Confidence is Crucial

Good morning church family, If you have your copy of God's

word, go and make your way to 1st John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

First John chapter 5, verses 13 through 21 will be our text this

1 John 5:13–21

morning as we finish our series from First John on the vitals of

our faith. I can't believe that our time

has passed so quick in this New Testament letter.

I don't know about you, but it's been a blessing to me.

First John just comes plain and simple and straight at the truth

and praise God for his Word and how it guides us and feeds us

and instructs us and changes us. So I hope that maybe you took

that challenge early on to just spend time in First John

yourself. And if you haven't, it's not too

late to do that, to just let the word of God dwell in you and let

it work God's will in your life. Big thanks to Stephen James, our

associate pastor, who filled in for me last week as my family

and I were out of town for a little bit and Mystery Church.

It's so good to be back, but thankful for him.

And, and praise God for our kids leading us in worship today,

right? The joy of the Lord on their

faces, seeing them experience the truth of Jesus and worship

him. What a joy that is and thankful

to the leaders that made that possible this morning.

Y'all, I think you would agree with this statement that life

requires some confidence to live life.

At some point it takes acquiring a little bit of confidence.

Some of my most vivid memories are moments, especially when I

was younger, growing up and maturing, when I walk through

experiences where I was lacking confidence.

Maybe some of your most vivid memories involved the same

scenario. I remember my first day of high

school after moving from Americus, GA where I had done 1

semester of 9th grade and been in a small private school, to my

second semester of 9th grade in a county public school in

Columbus, Ms. I was lacking some confidence on that day.

I remember I came home, told my mom after all the emotions of

that day and the nervousness of that day that I didn't know

where to laugh or to cry. It was all sorts of experiences

all in one. That first day, a day I was

lacking in some confidence. I remember the first time I

attempted to speak in public. It was just an opportunity to

really informally share among the youth group things God was

doing in our lives. I remember being a junior high.

I remember feeling prompted by God to share what was on my

heart and all I could choke out with some tears and I started

crying. It didn't even be able to say

what I wanted to say a moment. I was lacking some confidence.

I remember my first date. Now Lauren was in the first

service and heard this, but it wasn't with her.

So anyway, I gave her a little preface about that.

Praise God, God worked all that out.

But I remember my first date, by the way, my parents were in the

back of the movie theater. Hint to parents, right?

I was under parental surveillance, right?

But I remember lacking some confidence in this moment, and I

really wanted to put my arm around my date, you know, in the

back of the chair at least, right?

But I lacked the confidence to just make the move while she sat

there. So eventually she got up, went

to the restroom before the movie started her to get popcorn or

something. Or I think I'd already bought

that, hopefully. Anyway, I saw my moment to make

my move, so I moved my arm around the back of her chair.

When she came back, of course, I was already in position.

So that was the move that I made, lacking some confidence.

All right, I remember that my first Friday night high school

football game. I remember the sound of the

crowd when I was still in the locker room.

I remember the sound of the cheers, the lights and noise and

the knots in my stomach right before running out on the field.

I remember my first interview. Do you remember the knots and

the butterflies in your stomach the first time you sat across

from a group of people to answer their questions?

I mean, all these experiences when I was lacking some

confidence, but all that's part of growing up, right?

It's part of the maturing process of part of going from

childhood to adulthood is growing in that confidence that

life requires. But the deal is, as you all

know, it's not just physical life that requires confidence.

More importantly, it is the Christian life.

And John has written this entire letter to give us confidence as

Christians. In fact, the one thing that I

want you to get from this last portion of first John is simply

this. Before we read the text

Christian, your confidence is crucial.

Your confidence as a Christian is absolutely crucial.

I want you to listen to the word of God first.

1 John 5:13–21

John 5 verses 13 through 21. John writes.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son

of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

And this is the here it is confidence that we have toward

him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears

us. And if we know that He hears us

and whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we

have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother

committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God

will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to

death. There is sin that leads to

death. I do not say that one should

pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there

is sin that does not lead to death.

We know that everyone who's been born of God does not keep on

sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil 1

does not touch him. We know that we are from God,

and the whole world lies in the power of the evil 1 And we know

that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so

that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is

true in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God in eternal

life. Little children, keep yourselves

from idols. John has written this entire

letter for the sake of our confidence as Christians.

We've referred to verse 13 over and over again because it's the

essence of the purpose and motivation of the letter.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son

of God. John is writing to people who

have proclaimed that they have chosen to follow Jesus as Lord.

He's choosing to write to believers that what reason why

that you may know that you may have 100 percent assurance that

you may have confidence, right? That you have eternal life.

John knows if we're going to successfully live the Christian

life, we've got to know who we are and what we believe and whom

we've believed in. What does it mean to believe in

the name of the Son of God? Because this is the essence of

what it means to be a Christian and you might be in the room,

you might be watching online and you might want to know what is

the essence of being a Christian.

It is one who believes in the name of the Son of God, Jesus

Christ. What does that mean?

To have believed on Jesus and to continue to believe means

there's been a moment you chose to believe in Jesus for

salvation from your sin. You realized your sin, which is

wrongdoing. Any wrong done against God and

thought and action and word, or indeed it's anything that breaks

God's law. It's anything that's short of

God's perfection in his righteousness.

And we all have sinned, the Bible says, and fallen short of

the glory of God. The moment you realize that you

have an uh oh moment, a Eureka moment where it's like, OK, this

is a problem. This is the problem.

Because if God's perfect and I'm not, then that's incompatible.

The Bible says it's incompatible for eternity with him.

It's incompatible with a relationship with him.

God and sin don't cohabitate. So what has to happen is God

could only do something ultimately about this.

You've realized your sin, but then you realize God must punish

sin. And then if all that there is

this punishment and wrath for sin, you're going to pay for

that sin. But this is when you realize

God, who is holy, is also a God of love and justice and mercy,

who had a plan to send his one and only Son to take on human

flesh to live a sinless life. How?

So? He could pay for sin on the

cross and then defeat the wages of sin, death itself by rising

from the dead. So we could live a sinless life

for you. Die for your sin, defeat death

itself by rising from the dead to offer you forgiveness of sin

and life forever. So God could do something about

your sin. When you realize that, and you

choose by faith to trust Jesus, the one and only solution, you

believe on the name of the Son of God.

You give your life to him as Lord and Master.

Have you done that? If you haven't, then the one and

only, the one and only real decision, real action for you

this morning is to choose to believe on Jesus as your Savior,

to call on him even now in your heart of hearts, in your soul,

and say, Lord Jesus, would you forgive me of my sin?

I want to trust you as my Lord. I'm giving my life to you.

That's who's believed on the name of the Son of God.

For those who've made that decision who have believed, John

wants to tell us about the confidence we ought to have and

that we ought to live in as Christians.

And So what is that confidence? Well, let's ask it first like

this. What difference does our

confidence as Christians make? What difference does our

confidence as Christians make? This is verses 14 through 17.

There's three actually. 2 to begin with differences.

John says it makes #1 our confidence causes us to rightly

relate to God. Our confidence causes us to

rightly relate to God. Listen to verse 14 again.

It says, and this is the confidence we have toward him,

that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears

us. And if we know that He hears us

in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have

asked of him. John says the very first

difference that our confidence should make is that we have in

God and whom we believe is that our confidence in whom we

believe and that we've been saved is going to impact the way

we relate to God in prayer. You may think, well that's kind

of random to just relate our confidence to God and how we

pray until you realize, well, what is the most basic element

of a relationship? Your communication, what's at

the core of any friendship, your dialogue in exchange, what is

prayer? At its heart, it's simply

communicating with God. It's your, it's your fellowship,

it's your conversation, it's your, it's your communion with

God. This is what prayers and the

very first thing your confidence in God and in your salvation is

going to make is in the way you relate to God in prayer.

And of course, prayer involves our request.

John is talking here about how it's going to impact the way we

ask God for things, about things we request from God right now.

Before we get into that, we need to understand a little about

what prayer is and what prayer is not.

Because prayer certainly involves our request.

Hallelujah, God says to bring your request to Him.

God wants and longs to hear our request.

He knows them before we can voice them.

We ought to bring them to Him, right?

And yet we ought to understand that prayer, right is not an app

to ask God for what we want. Prayer is not necessarily,

bottom line, a genie. God is not a genie in a bottle

saying Your wish is my command. That's not necessarily what

prayer is, right? You don't go to God in prayer

the way you go to Ingalls or Kroger or Walmart or wherever

you do your grocery shopping and expect when you check out out

the end to be asked by God. At the end of your prayer, did

you find everything you were looking for?

OK, that's not the way prayer works, right?

Prayer is not a divine credit card to swipe whenever your

heart desires something. Now, that doesn't mean we can't

bring our request before God. We certainly can't.

But that's not most fundamentally what prayer is

that To understand prayer is to understand this.

Prayer is not first and foremost a app to get what we want from

God. Prayer is God's app for God to

give us what He wants for us in prayer.

The way to think about that is that God knows what we need and

want more than and better than we know what we should need and

want. And so ultimately, our prayer

life should sound more or not so like God.

Here's my list for today. Would you do this, this, this,

this, and this? Thanks.

We'll talk to you later. Prayer should be more like God.

I'm coming today to offer my life again as a living

sacrifice. God, I want to thank you for

saving me, and I'm offering my life back to you.

And thanks today for your glory. God, I want to pray today about

some things on my heart, but I'm praying not my will, but thy

will be done. And so God, I am desiring this.

If this is your will, would you provide this God?

I, I think I really need this would if it's your will, would

you provide that God? I'm asking that a situation

change. I really want it to change God.

If it's your will to change XY or Z God, would you?

If it be your will, would you change XY or Z?

Prayer is a it is a means by which God provides us our

request, but the key is praying in accordance with his will.

Now you're like, well, how? How do I know if I'm praying

according to God's will? That's a great question because

John says you ought to have the assurance when you pray

according to God's will. Guess what?

You can mark it down as said, done and delivered when you pray

according to God's will. So how do you pray according to

God's will? Well, the first and foremost

thing to do is to soak yourself in Scripture.

If your mind and heart is not saturated in the Word of God,

you're not going to pray according to the will of God,

because guess what? The Word of God is the will of

God spoken, written there for us to have, there for us to read

and study and understand and be guided by.

So the word of God guides us in the will of God.

If before you pray you don't spend some time listening to God

through his word, you ought to, if you don't pray the Word of

God back to God, you ought to pray the word of God saying,

God, these things I just read, may they be true in my life.

God, what you just said is true about you, and I praise you

about it. God, what you said ought to be

true about me. I want to pray that it's true

about me. You can be sure when you're

praying the word of God, you're praying according to the will of

God. But a second thing would be is

that prayer in your life cannot be just an emergency 911 call.

It's got to be a daily habit, a daily habit, because when it

becomes a daily habit, guess what?

You're used to talking to God, you know His voice, and you're

sensitive to the Holy Spirit's guidance as you pray.

If prayer, if all prayer is it, it's an emergency call to talk

to somebody you don't really know and don't talk to you very

much. Conversation is pretty awkward

But when it gets real familiar and intimate because you know

Him and He knows you because you talk daily.

Holy Spirit has the slightest ability just like that little

nudge impression here lead there to lead you in praying the will

of God versus what's not the will of God.

Y'all? What difference does our

confidence as Christians make #1 It'll change the way you relate

to God in prayer #2 Our confidence causes us to relate

rightly to one another. Listen to verse 16 again.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to

death, he shall ask. God will give him life to those

who commit sins that do not lead to death.

There is sin that leads to death.

I do not say that one should pray for that.

All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to

death. I don't know about you, but you

might be thinking, what in the world is John talking about?

Right? Well, bottom line here John is

saying and speaking to the difference our confidence as

Christians should make when we experience or see or witness one

another sin. By the way, this is a moment

when maturity is needed. And by the way, we all are going

to witness one another sin if we're around each other enough.

Amen. OK, Sin still happens in the

lives of believers. We'll talk about that more as we

go. Some people, I was talking to a

man this past week who's not in church, and his first excuse was

the sin that he says he see, sees or has seen in the lives of

believers. And you, you bet sometimes sin

in the lives of believers can ruin someone's witness and turn

people off. And that ought not be the case.

But we as Christians are not in church because we're claiming to

be sinless. We're in church because we know

we've sinned and we know the one who is sinless and we're seeking

to walk after him by the power of the Holy Spirit, right?

So we're going to see, we're going to witness one another

sin. How do we rightly respond to one

another? Well, notice here it says if

anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not if anyone

hears about his brother committing a sin or hears from

the neighbor or gets a text or hears A rumor or gets a phone

call, right? Sees like point blank, 100%

black and white. I witnessed.

There's no doubt this just happened.

Maybe it was even maybe against you or against someone else.

There's plain and obvious rumors don't count.

John says when that happens, when you see a brother and

sister in Christ, it can be one of two types of sin he lists

here he says #1A sin that doesn't lead to death.

And he says there's sin that does lead to death.

So first of all, what in the world is John talking about?

Sin not leading to death, Sin leading to death?

Well, let's kind of get into it like this.

See if we can try to make this clear.

Death is either physical death or spiritual death.

All right, let me just be trying to be even more clear.

We all know what physical death is, right?

When body stops working and body and soul separate and soul

enters eternity, OK, that's physical death.

We're all familiar with that. Then there's also spiritual

death. Well, spiritual death is not

physical death. It is the separation not of body

and soul, but of soul from Creator for forever in eternity.

So which one does John mean there's a sin leading?

Is it, is it physical death he means or is it a spiritual death

he means? If he means physical death, this

would mean, if this is what he means, that a Christian can sin

in such a way that God may choose to take that Christian

out of this world prematurely. By physical death.

You say, Kyle, that sounds a little extreme.

Let me just give you some real but very rare scenarios of this

very thing happening in the New Testament.

Do you remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira, a couple

in the New Testament church that under the pretense of selling a

piece of property, under the impression to the church that

they were going to give 100% of the profits to the church to use

for meeting physical needs. But in actuality, what they were

going to do was to keep back a certain percentage for

themselves. And what happened?

You don't really want to say out loud, do you?

But God took them home. Physical death.

You remember talks about in First Corinthians Chapter 11

1 Corinthians 11:28–30

verse 28 through 30, some of the Christians in Corinth were

partaking of the Lord's Supper in such a disobedient manner

that as a result God calls some he said caused some to get sick

and some to even die. Now I know that maybe throws a

monkey wrench in like, you know what is that, right?

These are instances in the New Testament of sin actually

leading to physical death, right?

And as one preacher put it, you might call this form, when God

chooses to use it, God, God's form of this form of God's

discipline, God's dishonorable discharge.

In other words, when he from his sovereign, all perfect, all

knowing perspective, realizes that maybe so and so would do

more harm on earth than good, it's time to go, brings them

home. Now you, I'm sure, like me, got

a lot of questions about that that I don't have the answers

to. All I know is that it's happened

in the New Testament and John brings it up here.

If that's what he means by physical death, what what if he

means spiritual death? What if he means there's sin

that leads to spiritual death? And what he would mean by

spiritual death again, would be eternal separation from God, IE

no salvation. What?

What? What would he mean by that?

Well, if that's what he means, then he's obviously speaking

about someone who claims to be a Christian on the outside, but

it's not actually on the inside because guess what?

He just clarifies for us in verse 18.

I want you to look back. In fact, I think John

anticipates this question. Well, John, are you arguing

someone can lose their salvation?

Look at what he says in verse 18.

We know that everyone who's been born of God does not keep on

sinning. That doesn't mean they never

sin. Again.

I'll explain more in a bit. Does not keep on sinning.

But he who has been born of God protects him and the evil one,

what does not touch him? John says if one has been born

of God, you got Jesus protecting you and Satan can't touch you.

So obviously, if there's a sin that leads to spiritual death,

it's sin by someone who's never been truly forgiven of their sin

because they've never really truly trusted Christ for

forgiveness. And yes, that sin is going to

lead to their eternal separation from God, which all leads us

back to what is, what is a sin that doesn't lead to death?

And how should we respond? How should we rightly relate to

one another here? Well, this is the sin that we

all stumble in. This is the sin when we say

things we shouldn't say. This is the sin when we do

things we shouldn't do, when we're unkind to our spouse, when

we're selfish with our neighbors or friends or employees.

When we lose our self-control and get angry, when we act out

of the out of and away from the influence of the Holy Spirit, we

do things that are conceited or prideful or mean or arrogant,

right? I mean, we all, we all struggle.

We all, we all fight and get entangled and sin, we stumble.

We don't want to do it, but but what we still, what, we still do

it, don't we? That sin nature, we fight.

There's sin that doesn't lead to death, and yet we still stumble

into it, John says. When you see a brother or sister

stumble and sin phone a friend, is that what he says?

Confront him immediately. Is that what he says?

Talk to a talk to a mentor? What does he say do?

How do we rightly relate to one another even when we send?

John says we we pray for them, we'd love them enough to go to

God about what we've seen and witnessed before ever talking to

them, before talking to someone else.

There's other steps the New Testament gives, but the first

most foundational way that our confidence in who we are ought

to have an effect in our lives is that when we see sin or sin

against is we love that person enough knowing who we are in

Christ, We go to God about that and pray.

What if that was our most consistent response when we saw

or witnessed sent in the lives of believers?

What changes would that make in a church?

What changes would that make in a marriage, in a relationship, a

friendship with Co workers, with neighbors, with friends, church

members? I can tell you the difference it

would make because look what God says he'll do.

God says when we do, he will restore, he'll heal, he'll

forgive, he'll preserve how much brokenness and shattered

relationships and tension and the all the effects of sin

remain in our lives because we don't do the most fundamental,

basic, most practical thing the Bible tells us to do towards one

another out of our confidence and who we are in Christ, which

is to pray for one another when we witness one another sin,

right? This would this would be a game

changer. Change how we relate to one

another. Y'all, our confidence as

Christians is crucial. It changes the way we relate to

God. Change the way we relate to one

another #2 what are let's ask this question.

What are the truths that we have confidence in?

What are the truths we have confidence in?

This is verse 18 through 20, and I'm going to start speeding up

number one. First truth.

We know a Christian cannot keep on sinning.

I told you we returned to this one because John says we know it

and we know that everyone who's been born of God does not keep

on sinning. That does not mean we never sin

again. What that means is, is that when

someone becomes a Christian, they do not continually, in an

ongoing, willful, knowing, rebellious, refusing to repent

kind of way, sin in the face of God and don't try to do anything

about it. One of the things I love is when

people get saved, especially later in life, potentially like

teenagers or adults, and they've lived a number of years not

following Christ. They got habits and they got

rhythms and they got patterns and they got practices in their

lives that are ungodly. And all of a sudden when they

hear the word of God and they're studying and they're reading it

and they're hearing it preached and light bulbs are going off

and they're like, Oh my goodness, I didn't know.

I didn't know this didn't honor God.

I didn't know this didn't honor Jesus.

I didn't know this was disobedience.

And yet when they discover it, I love the light bulb moment going

off because it's the desires that God has given them because

they've been changed. They're like, Oh my goodness, I

can't keep living like this. I've got to, I've got to do,

I've got to change. I can't keep in being involved

in this. I've got to walk away from that.

I love. Why watching the Holy Spirit

take someone and do the 180 in their living because of they've

been born of God. That's what this means doesn't

mean once they got saved they never sinned again, but it's

they're actively fighting sin because they know it doesn't

honor God anywhere When they sin they choose to repent.

Christian doesn't keep on sinning.

The second thing, the truth that our we have confidence in as we

know we belong to God and the world belongs to Satan.

This is verse 19. Listen to this first again, we

know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the

power of the evil. 1 How do we know that we belong to God?

What Do you remember all the tests that John gave us in the

first part of this letter that we ought to take and see if we

pass with positive results. Do you remember the light test?

God is light and in him there is no do you walk in the light?

Do you remember the like test, the call to live, walk, to

literally walk? The metaphor is like Jesus.

Do you walk like? I'm not saying perfectly, but is

there any resemblance? Do you walk like Jesus?

John asked. Do you remember the love test?

God is love. If God is love, brothers and

sisters, we ought to love one another.

Do you love your neighbor? The like test, the like like

test, the love test. These tests reveal the truth

that we are not of this world, not because we perfectly passed

the test, but because there's an obvious difference in our lives

because of coming to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

But then listen to this. We know we're from God.

And then look at what John says and we also know this truth.

The whole world lies in the power of the evil. 1 I want you

to just let that truth sink in for a moment.

The whole world as I speak right now and until Jesus returns and

establishes fully and finally his reign and his rule right now

until Satan is finally defeated, the whole world, the whole world

lies in the power of the evil one.

Lots of people want to ask why is our world so full of sin,

suffering, brokenness and destruction and corruption?

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the answer.

It's because the whole world lies in the power of the evil 1

and the evil 1 is actively working to kill and steal and

destroy. And the main way he works is

through deception, blinding the eyes of people so they will not

choose to see and believe Jesus Christ and believe on the name

of the Son of God who is light and life.

One of the reasons that you're still breathing and alive as a

believer is so that God can use you to rescue those who

desperately need to hear and see the truth of the light and life

of Jesus Christ. That's not just the job of a

pastor. That is the job of every

Christian for you, living your life, letting Jesus live through

you in the midst of the darkness, because Jesus as the

light of the world has entrusted you to shine your light before

men, to be a light in a Dark World under the power of the

evil. 1 #3 Truth we know is that Jesus Christ is the one true God

who has come in the flesh and given us eternal life.

This is verse 20, and this is the crowning confidence of a

Christian, that God the Father so love the world that he sent

his one and only Son, that whosoever would believe in him

should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This truth is the truth we've staked our lives on Jesus, who

is God and who alone offers eternal life.

By the way, if someone ever asks you how do you know Jesus was

truly God, all you got to do is point him to this text.

Listen to what John says here. He is into verse 20.

He is the true God and eternal life.

People often want to deny that Jesus was God.

Jesus was crucified because he claimed to be God.

And as we've said before, Jesus is either Lord or a liar or a

lunatic. But those are your only three

options. He's either who he says he is or

he's not. Christian.

Your confidence is crucial. These are the truths our

confidence in. But one final question #3 is

this? What is John's warning?

What is John's warning concerning our confidence?

It's in verse 21. I want you to read it out loud

with me. You ready?

Here we go, little children. Keep yourselves from idols.

Keep yourselves from idols. What's an idol?

It's a counterfeit God. It's anything short.

It's anything that's not the one true living big G creator of all

things, sustainer of all things God.

It's anything we put in our lives in the place of God.

It's anything that's in the way of our worship of God.

It's anything that that is less than God's revelation of

himself. It's anything of our

imagination, or it might be of wood or stone, or it could be a

person, place or thing, any noun that gets in the way of our

right and first and foremost, worship of God.

John's One Warning deals with the fact, as we know well, that

our hearts are prone to wonder. As the song says, Lord, I feel

it prone to leave the God I love.

This has been a temptation for people throughout history,

right? Even God's people in the Old

Testament constantly struggled with idolatry.

Why? Because they lived in a world

under the power of who? The evil one who's constantly

seeking to kill, steal, and destroy through deception.

The number one thing the enemy would want you to do is just

worship a false God. He knows you were made to

worship. You're going to worship

something. You don't have a choice.

You may disagree with that, but it's just true.

You'll worship yourself. You'll worship something you'll

worship. The question is, whom are you

worshiping? John says you better not worship

anything, anyone but the one true God.

And so even in the Old Testament, kings would often

seek to restore right worship of God.

But you often read this little phrase.

But the high places were not removed.

The cultural landmarks of what the culture said one should

worship and where one should worship.

They tried to do right worship, but they kept a little bit of

what the culture worshiped. It was a thorn in their sign.

This warning for us here is not a warning.

I don't think anybody in the room is going to be tempted to

bow down to wood or stone this afternoon, OK?

But we have cultural high places that we're tempted to worship at

sometimes alongside of worshiping the one true God.

And we say, well, we want to involve and include the worship

of this or the worship of that. What are some of those things?

Let me just tell you what some of them are.

Our culture has high places of worship at certain standards of

living and financial success. Our culture has high places of

worship at earthly success at all cost.

Our culture has high places of worship of our kids and their

success, especially in sports. Our culture worships at the high

place of busyness. It worships at the high place of

social standing and reputation, especially in the modern form of

influence, likes and followers. Our culture worships at the high

place of personal self-expression, especially the

pursuit of happiness or sexual orientation or fulfillment or

whatever it is one says identifies them or makes them

happy, even if it cuts straight across the grain of the Word of

God. These are all places our culture

worships at, by the way. We can be tempted to worship at

them too. Part of the problem, if you look

at the landscape, I think of the American church in general.

One of our problems in America, I think in general as believers

is lack of maturity in our faith, lack of knowing what we

believe, why we believe it, and boldness to stand for it and

boldness to share it. And an immovable anchored

concrete in the truth roots down deep so we can produce fruit far

and wide. And when you're immature in your

faith, when your surface level right, so often you say, well,

I'm going to worship God, but I'm going to carry some of these

high places with me. And no wonder Christians, in

their immaturity and continuing to worship some false gods in

their life, continue to experience some misery, some

lack of fulfillment, lack of joy, because they've just not

surrendered all to Jesus and they don't have confidence in

who He is, who they are, and what He's called them to do in

their lives. And they return to the high

places seeking what only God can provide.

Christian, don't give your confidence to a counterfeit.

Don't give your confidence to a counterfeit.

Your confidence is crucial. It'll change the way you relate

to God. It'll change the way we relate

to one another. It'll change your grounding in

the truth. And it will prevent you from

running after fakes because you know the real thing.

This past week, Lauren and I and the kids and we took a road trip

that involved pulling our, our camper behind us and somewhere

north of, yeah, northwest of Muskogee, OK, Had my first

blowout of two within two hours. Lord and I, we're having certain

conversations that weren't super pleasant, but I was trying to

stay full of the Holy Spirit. I was certain that let me get

back in the light here. I was certain that I was

probably going to need some help.

I could tell that the side of the camper, the flap over the

wheels was half blown off and the metal skirting in the side

was rippled and insulation had blown out.

I thought, man, I'm looking at a mess, I'm going to need some

help. So I called for some help.

Praise God, I was able to get the tire changed before help

arrived. But that help I called.

I met them at the next Love's Travel stop about a mile down

the road. And there, by God's Providence,

I met a man by the name of Michael.

Now, I had prayed before I left on this trip.

God, if there's anyone I'm supposed to cross paths with,

anyone I'm supposed to share with, God, help me know in the

moment. You know, the problem is God

will do this to you when you're not really feeling it.

You know what I'm saying? When, yeah, your mind is

everywhere else. Your heart's everywhere else.

But I'm thinking I don't believe things happen for no reason.

So I'm like, OK, God, I'm looking.

I'm looking. So sure enough, I was looking

for the air. Finally, I found the air.

A man named Michael helped me find it.

And Michael's helping me assess the damage.

And I'd use some different things and tools.

I had to try to get the camper back in somewhat aerodynamic

shape. All right.

And so Michael has a blessing to me.

And I said, Michael, man, you've been a blessing to me.

And at this whole time, this guy was so nice.

I was like, God, you obviously want me to talk to this guy.

He worked for loves middle of nowhere maintenance guy.

And I said, man, you've been a blessing to me.

How, how could I pray for you? I'd love to be a blessing to

you. How could I pray for you?

And he said, man, I'm, I'm a brain cancer survivor, But the

doctor said it's just a matter of time before it's back and you

could pray for me about that. I said, Michael, do you, do you

have a knowledge of Jesus and knowledge of what's going to

happen when you die? They said, man, I've studied

theology and you know, really I've got to a place where I'm

just, I'm doing as much good as I can.

So here's the deal. Michael was a man is a man that

is confident he's going to die. By the way, you ought to be too,

OK? It's coming for me.

It's coming for you. Brain cancer is just helping

Michael process it with a little more clarity, OK?

But Michael was not a man. Is not a man confident of what's

going to happen when he died. Do you see the difference?

It's one thing to be confident that you're going to die.

It's a whole another thing not to be confident about what's

going to happen when you do. So I looked at Michael and I

said, man, listen, it's not about what you do.

You can't help enough people like me on this road to get to

heaven. There's only one His name is

Jesus. And when you die, it's going to

boil down to Michael, whether you've trusted your life to him,

receive forgiveness from him, and whether or not you're going

to spend eternity with him because of what he's done, not

because of what you've done. Michael, do you realize God made

you to have 100% confidence in what's going to happen when you

die? I want to ask you, do you have

100% confidence of what's going to happen when you die?

And if you don't, and John and Praise team come out in just a

second, I want you to come talk to me.

If you don't, God wants you to. Maybe there's things in your

life like high places that are robbing you of confidence

because you've been going and looking for things that only God

can provide in the wrong places. Maybe you got some sin in your

life you need to walk away from, it's robbing you of confidence.

Maybe you've never trusted Christ with your whole heart to

save you from your sin and it's the day to do that today, to

believe on the name of the Son of God.

Maybe you seem to come get on your knees or come stand and say

God, these are my things causing me to lack confidence and I

don't want to live that way. I want to live the way you

designed me to live, knowing without a doubt, Father, I want

to pray that as we respond to you in your word, Father, that

you would give us the confidence we need.

God, I want. I want to pray for Michael.

God, I know that he heard the gospel.

I don't know what he's done with it.

Father, I know there's someone here today.

Perhaps it's just like him that doesn't fully know, but needs to

that God they crossed paths with the message this morning so they

could respond by faith. I pray they would God give us

confidence, help us to walk in it rightly relate to you and to

one another to know the truth so we believed and not to run after

fakes. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Would you stand with me? We're going to sing and respond.

You come as the Lord leads. I'm going to wait for you.