The Need for Christian Courage and Conviction (2 Cor. 4:13-15)

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I have made it my practice to not allow the news to drive what I preach.  And I think that is absolutely the right thing to do, generally.  But there are times that are genuine exceptions to this, and what happened this past Wednesday is one of those exceptions.  I’m talking of course about the assassination and murder of Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus.  

To be honest, I haven’t really followed his career closely though I have come across and watched a few short videos here and there over the years.  But I’m not a political junkie and Kirk was known a lot for his political activism.  So I can’t say I’m an expert about everything he believed or even that I know everything he stood for.  

But he was not just a political activist. He was also a sincere and devout Christian.  According to Dr. Albert Mohler, the first time he met Kirk was at a conference and Kirk at the time was not a Christian at all, and didn’t even like the idea of Christian conservatism.  He was more of an Ayn Rand libertarian.  But somewhere along the line there was a conversion to Christ, and from that point on he was a vocal and very effective witness in all that he did for the gospel of the Lord Jesus.  I’m not saying that he was primarily an evangelist, but he was evangelistic in all that he said and did.  For that, I am deeply grateful.

What stands out to me the most about Charlie was not his politics per se but his boldness to speak the truth.  Not too long ago, I watched a video of him debating at the University of Cambridge.  It was like Daniel in the lions’ den: there was not a sympathetic soul in the room.  But he held his own – and unlike his opponents, he did so with seriousness for the truth and with respect for his adversaries.  It was a sight to see.

And so, when I learned that Charlie Kirk had died, I knew this was something I at least needed to talk to my kids about.  So we gathered in our living room Wednesday evening and what I told them was that I wanted them to be like Charlie Kirk in the sense that I wanted them to be men and women who are willing to boldly stand with courage of their convictions.  And even be willing to die for them.  

This is what I want to talk to you about this morning.  Dr. Mohler helpfully reminds us that assassination is murder with a political message.  And I don’t doubt that the message the assassin was trying to send is that it is dangerous to stand for what Kirk stood for and to speak publicly for it.  It is an act of terrorism, for it is meant to silence those who stand for the kind of social and Christian conservatism that Kirk did.  Now again, I’m not up here to advocate for every position that Charlie Kirk stood for.  But the pressing need that I see arising from this is that, especially as Christians, we need to do the opposite thing that gunman wanted.  We need to not retreat in silence but to boldly confront the lies that are swirling about in our culture with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We need Christian courage and conviction in an age of moral chaos and confusion.

To help us think through this, I want to turn to Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 13-15.  In this text, we see Paul’s courage and conviction: “we . . . believe, and therefore speak.”  We’ve noted in the past that this chapter begins and ends with the words, “For which cause we do not faint,” or “lose heart.”  There were pressures upon Paul to lose heart and to give up the ministry.  But in the face of it all, Paul nevertheless says, “we believe and therefore speak.”  He spoke, regardless of the danger, regardless of the difficulty, regardless of trials and pressures mounting upon him.  He spoke the truth, even though the pagan world did not want to hear it.  He spoke it, even though many were offended by it.  He spoke it, even though his Jewish brethren found it to be a stumbling block.  Here, I say, we see the courage of the apostle Paul.

We too need to be courageous, and can learn a lesson or two from him.  Many of the old philosophers used to say that courage was the supreme virtue, because it secured the rest of the virtues.  Well, I’m not prepared to say it is the supreme virtue – I would give that place to Biblical love – but it is very important and very needed.  And so I want to think with you about this vital topic, and for you to see four things this text tells us about Christian courage and conviction.  

When Christian Courage is needed

This text tells us that Christian courage is needed in the context of hostile opposition and overwhelming pressure.  In the previous verses Paul had said, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you” (8-12).  Paul’s life was not a wonderful life, at least not from a worldly point of view.  He says here that there were troubles on every side.  In chapter 11 he will tell us that he was constantly surrounded with danger: “In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren” (11:26).  He was beaten, imprisoned, and betrayed.  Eventually, he was arrested and sent to Rome where he was beheaded.  

At the end of his ministry, when he was languishing in prison awaiting the execution of his sentence, Paul tells Timothy that “[a]t my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge” (2 Tim. 4:16).  You can almost hear the hurt in Paul’s voice there.  Here was a man mightily used of God and yet when you would think that Christians everywhere would rally around him during his imprisonment, they forsook him.  He stood alone.  And yet he was courageous, even then. He stood, even though he stood alone.

But Paul didn’t just undergo difficulty without feeling it.  I think we can forget that.  Have you ever wondered why in Rom. 1:16, Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”?  Why did he put it like that?  Why didn’t he say, instead, something like, “I am supremely confident in the power  of the gospel”?  I think he put it the way he did because he understood what it meant to be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel.  You see it in Acts when Paul was in Corinth, and there was this tremendous opposition.  We read that, “the Lord [spoke] to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:9-10).  I think the Lord had to come to Paul because things were so dangerous for him there, things were so difficult and the opposition so great, that he must have thought about giving up.  He must have been afraid, otherwise the Lord wouldn’t have told him to not be afraid.  Paul knew what it was like to be afraid.  He knew what it mean to be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel.

And yet he went on, as the record of his ministry testifies.  He never gave up.  He was able to say to Timothy at the end of his life, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).  And here is a man that we can learn from.  He faced enormous opposition.  He felt the temptation to give it all up.  And yet he was courageous and faithful to the end.  Certainly, we want to be like that.

This is what I mean by courage in the context of opposition and difficulty.  This is very relevant for us today because whereas in the past a Christian was seen by non-believers as primarily wrong and stupid, today there is a growing number of folks who really think that Christianity is not only wrong but immoral and wicked.  They think it hurts people.  And if you get enough people in a society who think that, they are not going to leave Christians alone.  Charlie Kirk found that out.  You not only become a fool, you become a target.

And the question facing all of us is, will we have the courage of our convictions when things get hard?  Will we, as Paul put it to the Corinthians, “Quit you like men” – meaning of course not to give up, but to act like men!  Are we willing to live for Christ in such a way that we would be willing to die for him?  Can we say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”?  Have we counted the cost of discipleship, as our Lord told us to do?

By the way, it’s not just religious persecution that requires courage and conviction.  Life can get hard, even apart from that, and the hardness can wear on our faith.  We can wonder if it’s worth it to keep following Jesus.  I’ve known of people whose faith wilts and then unravels in the face of physical sickness or tragedy.  Can we endure that with the courage of faith?  That’s just as relevant a question as the question of courage in the face of persecution.

It's not the green pastures and still waters that require great faith and courage.  It’s the valley of the shadow of death and the places where we are surrounded by our enemies.  It’s not when the enemy is retreating before us but when the enemy surrounds us and cuts us off.  Will we be courageous then?

Of all the things that have been impressed upon my mind in the last few days, I think this is the thing that has struck me the most.  Charlie Kirk was courageous.  Say what you will about this or that position of his, the truth is that he was courageous.  But he was not just courageous – he was a courageous Christian and that came through almost everything he did and said.  That’s a great example for all of us.

How Christian Courage is displayed

But if we see when Christian courage is needed, we also need to see how it is shown.  And Paul shows us that here as well.  For Paul, and for us, it means speaking the truth in love: “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written [quoting Ps. 116:10], I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak” (13).

Above all, it means speaking the truth about the Lord Jesus.  Our culture has trained us to think that talking about somethings are off limits.  And one of those things is talking about Jesus and the gospel.  We’ve probably all been told at some point that it’s impolite to talk about religion or politics.  But of course that doesn’t really make sense, does it?  Religion and politics are actually two of the most important things we can talk about!  So why wouldn’t we talk about them?

Well, we don’t because we don’t want to be offensive.  And, yes, we don’t want to be needlessly offensive.  We don’t want to be jerks.  We want to speak truth wisely and winsomely.  We want to speak the truth in love.  We want to love even our enemies and show it with our words and our works.  But the fact of the matter is that if you’re going to follow Jesus as Lord, you are going to be offensive at times to those who hate the truth.  It is not a virtue to be inoffensive all the time.  Not all men have faith, and many do love what God hates, and if you speak to them about it, even if you are the most gentle and patient person on the planet, they are not going to like you for it.  

You can’t be like Jesus if you never offend anyone.  One time, after Jesus just got through rebuking the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and exaltation of human tradition over the word of God, his disciples came to him and said, “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?” (Mt. 15:12).  How did our Lord respond?  He said, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (13-14).  He is reminding them (and us) that some people are just blind.  It’s not your fault if they can’t see the truth.  It’s not your fault that they are offended.  Don’t let their rejection of the truth get under your skin.  Move on, and let them alone.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, some of whom were considering a different gospel, “And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased” (Gal. 5:11).  One of the things that this verse shows us is that Paul could have chosen a path that minimized persecution.  He could have preached Jesus is an inoffensive way.  But to do that would have gutted the heart out of the gospel.  Paul was not willing to do that, and neither should we.  We need to be willing to boldly tell others about Jesus in love, yes, but without compromise.  We need to preach, as Spurgeon put it, “the angles and the corners of it” with boldness and conviction.

We need to remember that Jesus Christ is not a tribal deity.  He is the Lord of every person on the planet.  He is the Lord of the Republican and the Democrat.  He is the Lord of the conservative and the progressive.  He is the Lord of the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, the good and the bad.  Everyone owes him their allegiance.  One day, every knee will bow to him.  And it is our duty not only to live so that that is a reality in our own lives, but also to entreat others to embrace his sovereignty over them, to repent of their sins and believe on Jesus as Savior and Lord.  And we need to say that, and we need to be willing to share that, not just in church but with our friends and our neighbors.

Now some of you might think, “Yes, but that’s a job for the preacher, not for me.”  It is a job for the preachers.  But it’s a job for you too.  Listen to how the apostle Peter puts it – and this is not just for pastors but for every believer: “But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ” (1 Pet. 3:14-16).  So you see that Peter says this in a context of persecution.  But this is the very point at which witness is most needed, and when we need to be ready to give an answer to those who ask us about the hope that is in us.  Can you do that?

Or consider Paul’s words to the Colossians: “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Col. 4:2-6).  Again, I think the context is important here.  Paul was asking for prayer concerning his ministry.  But this seems to naturally lead him to exhort them to take every opportunity to speak the truth to “every man.”  Do we do that?  My prayer is that I will get better at this, and that you will to.  May the Lord give us courage and boldness to share the gospel with hope and joy and conviction.

This is what the early church prayed for – again, in a context of persecution: “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word” (Acts 4:29).  And God answered their prayer: “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” (31).  Oh that God would do the same thing to us and through us!

Brothers and sisters, let us be willing to speak the truth boldly and lovingly.  My hope is that Kirk’s death, instead of making people afraid to speak the truth, will embolden more people to do it, as happened in the case of the apostle Paul, when he was imprisoned: “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear” (Phil. 1:12-14).  

Where Christian Courage comes from

But this courage doesn’t just come out of nowhere.  It has to be grounded in something.  A hurricane of opposition will demolish the shanties of unrooted belief.  So let us turn back to the apostle.  We ask, “Paul, how was it that you were able to carry on such convictional ministry, and to speak the truth against the winds of such opposition?”  And here his answer, in verse 14: “Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.”  I think there are at least three things explicit or implicit in these words.

First of all, Paul’s courage was rooted in the knowledge of the past resurrection of Jesus Christ: “he which raised up the Lord Jesus.”  Sometimes, you will hear theologically liberal preachers say that we can keep the stories of the Bible without believing they really happened.  What they want to do with the stories is to use them as symbols for some kind of moral virtue.  But the thing is, these stories won’t work if you really don’t believe that they happened.  Unless Jesus really rose from the dead, the story of his resurrection is just another fiction.  But if he did rise from the dead, everything changes. 

This is what the apostle Paul himself believed.  Writing to the Corinthians, he said, “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:12-20).  In fact, listen to the way he ends this chapter: “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (57-58).

That word, “unmoveable,” struck me the other day.  Paul is saying that if you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it will make you unmoveable in the work of the Lord.  It will make you a man or a woman of true courage.  Why so?  Because of the next thing Paul says: “shall raise up us also by Jesus.”  Jesus didn’t just die for himself or rise for himself.  This is one of the things Paul has been talking about in Romans 6-7, isn’t it?  The believer in Christ is united to Christ in his death and resurrection.  

This is something that nothing on this planet can change.  No one was able to stop the Lord Jesus from rising from the dead.  And on one can stop the Lord Jesus from raising those who belong to him.  Which means that if we are going to be people of courage, we need to be people who look beyond the horizons of this life.  We need to be people who live in light of eternity.  We need to remember that we are all going to die, unless the Lord comes back before we die.  But not everyone is going to rise in life.  Not everyone is going to enter glory.  But those who belong to Jesus will.  “Therefore be immoveable!”

And then Paul says, “and [the Lord] shall present us with you.”  What will that be like?  The apostle is talking about the time “when he [Jesus] shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day” (2 Thess. 1:10).  He’s talking about future glory.  He’s talking about what Jude prayed for: “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).  My friends, as the song puts it, it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.

We need to remember this.  We need to remember the answer the Shorter Catechism gives to the question, “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?”  The answer is a wonderful summary of glorious, courage-inspiring, hope-giving Biblical truth: “The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection.”  Let that put iron in your blood, believer.

But you know what?  Not only will the righteous be blessed, but the wicked will be also judged, and justly so.  We need also to remember what the apostle Paul said: “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12:17-19).  That’s a fearful reality for those who will not repent of their rebellion against God.  Sodom will burn.  Babylon will fall.  The wicked will be punished.  Justice will be done.  We need not worry about that, not even for a moment.  And that is one reason why we need not take justice into our own hands.  Why we do not need to let even righteous anger turn into unrighteous hatred.  Instead: “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (20-21).

What Christian Courage is motivated by

What are we courageous for?  What are we trying to accomplish with such courage?  For the Christian, it is motivated by two things, two things that transcend every other particular political or national cause.  Paul talks about them in verse 15: “For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.”  

When Paul spoke, he spoke boldly and courageously.  Why?  For what purpose?  We see the answer in the word “for” at the beginning of verse 15.  The first thing Paul mentions is that “all things are for your sakes.”  In other words, Paul did what he did out of love to people.  He didn’t do it to platform himself.  His ministry wasn’t about self-promotion or self-aggrandizement.  He did it because he wanted to bless and help others.

Of course, it was all about them being helped by the gospel.  Go back to verse 7, where Paul describes himself as an earthen vessel that contained a treasure.  What was that treasure?  It was the gospel (see verses 3-6).  And when the apostle talks about “the abundant grace of God through the thanksgiving of many,” he is talking about how the gospel works.  When the gospel is preached in the power and grace of God, people are converted and converted people respond in joy and thanksgiving to God (cf. Acts 11:21-23).  When the Samaritans received the word preached by Philip, “there was great joy in that city” (8:8).  This is what motivated Paul.  He longed to see others blessed as he was.  He wasn’t ok with keeping it all to himself.  He knew that idolatry and a life apart from God is a recipe for hopelessness.  And so to love others, he boldly proclaimed the gospel to them.

Brothers and sisters, weak people don’t help others.  They don’t shoulder burdens.  They don’t stand in the gap.  They don’t serve.  They run and hide and cower in the dark.  We need to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might (Eph. 6:10) so that we can be instruments of the grace of God to others, like Paul.  Those who love the most are going to be willing to endure the most for the sake of others.  The more we love others, the more we are going to be willing to courageous serve them.

And then, standing over everything, is the ultimate priority: “to the glory of God.”  Soli Deo gloria!  Why was Paul willing to endure all that he did?  Especially when time and again, even his friends abandoned him?  Paul talks about “false brethren” (2 Cor. 11:26).  He told Timothy at the end, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10).  If we do what we do because we like the recognition that people give us, that’s not going to be sustainable in the long term, especially since people can be so fickle.

What is sustainable is the very thing for which everything exists.  The universe exists for the glory of God.  You and I exist for the glory of God.  “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).  God is not fickle.  His purposes are not changeable.  He will bring about his glory. 

And the fact of the matter is that we will be to his glory one way or the other.  We will either glorify God like Pharaoh did whose hardness of heart became the catalyst for the demonstration of the glory of God’s power and justice.  Or we will glorify God like Moses did, whose faithfulness became the catalyst for the demonstration of the glory of God’s grace and mercy.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be like Moses!  In some ways, you can say that Pharaoh was brave.  “Who is the Lord,” he said, “that I should obey him?”  There’s a lot of that kind of bravado going around today in this country.  No, my friends, let’s be brave and courageous like Moses, who trusted in the Lord and obeyed him and saw God’s glory manifested through his weakness for the good of the people of God.  

Brethren, there is a need for Christian courage and conviction in the time of moral chaos and confusion.  And we need to be those men and women who are courageous for Christ.  We need to, as the hymn put it, dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone.  But the fact of the matter is that, even if we are alone in terms of men, we are never alone.  Listen to the way the apostle Paul put it to Timothy, after lamenting being abandoned by other believers: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim. 4:17-18).

Follow Jesus.  Take up your cross and follow him.  Do it today.  Don’t put it off.  There is no cause more worthy than this.  Nothing with a greater reward than this.  Be courageous, not for a world that is passing away, but for the kingdom of God that will never pass away.