- Written by: Rich Lusk
- Category: Men & Women
Some questions spurred by recent cultural events:
- Written by: Rich Lusk
- Category: Quotes
“Courage is not a particular virtue, but rather all of the virtues when tested. It stands to reason that cowardice, then, is not simply one vice, but rather a failure of all of the virtues when put to the test.” – C. S. Lewis (paraphrased)
“Men do not follow titles, they follow courage.” – William Wallace
"Your fingers would remember their strength better if they grasped your sword." -- Gandalf
“Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.” - Winston Churchill
"There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers." -- G K Chesterton
“A scared world needs a fearless church.” -- A.W. Tozer
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. A man must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water, yet drink death like wine.” – G. K. Chesterton
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." – Anias Nin
"Since it is so likely our children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard stories of brave knights and heroic courage." – C. S. Lewis
"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." -- Unknown
"If only we had stood together against the common threat, we could easily have defeated it. So, why didn’t we? We didn’t love freedom enough. We hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward....A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our day….Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?" -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or gAneral. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill....If only we had stood together against the common threat, we could easily have defeated it. So, why didn’t we? We didn’t love freedom enough. We hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward." -- Alexander Solzhentisyn
"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened." – Billy Graham
“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” -- John Wayne
- Written by: Rich Lusk
- Category: Pastoral Exhortations
This is a modified email I sent out to my congregation in August 2020, but I thought it would make a good follow up to last week's sermon on courage from Daniel 3.
TPC family,
C. S. Lewis rightly regarded courage not a separate virtue but as the testing point of all the other virtues. If we lack courage, all our other supposed virtues will fail when they come under fire, which is perhaps why Scripture is so emphatic that cowards will not inherit the kingdom of God (Revelation 21:8). The Christian faith is not for cowards.
G. K. Chesterton rightly captured the paradox at the heart of courage: "Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. A man must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water, yet drink death like wine." We can further unpack Chesterton's insight: Courage means a strong desire to be liked taking the form of a readiness to be despised and vilified. Courage means a strong desire to be successful taking the form of a willingness to lose everything, if faithfulness requires it. And so on. Anais Nin further underscores the value of courage: "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Courage means doing the right thing even when facing your worst nightmare for doing so, but this is precisely why courage opens up new possibilities and brings us to maturation.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn noticed the waning courage of Western man in famous speech: "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our day." He then went on to ask the question: "Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?" Our culture is undergoing a failure of nerve, and many in the church are contributing to this deficit of courage. Billy Graham once made the point that courage can spread: "Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened." But of course, cowardice can also spread like a virus through a community or a culture, leaving it in shambles.
We must set an example of courage for our children. We need to teach our children stories of noble bravery. Lewis again: "Since it is so likely our children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard stories of brave knights and heroic courage."
We must remember that as Christians we are a race of dragon fighters and serpent-skull crushers. God commands us again and again in his Word to "Fear not." Our courage arises from our faith in the God who is with us. It's been rightly said, "Courage is fear that has said its prayers." Saint Patrick sang, "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity" -- and thus he did not fear any thing or any man in all of creation. We can do the same, and God helping us, we will.
Blessings,
Pastor Rich
- Written by: Rich Lusk
- Category: Pastoral Exhortations
In 1 Timothy 3:4-5, Paul requires that a man rule his house faithfully if he is going to rule in the household of God. The proof he is ruling his house faithfully is manifested in the faithfulness of his children. Sadly, this is a very neglected qualification for pastors and elders in the evangelical church today. If a man’s ministry is not bearing fruit in his own household, in the lives of his children, why would we expect him to be an effective shepherd in the household of God, the church? In the book of Proverbs, the rebellion of a son is often said to bring shame on his mother and father precisely because the parents are presumed to be responsible for the child’s life. They could have shepherded and disciplined his more effectively, but failed to do so. In other cases, we have explicit teaching of Scripture that good, wise parenting produces fruitfulness and faithfulness in the lives of the children (e.g., Titus 1:6), and undisciplined, unfaithful parenting leads to rebellion (e.g., 1 Sam. 3:13). Scripture is very clear: there is a deep and abiding connection between faithfulness on the part of the parents and faithfulness in their children. But how deep does that connection go? Are there any exceptions or qualifications? If a child rebels, should we always automatically conclude the parents are also to blame?
- Written by: Rich Lusk
- Category: Men & Women
I posted this brief review on Facebook last September, but it really belongs here as well.
Katy Faust's book Them Before Us should be high on everyone’s reading list. I have followed Faust’s outstanding work for several years on various social media platforms and this book represents the distillation of much of her research. It is a defense of children’s rights. For too long, our culture has lived “us before them” - putting adult desires above children’s needs (especially adult sexual desires above children's needs). The result has been the wreckage we see all around us - abortion, no fault divorce, fatherlessness, intentional single motherhood, the pain children experience from surrogacy and placement in same-sex households, etc. Virtually all our social ills can be traced back to our rejection of God’s design for family life. This book makes the case that marriage matters - it’s the only proper context for sex, and the original “safe space” for children. It makes the case that biology matters - men and women are different in complementary ways, and there are deep reasons why God designed for children to ordinarily have both a mom and dad who are permanently and exclusively committed to each other. Children need paternal, masculine love and maternal, feminine love poured into their lives. A child has a right to the man and woman who created him, and the man and woman who create a child have obligations to that child. There is no substitute for the God-ordained natural family. Faust shows that legitimate concerns from both the left and right ends of the political spectrum could be met with a renewed emphasis on the vulnerability of children and the importance of marriage/family.