Boldness
What God Honors
There is a quality the Lord consistently honors throughout Scripture, and it is not timidity. It is not softness. It is not the polished silence of a faith carefully kept behind closed doors so as not to offend anyone. The quality God honors is boldness — the unashamed declaration of who He is, what He has done, and what He is coming to do. The same Jesus who calmed the sea and raised the dead also said with perfect clarity: “Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven. But whoever disowns Me before men, I will disown before My Father in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32–33. Those are not gentle words. They are the words of a King who expects His followers to stand for Him in every arena — in the home, in the workplace, in the public square, and in every land under heaven. Paul understood this with crystal clarity. Writing from chains, having been beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, and hunted, this man who had every earthly reason to keep quiet chose instead to declare: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” — Romans 1:16. This is not bravado. This is a man who encountered the risen Christ and could not be silenced. The same Spirit that filled the early church when “they spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31) has been given to every believer. The same God who told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” — Joshua 1:9 — speaks the same word to the church today. He is not ashamed of you. The only question is whether you are ashamed of Him.
God Is Real — And He Has Not Been Silent
God is real. He is not a cultural concept or a historical relic. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, the Alpha and Omega, the I AM who spoke to Moses from the burning bush and who speaks still through the living Word. He sent His Son. Jesus Christ came in the flesh, went willingly to the cross — not as a victim, but as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. “You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect” — 1 Peter 1:19. Three days later, the tomb was empty. Death could not hold Him, and the grave had no claim on the Author of life. He gives eternal life to all who believe. And He is coming again. This living truth was never meant to be whispered. It was meant to be proclaimed — with love, with courage, and without apology — to every person on the face of the earth. “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power, love and self-discipline.” — 2 Timothy 1:7. That spirit is the inheritance of every child of God — and it was never given to be hidden.
The Scandal of the Cross — and the Silence of the Church
Here is a hard truth that must be spoken: a large portion of the modern church has grown deeply, profoundly, tragically ashamed of the gospel. Not ashamed in so many words. No one stands at a pulpit and announces that they find the cross embarrassing. But the evidence is visible in what is preached — and far more in what is not. The blood of Christ has been quietly removed from the vocabulary of too many congregations. Sermons about sin, judgment, and hell have been replaced with messages designed to comfort, entertain, and above all, not offend. The thunderous warning from 2 Timothy is being fulfilled in real time: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” — 2 Timothy 4:3. When a church refuses to preach the hard truth about sin, it does not spare souls from discomfort. It condemns them. Hand-holding people toward hell is not compassion — it is cruelty. “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.” — 2 Timothy 4:2. May we never boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). The cross is not a liability to be managed. It is the only hope the world has.
The Irony of the Backyard Missionary
For decades, a phrase circulated through comfortable Western churches with a kind of spiritual self-satisfaction: “Well, I’m a missionary in my own backyard.” It was meant to communicate that one need not go to the nations — the nations were supposedly not one’s calling, because there was always a neighbor to reach right there at home. The bitter irony is this: those who said it largely did not reach their neighbors either. And while the Western church stalled — the nations came to the backyard. Those very neighborhoods, those very communities, those very streets where someone once justified staying home from the mission field are today filled with mosques, Hindu temples, and an aggressive secular ideology that is militantly opposed to the name of Jesus Christ. Europe did not lose its Christian heritage because pagans invaded from outside the walls. It lost it because the church went silent from within. It traded the cross for the approval of culture, and culture — predictably — consumed it. The United States is watching the same pattern repeat with troubling speed. The spiritual ground that prior generations bled and prayed to consecrate is being surrendered, inch by inch, not primarily because of the strength of the opposition, but because of the silence of the church. There are no backyards left for the passive Christian. The mission field is everywhere. The hour is late. And the only answer to false religion and god-hating ideology is not a better program — it is the bold, unashamed, blood-soaked proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Backyard Lost: What Silence Costs
The global picture is stark and demands honest assessment. Christianity in Western Europe — once the launching pad for the greatest missionary movements in history — has collapsed into cultural irrelevance in the span of a single generation. Churches stand empty or have been converted into mosques and nightclubs. The Christian moral framework that once shaped law, education, art, and society has been systematically dismantled and replaced with an ideology that exalts every preference of man and acknowledges no authority above the individual self. America stands at a crossroads. The same spiritual erosion is visible — the same patterns, the same retreat from biblical truth. The enemy does not need to destroy the church from outside if he can neutralize it from within. A church that preaches everything except sin, redemption, and the exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ is not a threat to the kingdom of darkness. It is a chaplaincy for it. The word of Paul to Timothy is not an ancient pastoral memo. It is an alarm sounding directly into this moment: “I charge you, in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word.” — 2 Timothy 4:1–2. Not a word adjusted for the audience. Not a truth softened for the season. The word. As written. As it stands. As it saves.
Rise Up — The Call to Stand
But we do not end here. We do not close with diagnosis alone, because the God we serve is not finished. The same Jesus who warned about the lukewarm church in Revelation is the One who stands at the door and knocks, still calling His people back to first love, back to first courage, back to the fire that once turned the world upside down. “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:39. He has not abandoned His church. He has not revised His gospel. He has not relaxed His command. And He has not changed His promise: those who acknowledge Him, He will acknowledge.
The call of this hour is not complicated. It is not a new strategy or a revised method. It is the oldest, simplest, most powerful instruction in the history of the church: stand up and preach Christ. Preach Him in love — but always in truth. Open the Scripture without apology. Name sin for what it is. Lift the cross for what it is — the only hope of every soul alive. When rejection comes, do not be surprised. “If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” — 1 Peter 4:16. When a message is rejected, shake the dust from your sandals and press on — but never stop. Never stop preaching. Never stop living for Christ and no other.
The church that was built under persecution, forged in the fires of martyrdom, that carried the gospel to every corner of the earth while facing sword and lion and dungeon — that church did not build its legacy through silence. It built it through boldness. That same legacy belongs to us. That same commission falls on us. That same Spirit dwells within us.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you” — Deuteronomy 31:6.
The world is waiting. The hour is urgent. Do not be ashamed of Him. He is not ashamed of you.
In Him,
Tim and Will