Courage to Speak the Word of Truth (part two) By Jay Wegter
In order to excel at speaking the truth, we must be accomplished at using the Sword of Truth upon ourselves. The man of God ultimately can only preach with conviction what he has first preached to his own heart. Believers who can wield the Sword of Truth desire God’s truth in their innermost being (Ps. 51:6). When God’s truth is loved, it dominates exceptionally in our lives so as to renew us and transform us (Rom. 12:1-2). God’s truth is precisely what we sinners need; but divine truth is an irritant to our idols calling for our repentance, therefore it creates a ‘scandal’ in the conscience. Courageous truth-speakers are intimately aware of this reason why truth offends. Nonetheless, the godly individual will not have “conflict avoidance” as his controlling motive in his conversations (2 Tim 3:12). “Jesus promised those who would follow Him only three things…that they would be absurdly happy, entirely fearless, and always in trouble” (Gregg Levoy). How can a Christian develop enough courage and boldness to stand upon and speak his convictions without fear of consequences? An important part of the answer is bound up in an inescapable reality taught in Scripture: the godly man will be misunderstood just as Jesus was (Jn 15:18-25). It is par for the course. It follows therefore that progress in our journey toward greater boldness is tied to the fact that we will face some misunderstanding and rejection because of the truth. Jesus indicated that our realism at this juncture will ‘keep us from stumbling’ if we experience rejection (Jn 16:1ff.). The Scriptures make it clear that all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted—misunderstood, maligned, etc. (2 Tim 3:12). Christ prepared His followers for persecution by imbuing them with the fact that they should expect the same mistreatment that He experienced (Jn 15:18-16:4). Though we live in a land that protects the rights of believers, obedient Christians who stand in the truth will at times experience rejection, ostracism, and discrimination. Our perspective amidst mistreatment must be imbued with the following: it is an inestimable privilege to have the antipathy meant for Christ fall upon us (Jn 7:7; Acts 5:41; Col 1:24). During His earthly ministry, Jesus faced “wanna be” followers who remained in bondage to the fear of man. John 12:42-43 provides an authoritative record of these double-minded individuals. “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.” Some might be quick to excuse the desire for human approval as simply a natural tendency that is not a serious sin. Jesus places this illicit craving under the spotlight in John 5:44 wherein He sets up an inverse proportion: the greater our fear of God, the less we will fear men. For, the fear of man brings a snare (Prov 29:25). Christ warns that the fear of man is so serious it can keep a person from living to the glory of God. “How can you believe, when you receive glory [approval] from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (5:44). Again, lest we excuse this sin of living for the approval of man, let us remember that Jesus reserved one of His “Woes” for the sin of man-pleasing. “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for in the same way their fathers used to treat the false prophets” (Lu 6:26). Jesus places this issue into sharp relief. If we live for the praise and approval of men, we are not living for the glory of God. Therefore, we must repent of our ‘addiction’ to the approval of men. We live in a culture which promotes the false idea that we may live for the recognition, attention, and affirmation of others. This is not right to place the praise of men above the approval of our Heavenly Father. We need to confess that our narcissistic desire to be liked by all has often stolen our courage to speak the truth in love. It is as matter of priority—under whose eye are we living? The greater our ambition to please Christ, the more courage we will have to prayerfully speak the Word of God to others (2 Cor 5:9). Courage to speak God’s truth is a byproduct of living to please Christ. When Christ’s approval towers over all other sources of approval, courage becomes second nature. Those who live to please Christ have the judgment seat of Christ etched on their consciousness (2 Cor 5:9-10). In essence, living to please Christ is a measure of our fear of God. Furthermore, those who live for Christ’s approval are continually weighing the glory to come against temporal losses (2 Cor 4:17-18). This fact alone enables them to see how impotent our fellow creatures are when they attempt to rightly appraise us (1 Cor 4:3-4). Spurgeon said it best, “Compared to what my heavenly Father thinks of me, the opinions of men are like so many chirping sparrows.” The one we strive most to please will necessarily become our primary evaluator. In other words, the one we seek to please will always wind up evaluating our efforts at pleasing them. In effect, we are somewhat suspended upon their approval or disapproval of us. God has an incredibly liberating solution to this problem. Not only are we to make sure that all we do is in done in love (1 Cor 16:14), but we are to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). Our pleasing of men must spring from the goal of seeking the other person’s eternal welfare (Rom 15:2; 1 Cor 10:32-33). This perspective places all of our relationships under the eye of Christ’s scrutiny. The point is this, we are most free and obedient when our actions are “as for the Lord rather than for men” (Col 3:22-24). Our loyalty to the Lord is inseparable from loving His truth; and where God’s truth is loved, it will be central in our conversations (Zech 8:16; Mal 3:16; Deut 6:4-9; 11:18-19).