[Darris McNeely] I’d like for you to imagine you’re in a hotel room. It’s late at night. You’re asleep, and you’ve just dozed off, and suddenly on your door someone starts to knock very, very loudly, shaking the wall, and screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get out! Get out now!” And you awake from a stupor, half asleep, half awake, and you are confronted with that command, and the decision to get out now.

What do you leave behind in that room, and what do you take with you from that room? That’s a question that I start with this morning.

You know, such a thought, and such an action sometime happens. I know, I’ve been there, and you all may go through the little parlor game that we might play at times, you know, where you’re sitting around with a group of people, and the question is asked, “If your house is on fire what did you leave behind? What did you take out having, in most cases most of us never having gone through something like that, having to fact type of decision.

You know, the Bible talks about things having to be decided in a swift second, or at a moment’s notice, or at least with a little bit of thought. In Matthew 24, the Olivet Prophecy, Jesus talks about that. He talks in an enigmatic language when He talks about two are at a well, one’s left, the other’s taken. Two are grinding at the mill, one’s left, the other’s taken. And He says that in the context of people being caught up in life as in the days of Noah.

And He kind of ends that section, verses 36-44 with the instruction to “Watch. Be ready,” He says. In another line He says, “Pray that your flight not be on the Sabbath day,” and He talks about a time of trouble, and a time at the end of the age.

That type of language is in the Bible not only from Jesus but the apostle Paul, the other prophets as well. To be girded up, have our loins girded, to watch, to be ready. Paul used the language of a thief in the night, and it conjures up that type of a quick decision that has to be made.

I’d like to take you through a story this morning of a real life set of decisions that had to be made by a group of men about a hundred years ago on an expedition, on a journey that they had embarked upon, and what they did, and what they had to decide, and what they had to leave behind, and what they had to take with them. Things changed on the course of their journey, and the lessons that we can learn from the things that they left behind, and the things that they took with them. And I think it offers us some very important spiritual lessons for us to think about at any point in our life, and at any time, and to think about the things that are really important and vital to us.

The story that I’d like to work this sermon around is a story that began one hundred years ago this coming August, 1914. One hundred years ago when an expedition sailed out of England under the direction of a man named Ernest Shackleton aboard a ship called the “Endurance”.

Ernest Shackleton was one of the last breed of a group of explorers, men who wanted to go out and map the polar regions of the earth.

On this particular voyage they were going out to Antarctica, sailing south, and their goal was to not get to the south pole, that had already been done a few years earlier. What they were going to do was, hopefully, to be the first expedition to go across the pole of Antarctica from one end to the other, and get from one end to the other via the south pole, mapping and charting it along the way. They would be the first group to do that as it was in the age of exploration to be the first to do something, or the first to find something as in our own age when we were the first to set foot on the moon. Those things are big, to be the first to do something at any time when this comes up. This was their goal.

And so they sailed out actually, just as World War I was beginning in Europe. In August of 1914 they began their trip. They made a few stops along the way, and eventually began then going into Antarctica, and sailing toward their point where they were going to disembark and make their trip. But because of delays, and because of some of the problems with probably an early weather change the ship, the “Endurance” got stuck in ice, and it couldn’t move.

And as the ice began to build up it began to rock the boat, and forge big holes into the hull of the ship, water kept pouring in, and weeks after week went on like this. They were manning twenty-four hour around the clock shifts to pump the water out by hand to keep the ship alive, hoping that they could at least endure through this time until the ice would thaw, and they could continue going.

But as the days wore on it became evident that the ship was beginning to break up. The ice was just jamming it, and turning it, and wrenching it, and the ship was going to eventually break up. One day when they saw a group of Emperor Penguins just across from them uttering a very low,  ominous moan they realized it was time to go. And so they were going to have to abandon ship in the middle of this arctic icebound wasteland. And so they took their belongings off the ship, and they had some decisions to make.

This was a fully loaded ship with provisions, and scientific equipment, and personal belongings that all the men had brought along with them on this trip that was going to last for some time, and they were well-prepared, well geared-up, as we say. But now they were going to have to make an over three hundred mile trip back across the frozen ice to an island where there was habitation, and that trip was going to be very dangerous.

Shackleton’s desire was to get the men back. He promised them. He said, “I will get you back home.” That was a literal promise he made to them but they had some decisions to make as they went along the way. They were going, and traveling with full pack and gear. They had to begin to travel light, and they had to unburden themselves of that equipment that they had brought along to face any contingency, any need that they thought that they would face, and now they had to get rid of it, and they had to sacrifice all of that for speed because they had to get back to a habitable point, and they had to do it as quickly as they possibly could if they were going to survive, and live to tell about it from that point on.

The decision was made to allow each man to take the clothes on his back, two pairs of mittens, six pairs of socks, two pairs of boots, and a sleeping bag. Beyond that Shackleton ordered the men the maximum of two pounds of personal possessions from that point on. And so they had some decisions to make because now they had to leave some things behind, and they could only take two pounds of personal items with them.

What would you take? What would you leave behind. Let’s look at the list of what these men left behind and what they took with them to think about this. Shackleton, being the leader that he was, he set the example. He walked out in the middle of the men who were standing next to the collapsing boat on the middle of this ice field, and he took with him a Bible that had been given to him by the queen of England before he left in which she had inscribed an inspirational passage.

He took this Bible, which in itself, certainly the Bible being very precious, having been a gift from the queen that added more to it, and he tore out the Twenty-third Psalm, and a passage from Job, and he threw the Bible down in the snow. He put the pages in his coat. He pulled out a gold watch, a gold cigarette case, and a few gold coins, and he threw those down on the snow. He didn’t need those where he was going.

And from that point on he began to say to the men, “What are you going to put on the ground? What are you going to leave behind to get to where you want to go?”

It’s a critical decision. In Luke 12 Jesus, not thinking about, perhaps of an iced down voyage like that of the Shackletons but having the wisdom to think about life took some time in a parable and other statements here in Luke 12 to talk about this in verse 15. He made a comment here at the beginning of this parable of the rich fool.

Luke 12:15 – And He said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses."  The word covetousness, it’s at the heart of one of the commandments. “Our life,” He says, “does not consist of the things that we possess.”

Now we all possess a lot of things. These men who had gone to Antarctica with Shackleton, they had a number of possessions, certainly not everything that they owned probably with them but what they thought they needed for that particular voyage. And what they were going to have to leave behind now was even paring their life down to the absolute minimum. Two pounds of personal possessions along with, literally, the clothes on their back.

What things would you carry, and should you carry in your journey in your life. Think about that in light of what Jesus says here in this story we’re working our way through. What weighs us down, and what keeps us from the goal that we have?

Here in Luke 12:31, Christ sums it up, and He says, "But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.” That’s the destination that all of us have. That’s our goal, the kingdom. That’s the journey on which we have embarked, and to which we are going. And in all that He says in this particular passage in the intervening verses, which is well worth a personal study for all of us. Christ is saying, “Your life doesn’t consist of your possessions.” Pare it down. “Take with you on that journey to the kingdom only what you need to get to the kingdom.” That’s essentially what He’s saying. That’s the subtext of it all.

The Shackleton voyagers needed to get back to a habitable location and their island, and that was going to be a very, very difficult matter for them to do with over three hundred miles. What would they need to get there? What do we need for our journey to the kingdom of God?

Going back to the story of the Shackleton expedition, Shackleton set the example by throwing his golden watch, cigarette case, and money into the snow. And one of the men said, “There are times when gold can be more of a liability than an asset.”

We see a lot of adds for gold on television you’re watching. Especially if you watch “Fox News”. I notice that’s where all the gold stores advertise. And, you know, I have a gold ring. My wife has some gold jewelry, wedding rings, and things like that. I have a little gold coin that was passed down from my father, a little two and a half dollar double eagle gold piece. That’s the only gold monetary matter that I have in my life. I’ve never bought anything else, and I watch those commercials, and I kind of think, “Well, maybe I should buy some, (laughing) silver to diversify my investment portfolio but I haven’t done it. Yeah, I make other investments, and try to save, and do those things. There’s a time for that but there’s also a time when money, things, debt will shackle us, for they will.

Debt shackles us and it binds us in worry, it binds us in debt, and in action. It’s one of the greatest enslavements of our life if we allow debt to get beyond what we can appreciably manage.

Accumulating large troves of things and possessions, shiny objects of whatever they might be that might be our particular desire themselves don’t always bring lasting satisfaction. And sometimes those things that we collect cause us to invest a lot of time to either use them or to take care of them.

It would be nice to have a couple of homes, three homes, five cars, sometimes I think when I read these stories of all the people like that, and I wonder, “How much time do they have to use all of these” because they only have the same amount of time that I have. And I guess you could be retired, and you can do that but how many homes do you need, and how many rooms, and how many homes do you need to live in, it’s often asked?

Those are all questions that we have to manage and think about because at the end of the time when we take stock of our life, what we really do need, or the things that are of true value in life, and that’s relationships, and experiences, and acts of service, and kindness to others. Those are the real matters that in the end serve us, and serve us well.

In Ezekiel 7:19, there’s a passage that talks about a crisis, and a time that came for the people in Judah. It will come again because it’s said in the context of the Day of the Lord.

Ezekiel 7:19 – It says, “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like refuse;…” and like the men on the Shackleton voyage the gold literally became refuse, thrown into the snow. “…Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not satisfy their souls, nor fill their stomachs, because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.”

And in Ezekiel’s prophecy at the time of Judah’s time of downfall that happened. When the day of the Lord comes with its full wrath and fury upon the world that too will be the same scene because gold and silver will not be the ultimate source of salvation.

I tend to think of that when I see some of these gold commercials. Again, I’m not saying, “Go buy gold, or invest in gold” but sometimes the mentality and the tactics that are used to prod people to invest in gold speak perhaps to those qualities of my life that I don’t want to have to be spoken to – fear and suspicion, and not of faith in God.

And so, when we look at a scripture like this, if it tells you something about money, gold, silver, things – but the things that are going to be more important to us, and getting through to the kingdom are the relationships, and the experiences, and the acts of kindness that we build in over in those relationships.

Looking again at what they left behind. They left behind clothes. Interesting, I said that they were given what were on their back, and the rest they had to leave behind. They had an extra pair of mittens and an extra pair of shoes. But you know, sometimes when we come down to what we do have, and what we do accumulate, this translates into something for us to think about.

When we joke about closets full of shoes and I know the Marcos’ and the images that that conjures up, and I recognize that dates me to even say that but what is it, twenty, twenty-five, years ago when Imelda Marcos, wife of the president of the Philippines, when he left office her pictures were all over the place about the amount of shoes that she had, and how many shoes do you need? Well, again, I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes but I know that talking about that gets pretty close. But stop and think about it. What do we really need?

Back in Luke 12, just to back to what Jesus said, and this is not to say that we need to limit our wardrobe to what’s on our back and an extra pair of shoes. That’s not the case but sometimes we all need a reality check.

Luke 12:23 – Jesus did say this, He said, "Life is more than food,…” in the context of this passage, “Life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.” That is applied, and should be applied at several levels, and the deepest is the spiritual level to at least ask ourselves to think about what it is that we do value as we, perhaps appreciate quality clothing, and more than a couple of changes of our ties, suits, clothes, shoes, whatever it might be. That we do, at times, stop to think about just how many do we really need?

Are there things sometimes as useful as at the end of every season? Just look at what you didn’t wear that season but you thought you were going to. You pulled it from the basement or from the upstairs closet, or whatever, thinking that you would wear it in the winter or in the summer, and if you didn’t wear it ask yourself, “Can it be left behind to someone else, benefit from it?

We went to Africa for the feast a couple of years ago, and I deliberately expected to leave some clothes behind just for the weight of what I would need to exchange for some things I picked up over there. I also knew that I could do without a suit and a pair of shoes, and so I left them behind. And others of you have done things like that to as you’ve gone to those areas of the world or you’ve sent clothing or you’ve left behind various things like that. So, think about that in a very real and a very practical way.

A third thing that they left behind on this journey was scientific instruments. Remember, this was a journey to map the Antarctic continent as they went across the pole from one end to the other so they had the latest instruments, full gear in order to do that job. And that was the purpose of the expedition but once they had to abandon ship their whole purpose changed, it changed. It was no longer to map Antarctica. It was survival. It was to get back home. And so their goals changed, and they didn’t need all the scientific equipment. They left it behind, and they took only what they would need to get across the ice, and across probably one last passageway where they got water to an inhabited island. And when they did, the navigator that got them across in one boat, the initial group that went across had to do a remarkable feat of navigation, essentially using their eyes and stars to get across. The goal had changed.

You know, our goals change when we think about this as a symbol in our life. Sometimes we plan. We set out professionally, personally, especially when we’re young to chart our course in life. We have dreams, and we have plans, and goals, and a vision of where we want to be in our life. It’s maybe instilled by a parent, maybe our background, or by some story we have read, or we start out on that, and then things change. We’re dealt a different set of circumstances, and we have to adapt. We have to change.

Illness, jobs, a factory shuts down. How many men have had to retool their life to get a job after twenty years in a factory that closed down, and there was no hope that they were ever going back into that business because it was now off to Mexico or someplace else? I’ve known a number of men over the years that have had to do that. They’ve had to go back to school to re-tool, and they  learn to be a computer programmer, or to get into a different field, and that sometimes happens as well.

Think about it in regard to whatever plans you had as you were going along in life before God called  you because every one of us when we were called by God our plans changed. Our goals changed. No longer was it retirement by forty, and moving to whatever, or wherever one can do whatever we wanted to do. No longer was it just money. Now we have a spiritual goal in life, and we have to learn a different set.

In Philippians 3 the apostle Paul faced this. The apostle Paul had a now plan in his life. He had goals. He was set on a course. He was of the tribe of Benjamin verse 5 tells us.

Philippians 3:5 – “I was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews;….” Proud legacy, proud people, and he had the means to whatever family that he was born to educate himself because he went to Jerusalem, and he sat at the feet of one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the day, Hillel, and he said, …“concerning the law, a Pharisee.” He had entered into that mindset, that world view of a Pharisee.

V. 6 -  “concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” This is the set of instruments Paul had with him as he had set out in his life until that one day on the road to Damascus, with all the zeal that he describes here, God struck him down and changed his life, and he was no longer Saul. He eventually became Paul but now his whole life turned around and became something different.

He left behind the pride that he had as a Jew, as a Pharisee, and all the zeal that it says in other sections of Romans, all the zeal he had, the righteousness of the law, he recognized it was all worthless. Without Christ in his life, without the grace of God, and the forgiveness of sin, the spirit of God now in his life he was a good Jew but he wasn’t fully complete. Now he had a different instrument in his hands, in his life, the holy spirit, and that’s how we are as well. Conversion brings a change in course, and a with it a new set of instruments to help get us to where we want to go.

The Shackleton group had to also leave behind a number of things. They left behind books. They had brought their favorite reading material. The long nights and hours that they would have had but that’s extra weight and size, and there was no way that books would be brought along. I mentioned that Shackleton actually didn’t take a full BIBLE. He just tore out Psalm 23, and a passage from the book of Job, and that was his favorite. That’s what he then would look at and read,  not the entire Bible. So all the others had to leave their books behind.

Now what they may have learned from those books they had to apply to survival, and that teaches us a lesson as well. We love books, I love books, we have the ABC library here full of books, that if you had the time to plumb all of them you’d have a lot of knowledge and understanding there. I have a lifelong love of reading books myself, and we study our BIBLES, and we realize there’s much to learn and grow in understanding.

All of us also should realize that at some point we have to put the book down even the Bible. We have to live the BIBLE. We have to put the book of theoretical knowledge down whether it’s – business, history, leadership, whatever it is, or something that we’re reading, studying, and we have to put it down, and we have to go out and we have to live according to what we learn, and put those principles into practical application in our life. The theoretical becomes practical, and we should have in our hearts what the books have taught us, and certainly what the Bible teaches us in that way.

These men didn’t need their books to get back home. They had to put it aside. Jesus did that on one occasion in Mark 6. We won’t turn there. I’ll just relate it to you but in Mark 6 there’s a wonderful story of where Jesus fed five thousand, taught them, and then in the very next verse He sends the disciples out into a boat on the Sea of Galilee and goes up into a private place for a time. The men fall asleep in the boat, and the waves come up a sudden storm and they’re asleep, and they’re fearful when they wake up, and Jesus is walking toward them. You know the story, and it’s a wonderful contrast there between Jesus teaching earlier in the day, and then that night the men having to apply the teaching that they should have been listening to - of faith, and of courage for instance, but they panicked.

Peter got up and tried to walk on water. He did for a little ways until he realized what he was doing, and he began to sink when he took his eyes off of Christ. There’s a lot of lessons there but in the way it was set, one story, earlier in the day teaching on the hillside, eating literally with food, a few hours later they’re on the storm tossed lake, and they have to apply what they learned earlier in the day. And that story teaches us a lot. And that’s how it is with God and in our relationship with God, and we study, we read, we learn but eventually we have to apply what we have learned, and that’s what these men had to do as well.

Interesting, another thing that the Shackleton adventurers left behind, their suitcases. They left their suitcases behind, but before they did that, these were leather suitcases in that day. They didn’t have the lightweight nylon materials that we have in our suitcases today. They cut up their suitcases and made extra shoes out of the leather on the suitcases. They didn’t need the suitcase. What they needed essentially was what the suitcase was. Now, think about that.

I used to kid my daughter-in-law when we would travel with them, particularly at the feast. They had twice as much luggage as we did, and we would break our backs getting it in and out of the cars. Now I made enough cracks that the last time we traveled together I noticed that they had about half the luggage on that particular trip. You know the old adage, “When you travel take half as much clothing, and twice as much money.” (Laughter). You know, we have to learn those things, and we don’t always need as much as we usually take on a major trip.

There’s a lesson beyond even just paring down the things that we own, to peeling back. These men actually literally did with the suitcases, peeled it back and made shoes out of the leather, and took only what they needed from that.

Now it’s a symbol for us in our life. We have to peel back so much that we think we have to carry with us and becomes a part of our life, and not understanding that we have to peel that back and find out really, get our lives down to the most important essentials in the area of our own core beliefs, just to use that. We’ve even been peeling back this world, peeling back this culture, this society that is around us, and we absorb, and attacks us, and we’re immersed in it throughout every day. We have to peel that back, keep it at arm’s length, and recognize what it is and what it may be doing for us, and to really find the things that we need in our old beliefs, our core values, there may be a reason.

In Ephesians 6:15 when Paul was describing this armor of God, when he came to the shoes he said, “Put on your shoes, let your feet be shod with the gospel of peace.” The gospel of peace is what’s he’s used there as he connects to the shoes. When you really stop and think about the gospel of the kingdom of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God, you begin to understand what it is that is at the very core of our belief.

That gospel, and it’s not the messages that we receive through media and popular culture that it’s peddled to us, around us all the time. We’ve got to peel through all of that and get down to the core, make sure that the core of the gospel is what is on our feet, if you will, moving us forward.

This is what those men needed to get across the ice for the protection on their feet, shoes. If we take Paul’s analogy, we need the core of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God to properly discern our times and our twenty-first century culture. Label it for what it is, and move ahead of it, move beyond it. This culture’s hollow at its core. We need to take what’s essential in our own life.

I was amused as perhaps you were at the latest political crisis that took place, and came to light this week in New Jersey. Governor Chris Christy, who got caught as the story goes, his operatives, some of his aides, key aides, decided to exact some political revenge upon the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey by shutting down the George Washington Bridge back in August for a few weeks, at critical hours, tying up traffic, and creating a general mayhem for that.

When it all came to light, according to the story, whether it’s true or not, we will find out all the facts, I’m sure. It was his operatives, it’s his chief aides, that he didn’t know anything about it. But you go deeper into the story, and you look at really what was taking place, and you look at the texts that they were sending. “Shut down, there needs to be some problems on the bridge,” and you look at those as I was looking at it in an article, and you realize these people are taking language right out of the “Sopranos.” It’s payback time against their enemies.

The mayor didn’t support the governor’s re-election bid, and whether or not he encouraged it by a flippant remark, kind of like King Henry II did when he was so nettled by Thomas a Becket that he said, “Is there anybody that will rid me of this pest? So some of his lead men went and killed him as he was praying at the altar, and martyred Thomas a Becket.  

You have to wonder if Christie did the same thing but when you look at what his people were texting back and forth you realize these were young people operating at a high level of politics with power at their hands, and they in a sense were kind of emulating television drama. And actually, the way it went back and forth, as somebody was pointing out, it sounds exactly like a line on the “Sopranos.”

And the point was that these people think that that’s real life, and they didn’t understand that they were tying up ambulances, school busses, people getting to work, people going about their lives. All because they could, and they didn’t think they’d get caught because on television they don’t always get caught, but in real life eventually you do at that level. And it illustrates how hollow, certainly politics if anyone ever thinks that’s the solution for the kingdom or for this world today. It isn’t but that’s our culture, and that’s what we know about, and that’s what we watch, and that’s what we are familiar with.

I had to learn some of the dialogues. I never watched any episodes of the “Sopranos” but I watched episodes of other things, and I know dialogue as well back and forth. I recognize that you can learn certain things but you want to draw the line but you realize that that’s not real life, and you know it’s entertainment, and what’s reality. And reality is when you’re finally able to strip away the things down to what we really need, and put on our feet at our heart and core the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. All those things that they left behind.

Let’s look at a few things that they kept, and learn a few lessons. When I was reading through this story I was amused at what they kept. This was the first item that was on the list. They all kept toothbrushes. Why did they keep a toothbrush? I guess you could run a finger across your mouth or whatever but hygiene, as mundane as keeping your teeth clean they recognized was important. They didn’t need any problems with their teeth that could literally bring them down. And so they kept a toothbrush, and they used it. Even in that direst of time they used it daily.

Now we all recognize we brush our teeth every day, multiple times a day. It’s something we do. We do it by habit. We don’t even think about it at times. It’s kind of a mundane thing but it is a very important thing. I’ve known people who have died because of tooth decay that can go to their heart and create heart problems. It is a very important, critical part of our body to keep up, and yet it’s kind of a daily thing that needs to be done, and this is what they did and maintain on a daily basis.

There are a lot of things in life that require daily maintenance to keep on top of the things in our life, and we apply this to a spiritual lesson for us. Probably the most important thing, or certainly one of the important things that we need to be doing daily is prayer with God, and that’s not mundane, and that’s not just ritual but it is important, and it is critical but it’s a daily thing that we have to take with as well. To that we attach Bible study, and occasional fasting as well.

But just as these men recognized that it was important to keep up this daily habit as a part of their survival kit. You look at that. “We’ve got to take prayer with us, on our knees, in our hearts, in our minds, praying in the spirit, continually in prayer,” as Paul would say at times, and being at times in a prayerful spirit as we’re going through certain things, and about to go into. We may not have a chance to go into a private place and kneel privately before God but we can certainly pray in our heart and our mind, and ask God for wisdom with a critical meeting or situation that might be coming up that we need help with but it’s that contact with God that is on a daily, regular basis that we need.

And they also took with them photographs. That was the most universal thing that the men chose to take. Photographs of their loved ones back home they took with them. They were isolated at the bottom of the world, going across alien land, terrain that. A look, a glance at someone they knew was a connection to home that helped keep them encouraged and reminded them that there was something worth fighting for each day to put one foot in front of the other to keep going when depression, despair, discouragement was right on the horizon ready to drag them down to defeat.

We look at that as a symbol for our life. Relationships are truly the most important and valuable things in our lives. The connection that we have with friends, with family have been proven by people time and time again to be one of the most single, biggest contributor to happiness. It’s not the things, it’s not the amount in the bank account, it is those connections. How many people who have said at the end of their life they just wished they had put more time into their relationships? They look back fondly, and regret not investing more time at any given point in our life. The beginning of a new calendar year, the beginning of a new day, a good question for each of us to ask ourselves is, “What relationship in our life needs mending today?”

What step can we take today to mend a relationship or to nurture a relationship by a smile, a card, a call, some token gift, something silly even? Whatever it might be. And what effort might we make in investing our time, swallowing our pride to try to mend a relationship that has been broken.

They also took a banjo with them. At least one of the men had a banjo, and that was heavy. It was a heavy banjo, weighed twelve pounds but Shackleton said, “We’ve got to replace something every day with music. We’ve got to bring some joy, some encouragement, and a diversion that is profitable in this way every day in our lives to get our minds off of the cold, the darkness, the gloom, and the depression.

There’s a lot of things we’ve got to do each step of the way to fill our lives with good, and it goes even beyond good music, and encouraging, uplifting music that can be a diversion, and to help us re-orient and refocus. Many of us have enjoyed music. We have our playlists. We have playlists of encouragement that we may put together on our I-pods or MP3, and we listen to encourage us, to kind of fill a time when we need a little bit of diversion. But the principle is to fill our newly created space in our lives to do good just as they did.

One last thing that they took with them that I found interesting was, the men they took their diaries. Those who kept diaries but were allowed to bring them along with them, and they later proved to be a valuable resource of information to reconstruct the days of that particular journey for not only the members but also later historians who looked at the details we have from those who took diaries that they were allowed to take that along with them.

Every year I give a talk to the ABC group about the importance of keeping a diary, keeping a journal in your life as a way to begin to understand your own life, your personal history, to write it down in some form, electronically, handwritten into a notebook, whatever it might be but to keep a progress of our life, of a trip, of a Feast of Tabernacles experience, or a time or a passage in our life. It’s an invaluable tool, and it was for these men on the Shackleton voyage. Sometimes it’s very instructive to go back for those that have done that, to look at the experiences that have made us today.

Periodically I will pull off my shelf one of my diaries, one of my journals, and just kind of thumb through it, or just kind of open it randomly, and look at it. Sometimes I’m surprised at what I wrote. Sometimes I’m surprised at who I was when I wrote what I wrote. Sometimes I don’t even know who that person was but as a lifelong habit it can be very, very profitable to understand who we are and what we’ve come from, and helped to even work through certain episodes of our life.

I’ve used it as a tool to work through a time of crisis personally and within the church, to write down certain observations, reflections, feelings, whatever. You know you’ll probably will never read them again but just scrawl it on a piece of paper that I can fold up and put back on the shelf and it’s been very, very helpful, many different applications there.

So they left things behind, and they took things with them. I opened with that story of a knock on the door late at night, and being awakened with that question. I’ve told this story before but I that  literally happened to me back in November of ’05 in Jordan after the Feast of Tabernacles. Scott Ashley and I had taken an extra week to travel through Israel. We had crossed back over into Jordan, and we were going to fly out the next day, back home when at eleven o’clock at night when we were both sound asleep. We were awakened, and we were given that command. “Get out now!”

What had happened, we didn’t find that out until about two o’clock in the morning after shivering several hours in the streets of Amman outside the hotel that bombs had gone off in I think it was three other hotels that night, American based chain hotels, and about a hundred and fifty people had died because of a terrorist bomb incident that night, and they didn’t know if our hotel was going to be attacked so they evacuated everyone. You could hear the ambulances going through the streets, and it was awhile before they told us what had happened.

Fortunately our hotel didn’t blow up, I kept looking for it to happen. I kind of figured out it out it must have been a bomb threat, and that’s why we were out there, and that’s why I kept looking for it to just kind of go up in smoke but it never happened, and we were let back in.

What did I take with me? What did I leave behind? I left behind everything but my passport and my airline ticket. I figured I was not going to see that room again, and I wanted to just get out of that country.

What did Scott Ashley take with him? He took his cameras, and he was nursing his cameras down the elevator or down the steps and out into the street, and those were the most valuable things to him. He had all of those pictures of the trip. If you know Scott, he loves photography. That’s what was valuable to him.

I didn’t take anything else but my passport and my airline ticket. That was a split second decision that we had to make but it’s been on my mind ever since, having lived through something like that. And to go through this exercise, I think is something that is very profitable.

Let’s turn back to Philippians 3 where we began reading. The apostle Paul had to jettison his past life when he came to a knock down on the road to Damascus and in a confrontation with God, and as we were reading he turned away from his past and in verse 7 Paul says,

Philippians 3:7 – “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.

V. 8 – “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” What he counts as rubbish was his heritage as a Pharisee. The training that he had he recognized as incomplete. It didn’t have Christ in it. It was rigorous indoctrination in the law, and Judaism as it has developed since the exile at the end of his day, but Christ was not there. And he’d come face to face with Christ on that road to Damascus, and that was rubbish to him. That’s quite a step.

A man who has put time toward a diploma that they hang on the wall that says, “I graduated from this school, and I’ve attained this mark of education, or this distinction with service,” or whatever it might be, to say, “That’s rubbish.” And to take perhaps what’s at the core of it and apply it to truth, that’s a big step. This is what Paul did, and he came to understand, as he said,

V. 10 – “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

V. 11 – “if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

V. 12 – “Not that I have already attained,” he said. He knew that he was on a journey. “…or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

V. 13 - “…I do not 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,

V. 14 – “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

He sums it up very beautifully in this passage here. All that he thought he knew, all that he had accomplished, all that he was he counted as rubbish, and now he was pressing forward. We have to come to that point in our life as well, and we sometimes have to stop, take stock of what we have, and determine what it is that we need to leave behind, and what it is that we need to take with us.

Philippians 4:13, Paul came to a point where he put this spot into his letters but he ties it in with everything. He said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That was what he recognized was the strength, the encouragement that he needed to take with him as he moved forward.

At times you and I may come to a point of taking stock and deciding what it is that we need to change and what we need to do to go forward. We have to make certain decisions, and it’s far beyond just leaving something in a hotel room, or leaving it on an ice floe, or walking out of a room away from it.

A lot of the things that we need to leave behind are past mistakes, past problems, failures that we have made personally, collectively. Don’t blow on them once we repent. We can think a lifetime of redemption but we must do that with the calm assurance that we have been given mercy. We have been given forgiveness.

Sometimes people do bad things in their life, their pre-conversion life as a young person, or whatever. They do bad things, and then they are converted, truly converted by Jesus Christ who forgives us, and the gift of the holy spirit. Even people in today’s world, they will turn around from a drug habit. They will turn around from all that. A life of years, and decades even of waste in their life and clean up their life, and in an effort to seek redemption they will do good things.

I used to watch the radio disc jockey that is out of New York, Don Imus. For years he was on MSNBC simulcast, and I would tune in to him early in the morning at times to get the news and be entertained by Don Imus, and as I got acquainted with him I realized that here was a man who, by his own admission, decades in the,… He didn’t know “what happened in the 70’s or 80’s” he said, because of drugs and alcohol.

He had money, and he was a big time disc jockey, and he just wasted it, and he jokes about it. But he cleaned up his life. He not only cleaned up his life, but then he began to do something. And he started, he bought a ranch out in New Mexico, and for years he has sponsored children with cancer to go and spend a week at this ranch roping, tying, and riding horses. And he’s doing, he still does a lifetime of good works with these kids with cancer. He’s a guy who lives with cancer himself, and he’s been living with it a few years, lung cancer.

As I listened to him, and watched him go through his spiel I realized, “You’re going to spend the rest of your life, Don Imus, trying to get redeemed for your wasted years.” And that’s okay. You figure out sometimes what motivates people. I figure that he’s doing this, in a sense, to redeem himself for all the years that he wasted, and others get the benefit from it, and that’s good.

Sometimes we may never be able to forgive ourselves, and we think we, it’s only good works, or good service, or whatever that will do that, and those are good too, and those are important, and “We should not leave them,” as Christ said, “undone.” But we have to come to a point in our heart where we recognize we have been forgiven, and we leave those things behind as we move forward to the good, and the light of God’s grace, and so we don’t need to dwell on our past mistakes and failures.

Sometimes we don’t need to dwell on our past deeds and successes. That by itself is not enough. We have to do further good deeds and have further successes, I suppose, but don’t just blow our glory. That too can be a mistake.

What Paul summarizes here in verse 13 is moving forward with Christ in us, and in our minds and hearts in the holy spirit, and that’s what strengthens us. That’s what gives us the ability to move forward. And this is how we come to a point in our life where we can put them behind us, leave certain things behind, and then take only what we need as we go forward in life.

In Colossians 3 Paul went deeper into this in verse 5 where he said,

Colossians 3:5 - Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth:… and he began to list them, this long list of sins beginning with …fornication, and uncleanness,… andall of these matters. Put them to death. These are the things to leave behind. That is what he’s really saying. Leave them behind. Put them under the blood of Christ and move forward. And then when he comes down to verse 14, he says,

V. 14 – (But) above all (these) things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

V. 15 - And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Leave behind this list of sins but take with us a love of God, and that relationship with Him, and the calm assurance and knowledge of forgiveness, and a strength and of help to live our lives going forward. This is how deep, and even deeper some of the passages we have studied that Paul wrote and learned about them in his life.

The story of Shackleton voyage ended on a good note. As I said, Ernest Shackleton promised his men that he would get them home, and he did. Every one of the men made it back home. Sadly, some of them later died. They got back home, I think it was 1917. World War I was still going. Some of them immediately enlisted, and two or three of them died in World War I after having survived that ordeal. But they did get off of Antarctica, and they got home, and their story teaches us a very important lesson.

Two questions to consider and to think about as we look at our own lives: What is it that we should leave behind? What is it that we should take with us?

[Frank Dunkle] But it's also easy to look back. As I said, I had a very full and exciting summer as many of you did. I'd like to look a little bit further back to start the message today. It was about 215 years ago. Being a history teacher, I don't do math, so that's why I'm saying about 215 years ago the United States Army Corps of Discovery set out on an incredible mission, one of the most daring, one of the most productive in human history.

Now, Corps of Discovery might sound a little unusual. Most of us remember it as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. And they were sent out to explore lands west of what was then the United States. And I'll say "west of" because at the time the group was commissioned, the Louisiana Purchase was not yet done. So it actually began as the greatest trespass mission in U.S. history.

But before they actually entered that area, that purchase was done, so they were exploring, seeing what was out there, set out to find, to write a record of what animals, what plants they might discover. And one of their greatest goals was to find what we now call the fabled Northwest Passage, trying to find a mostly water route to get from the eastern United States out to the Pacific Ocean.

When President Thomas Jefferson set about forming this mission, he asked his personal aid, Meriwether Lewis, to lead it. And Colonel Lewis insisted then on getting his friend and someone he'd served with in the Army before, William Clark, to service as co-captain of the expedition. And I say co-captain, actually, they agreed that they would be equal in every respect. Even though the army insisted that Lewis was in charge, none of the men under their command realized that. They were equals.

They formed a partnership such as has seldom existed, selfless and very trusting. This Corps of Discovery traveled approximately 8,000 miles across untamed wilderness. No mechanized transportation existed for them, no electronic communication. Not only was the terrain unmapped, most of it had never been seen by white men before.

In spite of the dangers and challenges, they lost only one man and that was not because of an accident or ill planning. One man developed appendicitis along the way and, unfortunately, he died. As part of their thorough recording of their discoveries, they've created elaborate journals. The Lewis and Clark Journals have been published and republished and read by millions of people.

Now, I have read those but also brought a... Stephen Ambrose has written a very colorful and informative account, some of you might have seen this. I brought this up as a prop, I'm not going to read it today. But I would say, it is a good read, and I'm happy to lend out any of my books. I keep it on the shelf in my office if you're interested. But he took his title from something that President Jefferson wrote, Undaunted Courage.

That came from something that President Jefferson wrote about Meriwether Lewis after his unfortunate early death. He died as a fairly young man. President Jefferson wrote and described him as having, "Courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and a perseverance of purpose which nothing but a impossibility could divert its direction." “Courage undaunted.” That seems like a special and notable thing to have said about a person. A matter of fact, I love to have someone say that about me someday, so don't bother saying it now just to flatter me. I want to live up to it first.

But as I embark on a message where I want to talk about courage, I should confess that the apostle Paul didn't include courage when he described the fruit of the Spirit. It's not mentioned in the Ten Commandments. It's not in the Beatitudes that Christ listed on the Sermon on the Mount. We could ask, is courage a necessary trait then for a Christian?

Well, I might say on the contrary that I think it would come naturally to Christians, and I want to talk about that. And even though it's not listed in those places that I mentioned, the Bible is not silent on the subject. We find the most memorable descriptions of courage in the place where Joshua was about to take over leadership of the nation of Israel from Moses.

If you like to turn to Joshua 1, I want to read just one of several places. There are a number of places where Moses told Joshua, the elders of Israel told Joshua, indeed God Himself told Joshua that he needed to be “strong and of good courage.” Be strong and of good courage.

The one I'm reading in Joshua 1:7 is a time when God was speaking to Joshua. And he told Joshua, "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 the left, that you may go and prosper… or that you may prosper wherever you go."

The reason I chose this particular passage to read and not some of the others is that others mentioned having courage to face the enemy, to conquer the Promised Land, to do great feats. This one mentions having courage to obey God. That indicates to us that courage is not only something for warriors. Courage isn't for just facing violent dangers, not even for facing unknown and exploring unknown territories. I believe courage is something that we as Christians can have, something we should have. And I would go further to say that, I believe you do have and perhaps in spite of not realizing it.

So I want a courage… I should have known, once the camera's on I get my words messed up.  I want to consider today, what is courage, what it can do for us, how do we have that courage? So, first of all, let's talk about definitions. I didn't bring it here but I think some of you have heard me before mention my 20-pound dictionary. My 20-pound Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary which, as it turns out, actually belongs to Sue and only weighs five and a half pounds. But it does have a lot of definitions in it.

It defines courage as, "A quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, pain or other things with firmness and without fear." The dictionary lists as one of its synonyms bravery. And I like that because it lets me make a reference to something the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 16. 1 Corinthians 16:13, if you're quick with your fingers you can catch up with me. Otherwise, I'll go ahead and read it because it's rather brief. 1 Corinthians 16:13, Paul tells the people of Corinth to, "Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong."

I like the fact that here, Paul, using the synonym for courage, says, "be brave” and also “be strong." Those two tend to go together. Remember that command to Joshua was, "Be strong and of a good courage." But this isn't talking necessarily about physical strength any more than I think it's about physical courage. People can have frail bodies and yet have great moral strength, emotional or spiritual strength. A matter of fact, I've known a good many people and I will mention even my grandparents who I think at times when their bodies were at their weakest were at their greatest or… spiritual strength.

In comparison, physical courage is a quality of being able to face physical pain or danger. But moral courage, moral courage can be described as the ability to face emotional or mental pain, to face anguish, even humiliation, to uphold one's inner values. This fits well with a phrase that's common in our English language. We sometimes say of a person that “he has the courage of his convictions,” he or she. As a matter of fact, the 20-pound dictionary included that reference to courage of convictions with its definition of courage. It says, "To have the courage of one's convictions is to act in accordance with one's beliefs even or even especially in spite of criticism."

Sticking with your beliefs in spite of criticism, in spite of embarrassment, humiliation, whatever. I think it's fitting to mention that the word courage comes from the French word cœur which means heart. I was looking to see if Miss Hendrickson was here. I don't see her, she could back me up on that, or if I'm wrong I don't have to worry about being contradicted. But I'm pretty sure my six years of French tells me I can remember that one word, cœur for heart. It reminds us that courage is a quality of our spirit and of our heart, more than just our intellect.

Now, as with many things, it might be easier to think of and imagine courage and understand it more from example than definition. The example of Lewis and Clark was one that came to mind to me especially at this time because during the summer I ended up taking a couple of trips. Like the Lewis and Clark Expedition, this summer the Dunkle family headed west. We crossed the Rocky Mountains, went over the continental divide, eventually reached the Pacific Ocean.

Now, we didn't go for lofty goals such as discovering new lands and claiming them for the United States. We went out to go to camp. Well, that was one of the things. We got to serve at Camp Hye Sierra, which...  Who is it? Somebody mentioned it to me. I can finally got to check that one off. I've been wanting to go there for about 20 years.

And then we had the privilege of participating in an A.B.C. sampler with the San Francisco Bay Area congregation. Mr. Myers joined us out there, and both of them were completely delightful. I'll put a plug in for those of you that haven't been to Hye Sierra, the numbers were down a little bit this summer but it's a tremendous camp, and I hope to get out there again sometime.

But this journey, unlike Lewis and Clark, we weren't traveling with the bare essentials. We made it in the comfort of an air-conditioned Subaru. We traveled over paved and graded highways. But as we wound on our way through those mountain passes, as we went across the bleak desert, and I looked at my dashboard and I saw the temperature outside going above 100 degrees a number of times, I looked around and I thought, "Boy, what happens if we break down here?"

A matter of fact, it's interesting. In southern Utah you'll see exits off the highway that say, it'll give a name and say, "No services." I say, "No service? There's not even anything. It's just an exit that goes to brown dirt." I thought, "What would it be like to do this for Lewis and Clark?" They went out there without mechanized transport, no air conditioning, no maps or G.P.S., no Flying J, no Love's. I thought I'd get more reaction on that. I did discover that the people out there rough it a bit because Flying J and Love's don't have slushy machines for some reason that far west.

It's worth thinking about what Lewis and Clark were expecting. You know, their goal, they were sent to travel up the Missouri River. They paddled their way up. There were portages and such, but they figured they were going to get to the headwaters and then take a portage, drag their boats over a hill, maybe a high-plains meadow and then find the headwaters of the Columbia River, put their boats in and coast downhill, downstream all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Imagine their surprise when they left the waters behind, they climbed up a ridge and they saw the Rocky Mountains. Not a peaceful descent down to the ocean but mile after mile of... Actually, one member of their team wrote in his diary or his journal and described them as, "The most terrible mountains I have ever beheld." They could have said, "Okay, we're going back home." A matter of fact, it's kind of a surprise that they didn't. They could have reported back to President Jefferson, "We made a discovery. There is no Northwest Passage."

Instead, they summoned the courage to carry on into unknown territory. They abandoned those boats. Well, I shouldn't say abandoned. They hid them planning to pick them up when they did come back which they fully expected to do, but they left the boats behind and went about finding horses. They gave up being river travelers and transformed themselves into mountaineers, and they carried on. They had the courage to carry on.

They encountered Indian tribes many of which had never met white men, and to their credit, avoided conflict. Sometimes it's harder to not start a fight or get involved in one than it is to fight. They can't report, could not report the same for when they encountered grizzly bears. I'll leave it to you if you want to look it up. It's somewhat humorous description. They'd never seen a bear like that, and I think it was the first two or three rifle shots just made the bear mad. So sometimes violence did ensue.

I'll mention another thing that brought this to mind. It was a couple weeks, has it been a couple of weeks already? I was with Aaron Booth and some of the newer ministerial, younger ministers, did a trip in the boundary waters of northern Minnesota. It was quite a trip. We went out to scout the terrain with the idea that we're going to develop a program for young adults that will be a counterpart for the very successful challenger program.

So, those of you that like canoeing, be looking for applications, we'll start accepting those this winter. But there's something about that. You get in in that park and you're in the wilderness. I actually read that they actually asked the airlines to route their planes around it, so you don't even look up and see aircraft in the air. And you're isolated. You see the beauty of God's creation but you also are exposed to wind, rain, mosquitoes, lots and lots of mosquitoes, and you're relying on yourself and the few tools and supplies that you can carry with you.

You know, we were out in the wilderness for a few days. The Corps of Discovery was cut off from civilization for more than a year. They had to summon the courage to provide for themselves, to find a way, to not lose sight of their goals. They carried on, carried on with courage undaunted.

Now, I will mention that I could find a bottle of water if I look. That was pretty good in no looking. You can find a lot of Christian parallels and moral lessons I think in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. And I encourage you, if you haven't read about it, think about it because you're talented and educated in God's way. You could do that.

It struck me that if I'm going to focus on courage I should also look for some examples in the Bible, and I'm going to do that. Going to the Word of God, I sorted through my mind thinking, "Oh, there's this example, there's this example. Oh, there's so many. I could take up the whole sermon time today and we could come back next week and I could take up all the sermon time and Mr. Myers wouldn't let me do that."

So, I thought I could focus it down to the example of one man, King David. He's an example of courage undaunted. I'd like to look at some examples in his life. The most famous we find in 1 Samuel 17. If you'd like to turn there. Now you won't be surprised probably to realize that this is one of the most famous and well-known stories in all of the Bible, the story of David facing Goliath.

So, I won't read all of it but I'll remind you that it was the time when the Israelites had united under King Saul and they had an enemy nation, the Philistines. And at this particular time, the armies of the two nations drew up across from each other on either side of a valley. But rather than fight, the Philistines sent out a champion, Goliath, a giant of a man, not metaphorically, literally a giant, nine feet tall, wearing armor heavier than most men could lift and a spear that he could chuck but most people would have to drag.

He challenged the Israelites. "We don't have to have army against army. Send out someone that we can fight. If you beat me, we'll be your servants. But if I defeat you," and I'm sure Goliath probably chuckled about that, confident that he would, "Then you'll be our servants." None of the Israelites wanted to fight a nine-foot-tall warrior. They hung back, they were scared. And it went on that way for day after day until, what we believe David was probably a teenager, he showed up bringing supplies for his older brothers who were soldiers in the army.

He learned what was going on and started saying, "Hey, who in the world is this guy to defy God and His armies?" Word got around and David was brought to King Saul. And we'll pick up in verse 32, as Saul questioned David, and David told him this. This is 1 Samuel 17:32, "David said to Saul, 'Let no man's heart fail because of him; [that is Goliath] your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.'"

It's funny. I thought, if you put that in modern vernacular, you can imagine a teenager telling the king, "Don't have a heart attack, dude. I'll go fight him." Now, I'm sure what David said was much more respectful and honoring the king but he basically said, "No. Nobody has to lose heart because of this." But David knew that he didn't have the means to defeat Goliath.

He didn't have the courage, looking at his own strength or ability. He knew very well he was going to draw on a higher power, and we'll look ahead, beginning in verse 45, to what David would say after Goliath taunted him. Goliath saw a youth come out. It says Goliath disdained him. And he was probably looking down his nose anyways because he was nine feet tall but he was upset. "You send out a boy? You come after me with sticks?" And he told David, "I'm going to kill you and feed you to the beasts and the birds."

David answered this way in verse 45, David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and a javelin. I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day, the Eternal will deliver you into my hand, I'll strike you and take your head from you. This day I'll give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly will know that the Eternal does not save with a sword and spear."

God doesn't need a sword and spear. You could neither do we. “‘The battle is the Lord’s, He'll give you into our hands.’ And so it was when the Philistine arose and came to draw near to meet David, David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.” And I wanted to read all the way through that last verse. Make the note that David didn't just talk the talk but when it came time to fight, he ran towards the Philistine. He didn't hunker down in a defensive position. He had no doubt what was going to happen.

David had the courage of his convictions. He knew that God was with him and he boldly faced danger, risked death and he worked a legendary heroic deed. Wouldn't you like to have that type of courage? You can have it, and I would even propose that you do have it. We would be mistaken though if we considered only David's steadfastness in battle to show his courage.

There is another well-known story moving ahead a few chapters to chapter 24 in Samuel. As I said, these stories have been repeated many times so I'm not proposing to tell you something that you don't know, but they are terrific examples.

Now, we'll be picking up later on but this is a time when David had been anointed king by the prophet Samuel. So he knew that God had chosen him to rule but there was a little bit of an obstacle because Saul had also been anointed king and he was still on the throne. And Saul developed a bit of a jealousy of David and decided that he needed to get rid of David.

He didn't want that rival, and so he had tried to kill David, and David was on the run hiding from Saul. Men who were sort of on the outskirts of society had gathered around David and he had a fighting company that was living in the wilderness. If you've seen Robin Hood, think of Robin Hood and his merry men, only this isn't a fiction. This was real, and they worked some interesting exploits and great deeds.

And then one day it seemed that God delivered Saul right into David's hands. David and his men knew the army were nearby looking for them so they hid back in the recesses of a deep cave. And it just so happened, it turned out that that cave is one that Saul chose to make into a restroom. So, Saul goes in there alone, that's what men tend to do when they go to the facilities, and he put himself in a rather vulnerable position. I like the Old King James says, "Saul went in and covered his feet," sort of a way of saying he undid his belt, dropped his trousers. He's not thinking he's in any danger, but, of course, David and his men are nearby.

David and his men say, "Look, here he is. God is answering your prayers. Go ahead and kill him." David didn't give in to peer pressure. David realized, "Now wait a minute. The same God that said I would be king is the God that anointed Saul as king. God put him in that position. Who am I to think I would take him out? I need to leave it for God to take care of that." And David not only had those thoughts but he demonstrated the courage of his convictions. I want to pick up in verse 4 of chapter 24.

The men of David said to him, "This is the day which the Lord said to you, 'Behold, I'll deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as seems good to you.'" David arose secretly, and I imagine you hear this, pulls out his sword, and he cut off a corner of Saul's robe. And his men must have been a little puzzled because I'm sure when they saw that sword come out they were thinking, "It's not a corner of a rope. He's going to cut off Saul's head." But David felt bad about even taking a little bit of that cloth.

In verse 5, "Now it happened afterwards that David's heart troubled him because he had cut Saul's robe. He said to his men, 'The Lord forbid I should do this thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Eternal.' So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. Saul got up from the cave and went on his way."

Now, I'm not going to continue in the story but we know that afterwards, David would follow Saul out there and reveal what he'd done, and Saul, seeing how vulnerable he was and how much David resisted the urge to kill him, it touched Saul. It softened him and he let David go. But what I want to focus on is not the action that David took, you know, facing danger. But in this case, I'd say, his willingness to not act was a great act of courage.

We know peer pressure is a very powerful force. None of us want our friends or our companions to think that we're not with it, you know, that we're not cool. It's not fun to stand out from everyone else. There are a lot of times in our life that showing restraint takes a lot of courage. How do you summon courage at a time like that? Because you can do it.

Before I talk about the how though and what generates that courage, I want to look at yet one more example from David's life. This is another well-known example but I think of it as one that doesn't always bring to mind the word courage. It's in 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel 11 and 12 are where we're going to go. And, again, I'll summarize the story. This is the story of David's sin with Bathsheba, his sin and a subsequent repentance.

As we know, David was king. He was well-established in his rule at this time and there was a war going on but David stayed back. And one particular evening it seems he couldn't sleep, he was up on his… walking the grounds or the wall of his house and he was able to look down at some of the others and he saw Bathsheba bathing. Apparently, she was a very attractive woman and David gave in to desire. He used his power to have her brought to him and we know the sin of adultery occurred.

David tried to hide his sin. Eventually, it resulted even in having Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, killed in battle, and David married her because she had become pregnant, I left that detail out, to cover up his sin. And he did. Apparently, David saved face that the whole nation wouldn't necessarily know what had happened. But at the end of chapter 11, we read those fateful words. "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” God sent a prophet, Nathan the prophet, to confront David, and this is one of those many examples that I could have drawn on.

You want to talk about courage, I'd say both moral and physical. Nathan might have thought, "Hey, I could end up like Uriah if I go and talk to David about this," but he did what God wanted him to do.

And, when he was confronted with his sin, David confessed. He repented. 2 Samuel 12:13, "David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you've given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.'"

Now, if we read only this account, we could put different interpretations on it. You could say, you could put it this way, David said, "I've sinned against God, you know. No big deal." I don't think it was like that at all. A matter of fact, I want to read another verse from chapter 12 but it's in Psalm 51 which we know because in the introduction it says this was what David wrote in his repentance after the sin. We see a description of how David really felt and it carries the heart and the emotion.

And it's worth mentioning, this happened… you know, Nathan went to David after the child was born. So David was living with the sin for I would say at least nine months, maybe about a year. I wonder sometimes if it began to eat on him or what exactly it was. We don't know but we know when he came to repentance, he went to God, and he writes some of what he had to say. Psalm 51:1, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, my sin is always before You."

I want to drop you on to verse 12. There he writes, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit." Actually, I wanted to start reading in verse 10, so let me back up and read that as well. Because he asked God, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me."

I often mention that when we talk about the punishment of sin and repentance because, as I said, David had been in the sin for at least nine months and still God hadn't removed His Holy Spirit. I find that encouraging. That's not something I suggest that we test to see how long we can go before God removes His Spirit. Rather, I want to focus on the fact that David was remorseful. He felt it deeply and he went to God. How many of you have read this and thought, "I've felt this way”? I think I have and David expresses it very well.

You know, I felt that way and I have to say more than once. And it's the more than once that makes me think of courage. I suspect this wasn't the first time in his life David had sinned and repented. He was rather skilled at expressing this. And yet, even if he was coming back to God after a very horrible sin, perhaps several, David didn't hesitate to go to God when the time came and to ask for God's forgiveness.

Surely, David, after these sins, realized he didn't deserve God's Holy Spirit, but he knew he needed it. And I think that's something for us to remember. We don't deserve the gift of God's Spirit. We certainly don't deserve or earn His forgiveness but we need it. We can't continue without it. And knowing that, David, you could say, had the audacity, but I would say he had the courage to go to God and plead for forgiveness.

And then, the scripture I wanted to read back in 2 Samuel 12, 2 Samuel 12:16, David asked for even more. It says, "David therefore pleaded with God for the child, David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground." It turned out that God didn't honor that particular request. He did let the child die. But David had the courage to say, “I'm going to go ask. I've got nothing to lose.” And please don't think that in the way I'm phrasing this I mean to imply that David shouldn't have gone to God. Not at all. He should have. He needed to and so should we.

What I'm saying is that it takes moral courage to do that, I believe. And, you know, I know how I feel when I've sinned and I have to go and ask God for forgiveness. And I know that there's no other way, but it's easy to start in your mind justifying. "Well, maybe my sin wasn't that bad." You know, I start wanting to avoid going to God. "I know what I did and He knows what I did. I don't want to go talk to Him about this."

Do you ever do that? Do you ever hesitate? Do you ever have the temptation to make justifications? Do you think, "How can I ask God to forgive me for this again?" But we know. We know God wants us to come to Him in repentance and He promises to forgive. Let's remember what it says in 1 John 1:9. 1 John 1:9, my fingers are more nimble today than usual, if you're not there I'll read it to you.

It says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" if we confess, God is faithful and just. He will forgive us “and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I think we can take that as a promise, it's a guarantee. God says, "This is how I operate." We can take it as a promise and we can know that David did. But still, it can take moral courage to go to God and claim that promise rather than make up justifications, rather than avoid God. It takes courage to ask for that free, unmerited pardon.

I like that phrase. I don't know if Mr. Armstrong coined it, but it's been with me for a lot of years. David had that kind of courage. You and I can have that kind of courage. As I said, I believe, more than you might realize, you do have that kind of courage. But the question is, "Well, how? Do I? Where does it come from? How do I generate courage?" I believe there's a formula, and I'm not going to take credit for this. It would be plagiarizing except I'm going to give credit to Dr. Don Ward is the first one I heard describe it this way many years ago.

He likes to say that courage is a product of conviction and commitment. Courage comes from conviction and commitment. He likes to call those “The three C’s" and if you're a student of history it's not the Civilian Conservation Corps. A lot of you aren't students of history, I can tell. At least not Great Depression history. But think of it this way, when a person is truly convicted of what is right and committed to stick with it, that conviction and commitment will generate courage. When a person has those things, he can courageously face and defeat challenges. That person can exercise the courage of his convictions. And that brings back another question, what do I mean by conviction?

When I say conviction, I'm thinking of that feeling, that knowing that you have to do something, that something is right and you can't get out of it. Or in some cases the knowing that you have to not do something.

I've heard it described sometimes as a weight that is put on your mind and on your heart. And it's not one that comes from nowhere. If you'll join me in John 16, John 16 beginning in verse 8, this is the passage in the Bible I like to go to fairly often. It's the last night in His earthly ministry that Christ spent with His disciples. Then the following day He would be tortured and crucified and killed, so He had a lot of things He wanted to tell the disciples that night, and some of which He said, "You're not going to understand this but later you will." And He spent some time telling them about the Holy Spirit.

So, actually, it's in the latter part of verse 7, he said, "It's to your advantage that I go away; if I don't go away, the Helper will not come to you;” that was that Greek word Paraclete, means Comforter, Helper, "but if I depart, I will send it to you." And I'm using the pronoun "it" which is the proper for the grammar. "And when it has come, it will convict the world" the Holy Spirit will convict the world "of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment."

True spiritual conviction comes from the Holy Spirit working in a person's mind, working with the spirit in man that's there, giving an understanding, I would say a knowing, a conviction of what's right and wrong, conviction of “sin, righteousness, and judgment." But before I go further, I should explain that there is something else needed.

We see later in this chapter in verse 13, the Spirit doesn't just make you suddenly know something. It's not like plugging in a flash drive and downloading information. Christ said in verse 13, "When it, the Spirit of truth, has come, it will guide you into all truth; it won't speak on its own, but whatever it hears, it will speak; and tell you all things.” It's a way of saying the Holy Spirit makes it possible to understand God's Word. It says it will guide you into all truth.

I'll make a reference a page later in John 17:17. John 17:17 is where in His prayer to the Father, Christ said, "Your word is truth." The Word of God is truth. And the Holy Spirit guides us into understanding and gives us that conviction. And that's where I said, the Spirit doesn't make us just know things but it can give us the ability to understand it.

And so we could say, with the Word of God, the Holy Spirit works and the two are the convicting agents. Paul wrote something similar to Titus. I'm going to turn to Titus 1:9. Titus 1:9, Paul was writing about some of the traits an elder should have. And one of them was, an elder should be “holding fast the faithful word" that's the Word of God, "as he's been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine," sound doctrine is based on that Word, "they may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict."

So, again, God's Word can convict us. And I don't mean conviction like the judge says you're guilty and convict you to so many years in prison. I mean that conviction where it's in your heart and mind and you say, "This is what's right. This is what I have to do." Conviction is something that goes beyond knowledge. We can know the Word of God but it's the saying, "I've got to do something about it." The apostle Paul is a good example of spiritual conviction.

You know, Paul knew God's Word. He was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet Gamaliel. He was a scholar, but after Christ knocked him down on the road to Damascus and gave him His Spirit, Paul became convicted of a number of things. And one of the things he was convicted of was that he had a job to do, that he had to go and preach the gospel. And it was something he couldn't ignore.

A matter of fact, let's turn to Acts 18, Acts 18 beginning in verse 5. Acts 18:5, this is on one of Paul's journeys, it says, "When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is Christ." Paul was compelled. It's like, "I have to do this." The Spirit convicted him that he had to carry on this mission.

A matter of fact, he says it even more plainly over in 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 9:16. Again, my fingers are nimble so I'm ahead of you. 1 Corinthians 9:16, Paul said, “For if I…” say that again, "For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” That was a conviction. Paul said, "I have to do this." He was compelled by the Spirit. I won't turn there but you might make note of Acts 4:20.

Act 4:20, Peter and John said something similar. When they were brought in by the authorities for proclaiming the truth about who Jesus Christ was and the gospel message, they had him in jail. They beat them and they commanded him, "Don't you preach any more in the name of this Man." And you know what they answered? They said, "We cannot but speak the things which we've seen and heard. We can't help it. We have to do it." Peter felt that way, John, Paul. And I should mention, they and the other disciples do have a number of examples of great courage. They acted on that courage.

Now, most of us are not called to go out and preach. You know, you don't have to go to Mars Hill and explain about the unknown God that they worship not knowing of. But we all should be and feel convicted by God's Spirit and God's Word. It comes in different ways. For many of us, it starts with the Sabbath. People, when they first come to an understanding, they start looking in here and they say, "Huh, the seventh day is the Sabbath. I'm supposed to keep it holy.” And a lot of people say, "I feel like I don't just know it, I have to do it."

I've heard people, prominently my father-in-law, when he describes his calling into the Church, you know, he was called first before his wife and he says at one point he went to her and said, "Wanda, I have to do this. I have to start keeping the Sabbath." And she admits that she thought he had lost his mind. Later, God convicted her and she began keeping the Sabbath.

Many of you felt that way, you know, that weight on your heart and mind. Do you still feel it? Do you still feel like woe is me if I don't do this? As I said, being convicted by God's Word and His Spirit leaves us to doing right actions, to having right thoughts, but I could say that's the beginning. It also takes a commitment. Commitment means remaining true to the cause, following through. In many cases, deep and total commitment means a person is willing to put everything on the line to stick with to what he or she has committed.

Let me bring to mind another famous example in the Bible, that's the story of Ruth. I'm going to read one passage from there. It's in Ruth 1 beginning in verse 16, one of my favorite passages in all the Bible. But I'll just remind you of the background story. The story of Ruth mentions a man from Israel who during a famine took his wife and his two sons and went to Moab where they could survive, and they were there for some years. Both the sons married Moabite women. And then the man, Elimelech, he died, leaving his wife a widow. And in time, both of his sons died.

The story doesn't tell us why but at one point, now, the widow Naomi is left there with these two daughters-in-law, and she determines, she learns, "Hey, God has ended the famine in Israel. I'm going to go back home." And at first, the two daughters-in-law decided to go with her but she says, "Wait a minute." I'm not sure she said it like that but she said, "Look, I'm not going to have more sons that you can marry. You two go back home. Go to your parents' house. You can remarry, have happy lives.

One of them named Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye and went back. Ruth was different because I would say, at some point during the story that I breezed through, Ruth became convicted. She realized that this God of Israel that these people worship isn't just some local superstition. This God of Israel, it's the God, the only God. She realized that this mode of worship was the true religion. She became convicted and she made a commitment. And she's approaching a certain point when Naomi advises here to go back home.

It's in chapter 1 verse 16, Ruth answers her, "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, [the true God] my God. Where you die, I'll die, and there I'll be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."

If you remember the Apollo space program back in the late '60s and '70s when United States sent men to the moon, each one of those space missions had built in what they called a "point of no return." It was a point somewhere along the way where once they passed that point there was not enough fuel to abort the mission and return. It was go to the moon or nothing, you're going to the moon. Okay, Ruth passed her point of no return right here.

Naomi said, "You can go back." Ruth said, "No. I am convicted and committed. Where you go, I will go. The true God is my God." I believe we have passed our point of no return. I won't turn there but in Luke 9:62, Luke 9:62, Jesus said, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Brethren, you and I have put our hand to the plow. We don't need to look back. I will turn to Matthew 24:45, another statement of commitment. Matthew 24, beginning in verse 45, this is the sermon on the… not the sermon on the Mount, the Olivet Prophecy. I get my names confused.

Matthew 24:45, Jesus said, "Who then is a faithful and a wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his house, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing." It's that "finding so doing," that's what commitment leads to. I'm sticking with it. You know, because in some ways I could say it's easy in that flush and excitement when we're first called, when you're first convicted of the truth, to say, "Okay, I'm with it." But sticking with it, that's commitment, to endure, to stay committed. We sometimes call that being faithful.

We most often talk about faith is that deep-seated belief, trust, a belief that you'll take action on. But being faithful means staying committed to what you believe, enduring to the end, honoring that commitment. You could say upon baptism, we commit to God's way. We commit to doing His work, to passing it on to others, but we've got to stay committed. And we must remain committed to the end, holdfast the truth, and as I said, as we have opportunity, put it in trust to others, that's the subject for another message.

To fulfill those obligations, it's funny, turns out it needs a lot of that third C which is courage. I like the formula of conviction plus commitment produces courage but it circles around where you need to have courage to stay committed and renew that conviction. And as I said, I think if we're convicted by God's Spirit and His Word, we are fully committed, it will produce in us the courage that we need. We're not likely to face any giants that want to kill us the way David did, but it seems that we regularly face giant problems, obstacles to living God's way and developing His character.

If you have a neighbor or a coworker that might make your life miserable if you work in a home office, I hope not a coworker. Do you have a character flaw threatening to ruin your life, you need to confront some giant flaw in your makeup, but you feel like you lack courage? Well, we need to be like David. When he confronted Goliath he realized it's not shield or spear that's going to do this, but I'm going to confront this problem in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. And the conviction that God is with us and the commitment to serve Him should stir up that courage we need to face our giant problems.

You and I will probably never have a friend or just to kill a rival when he's vulnerable. I hope not. But we might have people in our lives who influence us towards doing what's wrong, if you have some sinful temptation that just keeps popping up it's hard to resist. Do you have peer pressure, trying to fit you in with the values of society around you? Do you struggle to hold back from setting your feet on the path that would lead to destruction.

When David was urged to take Saul's life, he had the courage of his conviction that he should not kill Saul, even though his men urged him to do it. We likewise need to refrain from doing things that we know are wrong, from giving in to temptation. We need to... Let me say that again. We need to have the courage of our convictions to know that God's way is the only way.

And on those occasions that we do fail, when we fall into sin, when you sin, do you feel too guilty to go to God in prayer? Do you start making excuses to justify what you did? Do you fear that God won't be willing to forgive yet again? David had the courage to go to God and ask for forgiveness, to tell God, "Please, don't take Your Spirit from me." He even asked God to restore joy. Restore the joy of our salvation. And David didn't do these things because David was so good or so capable. David was able to have that courage because God is so good and God is so capable. When we're convicted by the Word of God and by His Holy Spirit, we can commit ourselves fully to Him, live His way of life, and the conviction and commitment will produce in us the courage that we need.

Life is often compared to a journey. And considering the challenges and the unknowns we face, we could call it an expedition. And there's where we could look to the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a role model in a sense. For that expedition to be successful, it relied on teamwork, relied on trust among its members, and it relied on a number of other characters like intelligence and resourcefulness. But, very prominently, it relied on courage, on courage undaunted.

Our journey through life to God's Kingdom relies on many factors, and we need trust. We need to cooperate with others. We need resourcefulness and intelligence. But we most definitely need courage. Courage is a matter of the heart and of the Spirit, and I want to encourage us. I didn't realize the play on words there. We can take heart, stir up God's Spirit and let your courage be undaunted.