Only the Brave

Determined discipleship

Sim Dendy, Krish Kandiah, Catherine Madavan, Lisa Holmes, Cris Rogers

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780857218957
• eBook ISBN: 9780857218964
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Using the book of James as a road map, this multi-authored work will lead you on an adventure along the narrow road of discipleship. Only the Brave brings both challenge and excitement, while offering plenty of practical tips along the way!

The five authors - Lisa Holmes, Krish Kandiah, Sim Dendy, Cathy Madavan, and Cris Rogers - each explore a chapter of James using these key themes: Face it; Live it; Tame it; Lose it; Finish it. They consider how we can use our heads, hearts, and hands to answer the challenge James, and ultimately Jesus himself, laid down. It takes courage to go beyond simply believing in Jesus: to live him, love him, and share him.

Only the Brave urges us not to play it safe, but to live a life of abundance based on the example Jesus lived out on earth. Only the brave will change the world, and this book will inspire anyone who reads it to do just that.

FACE IT

LISA HOLMES

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.

James 1:22–25

There are some things that a person should never do by accident, and running two marathons in eight months is one of them. Last year I had a so-called “significant” birthday and I did quite a bit of thinking about what I’d achieved in my life and what I still hoped to do: the things that were “now or never”.

In April, just before my birthday, like many people I was caught up in the excitement of watching the London Marathon on television – thousands of ordinary-looking people crossing the line on The Mall with so much elation and pride. I felt quite emotional and overly optimistic, and so, without due consideration for the possible consequences and without telling anyone, I secretly entered the ballot for the London Marathon. As I pressed “send”, there was a strange mixture of panic and excitement with a big dose of reality. More than 253,000 people apply for the London Marathon and approximately 17,000 are allocated a place, so the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against me. I was going to be OK; there was very little chance of having to run anyway. However, over the next few months I had this unsettling but increasingly persistent sense that I wanted to run the marathon. Strange, really, as I would say that I’m a reluctant runner, and the most I’d ever run was a half marathon a few years before, and that was more than enough.

The feeling kept niggling away at me so I decided to enter the Chester Marathon with only eight weeks’ training. I trained rigorously in that short time and on 2 October 2016 I lined up, feeling sick with nerves. Off I went, and only five hours and eighteen minutes later it was over. I DID it! I ran it. I had completed a marathon. Never mind the fact that I could scarcely walk. I never needed to run 26.2 miles again – and that’s when it happened. Just one very short week later, a red, plastic-covered magazine dropped through my letter box with the words “You have a provisional place on the 2017 London Marathon” written in huge letters on the front. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Of all my friends, I had been given a place, and I was going to have to face a winter of long runs, cold mornings, rain, snow, determination, pain, Yorkshire hills, and mud, with the goal of successfully completing the most iconic marathon in the world. Oh, and winning a medal.

WHAT DO MARATHONS HAVE TO DO WITH DISCIPLESHIP AND THE BOOK OF JAMES?

I learned so much through that experience. Pushing through laziness and pain, being constant and not erratic in training, ignoring the weather conditions and doing it anyway, and taking responsibility for myself and not relying on others to do it for me, to name just a few. Many people have said that the journey of discipleship is a marathon, not a sprint. That seems a great picture to me. It’s putting one foot in front of the other to follow Jesus. It is about consistent courage in the everyday experiences of our lives; it is, as the book of James reminds us, about determined discipleship.

There are many different themes in James’ letter, but one thing that runs consistently throughout the narrative is the need for authenticity in our discipleship: true faith that has integrity; faith that is worked out in the way we live. There is never any sense that this will be easy – it will require bravery, determination, and persistence.

From the very beginning of his letter, James is completely open about the fact that following Jesus will be challenging, and that those trials are part of the way in which we are moulded and formed in our likeness to Jesus.

We should not forget when reading the New Testament that most of it was written to believers who were suffering and being persecuted, or at least marginalized, because they followed Jesus. Their lives were pressured on all sides, and it required bravery and persistence for them to be disciples of Christ.

Similarly, today, there will be external pressures that seek to destroy our faith. We may experience ridicule, discrimination, or even violence against us. There will be internal pressures too – temptations that seek to lead us away from God and His purposes. These may occur because of flaws in our character or because of particular inclinations we have or just because we are weary or discouraged by life’s challenges. In the face of both external and internal pressures we are encouraged to stand firm and to persevere, to trust in God and look forward to the “crown of life” that will be ours (James 1:12). Just as I needed to train consistently for the marathon, so we need to practise our discipleship daily. Just as I needed to be disciplined in running and completing the race despite the desire at times to give up, so we are called to stand firm and persevere to the finish line.

RESPONDING TO GOD’S WORD

The section of James’ letter that we are looking at focuses on our response to God’s Word (James 1:19–25). It begins with a common metaphor, one that Jesus Himself used when He spoke about our response to God’s Word. James speaks about the Word of God being “planted” like a seed within us, growing, and bearing fruit in our lives.

This has echoes of the parable of the sower in Mark 4 where the fruitfulness of the seed is directly in proportion to the quality of the soil. It is perhaps this thought that leads James to speak about the need to “get rid of all moral filth” in our hearts in preparation for us to receive God’s Word. More than simply receiving it, believers are to live by the Word of God, allowing God’s Word to speak to us, counsel and guide us, direct us, and shape us, as we orient our lives toward God. This part of James’ letter is all about how we “respond” to God’s Word, and James uses a couple of different images to enable us to understand what that means.

ONLY THE BRAVE

When our children were little, we watched a lot of films derived from fairy tales. One of their favourites was Snow White. In most of these there is one especially frightening, villainous character. In Snow White it is the wicked stepmother, who is known for her vile nature. You might recall that she had a magic mirror and every day she would ask, “Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest of them all?” and of course the mirror would say, “Oh, you are.” He must have liked his job! But one day the mirror told her something different and she became extremely angry. Her reaction didn’t make the fact that she was no longer the fairest in the land any less true, but in her anger she just wouldn’t believe it. She became so angry that she was willing to murder Snow White because she was more beautiful.

Unfortunately, too many of us today are a bit like the stepmother in Snow White. We hold the Word of God, the Bible – what James referred to as a mirror – in front of us and often get angry or embarrassed because it is talking to us and about us and we don’t like it very much. We don’t want to be faced with the truth about ourselves. In discipleship terms, it is really “only the brave” who are willing to look in the mirror and see what is genuinely there and act on it.

James’ thoughts on discipleship cluster around powerful images that capture our imagination and enable us to grasp more fully the concepts he wants to communicate. The crucial image here is the mirror, and the key verses of this short section are James 1:23–24:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

FACING UP TO REALITY

Many of us have had beach holiday experiences where we spend the whole day swimming and sunbathing and by the end of the day our hair is matted from salty water, wind, heat, and sand. Our faces are nicely made up with smears of sun cream and a smattering of sand and we are a mottled mixture of red, brown, and (at least in my case) freckles. We feel relaxed from a fun day out and feel great – until we look in the mirror and realize what a mess we must have looked coming home. On such occasions, we generally choose to do something about it.

The purpose of a mirror is to reflect reality so that we can – if we need to or choose to – change that reality. Of course, mirrors nowadays may be more about form and decoration, but we must remember their primary purpose is function.

We are surrounded by mirrors, or by reflective glass which acts as a mirror – too many and too much. In our homes, in restaurants, along the street, even on our phones, there we are again and again and AGAIN reflected at our best and worst. What we see in the mirror is a significant aspect of who we perceive ourselves to be. We make judgments about ourselves dependent on what we “see” in the mirror. Perhaps we find ourselves thinking, or even saying, “I really should lose some weight,” “That doesn’t suit me,” “Is that some grey in my hair?” “Are there more wrinkles than there used to be?” “If only I had looked…” Perhaps it’s not just in fairy tales that we ask the question, “Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest of them all?”

Mirrors have become such a powerful force for us all today, regardless of age, gender, or stage of life. My daughter is part of the “selfie generation”: her image posted on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, out there for everyone to assess and judge, “like”, or ignore. Phone filters are the way forward: we can enhance ourselves – make our eyes look bigger, make our nose look smaller, or even give ourselves cute puppy ears. Whatever we choose, we have the capacity to make ourselves look different and change people’s perceptions of us – but it’s not reality.

Our culture holds mirrors up to us so often that we use that reflection to define who we are. We are what we wear, where we shop, where we live, where we go on holiday. We are strongly influenced by our cultural mirrors. According to the website cityam.com, Fitness Knowledge reported that £250 million was spent on UNUSED health and fitness clothing in 2016.¹ At the same time, an average of around £550 per annum was spent on gym membership, with people attending an average of 13.5 times per year – meaning each visit cost around £40. We want to be fit; we want to look right while getting fit; we look in the mirror and attempt to conform to what our culture is telling us – but in reality we do not change.

We are even influenced by what the media tells us are the best and worst places to live. Bristol and Dover won those titles respectively in 2017, according to the websites bbc.co.uk and ilivehere.co.uk.² Something of our identity is wrapped up even in our address. For all of those now feeling ecstatic or offended, you can just go to another website and there’ll be a different result. Such labels remind me of the mirrors at a fairground where we recognize our image but it is distorted to a greater or lesser extent. We laugh, but we would be unhappy if that was what we truly looked like. And yet we far too easily trust what the media holds up in front of us with their similar levels of distortion. The sad reality is that all too often we don’t even recognize this distortion. We are so accustomed to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: Only the Brave
• Introduction: Called to Be a Disciple
• Chapter 1: Face It
• Chapter 2: Live It
• Chapter 3: Tame It!
• Chapter 4: Lose It
• Chapter 5: Finish It
• Conclusion: The Final Challenge
• Endnotes
• Note space