Finding Courage in Christ's Forgiveness

Transcript

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Walking with boldness and courage with God is what we're covering today, about how we can incorporate more zest, more ambition into our walk and notion, but one that most of us strive to attain Because, let's face it, life is hard, it's challenging, it can be sad, frightening.

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And how do we continue to walk with our heads up high and having the ultimate courage to act boldly and ambitiously in God?

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Hi, jimmy James Johnson, here another episode of Guilt-Free Faith, where we of little faith gather to discuss our doubts and differences and how to improve our walk with God.

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We'll start out with a more conventional view from my mentor and then we'll move on to the Jimmy James Johnson uncensored commentary, and I believe that between these two messages you will find some insight, some peace that other people do understand where you're at and are going through what you're going through.

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And this is an opportunity to really be very candid about what the Christian walk is like and the difficulties of it, and really just create this safe space where we can remove the judgment and talk about things that are bothering us.

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Realistically, having boldness in Christ is no trivial matter is no trivial matter For one thing every day, with all of its challenges, requires a sense of strength, a sense of ambition, a sense of optimism and all of these are offspring of boldness and courage in Christ.

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But it's much easier said than done when we're at church or with other believers.

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Frequently it's the party line to put on a certain face of courage, to insist that you're just trusting God, you're just giving it over to the Lord and everything's great.

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And I may not understand now, but I understand in God's time, and God's time's not our time.

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And we could go on and on with all of like the right verses to say right, with all of the right verses to say right.

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But for many of us, particularly in a time of need, that's just not that helpful.

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The emotions of being terrified and looking around you and seeing circumstances of despair and dismay, that's not something you can just wipe away with a happy thought.

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So first let's talk a little bit about what the Bible says and what the conventional treatment is on that, and then I'll come in and give you some space to breathe by just being honest about how just nuts and how challenging, just how forbidding and how we don't have that type of courage every day.

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And, as we talked about in the last video here, sometimes we have to just put one foot in front of the other.

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But let's see what the Word says.

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Ephesians 3, 11 and 12 says "this was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus, our Lord", in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him.

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Wow, okay, be confident, but let your confidence be rooted in God.

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We are what we are due to his grace and his mercy.

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Confidence breeds confidence.

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You don't have to keep telling people over and over again that you are nothing without God, but keep repeating that regularly to God, regularly to God.

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With God's influence covering us, we can all learn to take a risk much more often than we usually do, as our boldness increases gradually and progressively under the nurture of God and His Word and direction.

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Acts 9.27 says but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how, on the road, he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how, at Damascus, he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

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He had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

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So we know that quite literally, the word bold or boldly is used numerous times in the Bible.

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Let me start out by saying something pretty controversial.

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The Bible is aspirational and Christ is an aspirational figure.

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And what do I mean by that?

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I mean that we are never going to reach the state of perfection that the Bible calls for.

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We will never reach the level of perfection that Christ embodies in the Word.

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There's only one way that we can take on the characteristics of that type of sinless, guiltless perfection.

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I had heard somebody phrase this as walking on a technicality.

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So we all know in criminal law that sometimes someone will be arrested in charge and would be otherwise convicted.

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But they're quote left off for a technicality.

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And I'm not minimizing that, because we need those rights and those various protections and considerations to live in a free society and to aspire to some degree of fairness.

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When I say the Bible is aspirational, when I say Christ's example is aspirational, I mean that's something that we're striving to attain right.

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It's something that we recognize as superlative, wonderful, worthwhile, dedicating our lives to, as laid out in the Bible, as a way to take hold of and activate the power that comes through the Holy Spirit working through us.

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Only because of the Holy Spirit's power working through us do we ever reach any of those heights.

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So the blessings we have, the powers, the gifts.

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As Christians we believe, those are given to us by God, and what I'd like to tack on to that similarly is the most important thing to keep in mind.

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The biggest technicality in the Bible, in the New Testament specifically, is that Christ's finished work on the cross is what has redeemed us.

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And now, when our Heavenly Father looks at us, he sees Christ.

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Our Heavenly Father looks at us, he sees Christ.

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So that perfect example of selflessness, of obedience, of forgiveness, of generosity and compassion.

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We become that when we put our trust in Christ's death and resurrection.

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And so that's what I mean by aspirational.

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And the reason why that's so important is because that's supposed to be something that puts us at rest.

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Right, that's not something that is supposed to inspire us or encourage us to work harder at it.

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That's the whole point is that it's Christ's work and it's a finished work.

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That means it covers everything past, present and future so we can just, oh just let that weight off of us.

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And how does that relate to boldness?

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How does that relate to courage?

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Well, it's hard to be very bold and courageous, walking in God, walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, if we don't understand that.

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It's not us, it's not our brokenness, our desperation, our base character that enables us to walk with a sense of confidence, to walk the tightrope of life, accepting that wow, for a reason that is a bit mysterious.

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And let's face it Christianity, religion, this whole life we're in is mysterious and I'll be the first to tell you I don't have the answers.

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I'm the consummate the more I learn, the less I know person.

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And whether that's religion, that's the bible, that's anything, career, health, finances, there's too much to know and it's all a mystery.

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And if we can embrace the mysterious aspect of life, we can enjoy it.

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Life becomes much more of an adventure when we recognize how overwhelmingly complex whatever this arrangement is.

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That, I would argue, is quite an intellectual and emotional challenge to consider a story of somebody that lived so long ago and who took on the sins and the wages of sin, which is death, so that we would be free, and that today, no matter what we did, no matter how we messed up, we still walk with that same mantle of courage, that same swag, that same sense of certainty.

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Why?

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Because it's not on us, it's on Christ.

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Christ was the perfect lamb who was sacrificed for all of our sakes.

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There's nothing we can do to exceed that.

Finding Courage in Christ's Forgiveness

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