.

They dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates and said, these men, being Jews, expediently trouble our city. They teach customs, which are not lawful for us being Romans, to receive or observe. Here they are, dragged in front of a whole crowd. And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. Something you or I don't even know what that is, but here they are just going about their business. He just calls out a demon.

And all of a sudden they have a crowd of people around them saying, we don't want to hear what they had to offer. We don't like that message. Did it take courage for Paul and Silas to stand there? Did it take courage for Paul and Silas to keep doing what they were doing? The multitude rose up together. Verse 23, when they laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. And the guard did that. What did Paul and Silas do?

They shrink back and say, wow, I never counted on that happening. Maybe we better tailor our message.

Maybe we better back off a little bit on this. Maybe we better just go underground for a while, because this isn't what we bargained for. No. As you read through the ensuing verses here, you see, they didn't shrink back. Instead, what they did when they got into prison is they sung hymns. They praised God. They worshipped Him. And He miraculously delivered them.

They didn't back off at all. We live in a land that's free. We are guaranteed freedom of religion. Today, we can worship God the way that we want. But as you watch things in society, as you watch things in government, as you see the progression of things in the world, you see on the horizon governments that are far different than the governments that you and I have lived under all of our lives. You see the direction the world is going there. It's a blip on the horizon now, but it's steadily coming toward us. And there will be a time when there will be men who tell us, we don't want that message preached. We don't want you living that way. You don't keep that Sabbath day. That's of another time that's gone by. You keep this Sabbath day. What will we do?

What will we do? Over in Acts 28, Paul, who finds himself for years in captivity to the Romans here, and he's being moved to Rome. And here in chapter 28, he comes before Jews to talk about what has happened to him. And they really don't care for what Paul has been speaking of either. Verse 21 of chapter 28. They said to him, we haven't received letters from Judea concerning you. We haven't hit nor of any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you.

But we desire to hear from you what you think. For concerning this sect, Paul, considering this group that you belong to, Paul, that's preaching something different than what the Jews want, different than what the Romans preached, concerning this fact, we know that it is spoken against everywhere. Everywhere. Few people were embracing it.

Jesus Christ said, if they hated me, they'll hate you.

None of us have done the good that Jesus Christ did. He walked among them. He healed the sick. He preached. He provided. He did nothing but good to those people all the day of their lives. They hated the message that he gave. And all they wanted was him dead. And he said, if they hated me, they'll hate you. Part of our Christian walk will be to let God develop in us.

The courage that we must have to see us through to the end time. We have to be convicted. We have to be committed. And if we are out of that, we'll grow. We'll grow courage. Let's go back to Joshua 1 for just a few minutes here. Because three times in that chapter, God tells Joshua, be courageous, be of good courage. And when God takes the time to say something three or two or three or four times, it's always worthwhile to go back and see the context in which he's talking about it. And we can learn something about what it takes to develop this courage. Let's look at the first time he mentions it here in verse 6 of Joshua 1. Be strong, he says, and of good courage.

Be strong, he says, and of good courage. For to this people you will divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. The verse was leading up to verse 6. He talks about the land he was leading them to, the promises that he made them. If they believed those promises, if they were committed to God, they would have the courage to stand against all those mighty city-states and nations they were going to come in contact with. If they believed the promises, God's made us promises too. His desire is that we have eternal life. His desire is that we are in his kingdom. But before that kingdom arrives, there will be some trying times.

If we believe with all our heart, mind, and soul, if we're convicted and if we're committed, God's Holy Spirit will give us the courage to keep our eyes focused on what's ahead and not the here and now and certainly not what is behind.

In verse 7, he says, only be strong and very courageous. And then he goes on to say something different. Be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don't turn from it to the right. Don't turn to it from the left that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law will not depart from your mouth, meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

Live by that law of truth. Understand and live by that convicting agent that is the word of God, using the convicting agents of the Holy Spirit to lead you, guide you, and give you deeper understanding. When you're convicted, when you're committed, read, devour, eat the bread that leads to eternal life. That will give you the courage to stand through whatever is coming.

You have to be convicted, you have to be committed, and then God will give you the courage.

Verse 9, heaven I commanded you, God says, be strong and of good courage. Don't be afraid. Don't be dismayed for the eternal your God is with you wherever you go. Whatever wave is coming up against your boat, He's there. He's well aware of our health trials. He's well aware of our financial trials. He's well aware of our relationship trials. He has all the answers to heal all of those. What will we learn? What will we yield to? What will we give to Him? Will we commit? Will we be convicted? Will we trust Him and do it His way? Or will we hang on to doing things our way and continue to see the futility and the uselessness of a life that's lived apart from Him? Through it all, He's there. Jesus Christ said, I will never leave you. I will never depart from you. Do we believe that? When we're standing there in the magistrates, you're looking us in the face and say, if you keep the Sabbath day again, or if you won't work on it, I'm taking your head off. Do you believe Jesus Christ is there? Will you have the courage to say, I will not bow down to you. I will bow down only to Jesus Christ and God the Father. The courage that's developed through this lifetime as we do the things that God leads us to, the trials and the little ways that come now, and trust in Him and yield to Him. Conviction, commitment, and courage.

When we're called, when we choose.

God will lead us on a life, and those will be elements of it. Let's conclude in Philippians 3.

Philippians 3, 13.

Paul, who lived his life that way, says, brethren, verse 13, I don't count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Let's do all those things, keep our eyes focused, and press forward toward God's kingdom.