Search Me---Am I That Brave?

—Search Me--- Am I That Brave?

Psalm 139 13-24 2 Timothy 2:1-4

When you think of someone doing something brave. What comes to your mind? A father lost his life, swimming for his kids. An uncle was severely burned running into a burning building to save his niece.

What would give you the most courage if the police were beginning to search you? Hopefully the realization that there is nothing there to find.

As a believer one of the bravest things we can do is to present ourselves before God and say, “Go at it God, show me where I need some work.” What makes this such a brave act, is that God will do it, and then we will either have to change or admit our walk with God is fake at worse or very limited full of conditions at best.

Do you know what leads to a stale and boring walk with God? It’s the refusal to take any dangerous risks for God that require some bravery on our part. Can you think when was the last time you took a risk for God, that wasn’t a safe one?

Most of the time we pray safe prayers. Lord bless me, my family, my children and my church. Lord please give me a good paying job. Lord let me do well on this test or on this interview. Lord heal my friend or Lord forgive me for what I did.

There’s nothing wrong with these prayers, and we should keep praying for things like this but they don’t require much bravery on our part. There is very little risk involved for us. Why not pray, God use me today to help somebody come to know Jesus Christ and open my eyes to the opportunity? How many of us prayed somebody would get saved today at church and meant it.

Praying brave prayers invite God into our lives in such a way, that dramatic things can happen. We become a different person on the inside when the prayer is answered. We put all kinds of things at risk when we choose a humble bravery before the Lord. We actually find ourselves reporting for duty, ready to engage in some type of battle.

We get to the point of recognizing, we are to be soldiers in the army of God.

Paul says this about soldiers: 3 Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

Our motivation to be brave isn’t to boast of how brave we are, but to please our commanding officer. Soldiers expect to endure some suffering, expect to take some shooting at, and expect to be possibly wounded or killed. How many of us spend our whole prayer time praying to avoid these situations?

You see at the end of a dangerous assignment is an opportunity to walk with God, and to know God in a way that you have not known God before. Are you brave enough to even want an assignment with God.

Most of the time we have Moseites. Moses told God I appreciate the offer, but I’m just a nobody, I’m not a good speaker, nobody would believe me, I’m not sure I can trust you, and even if you did come through, I don’t want to do it anyways.

Which excuse do you use most often? What is God calling you to do in the life of our church that would put you out of your comfort zone, and make you brave enough to do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do.

God is putting in my spirit, 15 minutes of you, could change the direction and future of our church. Just 15 minutes. Are you brave enough to ask how?

When we think of David, we often think of his bravery in fighting the lion and the bear, his fight against the giant Goliath, or his going into battle against the enemies of Saul. But David did something even braver than this. He went before God, and asked God to show him the truth about himself from God’s perspective.

David prayed this prayer in the Psalms in Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV) 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

One of the things I found interesting about this prayer is the context in which it is found. In the verses before it, David is saying, “You know God it would be good if you just killed all the wicked people, especially the murderers , who take people’s lives without blinking an eye.

I can’t stand people who take your name in vain. It really gets under my skin when people talk bad about you and even have the nerve to claim they are doing stuff in your name. I hate them and count them as my enemies.”